my retired number collection - 3 for 30

this is the 30th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here are the three people for whom number 30 has been retired:

nolan ryan (retired by the angels in 1992) 1978 topps

after being traded by the mets, ryan led the american league in strikeouts in all but one of his eight seasons with the angels. he set a major league record for strikeouts in a season (383) while with the team, and had three seasons with them in which he finished in the top 3 in cy young award voting. he remains their all-time franchise leader in shutouts and complete games, and, of course, strikeouts. he tallied 2,416 k's as an angel - averaging over 300 per year!

the angels were the first team to retire a number for nolan ryan, doing so on june 16, 1992 while ryan was still an active player. chad curtis had been wearing the number that season, and so became the last angel to do so.  ryan was in town with the rangers when the ceremony took place, and wound up throwing a complete game against the halos the next night, although unfortunately for ryan it was of the eight inning variety. perhaps the angels thought 1992 would be ryan's final season, so it made sense to have the ceremony at that time. we know now, however, that he pitched again in 1993 and actually made the penultimate start of his career at the big a with his number 30 placard on display.

not surprisingly, ryan was a first ballot hall of famer in 1999. his 1978 topps card (which shows his number 30 very nicely) is near and dear to me as it is the first ryan card i owned, although i now have a complete topps run of his cards thanks to my dad and his collecting habits in the early 1980s.

orlando cepeda (retired by the giants in 1999) 2005 upper deck hall of fame

the giants retired number 30 for cepeda on july 11, 1999 which was just before he was inducted into the baseball hall of fame as his 2005 upper deck hall of fame card indicates. that card uses a photo that has shown up on other cepeda cards through the years, but i decided to go with the fancier of the bunch. it is one of just a couple of numbered cards in this collection. while cepeda was the first san francisco giant to wear number 30, he wasn't the last. dante powell had most recently worn the number in 1998, becoming the last giant to have the honor.

cepeda began his career with the giants, and got off to a hot start. he was the 1958 national league rookie of the year leading the league in doubles while also hitting .312 over 148 games. cepeda also led the league in home runs and rbi in 1961 while finishing second in the mvp voting to frank robinson of the reds.

in all, cepeda spent seven full seasons playing in san francisco, along with parts of two seasons cut short by injury and a trade to st. louis. he hit 226 home runs as a giant, which is still sixth on the franchise's all-time list. that's not too bad when you consider that this franchise was home to willie mays, willie mccovey, mel ott, and barry bonds.

tim raines (retired by the expos in 2004) 1985 fleer

the expos retired number 30 for raines on june 19, 2004 in the midst of their final season as les expos. his 1985 fleer card offers a solid look at his number thanks to the sleeve numbers that the expos wore. cliff floyd had been wearing the number, so he became the last expo to do so. the nationals do not recognize the numbers retired by the expos, so number 30 is in circulation today, with jacob young wearing it in 2024.

raines was not elected to the hall of fame until 2017, but he left his mark on the expo franchise as a player worthy of enshrinement. in 13 seasons covering two stints with the team, raines hit .301 and stole 635 bases. he led the league in runs twice, stolen bases four times, and batting average once during his expos tenure, and his 49.1 war is second in franchise history to gary carter, placing him ahead of andre dawson. all three are hall of famers who had their numbers retired by the club.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 30 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 42

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 28, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 42

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 23, 42

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 42

angels - 11, 26, 30, 42

expos - 8, 10, 30, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 42

rockies - 17, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

28 - retired by 1 team

29 - retired by 4 teams (retired by twins and angels for same person)

30 - retired by 3 teams

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 125

running total of non-hall of famers: 44

that kepshire cat

kurt kepshire appeared in 51 major league games in his career, which spanned from the fourth of july, 1984 until april 23, 1986. he pitched in dodger stadium in three of those games. luckily for my collection, photos of him from those away games against the dodgers made their way on to cardboard. here's his 1985 donruss card:

and his 1985 fleer card:

the shadows on the donruss card provide some drama to the image. both of these photos came from his relief appearance (second big league appearance) on july 8 of '84 and were almost assuredly taken from the camera well adjacent to the dodger dugout.

that camera well is visible on kepshire's teammate tommy herr's 1985 fleer card

and other parts of dodger stadium show up on other cardinal cards, like art howe's

and lonnie smith's

in fact, dodger stadium is fairly prevalent on non-dodger cards in 1985 fleer. a few months ago, i went through my complete sets of fleer and donruss from 1985 (along with some other scattered cards) and found some dodger stadium cards i didn't already have in the mini-collection to track down doubles of for it.

dodger stadium is here, on glenn davis' half of his rookie card

that's the right field pavilion showing up in the backtround. in addition, many mets are featured on the dodger stadium field, including brent gaff

ron gardenhire

jose oquendo

and walt terrell

traditionally with fleer in the early 1980's, it was the braves who seemed to get dodger stadium background on their cards most often. here's old friend terry forster

up along the first base line, and another old friend in jerry royster

closer to home plate.

dodger nemesis chris chambliss is probably pretty close to the batting cage

which is exactly where steve yeager is hanging out

i finally added a dupe of the yeager card to my dodger stadium collection.

back to donruss, they produced some pretty cool cards with dodger stadium backgrounds in 1984, like ryne sandberg's

and ozzie smith's

i think i put the sandberg in my name/number on the back collection though.

kepshire had some company in 1985 donruss as well, including teammate ralph citarella

who must have annoyed someone at the card company for them to choose that photo.

here's dave von ohlen, the pride of flushing, ny

who wound up pitching for the cardinals and a's instead of his hometown mets. he was 0-1 lifetime at shea, by the way. 

speaking of the mets, here's mike fitzgerald

in dodger stadium with the centerfield edge of the right field pavilion showing. these days, that section of lower seats near fitzgerald's right ear is blocked off from spectators.

one of the the centerfield speakers is visible behind atlee hammaker

and bill laskey is shown 

as seen from the visitor dugout camera well.

future dodger john tudor

makes an appearance as does long time nl west rival dave concepcion

i picked up concepcion's leaf card, too.

it was a good time going through these sets that don't show up on the blogs too often. i'll finish the post up with one more kepshire card

looks like kepshire got too much sun or perhaps is blushing because of the dodger stadium usherette in the background. i think he only has six major league cards - topps, donruss, and fleer from both 1985 and 1986 - meaning that half of them feature photos from dodger stadium. i am happy to have them all!

all that glitters is not gold

just another cardboard abomination from 2008 tristar signa cuts

that i had to add to my steve garvey collection. this one is a gold parallel, and features a mutilated 1985 fleer superstar special card of the garv and goose gossage. this is fool's gold, but i can't resist.

i have saved a few signed cards from potentially becoming tristar fodder in the past few months as well, adding these cards to my non-certified autograph collection:

1983 fleer rick monday

1986 topps pedro guerrero

1981 fleer don stanhouse, 1989 upper deck ricky horton, 1990 topps debut mike munoz, and 1992 fleer ultra brett butler

1982 topps kmart maury wills

1982 topps kmart steve garvey

1982 donruss steve garvey (diamond kings)

1975 topps jeff burroughs/steve garvey (1974 mvps)

1984 fleer steve garvey

1984 topps ralston purina steve garvey

1985 leaf steve garvey

1986 topps quaker steve garvey

1990 pacific legends steve garvey

and finally, a 2015 theautographcard.com steve garvey

that is upside down, no matter how you look at it

that last one might actually look better as a tristar signa cut!

the tradewinds have been blowing

today was the trading deadline.  the non-waiver trading deadline, to be precise.  there's no deadline on trading cards, but there probably is a proper timeframe for posting about those trades. i may have missed the boat on some of these.

not really a trade in the traditional sense, but i did trade a small amount of money for some cards as part of colbey's cardboard collections affordable breaks.

the first one featured 1994 pacific, and i chose the dodgers which netted me some nice cards including jody reed

who is turning two on the back

my assigned team was the blue jays, which resulted in another back side double play with roberto alomar's card

two alomars for the price of one.

the other affordable break i joined featured 2002 upper deck diamond collection and 2003 upper deck 40 man.  i wound up with a card from 2003 upper deck vintage update (included in packs of 40 man) of current manager dave roberts

unfortunately, doc's card came with a badly dinged corner.

it turns out that i already had a complete team set of 2003 40 man - it's 2002 40 man that is lacking in my collection. oh well, it was an affordable break after all.  here's jolbert cabrera

he was the first dodger to wear number 6 since 1982, and it signaled to me that the dodgers were giving up on steve garvey as a hall of famer.  it made sense as his 15 years on the ballot had expired without him being voted in by the bbwa, but it still kinda sucked to see number 6 back on the field.

perhaps the beginning of jim tracy's affinity for players named ja(y)son, here's jason romano

cards like that, featuring a guy who played in 37 games as a dodger and hit .083 in that time, are why i like sets such as 40 man.

finally, here's adrian beltre

getting cards of beltre as a dodger in the mail remind me that he is the one that got away.

mark hoyle sent me some cards, including this derek jeter double play turn

on a 2006 upper deck national card.  it inspired me to add a couple more double play cards to my collection, such as this 2005 upper deck khalil greene card

and this 2016 topps photo variation xander bogaerts card.

back to the trades, tom from angels in order sent me some dodgers.  you don't see 1985 donruss on the blogs much, so here's dave anderson's card

i think that is sid bream in the background.

hey kids! you too may become a big leaguer - alfredo griffin made it, and look at his swing on this 1991 fleer ultra card

plus he's rocking the little league hat-under-helmet look.

i needed this 2016 topps update walmart rookie insert of kenta maeda

if topps starts using the 1988 design in archives before 1978 i will assume that 1978 will never be used.

mr haverkamp came through with some needed 1982 fleer stamps, including the fernando/warren spahn stamp, bill russell, jerry reuss, and burt hooton

plus some bay area dusty baker cards for my post-dodger pc of johnnie b.

fleer and mother's cookies!

jon at penny sleeve for your thoughts reached out with some 2017 topps buybacks

two for the dodgers binders and one for the davey lopes post-dodger pc.

johnny's trading spot provided some great cards including two fleer greats of dodger great duke snider - 2000

and 2004

recycled photo, obviously.

tim, known as tshenson in your comment section, sent a bunch of dodgers in exchange for indians which included a 2016 topps gypsy queen corey seager rookie

and a 1994 sports illustrated for kids mike piazza card

that is a complete team set in and of itself.

thanks to all for the great cards!

i also need to mention that bo at baseball cards come to life sent me some 2002 topps 206 for my set build, although i forgot to scan the cards. thanks bo!

i've still got some trade bounty from nick at dime boxes, matt at bob walk the plank, and julie at a cracked bat to show off (plus a one-card pwe from mr. haverkamp), so i'm not done thanking everyone yet...