my retired number collection - 43

this is the 41st 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.

so, without further ado, here is the one person for whom number 43 has been retired:

dennis eckersley (retired by the a's in 2005) 1989 upper deck

eckersley was traded to the a's just before the start of the 1987 season, and he was immediately sent to the bullpen. he did make two starts in may of that year, but otherwise spent his season pitching in relief. he never made another start again, instead he racked up 320 saves over nine seasons in oakland as one of the best closers of his time.

he was the 1988 alcs mvp as he led the a's to the world series for the first time since their dominant days in the early 1970's, and he helped them return to the fall classic in 1989 and 1990 as well. the a's won it all in 1989 with eckersley saving 3 games in the alcs and another - the game 4 clincher - in the series against the giants. in 1992, the a's returned to the postseason with eckersley having turned in a regular season that would net him both the cy young and league mvp award, but they fell to the blue jays in the alcs.

the a's traded eckersley to the cardinals in february of 1996, but they did not reissue his number. eventually, they retired number 43 in eckersley's honor on august 13, 2005 which was about a year after he was elected to the hall of fame on his first ballot. his 1989 upper deck card complements the a's uniforms, and with his number 43 being so prominent, i think it's a good choice for this collection.

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

retired numbers by team (through the 41 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 32, 37, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 36, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 33, 40, 42

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

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 34, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 32, 34, 36, 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, 31, 35, 41, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 40, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 31, 36, 37, 41, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 33, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 32, 34, 39, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 28, 34, 36, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 35, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 34, 42

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

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 31, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 31, 35, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 34, 42. 43

angels - 11, 26, 30, 42

expos - 8, 10, 30, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 34, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 32, 42

rockies - 17, 33, 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

31 - retired by 4 teams (retired by cubs and braves for same person; retired by cubs for two players)

32 - retired by 5 teams

33 - retired by 4 teams

34 - retired by 8 teams (retired by astros and rangers for same person; retired by brewers and a's for same person; retired by a's for two players)

35 - retired by 3 teams

36 - retired by 4 teams

37 - retired by 2 teams (retired by mets and yankees for same person)

39 - retired by 1 team

40 - retired by 2 teams

41 - retired by 2 teams

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

43 - retired by 1 team

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): 150

running total of non-hall of famers: 53

card show scrounging

i am not currently working on any vintage sets, and i feed my primary player collection through online purchases, so i often find myself unsure about heading out to the card shows. once in awhile, i decide to go and look for cheap inserts and parallels and maybe find some new product singles for my dodger collection. such was the case last weekend when i went to the monthly card show. i already shared my meetup with brian, so this post will focus on the rest of my time spent there.

"bargain" boxes were not hard to find, but i only found three dealers with dime boxes. the first ones i saw didn't interest me. it was a monster box of base rookies for a dime each. it looked like a lot of recent bowman, and some guy came and bought the box for $115 about 15 minutes in to the show. one of the dime box sellers had the equivalent of four four-row monster boxes with baseball cards. the other had a couple of similarly sized monster boxes, but i think just one of baseball. he's a seller i've bought from before, so i expected to find these boxes. the other bargain boxes i expected to find just weren't there, even though the sellers who had previously offered them were. one of the sellers who has always had 5/$1 boxes (and gave great deals when it came time to pay) had dollar boxes only. the times they are a-changin;. 

i picked through almost all of the second guy's boxes and found some good and interesting stuff. in all, i picked 230-ish dime cards and one $2 card. he asked for $22.

perhaps the most interesting card i found was this one:

no, i did not purchase a t206 drum ty cobb card, but rather a standard sized card from a 2021 heritage auction promotional set.

the best bargains i found were this 2015 topps andrew mccutchen photo variation

and this 2014 topps jose fernandez future stars variation

both are worth more than a dime, for sure.

there were oddball items for my dodger collection - a 1986 jiffy pop disc of fernando valenzuela

and a 1995 king b disc of raul mondei

plus some oddball items that most definitely don't fir in my dodger collection.  such as, a pack of 1981 topps coca-cola royals cards

with willie mays aikens peeking through the back

and a unstuck 1987 topps coca-cola tigers panel with dwight lowry showing

i couldn't tell who else is featured, but the checklist

on tcdb tells me that chet lemon and dan petry reside inside the four panel item.

i found a couple of 1994 o-pee-chee all-star cards, including barry bonds

there were redemption type cards that could be used to obtain some jumbo cards. just fill out the back

and send 5 cards with 20 bucks. i wonder how many of the 5,000 sets were actually redeemed.

here's a 1995 topps stadium club ring leaders phone card

it commemorates the 1993 all-star garme and is worth 3 points

tcdb tells me this is the silver version, although the ring looks gold to me.

how about a 2004 topps mcgruff the crime dog insert?

this is a five or six card set, with carlos delgado being the card you are most likely to find in a dime box.

i did find a few more cards for my collection, including this 1998 pinnacle hideo nomo card

it is the "home stats" version

which i was blissfully unaware of until i entered my dodger collection on tcdb. i have a full team set if you put the regular, home stats, and away stats versions together, but i don't have a complete set of any one of those three variations. nomo is one of the cards i have a full stat version of, so now just need the away stat variation. fun.

there were a few topps giveaway code cards, and i was hoping to find two of these roy campanella cards

that's because both the angels, in order and i have it listed on our want lists. unfortunately, this was the only one. still i did pick up a couple of cards for tom.

in the "patience pays off" department, i had held off placing a sportlots order that included this next card on the off chance that i would find it at the show. it's one of kirk gibson's 1989 upper deck cards

that i already have in various collections and mini-collections. i wanted another one for the "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection and this guy's dime boxes came through. i hit a vein of 1989 upper deck and was able to pull one of nick's dime box dozen cards as well.

speaking of mini-collections, my double play collection grew with a rey sanchez 1995 score gold rush card

and a 1998 upper deck special fx craig biggio card

that features a different image of this dp turn on the back

my lurker collection had this 2004 upper deck jorge posada card 

added to it, thanks to derek jeter there in the foreground. jason giambi on his own wouldn't have prompted me to buy the card.

i picked up this 1982 topps keith hernandez card

for the aforementioned "names/numbers on the back" collection. hernandez is not my favorite player, but this is the perfect sort of card for that collection.

finally, i was able to add four cards to the dodger stadium mini-collection - a 1991 pacific nolan ryan express card

a 1994 select fred mcgriff card,

a 2003 fleer ultra matt clement gold medallion edition parallel

with kevin brown and shawn green murals in the background, and 1 1995 pinnacle artist's proof parallel of milt thompson dunking a beach ball over the center field fence.

such a classic card!

i mentioned up above that i added a $2 card to my stack. it was this 1996 leaf signature series extended autograph card of wayne kirby

who is shown as an indian but listed as a dodger. this completes the seven card team set in the extended series of autographs, and i have eight of the nine dodger autos from the regular issue. time to track down that raul mondesi card, i guess!

as i am sure you have experienced, pulling so many cards as a show poses an issue. the seller took my stack after awhile and put it behind his station. it made sense, but didn't really afford me the opportunity to cull any cards from what i had set aside. in the early goings, i had pulled a stack of 1976 sspc cards, and wound up bringing them home. i thought there was someone in the blogosphere working on this set but i don't recall who it was - let me know in the comments if you or someone you know could use some cards from the set!

the most interesting card i pulled is ike hampton's.

he's shown in his tidewater tides uniform from his time in the mets' system. the card is actually a california angels card, however.

by this time, it was plenty stuffy and warm inside the old bloomington armory. there were a couple of people crowding in who looked a bit like sonny seibert here

sweaty and a bit disheveled. they brought with them the dreaded smells of card shows - something different than the "batting odor" that ken griffey jr is experiencing on this 1992 upper deck comic ball 3 card

or maybe not, as his reaction is similar to what mine was. it was time for me to move on, so i handed over the $22 and went to find brian.

after visiting with brian, i saw the third dime box guy. he always has a couple of dime boxes under his main table which is packed with slabbed and toploaded cards of all sorts. it's kind of a mess, but there are usually some decent cards in those dime boxes. that was the case this time for sure. i wound up pulling 90 cards for $9, and gave two of the cards (remember aristedes aquino?) to brian on the way out. here are some of the other 88 cards i kept.

six cody bellinger cards that i thought i needed

i was right about all of them except the prismic power insert.

2022 topps capstone max muncy red parallel

not sure who is buying and ripping this stuff but thanks for the work you do.

2022 panini donruss andy pages pink fireworks parallel

2020 topps stadium club chrome vladimir guerrero

2017 topps ben zobrist gold parallel

i also grabbed some cards just because they were different and/or shiny. it's fun to find a bunch of 582 montgomery cards in a dime box, like these from set #2

as well as black & white mini diamond refractors like this bunch

by this time, there was some drama unfolding with a kid, his metal mega hitz carrying case, and some cards that he had for some reason set down on the dealer's table so i settled up and headed out. i had considered stopping at the 50-cent vintage boxes brian had pointed out to me, but i kept walking.

there is a different show in the cities next weekend, but i will pass. the next club show is on february 17, so i will probably go in search of some 2024 topps series 1 stuff. stay tuned!

orel, historian

yesterday morning i saw an article on mlb.com that referenced orel hershiser's 1994 topps stadium club card. 

my first thought was that, for some reason, this card was the latest to be commanding ridiculous prices on the market.  however, when i read the article, the author noted that the card could be had for $0.99 on ebay. whew.

later in the day i was thinking that i wanted to post some hershiser cards that represent his run as my favorite dodger from "my favorite dodger through the years" mini-collection. i thought that the article and the story that he shared explaining the reason behind the appearance of sod in a shopping cart on a baseball card would make a nice lead-in for those cards.

i started typing the post in the early afternoon, and was surprised to find that in the 12+ years i've been blogging, i've apparently never scanned that card. so, i went to ebay to steal an image. of course, i then found out that there was a run on the card, and one copy had sold earlier in the day for $19.99.  i went downstairs and pulled a dupe from my sportlots inventory to scan. in the time that it took me to do that, the sportlots inventory for the card had gone from over 30 to just 21. 

anyway, once steve sax left the dodgers after the 1988 world series, orel became my new favorite dodger, and remained so until early in the 1994 season when he was supplanted by raul mondesi.  here are the cards that represent his tenure in my collection.

1989: upper deck (world series)

1990: donruss baseball's best

1991: topps

1992: leaf black gold

1993: donruss diamond kings

i suppose that had my fandom extended through the 1994 season, i might have added that stadium club card to this collection. it's too late now anyway, i sold my dupe for $6 plus shipping yesterday afternoon. these are crazy times.

here are some cards from a game i attended 32 years ago tonight

shortly before i closed up shop at garvey cey russell lopes, i shared some photos that my dad and i took at dodger stadium 32 years ago tonight. we had the great fortune of being in attendance at game 1 of the 1988 world series bearing witness to kirk gibson's pinch-hit home run, and for a couple of years, those photos and my ticket stub, along with the vhs recording my mom had made of the game at home, were the only physical reminders of what we had seen.

1989 was the year that i collected cards the least, only buying one box of topps cards that year. of course, topps didn't bother to recognize the 1988 world series in that set, and i think it was another year or two before i saw the upper deck and fleer and o-pee-chee cards that had been issued that year.  then, in 1995, more cards were made featuring kirk gibson's famous home run, and the upper deck sp championship card from that year was my most wanted card until late in 1999 when i found out about ebay and finally obtained one for my collection.

anyway, since then, there have been a huge number of cards that feature photos from that particular game. i, of course, am trying to obtain them all in duplicate or triplicate (or more) as the case may be for this and other mini-collections, and my dodger collection, too.

here's a list of the cards i am aware of that feature photos from that game, and they are not all of gibson.  cards that i have in this mini-collection are shown below, although i do have most of the others (except for the numbered parallels) in my dodger collection.

1989 fleer world series #1 mickey hatcher

1989 fleer world series #3 jose canseco

1989 fleer world series #5 dennis eckersley/kirk gibson

1989 fleer world series glossy #1 mickey hatcher

1989 fleer world series glossy #3 jose canseco

1989 fleer world series glossy #5 dennis eckersley/kirk gibson

1989 o-pee-chee #382 kirk gibson

1989 topps woolworth #24 kirk gibson

1989 upper deck #662 kirk gibson

1989 upper deck #666 kirk gibson

1995 upper deck sp championship series classic performances #cp3 kirk gibson

1995 upper deck sp championship series classic performances die-cut #cp3 kirk gibson

1998 fleer sports illustrated world series fever #29 kirk gibson

i appreciate the fact that a different photo was used on the back of the card

1999 upper deck century legends memorable shots #hr3 kirk gibson

2001 topps #382 kirk gibson

2001 topps gold #382 kirk gibson /2001

2001 topps home team advantage #382 kirk gibson

2001 topps chrome #307 kirk gibson

2001 topps chrome refractor #307 kirk gibson
2002 topps american pie #8 kirk gibson

2002 topps tribute #88 kirk gibson

2002 topps tribute memorable materials #mem-kg kirk gibson
2002 topps tribute memorable materials blue #mem-kg kirk gibson /88
2003 topps tribute #141 kirk gibson

2003 topps tribute gold #141 kirk gibson
2003 topps tribute world series signature relics #ssa-kg kirk gibson
2003 topps tribute world series memorable match-ups relics #mmr-eg dennis eckersley/kirk gibson /88
2004 topps world series stitches relics #ssr-kg kirk gibson
2004 topps world series highlights #ws-kg kirk gibson

2004 upper deck legends timeless teams #278 kirk gibson

2004 upper deck legends timeless teams bronze #278 kirk gibson /50
2004 upper deck legends timeless teams gold #278 kirk gibson /5
2004 upper deck legends timeless teams autograph #278 kirk gibson
2004 upper deck legends timeless teams autograph gold #278 kirk gibson /5
2005 fleer classic clippings official box score #5 kirk gibson /1988

2005 fleer classic clippings official box score gold #5 kirk gibson 
2005 topps etopps classic events #ce9 kirk gibson
2005 upper deck classics classic moments #cm-kg kirk gibson /1999

2005 upper deck classics classic moments materials #cm-kg kirk gibson
2005 upper deck classics classic moments autograph #cm-kg kirk gibson
2006 topps etopps event series #kigi kirk gibson
2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts memorable moments swatch #mm-kg kirk gibson /225
2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts memorable moments autograph #mm-kg kirk gibson /25
2007 upper deck masterpieces #6 kirk gibson

2007 upper deck masterpieces artist proof #6 kirk gibson
2007 upper deck masterpieces glossy #6 kirk gibson
2007 upper deck masterpieces windsor green #6 kirk gibson
2007 upper deck masterpieces green linen #6 kirk gibson
2007 upper deck masterpieces serious black #6 kirk gibson /99
2007 upper deck masterpieces black linen #6 kirk gibson /99
2007 upper deck masterpieces deep blue linen #6 kirk gibson /75
2007 upper deck masterpieces pinot red #6 kirk gibson /75
2007 upper deck masterpieces blue steel #6 kirk gibson /50
2007 upper deck masterpieces rusted #6 kirk gibson /50
2007 upper deck masterpieces ionised #6 kirk gibson /50
2009 upper deck goudey #104 kirk gibson

2009 upper deck goudey mini #104 kirk gibson

2013 panini cooperstown #65 vin scully (back)

2013 panini hometown heroes curtain calls #cc10 kirk gibson

2013 panini hometown heroes curtain calls gold border #cc10 kirk gibson
2020 topps decades' best 1980s #db-57 dodgers

2020 topps decades' best 1980s blue #db-57 dodgers

2020 topps decades' best 1980s green #db-57 dodgers

2020 topps decades' best 1980s black #db-57 dodgers /299

2020 topps decades' best 1980s gold #db-57 dodgers /50

2020 topps decades' best 1980s red #db-57 dodgers /10

2020 topps decades' best 1980s platinum #db-57 dodgers /1

2020 topps decades' best 1980s chrome #db-57 dodgers

that is a lot of the impossible happening! it's good to see some variety in the photos used, especially with the 2020 topps decades' best card. this is one event i will never tire of seeing commemorated on cardboard.