two in the hand beats whatever is in the bush

i was excited to be included in rod's recent spate of mailings as he always sends some fun items. no poster this time, but he did include a couple of "twinographs" for me

that's twins lifer and two-time world series champion randy bush who signed a pair of cards for rod or some other person at some point in time.

there was another auto included, this one of a minnesota wild player on a 2008-09 o-pee-chee card

i must admit i wasn't paying much attention to the nhl at this point of stephane veilleux's career. i'm more engaged these days, making it to two or three games a year.

the cards rod sent gave me a chance to appreciate the three twins' multiplayer/checklist cards from 2025 topps

as well as byron buxton's indivicual card in base and holiday format

buck is not the only twin shown airborne in the 2025 topps set, as local kid matt wallner

is also catching some air. it's nice to see the flowers behind the outfield wall on a card.

buxton is still my favorite non-dodger, so it was cool to receive this relic card from 2025 topps holiday

of course, buxton flies because torii hunter also flew, and this 2004 topps clubhouse card of the latter

was equally appreciated!

2005 topps design has always looked good in black, and having brooks lee's 2025 topps archives card in black foil parallel fashion

makes me happy.

one more twin card that caught my eye was this 2025 bowman kyle debarge chrome prospects insert

i have to believe that, at some point, his walkup song has been or will be "rhythm of the night".

there was one dodger included in the mailing, and it was this 2025 bowman draft eduardo quintero card

quintero is a 6'-1" outfielder who hit 19 homers last year split between a and high-a ball. he's only 20 so plenty of time for him to progress.

finally, my favorite item in the package was this 1991 topps custom fernando valenzuela card

fernando as an angel is high on my list of cards i really want topps to produce in an archives release or even this year's flagship insert set. here's the back:

there aren't too many color photos of fernando as an angel, and i hadn't seen the one used here before. of course, i had taken my own shot at creating one of these cards a while back, but i don't recall doing a back, probably because it would look just like the back of his actual 1991 topps card, with a few slight changes.

thank you very much rod! always a pleasure to receive cards from you!

love is a bottenfield

usually when i host one my "almost free stuff friday" trade posts, i prefer to receive cards directly from my want list. many of my mini collections are subjective as to cards that i would want to add, and i only have "have lists" posted for them. my want lists are cards that i want (to varying degrees) but definitely need for dodger team sets or player collections or what have you.

bo did not send cards from my want list in exchange for the cards he claimed, but i couldn't be happier with the cards he sent.  here is the big gun:

that is a 2001 fleer triple crown kent bottenfield card. he sent it for my dodger stadium mini collection, as bottenfield is standing out in right field at chavez ravine. i know this because of the mural behind him.  now, i would have sworn that i looked through the entire comc inventory of fleer cards from 1998 through 2005 - including sold out cards - looking for cards that featured the murals in the background, but i never saw this bottenfield card.  

what really amped me up was that the mural in the background features none other than steve garvey, who was being celebrated in 2000 for reaching the 1,000 consecutive games played milestone in a game at dodger stadium, along with other great moments in dodger stadium history.  it was a great surprise and one that impelled me to act further. more on that later.

bo also sent a new double play card for me - a 2003 upper deck ricky gutierrez card

and a 1995 upper deck sp edddie murray card

that goes in the tattooine collection.

back to bottenfield, i quickly added another card to my garvey collection

and then decided to add as many as i could.  i have permanently added this card to my nefarious 9/most wanted cards list, and am up to 10 of them as of this writing

they come in varying shades it appears.

the only other card that a clear view of a garvey mural appears (that i am aware of - please prove me wrong if you can!) is the 2004 fleer ultra preston wilson card. 

that's the gold medallion parallel, which i realized was lacking from my garvey collection. i also picked up a base and another gme parallel

for the dodger stadium collection.  and, like the bottenfield, these cards have also been made permanent residents of my most wanted cards list.  as of right now, i only have one extra base and two extra gme parallels

but maybe you can change that?  the mural that shows up here, by the way, is part of the dodger record setters murals, and this one in particular features the full gcrl infield. it shows up on a few other cards of pitchers, but is not as clear. i would love to find another 2004 fleer tradition dodger team set darren dreifort card, though.

i did see a new ichiro card that featured the 2001 retired number murals, and quickly snapped one up for my dodger stadium collection

this is from 2022 topps 587 montgomery club set 3 if you are curious. just a couple of hall of fame center fielders (that's duke snider on the wall if you can't tell) hanging out on the same card.

and then there are a couple more traditional dodger stadium cards that i've added over the last couple of months...

a co-worker gave me some cards which included a 1989 donruss dave meads card

with the right field scoreboard behind him. i had also thought i had scoured 1980s astros cards for dodger stadium backgrounds as they seem to have a lot - the stadium's color scheme worked well with the astro uniforms back then - but i missed this meads.

and finally, i somehow became aware of this 1990 topps rick reuschel card

featuring big daddy and the always popular dodger stadium pickoff move to first photo. the card is a box bottom, and i saw it thanks to one of my saved searches for the 1989 fleer orel hershiser box bottom card (white back version) which has sat atop my most wanted list for a long, long, long time.

and that is how you bring a post full circle - from want list to want list with some nice dodger stadium cards in between.  as always - help a blogger out and let me know if you have any cards i need.  you will be rewarded!

four on one

first up - r.i.p. tommy davis. owner of one of the greatest offensive seasons (1962) in franchise history. i hope the franchise recognizes him this year. take a trip down the path of his career with this post.

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earlier this year i shared a 1989 donruss card that was new to my dodger stadium collection. it featured three prominent team logos in the card design, hat and jacket. gtt wondered about the greatest number of logos on a single card, and i responded that i assumed there was a card somewhere with four of the same logo - card design, hat, jersey and patch or jacket.

i wound up taking a cursory look through a few different sets to see if i could prove myself correct. most teams don't repeat their hat logo on their their jerseys, so i focused on just a handful of teams. i started with fleer and donruss cards that included the team logo on the cards and pretty quickly came close to four full logos.

here's a 1988 donruss baseball's best david wells card

there are four blue jay beaks visible - card design, hat, jacket, and jersey just barely visible under the jacket.

this 1993 donruss mcdonald's expos card of gene mauch

would get us closer to four if donruss had used an expos logo in the card design.

i've had this 1990 fleer update oil can boyd card 

in my dodger stadium collection for a while. like the wells card above, it has just over three logos - card design, hat, jacket and the tip of the "m" on a shirt under the jacket.

it didn't take long to find this 1984 mike vail card

card design logo - check.

hat logo - check

jersey logo - check

equipment bag/box logo - check

that is the cleanest four logos on one card example that i found.  i did find some cards that i added to my collection as a result of this review, so that's a bonus.

1986 fleer bryn smith

if you count tim wallach back there in the background, there are five "m" expos logos on this card. i bought this card for it's dodger stadium background though. i am surprised that it wasn't already in that collection as i used to collect bryn smith cards (he's from my neck of the woods) and he has a few other dodger stadium cards in my collection already.

the phillies were another team i checked on, thanks to their "p" logo. i didn't find any cards with four logos on one, but i did find and purchase a 1987 donruss opening day juan samuel card

and a 1988 fleer mike jackson card

for the dodger stadium collection. the colors are inverted, but i still consider the jackson card to have three logos on it.

i didn't seek out mets cards for this exercise, but a few did pop up that featured dodger stadium in the background. welcome to the collection 1989 donruss all-stars gary carter

and 1988 donruss bonus mvp darryl strawberry!

i saw the strawberry when i took a closer look at the 1988 donruss bonus mvp set thanks to this card

the cubs were another of the teams that i looked in to, and this card does feature four cub logos, but they are different. one could maybe make an argument about the "c" being the same in three of the logos, but the actual bear cub logo on the left sleeve disqualifies it altogether. i still bought this card because it features andre dawson at the 1987 all-star game in oakland. standing to his right is a dodger that i am fairly confident is orel hershiser. that's good enough for me to put this in the lurker collection!

anyone have any other four logos on one card examples?

'ello joe, whaddaya know?

i think i have mentioned before that when i first started following baseball, the expos' logo confused me. i thought it said "ello" or "elb" before eventually learning or being told that it was a multi-colored "m". i've also heard that "elb" might be correct, in reference to "expos league baseball", but that seems forced. thankfully, there is a copy of a press clipping here that i assume legitimately records the story behind the logo and its colors. it certainly would have helped me if there were a symmetrical white dot in the blue curl of the "m", although that would have strengthened my belief in the "ello" theory.

whatever it is, the logo shows up three times on joe hesketh's 1989 donruss card

which i only saw for the first time a few months ago. i recently acquired this card for my dodger stadium collection, as hesketh is standing with the stadium club windows behind him. 

seeing hesketh in dodger stadium will always bring to mind his home plate collision with mike scioscia that ended his 1985 season. that play took place in montreal, but you can understand regardless the dodger connection that this card brings to mind.

once again, i ask: quien es mas macho?

call this one the battle of the high hats.

i received this card

from kerry at cards on cards last year. it's from the 1994 mother's cookies 1993 rookie of the year set, and the way mike piazza is wearing his hat immediately made me think of this fabulous card:

from the 1988 o-pee-chee set of delino deshields. it was the first 1988 variation that i showed on my blog about o-pee-chee variations, and to me, that card (a card that didn't exist in topps sets that year) is the gold standard of high hats. although, fred mcgriff

might want a word. what say you?

a couple of astrordinary cards featuring dodger stadium

it only took me 30 years to find the greatest card of the 1989 donruss set, and here it is:

i found this card in a repack a couple of weeks ago, and it was worth sludging through the 1988 fleer and pack of 1988 topps big cards to get to.

meyer visited chavez ravine in september of 1988, but didn't pitch there until two years later.  he did well, although he gave up a home run to eddie murray (no shame in that) in his 2-plus innings of work.

as for the card, it's like bo said in a comment on my post from 9 years ago celebrating the 1987 mother's astros set that featured many photos with dodger stadium in the background, the color scheme of dodger stadium (back then) looks like an astros jersey.  it's such a great card - the donruss border actually enhances the look of it.

another astro in dodger stadium card that i recently added to my collection is this 2018 topps now card issued in conjunction with taco bell

cameron maybin swiped a base in the 2017 world series to earn this card and provide many americans with a free bout of indigestion.  thanks to nick at dime boxes for making me aware of the card's existence!

for what it's worth, i opened some packs of 2019 topps big league tonight and there are some really nice cards in that release featuring dodger stadium, too. no astros, though.