another lucky 13

the astros are retiring billy wagner's number 13 tonight. the brand new hall of famer spent eight seasons plus 1 appearance with houston, so it makes sense. i have gone ahead and added this 1998 upper deck card

to my retired numbers mini-collection in wagner's honor. 

wagner is the second player to have the number 13 retired in their honor, joining the reds' dave concepcion. 

in other number retirement news, the mariners retired ichiro's 51 last weekend. i had already shared my plans to include this 2012 topps chrome orange refractor

in the mini-collection in anticipation of the number retirement, but now it's official so i'll show the card again. ichiro is the fourth player for whom 51 has been retired, joining trevor hoffman (padres), randy johnson (diamondbacks), and bernie williams (yankees). in related news, the mariners announced that they will add randy johnson to the retirement of 51 in 2026. in my post from last year i had assumed that they would retire the number for both players together, so i already have my card for the big unit picked out.

no word yet on whether or not the yankees will retire cc sabathia's number, and the same with the pirates and dave parker's number. i assumed that both would happen shortly after the hall of fame ceremony but goes to show what i know. i hope it happens for both at some point in the near future.

league of nations

well i was up early enough to catch the dodger/padre game in seoul this morning. it was good to see the dodgers put together a rally (albeit one aided by jake cronenworth's faulty equipment) and a strong pitching performance from the bullpen. it's weird that the season is officially begun, yet there are still spring training games going on for the next week.

anyway, you are probably expecting some chan ho park cards (he threw out the first pitch before today's game) so i don't want to disappoint.  here's his 1998 upper deck national pride insert

as well as his 2000 upper deck united nations insert

both of which prominently include south korea's flag into the design. here's the back of the 2000 card:

i recall park being the first korean player to debut in the major leagues, but i did not recall that he skipped the minors altogether. since park debuted in 1994, there have been 26 more players from korea appear in the majors. that number will increase in 2024 once the giants kick off their season and jung-hoo lee takes the field.

i have a couple more country themed cards to show, including mike piazza's national pride card

as well as a couple of cards from the 2023 topps wbc set. here's mookie betts

and freddie freeman

freeman's card is an insert of some sort.

and, because the 2024 season is no underway, here's a 2024 card of betts

there were no home runs today, so i'm not sure what the hr trot thing will be this year.

i'm looking forward to the dodgers closing out the series tomorrow and returning to the states. i'll be heading out to target field to see them in april, and am looking forward to seeing a couple of players from japan in particular.

happy opening day!

my retired number collection - here's 2 them

this is the fourth 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 five people for whom the number 2 has been retired:

2 nellie fox (retired by the white sox in 1976) - 1962 topps

the white sox retired fox's number, visible on his sleeve on his 1962 topps card, on may 1, 1976 - just a few months after he passed away at the age of 47. after missing the writer's ballot by two votes in his final year of eligibility, he was eventually elected to the hall of fame by the veteran's committee in 1997.

fox spent 14 seasons with the white sox sandwiched between time with the philadelphia a's and houston colt .45's/astros. he was the 1959 american league mvp, leading the chisox to the world series that year against the dodgers. he is considered to be one of the better defensive second basemen in the history of the game but also finished his career with 2,663 hits (most of which were singles by far). in 1975, chet lemon became the last white sox player to wear number 2, which had been in constant use since fox's departure.

2 charlie gehringer (retired by the tigers in 1983) - 1999 upper deck century legends

no number visible on this card of gehringer, but he did wear number 2 for the tigers for the last 11 years of his 19 year career, a career spent entirely with detroit. he was the 1937 american league mvp, hitting .371 that year to lead the league. he hit .375 in the 1935 world series to help lead the tigers to their first championship in franchise history, and the following season he hit 60 doubles. you probably heard his name if you were following the dodgers the last week of the season as freddie freeman was trying to became the first player since gehringer (and joe medwick) to hit 60 doubles in a season.

he had a great nickame - the mechanical man - and finished with over 2,800 hits and a .320 batting average for his career. he joined the hall of fame in 1949 and the tigers retired his number on june 12, 1983. not sure what took them so long once they started retiring numbers in the mid-1970s. 19 different players wore number 2 for the tigers following gehringer's retirement, with the last being richie hebner in 1982.

2 red schoendienst (retired by the cardinals in 1996) - 1969 topps

when i was a kid, it was gaylord perry's cards that made me think the guy was ancient. looking at schoendienst's 1969 topps card there has me doing a double take as i realize he was probably just 45 when the photo was taken and possibly even 43 as i think there is a good chance the photo was taken during the same shoot that included the image on his 1967 topps card. i am also realizing that i assumed he was inducted in to the hall of fame as a manager, but no - he was elected by the veteran's committee as a player in 1989.

i didn't see any playing days cards of his (or modern cards showing him as a player) with the number 2 visible, although it is possible his 2001 topps tribute card is from his time as a player as the cardinals began wearing the number on the front of the card in 1962, scheondienst's penultimate season as a player. he finished his playing career with 2,449 hits and a .289 average.

schoendienst did go on the manage the cardinals over three different stints that included four decades. he was a fixture with the club even when not managing, and continued to wear the uniform even after the club retired it on may 11, 1996. the only time he wasn't wearing the number between his return to the club as a player in 1961 and his retirement from the game was in 1977 and 1978 when he was coaching for the a's. as a result, steve swisher became the last cardinal player to wear number 2, doing so during the 1978 season.

2 tommy lasorda (retired by the dodgers in 1997) - 1989 mother's cookies dodgers

this card was gifted to me by a card shop owner in costa mesa california back in the early 1990's. i was on the hunt for a box bottom card of lasorda from 1989 or 1990, and the guy gave me this instead. i was pretty stoked about it to be honest. since then i've bought the complete team set, but held on to this extra tommy, and now it gets to represent him and his retired number in my collection.

lasorda wore a couple of other numbers for the dodgers as a player in the 1950's and as a coach in the early 1970's, but settled on number 2 before beginning his first full season as the dodger skipper in 1977. ellie rodriguez was the last dodger player to wear number 2, doing so in lasorda's first four games as the dodger manager at the end of the 1976 season.

lasorda led the dodgers to the world series in each of his first two seasons, and then guided them to world championships in 1981 and 1988. he won 1,599 games as their manager, with his retirement being forced after suffering a heart attack in 1996. the team retired his number the following year on august 15, 1997 in recognition of his induction to the hall of fame a couple of weeks prior.

2 derek jeter (retired by the yankees in 2017) - 1998 upper deck

for the record, i am a fan of 1998 upper deck.

you know the yankees thought highly of jeter when they assigned him number 2, or at least i thought so, but it had been worn by mike gallego for the three years prior to jeter's arrival. still, it makes sense that he would be the last to wear it for the yankees given his status as an all-time great.

3,465 hits, a .315 career batting average, 1,923 runs scored and 1,311 rbi certainly amounts to a hall of fame career, and then you add five world series championships as well. i wasn't necessarily his biggest fan but i sure do respect the talent. jeter was voted in to the hall of fame on his first ballot in 2020 with 99.7% of the vote, but the yankees didn't wait for that honor as they retired his number on may 14, 2017.

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

retired numbers by team (shown in chronological order of their first number retirement):

yankees - 1, 2, 4

giants - 4

pirates - 1, 4

guardians 

red sox - 1, 4

phillies - 1

cardinals - 1, 2

reds - 1

braves

astros

mets

orioles - 4

dodgers - 1, 2, 4

twins

white sox - 2, 4

brewers - 1, 4

tigers - 1, 2

cubs

royals

padres

athletics

angels

expos

rangers

major league baseball

rays

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies

mariners

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 30

running total of non-hall of famers: 4

if you've got a sombrero, throw it to the sky

friday night in los angeles kicks off a weekend celebrating fernandomania and its subject - fernando valenzuela. that same night - august 11 - the dodgers will retire number 34 in his honor.

i wrote earlier this year about the fact that fernando is already a member of the "legends of dodger baseball", and i will be interested to see how the team handles the transition from that group to the retired numbers faction. will they just move his monument from one spot to the other? that would be my guess.

anyway, here are some cards of fernando that i've added over the last year or so, starting with a 2017 topps rediscover topps buyback of his 1990 topps card

it's the silver stamp version, not that you can tell.

when it comes to adding cards of fernando to my dodger collection, i am down mainly to oddballs, wo here are a few of those that are new-ish to me

1981 all-star game program insert

1982 topps album stickers

1989 topps super star stickers (with rob deer)

1985 topps rub downs (with tony pena and robin yount)

i also finally added his 1987 star company set to my collection:

i bought the set as single cards on beckett since it was cheaper than what i saw for complete sets, however, one of the cards was missing so i had to pick up a single on ebay

back when the dodgers announced that they were going to retire fernando's number, i made the announcement that i was adding him to my post-dodger player collections. so, i've been adding non-dodger cards of fernando to my collection ever since. some i already had among my non-dodger duplicates and monster boxes, but some i've tracked down online.

i had a reader point out (thanks benjamin!) that fernando's two cards from the 1993-94 line up venezuelan winter league set were on ebay for cheap, but i was too slow to snag his solo card. i did get this card

showing him with urbano lugo. it's a great oddball and i am happy to have a card showing fernando in team mexico gear in my collection.

i've made some great progress in filling out the post-dodger collection (here's my have/want list) so i figured i would share with you. 

1993

you may recall that fernando pitched for the angels in 1991 after he was released by the dodgers just prior to the start of the season. there are sadly no cards of him in his angel uniform, so we jump to 1993. the orioles signed him to a contract and i was pretty happy that he was back in the majors.

those cards include flair, fleer, fleer ultra, leaf, o-pee-chee premier, and topps stadium club.  i have to show the back of the stadium club card

because it features his 1981 topps multi-player rookie (hello jack perconte and mike scioscia!). let's keep going with 1993-1994

i am a big fan of fernando's 1993 upper deck card (it was my favorite non-dodger card that year), and i was confused to find that topps included him in stadium club but not flagship (or traded). after finishing the 1993 season with the orioles, fernando was unsigned until well in to the 1994 campaign. so, it was nice that he was added to some card checklists that year as a phillie.  the cards above are his 1993 topps stadium club member's only parallel, 1993 upper deck, 1994 fleer, 1994 flair, 1994 fleer update, and 1994 pacific.

more from 1994

those are his pacific prism (circles), score, score gold rush, topps, topps gold, and topps stadium club cards from '94. that year marked the end of his run with topps until a few years after his retirement.

here's one more from '94 and some '95 cards

those are the 1994 topps stadium club rainbow foil, 1995 fleer, 1995 fleer update, 1995 mother's cookies padres, 1995 upper deck, and 1995 upper deck series 2 cards. as you can see, fernando left the phillies and joined the padres for the 1995 season.

more '95 cards

there we have his upper deck series 2 electric diamond parallel, his upper deck collector's choice cards (i have them out of order), the upper deck collector's choice trade card redemption, and 1995 upper deck collector's choice se - base and silver signature versions. those last two are nice because he's back in dodger stadium.

on to 1996

it's all padres here, as fernando spent 1996 with them, too. those cards are emotion-xl, flair, fleer tiffany, fleer ultra, mother's cookies padres, and pacific crown collection. i like the back of the emotion-xl card

as it shows fernando peeking to the sky during his wind up.

more from 1996, plus one from '97

pacific prisms, circa, upper deck (young at heart subset), upper deck collector's choice (international flavor subset), upper deck collector's choice silver signature are the '96 cards, and the last card is from 1997 donruss.  there was no regular card for fernando in 1997 upper deck (as was the case with some, but not all, of the other 'young at heart' subjects), but his young at heart card has his full stats on the back, along with a nice photo of him as a dodger

here are the rest of the 1997 cards that i own

donruss press proof, fleer, fleer metal, fleer ultra, mother's cookies padres, pacific crown collection, pacific prism invincibles, pinnacle, score, score premium stock, score showcase series, and upper deck. the back of the upper deck card notes that he was the winning pitcher in the first mlb game held in mexico.

i guess i have a couple more from 1997 - upper deck special report subset, and collector's choice

and those last two are his 1998 final tributes from upper deck and upper deck collector's choice. fernando pitched for the cards in 5 games after being traded by the pads in the middle of the 1997 season. the cardinals released him in july of 1997, so i was surprised (but super happy) to see him in 1998 releases.

as you can see, i am missing a few base cards so feel free to help me out with my post-dodger fernando collection. and don't forget to salute him this weekend as he becomes only the second non-hall of famer to have his numbered retired by the dodgers. fernandomania forever!

i am trying to solve a puzzle, and i just found a big piece

ever since i first saw this card in 1998

i have been fairly certain that it features a photo that was taken on may 11, 1997. i had no way to prove it - and, spoiler alert, i still don't - but i figured it was the day of one of very few (it turns out, one of two) day games between the dodgers and expos played at dodger stadium in 1997.  the reason for my interest is that i was in attendance on may 11, and i was really hoping to be able to connect the card to that game.

the card remains one of my favorite dodger stadium background cards of all time even without that confirmation of me being there when the photo was snapped as it features one of my favorite players ever along with an angle and part of dodger stadium not typically seen on cardboard.

fast forward to just before christmas last year and i was shopping for some 2022 stadium club cards. i looked, as i always do, at images for all the teams to see if there are some non-dodger cards that i should add to my collection. that's when i stumbled upon this card

i knew right away that vladdy was sitting on the step of the visitor's dugout in dodger stadium because of the blue seats behind him, along with the light standards and the awning.  here's a look at the larger image

you can see the top of the diamondvision board in the photo which sat above the left field pavilion. once i found the image on getty's site, i saw that it was taken on may 11, 1997! i did a quick comparison between the two cards and see that in both photos, vladdy is wearing a blue undershirt that does not show any sleeves. he also has a gold chain, although it is not as noticeable on the confirmed may 11 photo. he is signing a baseball in each photo, but it looks like the pen he is using is different so i can't conclusively tie the two pictures together.

anyway, i'll go ahead and add the 2022 stadium club card to my mini collection of cards that feature games i attended in person, but will hold off on that 1998 upper deck card until i have some more conclusive evidence. the game was one of the last games i went to before i moved out of southern california, and i was glad to see vladdy for the first time before i moved to an american league town. vladdy was 3 for 5 with 2 rbi, by the way, as the expos beat the dodgers in 10 innings.

here's my ticket stub from the game:

note that it was camera day which makes me more confident that the 1998 upper deck card features a photo from may 11. it's too bad that upper deck didn't use any obvious camera day photos in 1998 like they did in a couple of 1997 sets (with photos from 1996's camera day).

i am also still looking for confirmation that curt schilling's 1998 fleer ultra card features a photo of him prior to the 1997 opening day game at dodger stadium. that's another game i attended in person, and while i am fairly confident that the card features a photo from that day, i don't know for sure.

in the meantime, i did add a few more cards to my "games i've seen in person collection" from this year's update and chrome update releases:

chris archer started the first game of the two-game dodgers/twins series that i attended, and this purple refractor parallel uses a photo from that outing

clayton kershaw's 2022 update card did not make it in to the chrome set, but i did find an extra rainbow parallel from update

for the mini-collection along with a chris paddack card from chrome update

paddack started the game opposite kershaw.

i've mentioned before that i hope to get to some games in 2023 and i hope that something card worthy happens!

i had a field day on camera day

upper deck used photos from "camera day" at dodger stadium on cards a few times, including jim eisenreich's awesome 1999 card

(when's the last time you saw a calculator watch on a baseball card?), and ismael valdes' 1997 card:

which features a lot of people on one piece of cardboard. there's a couple of mike piazza inserts in 1997 collector's choice that feature photos from the same day as valdes' card, and the back of gary sheffield's 1998 series 2 card uses an image from 1998's camera day festivities. 

i have been to at least two or three camera days at dodger stadium, including the 1997 game against the expos. there are no obvious cards featuring photos from that year that i have seen, although i have always suspected that vladimir guerrero's 1998 card

features a photo from that day. there's just no way to tell.

now, camera day is a bit misleading. it's not a giveaway like "dodger helmet weekend" or "batting glove day", but rather a day for fans to bring their cameras and get on the field to see players sort of up close.  the first one i recall attending was on july 30, 1978.

one of the things i remember most about that day was how big the numbers on the outfield wall were up close and in person. as you might recall, the distance measurements on the dodger stadium outfield wall were large, blocky numbers as seen on this 1990 upper deck tom foley card

we were ushered on to the field and allowed to walk along the outfield grass and warning track as i recall. i walked past the spot where ron fairly caught the final out of game 3 of the 1963 world series, as immortalized on this 1964 topps card

and stood under the 360 marker to the left of the visitor's bullpen, a spot seen on this 1975 dodgers postcard of don sutton

in fact, here's a photo

this obviously occurred prior to the addition of the windows in the wall that allowed the bullpen folks to hang out in shade and still see the goings on out on the field. the window is visible on this 1989 fleer chris sabo box bottom card

and it has been modified a few times since then.

we didn't really have any photos of players because it was pretty near impossible to get to the front. i was ok with that as it was cool to be on the field.  here's a polaroid photo that we took which gives you some idea of the mass of humanity that was there vying for space

i think we took that photo as we approached our seats in the right field corner and prior to going on the field.

later on, after the field was cleared of fans, the pirates came out to warm up and i took a photo of jerry reuss

i assure you that is reuss. i later learned through an email with him that he would do his work in between starts on the right field side of the field, a practice he continued even when he was a dodger.

reuss eventually made his way closer to the stands, and my dad took a much better photo of him

i later found it interesting that the player we got closest to on camera day wasn't a dodger...yet.  

[actually, i found some more photos from that day featuring dodgers!

terry forster

denny lewallyn

johnny oates

bill russell

and steve yeager

good stuff!]

bonus info!:  i didn't make it down to the dodger stadium field again for many years. our high school team would have played there had we advanced further in the playoffs than we did, so i waited until an eric clapton/elton john concert in august of 1992 before i set foot on the field again. this time, i was able to walk around the infield and even collect a bit of dirt from where davey lopes and steve sax positioned themselves. i had even brought an empty film cannister with me

to collect some of the infield clay. i keep it next to a similar cannister that has a chip from the berlin wall that my brother had collected for me shortly after its fall in late 1989. 

it's been almost 30 years since i was on the field at dodger stadium, but maybe someday i'll get back for the father's day catch. i have been down on the field of the metrodome and target field before a game, as well as the superdome in louisiana and most recently us bank stadium in minneapolis, but those are stories for another day.