frankendodger sheet 72 (cards 640-648) - silver sluggers and a silver fox...

here's sheet number 72 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 640-648:

and the back:

these cards are:

640. 1994 topps darryl strawberry
641. 1979 topps bobby castillo
642. 1992 topps tim crews
643. 1974 topps dodgers team
644. 1980 topps charlie hough
645. 1991 topps juan samuel
646. 2011 topps matt kemp/andre ethier
647. 2001 upper deck victory shawn green
648. 1984 donruss duke snider

the "no brainer" of the day:

the 1984 donruss duke snider card was a no brainer for me. that was the first card of a retired dodger that i pulled from a mainstream pack. i was pretty excited as a dodger fan that the silver fox was the puzzle in 1984, and it certainly contributed to me buying more packs of donruss that year.

about the cards:

it's hard for me to recall darryl strawberry having dodger cards as late as 1994, since it seems like he played for them for such a short time. of course, strawberry didn't play for the dodgers in 1994, and this '94 topps card is one of the last to feature him in dodger blue. 1994 was the year that darryl went awol at the end of spring training and shortly thereafter enrolled at the betty ford center. the dodgers released him early in the season, and he wound up signing with the giants.  blech.  you will note that the 1994 topps card features a photo of strawberry from the 1993 season (a season in which he hit just .140 in 32 games). we know it is from 1993 because the tim crews memorial patch is visible.

the 1979 topps bobby castillo card was one that i was looking forward to - not as much as the 1979 topps bob welch card, but there was still some anticipation on my part. during the 1978 season, i would listen to dodger games while sitting at the dining room table with my dad as he caught up on paperwork. the little transistor radio would sit between us, and vin scully, jerry doggett, and ross porter would spin their tales while the dodgers advanced to a second consecutive national league pennant. i would sometimes look at my 1978 topps cards while listening, and when castillo came into the game, i had no card to look at.  with bill north and joe ferguson, i had cards but they showed those guys as an athletic and an astro.  still, i had cards. for castillo (and welch and rudy law), i had nothing. as you will see below, my feelings about this card are strong enough for it to bump a 1978 topps card out of the frankenset!

i mentioned the tim crews memorial patch showing on the strawberry card, and now here is the man himself on a 1992 topps card.  crews left the dodgers after the 1992 season and joined the indians. it was during spring training in 1993 that he died (along with teammate steve olin) in a boating accident, prompting the dodgers and indians to wear memorial patches.

the 1974 topps dodger team card features, as do most dodger team cards from 1971 on (1972 being the only exception i can think of), a photo of the team in dodger stadium. they chose a more nondescript part of the stadium as the background (that's the first base side of the stadium behind them) rather than the pavilions.  for what it's worth, steve garvey is in the second row between lee lacy and joe ferguson.

charlie hough is on that team card, too. he's in the back row next to don sutton, and here he is as well on his 1980 topps card. this was the last topps card to feature hough as a dodger as he had his contract purchased by the rangers in july of 1980.  i was disappointed as the team of my youth was starting to disassemble - first rick rhoden before the 1980 season, and then hough during it.  after the season, don sutton would move on, too, and it's a good thing the dodgers won it all in 1981 otherwise i would have really lost it when davey lopes was traded away following that postseason.

with lopes gone, steve sax took over and was even my favorite dodger after steve garvey left for san diego prior to the 1983 season.  after sax left for the yankees following the 1988 postseason, the dodgers struggled (and still struggle) to find a long-term solution at second base. one guy they brought in for a while was juan samuel, seen here on his 1991 topps card.  sammy came over from the mets in a deal that cost the dodgers mike marshall and alejandro pena, which was not necessarily a lot depending upon how you felt about pena.  even though he was not the dynamic player he had been with the phillies early in his career, samuel was pretty reliable in his two full seasons with the dodgers, and he was part of the dodger contingent at the 1991 all-star game.

in 2009, both matt kemp and andre ethier were named recipients of the silver slugger award, and the photo of them receiving the awards at the start of the 2010 season made its way to this 2011 topps card.  the dodgers have had more pitchers win the silver slugger than any other position (if you separate out the outfielders) with fernando valenzuela, tim leary, orel hershiser, and zack greinke each taking home the hardware as dodgers. by my count, the other dodgers to win the silver slugger are dusty baker, pedro guerrero, steve sax, kirk gibson, eddie murray, mike piazza, eric karros, adrian beltre, jeff kent, russell martin, and adrian gonzalez.

not on that list is shawn green, who appears here on a 2001 upper deck victory card. during green's best offensive years, he lost out to barry bonds, sammy sosa, luis gonzalez (in his anomaly of a year in 2001), and vladimir guerrero.

last card on this sheet is the 1984 donruss duke snider card. in 1982, following a ruling favoring topps, donruss switched from gum to puzzle pieces as the accompaniment to their cards in packs.  that first year, the puzzle was of babe ruth, and in 1983, it was mickey mantle. donruss chose snider for the puzzle in 1984, and they included a card showing the complete puzzle image in the card set for the first time.  just another reason that 1984 donruss is my favorite donruss set.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1993 donruss tom goodwin at number 640, 1978 topps doug rau (thanks to bobby castillo's 1979 topps card)

at number 641, 1984 donruss dave anderson at number 642, 2014 topps alex guerrero

at number 643, 1979 topps manny mota at number 644, 2013 topps luis cruz at number 645, 1993 bowman mike piazza at number 646, 2002 topps total odalis perez at number 647, and 1989 donruss orel hershiser

at number 648.

my favorite card on the page:

as much as i like seeing dodgers get awards on cards, the duke snider card is my favorite here.

final thoughts:

as far as i have been able to gather, since moving to los angeles, the dodgers have worn some sort of memorial independently from the rest of the league 8 times.  this includes a combined memorial patch for roy campanella and don drysdale who passed away within a few days of each other in 1993, but not a patch worn for a front office employee during a tour of japan.  this list includes a presidential candidate (bobby kennedy in 1968), the wife of an active player (ken mcmullen in 1974), two active coaches (jim gilliam in 1978 and don mcmahon in 1987), and an active former player in tim crews.  the rest have been players for whom the dodgers have retired a number - campanella and drysdale, pee wee reese in 1999, and duke snider in 2011.  the dodgers did not wear a memorial following the death of jackie robinson - most likely because he passed away in october of 1972, and not during or close to the start of a baseball season.  earlier that year, the mets wore an armband for gil hodges, but not the dodgers.

as many of you know, i have a mini collection of cards featuring memorial patches and armbands, and so i think about this stuff.  i wonder for whom the dodgers will wear patches for in the future.  given what seems to be their current criteria, sandy koufax, don sutton, and tom lasorda would be on the list, as would vin scully given his hall of fame status.  walter o'malley didn't receive a patch as many other owners have in recent years, so i'm not sure whether peter o'malley would at this point.  i was a bit confused about the dodgers not wearing some sort of memorial for willie davis after he died, as he is still high on many los angeles dodger statistical leader boards, so what about don newcombe, manny mota, and maury wills? they've been a part of the dodger family for decades but are not in the hall of fame.  similarly, will the padres (who have retired his number) and not the dodgers wear something when steve garvey passes?  it's kind of a downer subject, but the connection to the past is a bigger part of the game for me the older i get.

frankendodger sheet 46 (cards 406-414) - no pictures of pitchers...

here's sheet number 46 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 406-414:

and the back:

these cards are:

406. 1993 fleer ultra darryl strawberry
407. 2000 upper deck shawn green
408. 1994 upper deck tim wallach
409. 2015 topps juan uribe
410. 1982 topps ron cey
411. 2004 fleer tradition brian jordan
412. 1978 topps davey lopes (nlcs)
413. 2006 fleer andre ethier
414. 1975 topps manny mota

the "no brainer" of the day:

given the dearth of postseason cards made by topps for the team of my youth, the 1978 topps nlcs card featuring davey lopes was a certainty for the set.

about the cards:

no pitchers allowed on this page - just a bunch of position players.  first up is darryl strawberry on his 1993 fleer ultra card. by the time this card came out, things were pretty much at an end with darryl and the dodgers. he had missed most of the 1992 season due to a back injury (for which he had season ending surgery), but was on the field for the start of the 1993 season.  unfortunately, he hit just .140 before his back forced him to the dl in june of '93, and he never appeared in a regular season game for the dodgers again.

the 2000 upper deck shawn green card is an odd horizontal torso crop.  we'll see another one from upper deck later in the post that works better than this one.  2000 upper deck is one of my favorite upper deck sets along with 1994, which gave us the next card on the page. tim wallach doesn't get one of tommy lasorda's famous hugs, but he does get a pat on the helmet.

juan uribe looks like he's tripping over his own feet on his 2015 topps card. uribe joined the dodgers following the giants' first world series win in 2010, and he spent four-plus seasons with the blue. after struggling in 2011 and 2012, he was pretty good in 2013 and 2014. he's still playing everyday with the indians this season and seems to have outlasted the guy who replaced him in san francisco.

i was looking forward to some great cards from topps in 1982 after the dodgers won it all the previous october. i was somewhat disappointed. here we have one of the three co-mvp's of the world series, ron cey, checking his swing in front of a tarp. at least it's a photo from 1981, as cey is sporting the city of los angeles' bicentennial patch on his sleeve. the city was founded in september of 1781. it wasn't until 1848, however, that the city became part of the united states.

i think the 2004 fleer tradition brian jordan card is a short print. that makes very little sense to me. i don't think folks were clamoring for brian jordan cards in 2004. i wasn't, anyway, as jordan had left for the hotter climes of texas by then.

i was, however, very excited about the 1978 topps card that celebrated the dodgers' nlcs win over the phillies in 1977.  the lone world series card in the set is very much a yankees card (as it should be if there is just going to be one card to mark the fall classic), so i had just this one card to remember the first postseason that i recall watching.  little did i know that it would be the only postseason dodger card issued by topps in their flagship set for a long, long time.  i think i am still waiting - i don't recall any cards in the 2009 or 2010 or 2014 sets recognizing the dodgers' nlds victories the previous seasons.  anyway. it would be great if the photo used on this card was from lopes' controversial at bat in the 9th inning of game 3 in which he hit a shot that ricocheted off of mike schmidt right to larry bowa who threw to first in an attempt to record the final out of the game and preserve a 5-4 phillies win.  however, lopes was called safe, and manny mota scored the tying run. after an errant pick off throw sent lopes to second, he scored what would be the winning run on a single by bill russell.  unfortunately, the image used comes from the first at bat of game 4, in which lopes lined out to second base.  still, i like the card.

i can picture fleer card designs in my head by year from 1981 through 1991 easily. then it starts to get confusing.  was 1992 the year with the green borders? or was that 1993? 1994 and 1995 fleer i can recognize right away, but after that it's tough. anyway, 2006 fleer does not register with me.  i know this is a 2006 fleer card because it's an andre ethier rookie card, but the design is not instantly recognizable. this is due to the fact that i stopped buying fleer cards for the most part in 1987. i do like how they flipped the design on to the back of the 2006 cards, so it's got that going for it.

manny mota's 1975 topps card might be my favorite card of the set.  i've said before that 1975 topps is not my favorite, but this is a nice card.  i like the choice of the blue on top/green on bottom border, and i think it works well with this near full shot of the left field pavilion in the background.  bonus points for the three sisters palm trees and the pre-diamond vision scoreboard, too.  i do wonder, however, if that is the on deck circle behind mota, why is it so close to the baseline?

cards that didn't make the cut:

the also-rans for this page include 1988 score ken howell at number 406, 1993 fleer ultra ricky trlicek at number 407, 1974 topps charlie hough

at number 408, 2000 upper deck gary sheffield (this is the better horizontal torso crop i referred to earlier in the post - love the sheffield bat wag!)

at number 409, 1983 donruss bob welch at number 410, 1970 topps dodgers team at number 411, 1963 topps dodgers' big three (johnny podres, don drysdale, and sandy koufax)

at number 412, 1998 donruss hideo nomo at number 413, and 1990 score rick dempsey at number 414.

my favorite card on the page:

i really like the lopes card, but the 1975 topps manny mota aesthetic wins out today.

final thoughts:

this post will publish on july 4th. the dodgers and other teams will be wearing some pretty ridiculous hats to 'celebrate' the holiday, but the red, white, and blue of the regular dodger uniform should be enough.  at any rate, remember the lesson of jason pierre-paul and have a safe 4th of july!

frankendodger sheet 37 (cards 325-333) - now with more unibrow...

here's sheet number 37 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 325-333:

and the back:

these cards are:

325. 1961 topps wally moon
326. 2009 topps manny ramirez
327. 1969 topps willie crawford
328. 1996 upper deck collector's choice raul mondesi
329. 2011 topps update dee gordon
330. 1975 topps mike marshall
331. 2003 fleer tradition kevin brown
332. 2002 upper deck tom goodwin
333. 2003 topps shawn green

the "no brainer" of the day:

even if he is holding on to the ball, the 2011 topps update dee gordon card is fantastic, and it was going to be in this frankenset.

about the cards:

my blogging sense tells me that the wally moon card is the first 1961 topps card to make the frankenset which is surprising.  i had moon at number 5 in the set with his 1960 topps card before ultimately settling on a 1957 topps sal maglie instead.  both cards give us a good look at the trademark wally moon unibrow, but the 1961 card is, in my opinion, better.

the manny ramirez card here is a postseason highlights card that tells the tale of manny's 1.100 slugging percentage and 2 home runs hit against the cubs in the 2008 nlds.  manny also hit 2 home runs and slugged 1.067 against the phillies in the nlcs, but the dodgers came up short in that series.  manny didn't get to play in a world series with the dodgers, but he did appear in four fall classics - two with the indians and two with the red sox - and hit .243 in those series.  willie crawford's 1969 topps card tells us on the back that willie owned a .500 batting average in the world series at the time of the card's release.  of course, willie had appeared in only one world series at that time (1965), and was 1 for 2 in his plate appearances.  crawford did appear in the 1974 world series with the dodgers and hit .333 with a home run to drop his career fall classic average to .375.

like manny ramirez, raul mondesi hails from the domincan republic, although manny went to high school in new york.  mondesi's collector's choice card here mentions another caribbean ballplayer, roberto clemente, and notes that rauuuuuul was the first dodger to go 20/20 (20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the same season) since kirk gibson in 1988.  in 1997, mondesi would become the first dodger to join the 30/30 club.

remember when dee gordon was a shortstop? he came up to the dodgers in 2011 and hit .304 and stole 24 bases in 56 games and we got this great card from topps as part of their update set. it's a nice example of the shortstop avoiding a slide as part of a potential double play turn, even though gordon didn't throw the ball to first.  i still include it in my dp collection, and went after the various parallels of this card in earnest.

dr. mike marshall's 1975 topps card was an important one to me as i was completing my dodger team sets in the early 1980's.  it was his first card as a dodger in the sense that he was wearing a dodger uniform (unlike his 1974 topps traded card), and it listed his stats on the back with his all important 106 games pitched in 1974. marshall was featured on two other cards in the 1975 topps set - a record breaker and a league leader - but this card was the one i was most intent on acquiring as soon as i learned that a dodger held the record for most games pitched by a reliever in a single season.

vintage card designs were abundant in 2003 with topps heritage, upper deck vintage, and fleer tradition.  at least fleer used one of their designs (1963 fleer) instead of pulling an upper deck and ripping off the 1965 topps design.  anyway, this particular kevin brown card features a peek at the dodger stadium outfield wall with the 40th anniversary of dodger stadium murals.  i loved the murals.

tom goodwin's 2002 upper deck card may be the least interesting card on the page, but at least that is tom goodwin on the card and not adrian beltre.  shawn green's 2003 topps card here is a season highlights card that addresses his week in may of 2002 when he hit 9 home runs over 7 games.  in the midst of that run was a four-homer game in which he had 2 other hits (a single and a double) for 19 total bases - a major league record.  i've written a few times about the fact that i was there for green's four-homer game, so topps should know that it wasn't just brewer fans that were giving green a standing o after he hit his fourth home run.

cards that didn't make the cut:

there were still many options for these spots in the frankenset, and some of the runners-up include 1993 score select pedro astacio at number 325, 1993 donruss pedro martinez at number 326, 1982 donruss davey lopes

at number 327, 1998 pacific crown collection greg gagne at number 328, 1976 topps joe ferguson at number 329, 2013 topps update yasiel puig

at number 330, 2014 topps yasiel puig

at number 331, 1989 score mickey hatcher at number 332, and 1998 topps raul mondesi at number 333.

my favorite card on the page:

i would like the shawn green card more if it were specifically about the 4-home run game, so i'll stick with dee gordon as my favorite card on the page.

final thoughts:

i was also at the dodger/brewer game the night before green's four-homer game.  it was green's rbi triple in the third inning that produced that game's only run.  hideo nomo pitched well, and eric gagne closed things out on a throwback uniform night in which the brewers wore them but the dodgers did not.  i'm guessing that's because their road unis in 2002 were pretty close to what they wore in the early 1960's design wise, as you can tell by comparing the goodwin and moon cards above.

frankendodger sheet 22 (cards 190-198) - again with the garvey...

here's sheet number 22 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 190-198:

and the back:

these cards are:

190. 1978 o-pee-chee steve garvey
191. 1981 topps rick sutcliffe
192. 2015 topps joc pederson
193. 1991 fleer don aase
194. 1992 topps eric karros
195. 1959 topps rip repulski
196. 1994 upper deck collector's choice roger mcdowell
197. 2002 upper deck mvp shawn green
198. 2009 upper deck nomar garciaparra

the "no brainer" of the day:

considering that the 1978 o-pee-chee card is and always has been in the header image over at garveyceyrusselllopes, it's a safe bet that it was the no brainer on this sheet.

about the cards:

i am actually writing this post in the friendly city of toronto.  being here makes me want to seek out some old o-pee-chee cards. i was 7 and on a family vacation to the prairie provinces when i first bought packs of o-pee-chee cards and found that garvey card that leads off the sheet.  good times.

rick sutcliffe brought the rookie of the year award back to los angeles in 1979.  he actually made his big league debut in 1976, but didn't stick with the dodgers until he went 17-10 in '79. of course, he struggled in 1980 and became firmly entrenched in tommy lasorda's doghouse pretty quickly.  he was left off of the 1981 postseason roster, and if i recall correctly, he trashed lasorda's office as a result.  the dodgers traded sutcliffe to the indians prior to the 1982 season, and he promptly led the american league in era.  he wound up with the cubs in 1984, and won the cy young award.

joc pederson was an early favorite to bring the rookie of the year award back to los angeles in 2015, but his second half was terrible.  i was starting to put this set together in august of 2015, and that is why he has two cards in the first 200 spots. had i waited until october, he may only have had one.

don aase is repping the bold 1991 fleer set. aase is, alphabetically the first dodger.  and the first oriole, and the first angel, but not the first met or red sox, as david aardsma also played for those two teams.

eric karros did (!) bring the rookie of the year award back to los angeles after a nine year drought.  his 1992 topps card is the second card in this set from his rookie year (1992 donruss was the other).  it's not my favorite card from the 1992 topps set - we will see that one later.

rip repulski's card is great for a couple of reasons. first, it's blue and not yellow like so many of the dodgers' 1959 topps cards. second, the look on his face makes it seem that he is pretty pleased to see karros' card next to him.  seeing repulski here makes me realize i should have gone for a brady bunch page with all of the cards featuring players looking around at each other.  again, shame on me for not doing so.

the bottom row features roger mcdowell doing what roger mcdowell does on his baseball cards, a typical mvp style card of shawn green (mvp and spx sets in the late 90's/early 00's were pretty much a waste of space in my opinion), and nomar's 2009 upper deck card.  i passed on the first edition version of this card a few sheets back, but his double play turning goodness was not to be denied a second time.

cards that didn't make the cut:

as usual, there were some pretty good cards that didn't make the sheet. they include 1962 topps wally moon (both versions)

and 1979 topps ron cey at number 190, 2003 upper deck, 2003 upper deck first pitch,

and 2004 upper deck kasuhisa ishii

(basically the same card) at number 191, 2002 donruss originals pee wee reese at number 192, 2001 upper deck mark grudzielanek at number 193, 1997 bowman adrian beltre at number 194, 1992 upper deck juan samuel (well lookie there!), at number 195, 1984 o-pee-chee steve howe at number 196, 1986 topps enos cabell at number 197, and 1972 topps charlie hough/bob o'brien/mike strahler

at number 198.

my favorite card on the page:

this is another case where the no brainer is also my favorite card. duh.

final thoughts:

with the end of the restriction on set and player use, i will pretty much always go with a garvey, cey, russell, or lopes card when given the chance.  same goes for 1978 topps/o-pee-chee.  just so you know.

frankendodger sheet 2 (cards 10-18) - insert the inserts...

here's sheet number 2 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 10-18:

and the back:

these cards are:

10. 1973 topps don sutton
11. 2000 upper deck eric gagne
12. 1968 topps game claude osteen
13. 1990 mother's cookies dodgers kirk gibson
14. 2008 donruss threads carl erskine
15. 2003 topps stadium club shawn green
16. 1992 donruss eric karros
17. 1970 topps booklet bill singer
18. 1992 upper deck pedro martinez

the "no brainer" of the day:

for this sheet, there really isn't a card here that i knew had to be in the set, but i did want to get don sutton in as soon as possible.  as the only hall of famer from the team of my youth, he deserved a spot early on.

about the cards:

i wasn't sure i was going to use inserts in this set, but here we have two of them on the second sheet!  i have quite a few copies of the osteen card (including one in my double play binder), but not as many as i have of the tommy davis card from that insert set.  davis is hatless on the set, and so his team affiliation is unclear and i suppose many folks think of him as a dodger and send the card my way.  however, davis was included in the flagship set that year as a member of the white sox, so let's send those cards to 2x3 heroes instead.

the other insert implied by the title is the bill singer booklet in all of its diamond cut glory.

there are a lot of pitchers on this sheet (with erskine bringing the first unlicensed card to the set), along with a rookie of the year, and a guy who was at one time my favorite dodger.

cards that didn't make the cut:

with the players and sets featured on the first sheet off the board, there were less cards to choose from - and there are a bunch of piazza cards that would have fit on this sheet.  a few cards that did receive some consideration here included osteen's 1971 topps and/or o-pee-chee card at number 10 (but he lost out to sutton), arky vaughn's 1960 fleer card at number 11, the 1967 topps jim campanis/bill singer rookie at number 12, jody reed's 1994 topps stadium club card and willie keeler's 2012 panini cooperstown card at number 13, a sweet 1982 cracker jack duke snider oddball card at number 15, and a 1960 leaf jim gilliam card at number 18.  all gave way to what you see above for one reason or another.  in fact, the reed card was in the set up until last month when i juggled a couple cards around to make room for a new card number 24.  i'll tell that story in the next post.

my favorite card on the page:

had it not been bumped for the gibson, the aforementioned jody reed card may have taken the prize for this sheet.  after all, it's a double play turn in dodger stadium. what's not to like?  however, given the nine cards that made the sheet, i'll go with the card that replaced reed.  a kirk gibson action shot during a day game in dodger stadium.  it's nice.

final thoughts:

i think there are a total of three parallel cards later on in the set, but the osteen and singer cards are the only true inserts in my frankenset.