they came from 2004...

today i'm showing some cards that were released in 2004.  the first few don't look like cards from 2004, however.  like this 2004 fleer platinum edwin jackson card

that was modeled after 1984 fleer cards.

and then there is this 2004 fleer tradition card

that brings to mind the 1990 fleer design although the banner here has more flow to it.

this 2004 topps all-time fan favorites brett butler card

uses the 1991 topps design.  unfortunately, topps kept the orange frame design of the giants cards. 1991 was butler's first year with the dodgers, and he led the league in runs scored and walks.  he was featured in the flagship set as a giant, receiving a dodger card (with the proper blue frame) in the traded set.

finally, there is this 2004 topps cracker jack card of adrian beltre

that is a play on the 1915 cracker jack design

don't worry - there were some original designs used in 2004 - like the design of the 2004 upper deck flagship set.  here's juan encarnacion's card from that set

i like the 2004 upper deck set because of the inset photo behind the players' names.  that's a dodger stadium scene, in case you can't tell (the same scene - differently cropped - that's on the back of dodger cards in the 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams set).  unfortunately, upper deck did not apply the photo consistently to cards in the set

it may just be that the horizontal cards in the set didn't get the inset photo, i don't know.  here are some landscape oriented cards for you to ponder - shawn green

is in pittsburgh, i believe

hideo nomo

is in the dodger stadium dugout

and robin ventura

is on the road somewhere - maybe san francisco - as that's where jeff weaver is on his card

which is vertical and features the stadium inset photo.

there's not much of a discernible background photo at all on this 2004 topps clubhouse collection eric gagne relic card

but i guess we are supposed to be focusing on the fabric and not the photo.

it would be interesting to know what sort of designs fleer and upper deck would have these days.  i am sure, like topps (heritage, archives, gypsy queen, allen & ginter), they would issue sets that incorporate some older set designs, but there would be some unique designs, too.

at least i hope there would be.

the evolution of the dodgers' first baseman, part 2

in the first installment of the evolution of dodger first basemen, we ended with hall of famer eddie murray signing a free agent deal with the mets, making room for someone else on the evolutionary chain.  the dodgers acquired todd benzinger via trade shortly after losing murray, but a rookie ultimately won the job in spring training.

eric karros (1992-2002)

yes, for 11 seasons, karros was the dodgers' first baseman.  that is the longest tenure since gil hodges, who just happened to be karros' dad's favorite player.  karros (shown on his 1992 upper deck card) was never an all-star, but he put up solid numbers.  he won the 1992 nl rookie of the year award with 20 homers and 88 rbi, and had probably his best all-around season in 1995.  that year, he led the dodgers to the postseason for the first time since 1988 with a .298 average and 32 homers and 105 rbi - good enough to win the silver slugger and finish 5th in the mvp voting. he also hit 2 homers with a .500 average in the nlds against the reds, but the dodgers were swept.  following the 2002 season, karros was traded to the cubs, but his name remains at or near the top of many los angeles dodger leader boards today.  karros is the all-time la dodger leader in home runs (270), and he is fourth (behind bill russell, willie davis, and steve garvey) in games played.  he trails only davis and garvey in total bases and doubles, and only garvey in rbi.  karros is also currently the all-time la dodger leader in strikeouts, but matt kemp (should he remain a dodger next year) will pass him as soon as he k's 54 more times.

i suspect that the karros/mark grudzielanek for todd hundley/chad hermanson deal was a salary dump (the dodgers saved themselves over $10 million (if one assumes that karros' option would have kicked in) with the trade, even taking on hundley's salary.  the dodgers had paul loduca behind the plate, so they didn't need hundley, but they did need a first baseman to replace karros.  so, they took the guy who had been playing there for the cubs.

fred mcgriff (2003)

a couple of weeks after trading karros to the cubs, the dodgers signed former southsider first baseman fred mcgriff.  that's his 2003 playoff prestige card, giving a sort of o-pee-chee vibe.  the crime dog had joined the cubs during the 2001 season after it became apparent that the team had gotten rid of mark grace too soon - matt stairs wasn't cutting it as grace's replacement.  mcgriff, who had averaged 30 home runs a season in his previous 16 seasons, needed just 22 to reach 500 for his career, and i sure thought that he would do it with the dodgers.  unfortunately, mcgriff hit only 13 home runs while playing in only 86 games.  in fact, he started only 79 games at first base, with jim tracy using seven other players at first (including ron coomer, robin ventura, daryle ward, paul loduca, mike kinkade, larry barnes, and even jolbert cabrera).  mcgriff returned to the devil rays for the 2004 season, but still fell 7 homers shy of 500.

shawn green (2004)

green, shown playing first on his 2005 upper deck card, had moved to the infield following the team's acquisition of milton bradley just prior to the beginning of the 2004 season.  earlier in spring training, green had worked out at first, but jim tracy said that he would be playing right field once the season began.  so much for that.  2004 turned out to be green's swan song for the dodgers, and he hit 28 homers with 86 rbi and a .266 average.  he also hit 3 homers in the nlds against the cardinals that year.  i was a big shawn green fan even before he joined the dodgers, and i was sad to see him go.

hee-seop choi (2005)

that's a 2005 bowman sterling bat relic card of hee-seop choi, once thought to be the answer for the cubs at first base following the departure of the aforementioned fred mcgriff and some seasoning behind karros.  instead, the cubs dealt choi to the marlins for derrek lee (a good deal as it turned out), and the fish sent choi to the dodgers in the 2004 trade that broke jim tracy's heart.  ok, that might be a bit extreme, but tracy lamented the loss of paul loduca in that trade, and i'm not completely certain that he didn't take some of his frustration out on choi.  choi began the 2005 season as the team's first baseman, and wound up hitting 15 homers with 42 rbi in 133 games, only 78 of which were starts at first base.  choi participated in the home run derby during the all-star break (he had hit 3 homers in a game against the twins in june and 6 in the series against the twinkies) but was essentially just a pinch hitter for tracy following the break.  he lost most of his starts to olmedo saenz in the second half.

nomar garciaparra (2006)

nomah! that's nomar's 2006 upper deck sweet spot update card - not sure why upper deck issued an update to sweet spot, but i'll take it.  there are too few cards of nomar as a dodger.  nomar had never played first base in the major leagues before joining the dodgers, but that's all he played in 2006.  he appeared in 122 games for the dodgers that year, 117 of which were starts at first.  as the nl comeback player of the year, nomar hit .303 with 20 homers, 82 runs scored, and 93 runs driven in.  he made the all-star team and finished 13th in the mvp voting, while helping the dodgers reach the postseason.  despite a move to third in 2007, nomar still played more games at first base, but not as many as james loney, the next step on the evolutionary chain.

james loney (2007-2012)

after four 'one and done' first basemen, loney (shown on a 2008 upper deck baseball heroes relic card) brought some stability back to the position.  he hit .331 as a rookie in 2007 in 96 games (85 of which were starts at first) and also hit 15 home runs.  other than a dip in 2010, loney was pretty consistent in his first few seasons with the dodgers, driving in around 90 runs and hitting in the high .280's.  he was slumping in 2012, batting just .254 with 4 homers and 33 rbi after 114 games played, when he was traded to the red sox in the megadeal that landed the dodgers their current first baseman.

adrian gonzalez (2013-present)

that's gonzalez's 2013 topps finest card, by the way.  gonzalez hit .297 as a dodger during the 2012 season after the trade, and then hit .293 in his first full season with the club.  this year, he is batting just .276 (through this past sunday), but he has eclipsed last year's 22 homers and 100 rbi with 23 long balls and 103 runs driven in so far this year.  i am hoping that he eclipses his postseason numbers from last year as well, as he hit over .300 with 3 homers and 7 rbi in the 2013 playoffs.

and so we have reached the end of not only the dodgers' first baseman evolution, but the evolution of each position.  you can use the 'evolution' label to find the posts for all of the positions (some may be slightly outdated as i began this with a run through the managers over five years ago).  it's been fun tracking the history of the dodgers by position using baseball cards, which was one of the goals i had when i started this blog almost 6 years ago, although that also means i am getting closer to the end.

i have many leather bound books and this card that looks of rich mahogany

actually, this 2005 bowman heritage brad penny mahogany parallel

does not really look like rich mahagony, but this post needed a catchy title.  after all, it's just a random cards from the scanned folder post.

here's a 2002 upper deck adrian beltre card

it features a pretty standard photo angle at dodger stadium - a nice photo of a right-handed batter taken from the first base dugout photographer's well.  we've seen it before, many times, like on bill madlock's 1986 woolworth's card

and raul mondesi's 2000 topps opening day card

other stadiums have the same vantage point, including the nameless stadium that provided the backdrop for this 1994 upper deck sp holo fx mondesi card

and, not all batters from that vantage point are right-handed, either.  case in point, this 2003 upper deck odalis perez card

complete with visible undie lines.

here's a better card of perez from 2005 upper deck

the home whites look really sharp on that card.

back to 2003, fred mcgriff's upper deck card from that year

makes good use of the horizontal design, thanks to the stratified seats at vero beach.

this 2003 upper deck 40 man card of beltre is almost a tatooine card

spoiled only by that little bit of grass by his left foot.

here's a 2010 topps 206 james loney card

it is a bronze parallel, i believe.  i was a fan of the 206 set when topps first released it in 2002 (loney had a card in that set, too).  not so much in 2010.  i have a partially completed 2002 set, in fact.  i will have to get my want list posted and take a run at finishing it.

finally, here is a 2008 etopps manny ramirez card

i picked this up cheap online sometime last year.  i am guessing that a lot of people had topps ship their cards after it was announced that etopps was ending.  i had bought a few cards from etopps in the early 2000's, but always had them shipped.  i didn't understand the idea of not having the physical card.

until the next time i am hurting for a post, stay classy scanned folder.

swing and a trade

it's time for an overdue trade post.  this one features cards i received from bert at swing and a pop up last year.  i was able to help out with some of his set needs, and he sent me some dodgers in return.  works for me.

here's a 1985 donruss alejandro pena

quick - what does pena have in common with dazzy vance, johnny podres, sandy koufax, don sutton, kevin brown, and clayton kershaw?  well, beside the fact that they all pitched for the same franchise, they are the only brooklyn/los angeles pitchers to have led the league in era.  pena was the leader in 1984, the only season in which he was used exclusively as a starter.  unfortunately, he hurt his shoulder late in the season and didn't return until the end of the 1985 season.  he wound up in the bullpen, and was the winning pitcher in game 1 of the 1988 world series thanks to kirk gibson.

now for a 1988 kmart pedro guerrero card

pena missed out on guerrero's scorcher of a june in 1985, but i didn't.

it was awesome.

i had thought that there was a chance that the dodgers would break their rookie of the year drought last year with yasiel puig.  it didn't happen (maybe this year with alexander guerrero?).  here's the guy who started the run of roys in the 1990's, eric karros, on a 1993 score card celebrating his award

karros eventually was traded to the cubs, and the dodgers replaced him with fred mcgriff.  here's his 2004 topps opening day card

this was kind of like 1989 when steve sax went to the yankees to replace willie randolph, and willie randolph went to the dodgers to replace steve sax.  i was among those that thought mcgriff would hit his 500th home run as a dodger (he needed 22), but he was limited to 86 games and hit only 13 bombs. that was still one more than karros hit for the cubs, and they each drove in 40 for their respective teams. karros did have that big home run to deny roger clemens his 300th win when the yankees visited wrigley field for the first time since the world series in 1932.

here's a 2004 upper deck sweet spot classic jackie robinson

one of four or five cards he has in the set, i believe.  i have added the one that i still need to my 'nefarious 9' (which now stands at only 3 cards. i'm working on it!).  send one my way, and you will be rewarded.

i still miss russell martin.  here's his 2007 topps allen & ginter card

and here's a 2008 upper deck sp authentic card on which he shares space with the padres' jake peavy

cards like this give me pause.  did upper deck put these two together for a reason? or were they just (at the time) high profile or in this case up and coming division rivals?  for the record, through 2013, russell martin has faced only two pitchers more than jake peavy (dan haren and matt cain).  in 39 plate appearances, martin has only 4 hits (one double), no rbi, and 11 strikeouts.  advantage, peavy.

before there were blue borders, there were walmart black parallels, like this 2010 topps andre ethier card

and before that, it was pinnacle that ruled the black-bordered world.  here's a 2013 panini pinnacle card of carl crawford that brings to mind those releases from the early 1990's.

bert - thanks for a great trade.  let's do it again sometime.

i will be keeping these cards

a while back, i asked the question 'should i keep this card?' regarding a nolan ryan card that mentioned steve garvey on the back.  i already knew my answer when i wrote the post (i will not keep that card), and the four of you who commented all came to the same conclusion.  i don't have checklists in my garvey collection, although i do have the topps team cards in which he appears (for some reason, it looks like he missed the photo that appears in the 1981 set) in the binders.

there is a card that mentions steve garvey on the back which i will keep in the collection.

that's because the cartoon you see above is on the back of garvey's 1972 topps card

i suppose it makes sense for a ballplayer to get married in the winter since that is their offseason.  i have to say, with the temperatures i am experiencing right now, i am not sure i would attend anybody's winter wedding.

moving on, there is another card that features garvey as the answer to the cartoon trivia question on the back that will remain in my collection.  take a look at the back of garvey's 1975 o-pee-chee card

that fine example of canadian cardmanship came to me thanks to kerry from cards on cards.  in fact, all of the cards (except for the 1972 topps card up top) were sent by kerry in what was a most generous trade package.

there was another 1975 o-pee-chee card in the mix - the 1974 mvp card

two horizontal cards don't make a right, unfortunately.  when this card goes in the binder, poor garvey is upside down.

here are some of the other goodies - 2003 bowman draft prospects xavier paul

paul was recently non-tendered by the reds.  i hope he is picked up by another team.

2009 topps jackie robinson turkey red insert

pretty sure that photo is from a shot inside the dodger clubhouse, not out on a field.  nice to see it colorized, though.

2010 bowman matt kemp 1992 throwback

and 2011 topps lineage matt kemp diamond anniversary refractor

i will be quite upset if kemp is traded this week, or at any time for that matter.

chad billngsley's lineage refractor also came along for the ride

kerry was nice enough to hit the nefarious 9 (my most wanted cards) as well.  he sent a copy of former number 1 most wanted 2000 upper deck victory koyie hill (as seen in this post), but also sent a 2003 bowman heritage fred mcgriff black bordered facsimile autograph parallel

and a 1998 fleer tradition dennis reyes card

both from the list.  a list i need to update...

thanks kerry! you really outdid yourself with these cards!

what, me quarry?

you betcha i quarry for cards.  in fact, i just completed my first trade with hiflew of 'cards from the quarry' and i couldn't be more pleased.  in exchange for a bunch of colorado rockies, he sent me this 2012 topps sandy koufax manufactured retired numbers patch

back in 2001, i was pretty excited about the first topps tribute set (still trying to complete the set, too).  the checklist was comprised of only players for whom franchises have retired numbers.  i knew there would be a lot of dodgers in the set, but i was really hoping for a steve garvey card.  yes, the padres retired garvey's #6 in 1988.  unfortunately, garvey was not included in the set; nor was koufax even though topps had included him on a couple of inserts in the flagship release that year.  anyway, retired numbers are cool, and i like this insert set that topps put out.  i have the jackie robinson, but still need the tommy lasorda.  it's too bad that they didn't make a card for all the dodgers with retired numbers, but that's just me being greedy.

  the next card up from the trade package was this fantastic 2011 topps rafael furcal card

i really like this card, mostly because of the landscape double play turn.  this version, however, is a bit more special thanks to the 'sparkle' from furky's belt.  this is the first of these short prints that i own, and i'm glad it's this furcal.

the other cards i will show from the package are also new to me.  here's a 1996 pinnacle aficionado checklist card of mike piazza

look at the italian-american superstar slugger taking infield practice!  remember when such a big deal was made about him spending time at first base in new york?  i do.  he spent exactly one inning at first base during his dodger years, and that was in his rookie season of 1993.  not sure why he was in the field when this photo was taken.

here's another dodger catcher - paul loduca - on a 2003 fleer double header card

if loduca had more cards like this, maybe i would have liked him more.  no, that wouldn't have helped.  i do like this card, though.

finally, here's one more card from 2003, and it's one i had never seen before.  it comes from the fleer genuine set, and features a short-time dodger, fred mcgriff

the crime dog hit career home runs 479-491 with the dodgers, but could muster only two more when he finished his career with the devil rays.  i was really hoping that he would get to 500 as a dodger, especially since there wasn't much to root for in 2003 after the team dropped 13 out of 15 just before the all-star break to go from tied for first in the west to 8.5 games back.  whatever, mcgriff didn't get to 500 and the dodgers moved shawn green to first the following year as mcgriff returned to tampa.

thanks for all the cards johnny!  let's do it again soon!