in my ongoing crusade to collect dodger cards...

...i received some cards from jeff at my sports obsession.  these cards were sent to me a looong time ago, and they have sat in my scanned folder for far too long.  sorry jeff.  here's a shiny 2002 donruss rookie crusade card of victor alvarez.

alvarez, you might recall, is the guy with the interesting signature.  putting a sticker on this card, however, would probably be too much.  although something tells me that donruss did just that.  hold on - yep, they did. gross.

here's a 2004 donruss card of dave roberts

it's a career stat line parallel, so it too is shiny and even serial numbered.

there were some more recent cards in the package, too, like this 2008 upper deck timeline chin-lung hu card

hu got a ton of cards in 2008.  now, four years later, i thought he was out of baseball after being released by the indians earlier this year, but he is playing in an independent league.

here are a couple of cards from 2009 topps ticket to stardom - chad billingsley

and manny ramirez.

remember him?

here's a 2010 bowman card of carlos monasterios

monasterios spent the entire 2010 season on the dodgers' 25-man roster as a rule v draftee (acquired via a trade with the mets).  to date, that is the only season in which he has pitched in the big leagues.  he underwent tommy john surgery in 2011 and had another surgery earlier this year.  the dodgers released him in april, and it will be interesting to see if he lands with another team.

here's one of those shiny refractor things from (i think) a cereal box or blaster of 2010 topps

another jackie for the collection.

i think when i received the package, this was a newly issued card.  no joke.  it's a 2011 topps heritage andre ethier card

i think i may have scanned it because it was the first of the 2011 heritage cards i had seen.  thanks for the trade, jeff!

a scotty pods welcome, goose joak style

ned made a move.  not for pitching, but for another outfielder - this time it's scott podsednik.  while i recognize that manny and reed johnson are out, and that garret anderson is performing exactly as we all expected, i am still kinda surprised by this move.  i would suggest giving xavier paul as many at bats as possible and only make this move if the pitching is upgraded first.  without pitching, we're not going anywhere.  on the flip side, podsednik's wife will now become the most blogged about dodger wife since jose lima sang the national anthem.

here's a quick 2010 goose joak original (o-pee-chee style!) that i whipped up for pods.

there are also a bunch of goose joaks that i have been meaning to display, but haven't gotten around to it.  here are some of them.  a lot of these photos are from the marlins series early in the season.  that's how long they've been hanging around.  the photos are either getty images or from jon soohoo, the dodgers' official photographer.  enjoy.  or at least tolerate.

jeff weaver

tough night last night.

carlos monasterios.

dodgers are 5-2 in his starts. 

russell martin.

at this point, i would rather have carlos santana back.  sorry russ.

hiroki kuroda

i am really hoping he can put together a string of good starts in august and september, but he's already made as many starts this year as he did all of last year.

charlie haeger.

i don't think we'll see him back in the bigs this year.

reed johnson

our fourth outfielder is still backing up manny.  too bad he's doing it on the dl.