the raul mondesi trade legacy

of the 5 straight rookies of the year that the dodgers boasted from 1992-1996, raul mondesi was my favorite.  dude was an athlete.  the 1994 nl rookie of the year was the first dodger to go 30/30 - he did so in both 1997 and 1999 - and the only dodger in that club until matt kemp joined him in 2011.  this is mondesi's 1998 topps tek card, by the way

mondesi was signed by the dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1988, and he worked his way up the minor league system until he hit the big time in 1993.  alas, mondesi wore thin with the dodgers and was traded to the blue jays following his productive 1999 campaign.

the dodgers received shawn green in exchange for mondesi.  green got a dodger topps tek card of his own in 2000

he and mondesi both hit 24 home runs in their first year with their new teams, however mondesi played in less than 100 games while green suited up for all 162.  after that, the trade was clearly lopsided in the dodgers' favor.  green went on to hit over 40 home runs in back-to-back seasons, including a franchise best 49 in 2001.  green played for the dodgers through the 2004 season, with his final act as a dodger coming in the 2004 nlds where he hit 3 more home runs in a losing effort.

following the 2004 season, paul depodesta realized that he needed a catcher, having traded away jim tracy's heart and soul, paul loduca, during the previous season.  he dealt green to the diamondbacks for a few players, including dioner navarro, who had been acquired by the diamondbacks from the yankees that same day in the randy johnson trade

that's navarro's 2006 upper deck card, which also happens to be the year that the dodgers traded him away to the devil rays.  with the emergence of russell martin, navarro was expendable, and ned sent him and jae seo to tampa for another catcher (toby hall) and big bird - mark hendrickson - seen here on a 2006 topps turkey red card

hendrickson had left his nba career behind to pitch in the majors, and he did so for 10 seasons.  his dodger tenure lasted through the 2007 season, after which he left the club as a free agent.  thus ended the raul mondesi trade legacy.

hoo boy, jason schmidt is ticked

he sure is.  take a look.

and his 2007 topps heritage card isn't even a short print.  perhaps jason is angry that dayf (the guy who sent all of these cards you are about to see, including that schmidt card you've already seen) has to resort to frankensetting topps heritage thanks to short prints and other silly topps' shenanigans.  looks like jason didn't make the cut and got shipped to me instead.  that's ok - i'll give him a good home with his dodger teammates, since i haven't thought about completing a heritage set since 2001.  that will change next year, though.

dayf sent a bunch of nice cards.  i didn't get a sketch of a pony, but i did get some fine dodger goodness.  and dodgers trump ponies.

here's a 1989 topps sticker back of steve sax, back from when steve went to extremes to try to fix his erratic throwing by amputating his right arm at the elbow.

it didn't help.

another '89 card - this one of orel hershiser from fleer

i would mention that franklin stubbs is lurking behind the bulldog, but then i would have to add a 'lurkers' label as well as one for 'stubbs', but blogger only allows me 20 labels per post and i have ocd when it comes to labels.  i plan to max out my label allowance with cards and not waste two on stubbs or his lurker status.  sorry franklin.  but, i will point out (and label) dodger stadium there in the background.

here's another 1989 fleer card.  sort of.  it's saxy again, but it's different from the hershiser card.  it's glossy.

here are the backs, which make the glossy cards easier to identify

i'll skip the 90's and go straight to the aughts.  here's a 2004 donruss studio card of hideo nomo

on clear nights, you can get a pretty good view of downtown los angeles from the first base side of dodger stadium.  only if you're outside the stadium or sitting in the top row, that is.  quick - name the tall building coming out of nomo's noggin.  it's only the tallest building west of the mississippi.  i don't know too many people outside of la that know its name, which is kind of weird and kind of not at the same time.  anyway, that would be library tower, which i knew as first interstate bank world center back in the day.  it's now us bank tower, although it was sold to an indonesian group a few days ago.

next up is dioner navarro and his 2005 playoff prestige card

one would think that navarro went from being a yankee to a dodger, but in doing so they would forget that for a few hours in between he belonged to the diamondbacks.  the yankees sent him to arizona as part of the package in exchange for randy johnson, and later that day the dodgers acquired him in the shawn green deal.  they sent him to tampa bay a few years later for toby hall and mark hendrickson.  this year, navarro will try to catch on (pun intended) with the cubbies.

here's a card that doesn't quite make sense to me.  it's a 2013 topps chasing history insert of hanley ramirez

ramirez reached the 400 extra base hit milestone in 2012.  i had not been aware that this was a milestone that was actively tracked.  anyway, he now sits at 429 extra base hits for his career, which includes 23 as a dodger.  so yes, ramirez achieved the milestone with the marlins.  why not show him a a marlin?  or, if you want to show him in dodger blue, why not use 150 home runs as the milestone, since he did reach that total as a dodger.  this card is like issuing a jim thome home run retrospective and using a photo of him in dodger blue.  thome hit exactly zero home runs as a dodger.  it would be nonsensical.  but i expect topps to do it once thome announces his retirement from the game.

there was another 2013 topps card that i am going to display in the package.  it's an andre ethier chasing history relic card

it appears to be free of spelling errors.

i'll wrap up this thinly disguised trade post with the antithesis of jason schmidt's card up top. it's a 1972 topps bill singer card

and looking at it makes me smile.

thanks for the cards and everything else dayf.  even the ponies.

not just a double dipper, dioner navarro is a double lurker

he may not have had a card in the 2011 topps set, nor have a team in 2012 (yet), but dodger double dipper dioner navarro is so far taking up space on two topps cards in their 2012 flagship set.  here's javy guerra's card

on which navarro is offering some postgame congratulations to the dodgers' young closer.  and then there is george kottaras' card

on which navarro is out at the plate!

i don't know and didn't bother to try to figure out which game is represented on the guerra card, but the kottaras card was easy - it was the only game kottaras appeared in against the dodgers all year.

8/15/11, a game best remembered for james loney hitting into a triple play in the second inning, also included navarro being thrown out at the plate by jerry hairston (now a dodger) with kottaras applying the tag in the third inning. the score was 0-0 at that point, and the dodgers went on to lose 3-0.  worth noting that navarro flew out in the 7th inning with the bases loaded while all three brewer runs came on solo shots.

the brew crew won the game behind another dodger double dipper, randy wolf.  ted lilly, who by my definition is not a double dipper since he did not appear in a game for the dodgers during his first run with the organization, took the loss.

keep 'em coming, topps - i can use some more navarro lurker cards!

one fell swoop

no more packs! i mean it.  anyone want a peanut?  right.  i decided last year sometime that i was done buying packs.  so far, so good.  instead, i bought the 2012 topps series 1 dodger team set on ebay.  it came along with a bunch of dodger inserts, too.  so, for the price of maybe 3 packs, i got five jackie robinson golden greats inserts

topps has got to be running out of jackie robinson images to use.  we've seen these photos way too many times in the last few years.

i also received three sandy koufax golden greats inserts

topps should try to find some non-blurry koufax images to use.

there were also a bunch of these things. are they gold? cognac? whisky? what?  anyway, here's tim federowicz

not the catcher who wore 31 that i am used to

javy guerra

with dioner navarro lurking.  nice of topps to get navarro on a card so that his dodger double dip is properly recorded.
tony gwynn jr

i was disappointed that gwynn jr didn't get a card in 2011 update, so it's nice to see him in series 1
here's one of the three (!) league leader cards that matt kemp appears on

having a dodger on a league leader card was a big deal to me when i was a kid.  the 1981 era leaders card is one of my favorites because it seemed like a long time coming to me as i started collecting in 1978, too late for the andy messersmith 1976 cards and the davey lopes cards in 1976 and 1977.
hong-chih kuo

looks like he's pitching in a forest fire
ted lilly

at this point, i am already bored with these cards.  no offense, mr. lilly

here's that dee gordon gold futures insert

someone said this looks like an upper deck card and i agree

more matt kemp!

30/30 = golden moment.  yessir. 40/40 would have been nice, too
here's kemp sharing space with a giant

although i don't really have anything against willie mays.
finally, free agent to be andre ethier and his 1987 style mini

i think it was nice of topps to do this as a nod to the fact that 50 years ago they went with a wood design (1962) and then 25 years ago they updated it (1987).  i would have been disappointed, however, if their flagship design was another play on wood.  so, having an insert set that acknowledges the timeline is ok by me.

see you when series 2 comes out topps!

adios dioner navarro, dodger double dipper

[this is the twentysecond installment in the double dippers posts.  here are the previous posts - brett butler, omar daal, eric young, nick willhite, chris gwynn, mickey hatcher, dave anderson, don zimmer, rafael landestoy, dave hansen, jose vizcaino, hideo nomo, greg maddux, mike maddux, jon garland, chan ho park, vicente romo, gene mauch, denny lewallyn, von joshua, and joe moeller.]

dioner navarro's second go-around with the dodgers most likely has ended with him being designated for assignment last week.  navarro, seen here on his 2005 donruss throwback threads card

navarro was first acquired by the dodgers in january of 2005 in what was essentially a three-team trade with the yankees and diamondbacks.  he was part of the package that the yankees sent to the d-backs for randy johnson, and was then bundled with a few minor leaguers and sent to the dodgers for shawn green.  since depo had forgotten to get a catcher when he traded away paul loduca during the 2004 season (a deal that was supposedly in place at the time to bring back charles johnson fell apart), jim tracy wound up using jason phillips behind the plate for much of the 2005 season, but once navarro was called up in july, he wound up with the bulk of the playing time.  he hit .273 in 50 games with 3 homers (his first career dinger was a walk-off against the mets) and was pretty good on defense although he threw out only 21% of those who attempted to steal against him.  still, he was only 21 and it looked like maybe the dodgers had a decent catching prospect.

after the 2005 season, paul depodesta was fired and ned colletti took over.  ned signed sandy alomar to help with the catching duties for the 2006 season, and he also called up russell martin in may of that year.  martin played well, and so in june of 2006, ned traded navarro, along with jae seo and another guy to the devil rays for toby hall and mark hendrickson.  and cash.  sweet mccourt lovin' cash. 

with the devil rays/rays, navarro hit the peak of his bell curve.  in 2008, he played in 120 games, hit .295, made the all-star team and helped tampa bay get to the world series.  in the alds he hit .400, and after a .192 performance in the alcs against boston, he hit .353 against philadelphia in the fall classic.  however, after a poor 2010 season in which he played in just 48 games and hit .194, navarro hit the free agent market.  luckily for him, ned was there to pick him up.

ned also had rod barajas on the roster, so navarro fell into the role of backup.  and, as we know, backup catchers haven't received a lot of love from topps since the early 1990's.  i had to slap this one together, a 2011 topps dioner navarro that should have been

this card won't be, however, as i didn't see navarro's name on the draft checklist for the 2011 topps update set, and then there's that other thing - navarro was dfa'd by the dodgers last week.  he was hitting .193 in 64 games although he did have a couple of big walk-off hits this year, including one in that game last month against the padres in which the dodgers were no-hit for 8.2 innings.

later days, dioner.