age of ultra

no superheroes here, just humble baseball players on some fleer ultra cards.

here's a 1999 fleer ultra chan ho park

the latter years of ultra feature some nice photography, as evidenced by jeff shaw's card

which features dodger stadium and the three sisters in the background.

a less scenic part of dodger stadium is in the background of antonio osuna's card

but we get charles johnson (i believe) in the foreground

mark grudzielanek is on the road on his card

but ismael valdes is back at home on his

in addition to lots of dodgers and dodger stadium cards, ultra has contributed many double plays to my collection. here are a few that i haven't shown before

2001 fleer ultra edgar renteria

i hope renteria was successful in his giant twin killing

speaking of giants, here's a 2002 fleer ultra rich aurilia card

jeff kent can only stand and watch

2004 fleer ultra orlando cabrera

nice to see the expos now and again

2004 fleer ultra marcus giles

most of the marcus giles dp cards i have seem to show him horizontal.  must not have been much of a jumper.  like placido polanco

or michael young

this is a 2004 fleer ultra update card of giant prospect brian dallimore

who is being taken out by juan pierre.  hopefully dallimore got some lessons in sliding runner evasion from double play professional ray durham, seen here on a 2005 fleer ultra card

it's too bad that fleer went under - we could use more ultra these days.

is it possible to complete a 1996 fleer dodger team set from just two packs? and for just 50 cents?

while wallet card and i were at the local card shop, i found some loose packs marked at a quarter apiece. among them were some packs of 1996 fleer dodgers cards.

with 10 cards per pack, and 20 cards in the team set, i wondered - could i complete a team set with just two packs?

here's the checklist of the then defending nl west champions

and here's the back of that card

which is pretty much the same as the front of the logo card

whose back looks like this

the background on those cards kind of reminds me of 1995 fleer in a way.

as for the 18 players in the set, here is what their cards look like

a complete team set, although it took 5 packs to get there.  i think there was a mike blowers card in four of the five packs, and only one hideo nomo card.  for some reason, todd worrell was also tough to come by in my small sample size.  still, a team set for $1.25 is not too shabby.

more non-dodger dodger cards

it's weird that i consider a card a dodger card if it includes the dodger team name on it, regardless of whether the player is wearing the dodger uniform or not. for me, this goes back to o-pee-chee cards from the 1979 set, which were the first ones i encountered that forced me to make this sort of determination.  no one was going to tell me that the 1979 opc andy messersmith wasn't a dodger card.  later on in my collecting endeavors, i saw that cards from the 1960's often showed players in outdated uniforms, and my approach to these cards was confirmed by official team checklists created by other collectors.

more recently, i've been paying more attention to the opposite types of cards - cards with dodger players in uniform, but with a different team affiliation.  like this 2000 pacific paramount raul mondesi card

that's dodger blue that he's wearing, but the card says that he is a blue jay now.

other examples in my collection include a few gary sheffield cards.  here are his 2002 fleer platinum,

2001 fleer premium,

2002 leaf (complete with 'traded to' text)

and his 2002 upper deck authentics (which also has the 'traded to') text

cards.

kevin brown has a ton of dodger cards - the benefit of being the best pitcher on some pretty non-descript dodger teams, but his 2004 upper deck diamond collection all-star lineup card

is actually a yankee card

adrian beltre famously left the dodgers after leading the league in home runs in 2004.  the result were some non-dodger dodger cards in 2005 fleer classic clippings

and 2005 fleer national pastime

these are things that i didn't really think twice about, but when topps issued this 2006 card of jose valentin

i was surprised.  i don't recall a card like this in the flagship set since the 1979 bump wills fiasco.  before that, there were the 1974 glenn beckert and jerry morales cards, and to a lesser extent, the 1973 topps bill north card.  i only wish that topps had done the reverse with nomar garciaparra's card in the 2006 flagship set.

here's a 2007 upper deck greg maddux card

on which the words say 'padres' but the photo says 'dodgers'.

the most unusual example of these cards may well be this 1995 score summit antonio osuna card

except that it's an error.  osuna did not pitch for the tigers, nor was he ever a part of the tiger organization.  weird.  let's cleanse the palette with an actual dodger card from the same set

that's better.

i doubt that we'll see any of these any time soon with just one manufacturer licensed to produce cards that feature actual team names.  still, as that 2006 valentin card shows, topps may yet surprise me once again.

more cards to your mother's

i'm going to the mother's cookie jar one more time today, to show a few cards from some of the sets sent my way by mr. haverkamp.  these sets are great for back of the roster guys, but that's not all i will show.

from the 1988 set comes this steve sax card

'88 was saxy's last year with the dodgers, and when he left a part of my fandom went with him. he was a sort of link to the infield of my youth, having played with garvey, cey, and russell in 1982.

also from the 1988 set is a nice card of reliever ken howell

howell had 21 plate appearances as a dodger, going 1 for 19 with 2 sacrifices.  that's why this card is so great.

here's kirk gibson's card from the 1990 set

he may have been to ornery to pose for the cameras, so they had to use an action shot which is a true rarity in these sets.  i love to see the low corner railing in dodger stadium on cards!

here's a don aase card, also from the 1990 set.

alphabetically, he's first in the dodger book.

like aase, gary carter has a few cards as a dodger, but his 1991 mother's card

is still nice to have.

if it weren't for the dodger police set and the mother's set from 1991 (which gives us this card),

i wouldn't have any cards of barry lyons in a dodger uniform.  he played in just 9 games as a dodger during the first couple of months of the '91 season before moving down the 5 to anaheim.

darryl strawberry's 1992 mother's card

provides a view of the empty bat rack.  a bat rack as empty as daaaaaa-rryl's production in '92.

congratulations to hall of famer pedro martinez, who has this card in the 1993 set

which is also a good representative of the tim crews memorial patch.

i'll end with a few of the more obscure dodgers from a couple of these sets.  from the 1994 set, here's al (not to be confused with antonio) osuna

osuna joined the dodgers at the end of spring training (march, 1994) in a deal with the astros.  he went 2-0 for the dodgers over 15 appearances that season, despite having an era over 6.  he was released by the dodgers in 1995. 

perhaps one reason for osuna's release was that the dodgers had joey eischen on their roster for 1995.  this is eischen's 1995 mother's dodgers card

this is also eischen's first appearance on the blog.  looking into things further, it is clear that eischen had nothing to do with osuna's release.  osuna was let go in april, while eischen was acquired in may of '95 in the trade that sent henry rodriguez to montreal.  eischen pitched for the dodgers in '95 and part of '96 before being traded to detroit for chad curtis at the trade deadline.

like eischen, rick parker is making his debut on the blog, thanks to the 1995 mother's dodgers set.

parker was an outfielder for the dodgers in both '95 and 1996, although he didn't appear in the postseason in either of those years.  i'm glad he made the mother's cookie checklist, though.

guess who sent me these cards...

i am guessing that nick at dime boxes kept a copy of this 1999 topps stadium club chan ho park card

for his collection before sending one to me.  it's the type of whimsical card that i would add to a trade package before sending it his way, if it weren't a dodger card that i needed.  shortly after he burst onto the scene, nick became one of my favorite trade partners largely because of how much fun it is to put a trade package together for him.  however, the stuff he sends in return is always great, too.

here's a 1999 skybox premium raul mondesi card

if you look at that card a certain way, it looks like rauuuuuuuuuuul is running backwards.  pick up your coach, raul - don't look at the ball.

before target red bordered parallels, there were still red bordered parallels.  this is a 2003 topps bazooka chad billingsley red bordered parallel.

this was before billingsley became seemingly susceptible to injury, and had all the promise in the world.  i am hoping for a big comeback from bills in 2015, but it doesn't look like it will be with the dodgers.

how about a 2004 topps cracker jack jose lima card?

the late jose lima was the only dodger between orel hershiser (in 1988) and derek lowe (in 2009) to win a postseason game.  he shut out the cardinals in the 2004 nlds to break an 0-8 postseason skid for the dodgers.

here's a 1996 topps stadium club antonio osuna card that i love for a couple of reasons.

first, it shows the license plate that osuna wore around his neck (it's askew on the left neckline of his jersey). i remember watching osuna pitch on tv in one of his first appearances and seeing that thing sway around like a tire swing.  you will have to remember that this is the mid 1990's, before there were a bunch of big pendants on chains worn by athletes during games.  the other reason that i really like this card is that i am pretty certain that padre first base coach davey lopes is lurking in the background.

here's the guy that lopes replaced as the dodgers' first base coach a few years ago on a 1986 fleer star sticker card.  it is, of course, mariano duncan

duncan was supposed to replace bill russell as the dodger shortstop when he came up in 1985.  while he was the team's primary shortstop that year, things didn't quite work out after that as tommy lasorda turned out to not be much of a fan.  duncan spent the entire 1988 championship season in the minors, but eventually won world series rings with the reds in 1990 and the yankees in 1996.

outfielder mike marshall, seen here on his 1989 topps uk mini card,

was a part of the dodgers' 1988 world championship team (he hit .231 with a homer in the fall classic against the a's), but his final postseason appearance came with the red sox in 1990.

here's the last card of this post, a 1977-84 renata gallaso carl furillo card

it was a great card to see in the trade package for many reasons - it's a carl furillo card, and there aren't too many of those; it's a card that i didn't previously have; and it features the right-handed furillo posing as a lefty.  it's the type of card that i would send to nick if i didn't need it for my collection.  thanks nick!