sunday morning target dodgers - putting the 'l' in 'gcrl' and the last brooklyn dodger

another sunday, another sheet from the 1990 target giveaway set marking the dodger franchise's 100th anniversary of national league existence.

this sheet is a pretty good one - we'll start with the second baseman on the team of my youth, and the dodgers' current first base coach, davey lopes

lopes helped the dodgers to 4 pennants during his tenure as their second baseman.  he led the league in steals in 1975 and 1976 - the last dodger to do so.  maybe dee gordon will break that streak this year.

hank aguirre

nice dodger stadium background there!  aguirre spent the entire 1968 season with the dodgers and seemed to pitch well following a solid decade with the tigers.  for the blue, he had a 0.69 era in 25 appearances, including 39 innings of work, but was released by the team during the offseason.  he wound up signing with the cubs and pitched for a couple more seasons.

roy campanella

campy is one of a very small group of players to have won 3 mvp awards.  he won his over a 5-year span during his 10-year tenure as the dodgers' catcher that came to an end when he was paralyzed from injuries sustained in a car accident following the 1957 season.  he entered the hall of fame in 1969, and his number was retired by the dodgers right about 42 years ago at the same time that jackie robinson and sandy koufax had their numbers retired.

george dockins

the card says that dockins was an infielder, but he was actually a pitcher.  dockins pitched for the cardinals in 1945, but had his contract purchased by the dodgers in 1946.  he reached the big leagues with the club in 1947, appearing in four games.  he had no record with an era of 11.81.

dave foutz

not often you see a necktie on a baseball card.  foutz was with the brooklyn franchise starting in 1888,  two years before the bridegrooms joined the nl, and so was an original national league brooklyn-ite.  he stayed with the team as a player through 1896.  he also was a pitcher, but spent most of his time with brooklyn as a first baseman and outfielder.  oh, he was also the team's third manager, leading the team from 1893 though 1896 when both his playing and managing careers came to a simultaneous end, reportedly due to difficulties with asthma. sadly, he died at the age of 40 shortly thereafter.

john hale

that's a pretty good photo used on hale's card.  hale was an outfielder on the dodgers from 1974 until late in the 1977 season when the dodgers put him on waivers and he was claimed by the blue jays.  two weeks later, the mariners purchased his contract, and he spent 1978 and 79 with the m's.  as a dodger, he started out with a bang.  he was 4 for 4 in his first big league appearances in 1974 - his first big league at bat came against jr richard, and resulted in a double for hale.  hale was the team's fourth outfielder in 1975 behind bill buckner, jim wynn, and willie crawford, but wasn't able to crack the starting lineup even with the departure of those three because of the arrival of their replacements - dusty baker, reggie smith, and rick monday.

joe judge

judge had spent 18 seasons with the washington senators, including their two pennant winning teams, before joining the dodgers for the 1933 season.  as a dodger, judge played in 42 games and hit just .214.  he was released by the team and returned to the american league as a member of the boston red sox.

mike kekich

another dodger stadium backdrop!  kekich is best known by me as one of three 'other' dodgers featured on jim lefebvre's 1965 topps rookie card.  truth is, he spent 9 years in the majors, mostly as a yankee.  he debuted for the dodgers in 1965 as a 20-year old and was 0-1 in 5 appearances.  he returned to the big leagues in 1968 and went 2-10 in 25 games.  following the season, he was dealt to the yankees for andy kosco.

bob kennedy

bob kennedy ended his big league playing career with 19 appearances for the brooklyn dodgers in 1957.  in fact, he made the final out in the dodgers' last game as the brooklyn dodgers, a fly out to end the 1957 season.  like kekich, i remember kennedy more for a 1965 topps card - the one that shows him as 'head coach' because the cubs used a group of coaches rather than a manager for a season or two.

rudy law

law debuted with the dodgers as a september call-up in 1978.  he returned to the majors in 1980 as the club's primary center fielder and stole 40 bases.  unfortunately, the dodgers went out and traded for ken landreaux and so law spent the team's 1981 championship season in the minors.  law was traded to the white sox prior to the 1982 season, and made the postseason that year with chicago.

ramon martinez

martinez debuted during the dodgers' memorable 1988 season, but didn't appear in the postseason.  he soon became the team's ace, winning 20 games in 1990.  his 1314 strikeouts as a dodger are good for 8th all-time in franchise history, but he should be passed by clayton kershaw here in the next few weeks.

chappie mcfarland

mcfarland earned this card by making one start for the brooklyn superbas in 1906.  he pitched a complete game, but unfortunately it was a loss in which he allowed 8 earned runs.  that game was not only the sum of his brooklyn career, it was the end of his big league career that had begun in 1902.

johnny mitchell

mitchell spent the 1924 and 1925 seasons with the brooklyn robins.  he hit .256 as one of the team's shortstops, playing in a total of 161 games as a robin.

howie schultz

schultz broke in with the dodgers in 1943, playing first base.  he played in over 300 games for the dodgers at that position until he was replaced by jackie robinson in 1947.  the dodgers dealt him to the phillies early on in the 1947 season.  after retiring from baseball following the 1948 season, schultz went on to play in the nba with his hometown minneapolis lakers.

tracy woodson

woodson played for the dodgers from 1987 into 1989.  he was a member of the 1988 world champions, getting into four of the five world series games that year against the a's.  in fact, woodson drove in what wound up being the game winning run of the dodgers' game 4 4-3 victory that put them up 3 games to 1.

why acquire aguirre?

hank aguirre was traded to the dodgers in april of 1968.  he had pitched for the tigers for 10 seasons before heading west to los angeles, and led the american league in era in 1962.  aguirre was the victime of bad timing when it came to the postseason, as he broke in to the big leagues with cleveland in 1955, one year after they had been in the world series, and his departure from detroit came in the spring before they would win the fall classic against the cardinals.  

he spent one year with the dodgers and was featured on a 1969 topps card still wearing detroit duds. 

topps took the easy way out and airbrushed out the 'd' on aguirre's hat, but they didn't bother to remove the one on his chest.  aguirre pitched well for the dodgers in '68; he had a 0.69 era in 39 innings of work, but they released him at the end of the season anyway. he wound up pitching for the cubs in 1969 and 1970.  but, because the text at the bottom of his card says 'dodgers', this is a card i will keep.  even if it's a cub in tigers' clothing.

aguirre wasn't the only dodger in 1969 to be caught wearing american league threads.  take andy kosco, for example.  he's wearing yankee pinstripes on his 1969 topps card

this is not as bad as the aguirre, though, as kosco was traded to the dodgers in december of 1968, so he hadn't worn the dodger uniform prior to this card being released.

both the aguirre and the kosco came to me recently via tim wallach.  not the dodgers' third base coach, but rather corey who is trying to collect all of tim wallach's baseball cards.  not just one of each, but all of them.

he also included a 2010 topps heritage hiroki kuroda relic

and a couple of 1974 topps set for my set.

as well as this 2012 topps cut above insert of matt kemp

i think i will take a page out of corey's playbook and ask that people send me their matt kemp cards.  all of them.

thanks for the trade corey!

is there anything better than vintage bargain bins?

well, obviously, there is. but vintage bargain bins are still pretty great. i ventured out to one of the local card shows a week or so ago, and spent most of my time digging through cards that were made before i was born. here's what i came up with.

1963 topps nl batting leaders, featuring tommy davis.not bad company for the 3-dog to be in. this was a buck as the front is a bit scuffed, but still, aaron, musial, frobby, and a dodger (and bill white, of course). awesome.

1959 topps danny mcdevitt

one of the few non-yellow 1959 topps dodger cards. 1959 was mcdevitt's 'career' year - he set personal bests in wins (10), complete games (6), saves (4) and strikeouts (106).

speaking of yellow 1959 topps dodgers, here's a 1959 topps charlie neal.1959 was a big year for charlie, too. career highs in runs, hits, doubles, triples (he led the league with 11), rbi and stolen bases. charlie was an all-star, won a gold glove, finished 8th in the mvp balloting and hit .370 in the world series to boot.

1959 topps joe pignatano.joe is a cousin of pete falcone. he was john roseboro's backup in 1959.

1960 fleer branch rickey.technically not a dodger, but still.

1960 fleer wilbert robinson.'uncle robbie' managed the brooklyn robins from 1914 to 1931, winning two pennants. they were the dodgers for one year prior to his taking over as manager, and then renamed the 'robins' after the new manager. when robinson retired, they went back to being known as the 'dodgers'.

1960 fleer dazzy vance.dazzy won 190 games for brooklyn over 12 seasons. he won a world series with st louis in 1934. if you think he looks rough, you should see the zach wheat card from this set.

1960 fleer arky vaughan.best known as a pirate, this hall of famer finished his career with 4 years in brooklyn. he lost 3 years during his time in brooklyn to what i assume to be military service.

1964 topps bob miller.looks like bob is playing catch in the front yard.

1964 topps frank howard.hondo without his glasses. 1964 was his final year with the dodgers, although topps would show him with the blue on his 1965 card.

1964 topps wes parker/john werhas.wes parker stuck, but john werhas appeared in only 40 games over three seasons with the dodgers. to my knowledge, he did not appear on 'batman' or 'the brady bunch'. game, set, match parker.

1965 topps jim brewer.no relation to bernie.

1965 topps johnny podres.1965 was podres' last full year with the dodgers. he was sent to detroit after appearing in just one game for the dodgers in 1966.

1966 topps john roseboro.roseboro is best known for taking over the catching for campanella and for getting struck in the head by juan marichal's bat. he also won his second gold glove in 1966, but went just 1 for 14 in the world series against the orioles that year.

1968 topps hank aguirre.1968 was aguirre's only year with the dodgers. he appeared in 25 games and had 3 saves.

1969 topps nl strikeout leaders bill singer.and two other guys. singer had 227 strikeouts in 1968 and led the league with a 8k/9ip ratio.

now we get to the less-vintage (meaning cards i was alive for)

1976 topps steve rogers.slowly making progress on the 1976 set.

1977 topps roy hartsfield and coaches.i like the variation. i thought i had this and the mariners version, but i didn't. still looking for the mariners version.

1978 topps lou piniella.

a 1978 topps yankee/yankee stadium shot card that is not a) a game action shot or b) taken in front of the 'brut' sign.

and now for something completely modern.

2007 topps chrome chad billingsley blue refractor.blue refractors rule.

2008 donruss threads steve garvey parallel #d to something or other

my inner joe collector came through for this one.

there you have it. i'm ready for more bargain bins.