sunday morning target dodgers

fourteen more from a sheet of fifteen (double dipping ray hayworth gets his own post later), courtesy the fine folks at twin cites based target who, for some reason, issued a set in 1990 featuring nearly all the players and managers to appear for the brooklyn/los angeles groom/bridegroom/superba/robin/dodger franchise.

let's kick this installment off with some mean muttonchops.

orlando alvarez

alvarez made his big league debut in 1973 as a pinch-hitter for charlie hough.  future dodger jerry reuss struck him out.  the next day, however, alvarez again was called upon to pinch-hit, and this time he doubled.  it would be his only hit as a dodger although he made two more pinch-hitting appearances that season, plus one in 1974 and four in 1975.  in fact, alvarez only played in the field as a dodger in one inning as a defensive replacement in 1974.  alvarez was traded to the angels on the eve of the 1976 season for ellie rodriguez.

george bell

no, not that george bell.  this bell was a pitcher who spent five seasons (1907-1911) in the majors, all with brooklyn.   the image on the card shows him in the 1909 superbas uniform, which matches the year that he had his only winning record (16-15).  the following year, bell led the league with 27 losses.  overall, he posted a 43-79 record in his career, with an era of 2.85.  the teams he played on just weren't very good.

john bolling

following a stint with the 1939 phillies, bolling pinch hit and played some first base for the 1944 brooklyn dodgers and did pretty well.  in 56 games, he hit .351 and made only 2 errors in 27 games spent in the field.  his season was cut short by military duty, and he chose to retire from baseball after a year in the minors following his service.

elmer brown

brown pitched for the superbas and robins during the 1913-1915 seasons.  over that span, he was 1-2 with a 3.66 era.

gilly campbell

campbell finished his major league career with the 1938 brooklyn dodgers.  he had previously played for the cubs and reds, and in 54 games as a dodger, he hit .246.  he spent the rest of his career in the minors, and while with the la angels of the pcl in the early 1940's, campbell had a small role in the film 'the pride of the yankees'.

ownie carroll

carroll, who had led the league in losses as a red in 1932, joined the dodgers for the 1933 season in a trade with the cardinals in which the dodgers gave up dazzy vance.  carroll went 13-15 with 11 complete games in 1933, and followed that up with a 1-3 record in 1934 when he was used primarily out of the bullpen.

cozy dolan

dolan played for the superbas in 1901 and 1902.  he led the league in games played, plate appearances, and at bats in 1902, hitting .280 in 141 games.  a converted pitcher, dolan played outfield and first base for brooklyn, although he did make a couple of appearances on the mound after leaving the superbas.  in 1907, during spring training with the boston braves, dolan contracted typhoid fever and passed away.  the braves wore a memorial black crepe bow on their uniforms that season - if only the t206 set had come out a year or two earlier, i might have been able to find a card with the bow for my memorials collection.

spider jorgensen

jorgensen made his big league debut on april 15, 1947 - the same day jackie robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball.  later in his career, jorgensen played for the new york giants in willie mays' first big league game.  in between, however, he put together a solid rookie campaign as the dodger third baseman, hitting .274 in 129 games.  an injury following the 1947 season limited jorgensen's playing time, and he appeared in only 86 more games for the dodgers before he was traded to the giants early in the 1950 season.  he retired following his release in 1951, and later became a scout for the cubs, signing mark grace among others.

tommy mccarthy

hall of famer mccarthy closed out his career with a single season in brooklyn.  playing for the 1896 bridegrooms, mccarthy hit .249 and stole 22 bases in 104 games.  he's probably one of the weaker hall of fame players - 1493 hits, .292 batting average - although he may have been recognized as a pioneer of the game as well.

jay partridge

partridge played for the robins in 1927 and 1928.  somewhere in there is a ornithological joke.  he hit .260 in 146 games as the robins' second baseman in 1927, but played in just 37 games the following year, hitting .247.

mike jeffrey ramsey

one of two mike j. ramseys to play for the dodgers, this one finished his big league career with 9 games as a dodger early in the 1985 season.  he hit .133 before being released in june, thus missing out on the opportunity to face his former club, the cardinals, in the nlcs.

harry riconda

during his lone season with brooklyn (1928), riconda appeared in a career high 92 games, hitting .224 with 3 of his 4 career home runs coming that season.  he was traded by the robins after the season to pittsburgh.

rosy ryan

ryan pitched in 30 games for the 1933 dodgers, all in relief.  a former starter for the formidable new york giant teams of the early 1920's, ryan was 1-1 for the dodgers in what would be his final big league season.

jimmy sebring

having previously played for the pirates and reds, sebring began the 1909 season, his fifth and as it would turn out, final season in the big leagues with the  superbas.  he hit .099 in 25 games before being released by the team.  he was signed by the senators and played in one more game that season.  during the following offseason, sebring died of bright's disease (nephritis) at the age of 27.  he is perhaps best known for hitting the first world series home run in history, taking cy young deep in the 1903 fall classic.

'o' no another group break

no surprise - i took the dodgers in ryan's latest group break at 'o' no another orioles blog. the cool thing is that i knew that i was guaranteed to get the entire dodger team from the 1998 fleer tradition update set, all of which were new to my collection.  here's my favorite of the bunch, adrian beltre's rookie (or is it x-rc?) card

i like cards that feature shots like this.  i may start a new type collection.  stay tuned.

here are a couple of the other dodgers in the set - mike metcalfe

and jeff shaw

metcalfe made his big league debut in 1998 by way of pinch hitting for juan castro in a september game against the giants.  robb nen struck him out.  he made three more appearances that season, all as a pinch runner, and had two stolen bases as a result.  he returned to the big leagues in 2000, when he collected his lone big league hit, an infield single off of jamie moyer.

ryan also busted some 1999 topps chrome, and i received this roger cedeno card as a result

looks like roger is breaking up a double play here.  very nice.

not so nice was kevin brown, but this 1999 upper deck hologrfx card is not too bad.

in fact, it's ausome, apparently.

2002 upper deck mvp was a favorite set of mine when it came out.  here's andy ashby

and some guy with the last name 'rookie'

no, that's victor alvarez.  i don't know why upper deck didn't stick with the player's name like the other cards. if only that silly rookie card logo had existed back then, maybe we would have had a consistent card design.

my second team in the break was the indians.  here's the worst card of the bunch - 2010 upper deck progressive field card

do you think they even bothered to roll down the window as they were driving by?

ryan also did me a favor and included this 2012 bowman dee gordon parallel that i coveted

thanks for the break and trade ryan!

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!

dot your i's, cross your t's, and put seams in your o's

when harmon killebrew passed away earlier this year, there was a lot of talk (at least locally) about how beautiful his signature was.  guys like joe nathan and michael cuddyer related stories about killer chastising them early in their career about their lazy and illegible autographs, inspiring them to sign with dignity, purpose, and above all, clarity.  apparently, killebrew also imparted his advice to joe mauer, but it didn't seem to stick.  anyway, for every killebrew there are legion scribblers.

some players do some fun stuff with their autographs, and i'm not talking about adding bible verses.  we've all seen pat neshek put seams in the 'p' in 'pat' and i am sure everyone knows about bill nahorodny and the way he dotted his 'i' with a baseball.  but what about short-term dodger victor alvarez?  are you familiar with his van halen-esque signature, complete with a 'seamed' o?

i wasn't until i stumbled across the 2002 donruss elite turn of the century auto (above) and the 2002 donruss studio private signings card below

alvarez pitched in 2002 and 2003 for the dodgers, amassing a career record of 0-2 in 9 games. still, his cards with the shiny stickers have to be worth something - at least in the novelty department.  i mean we're still talking about that 1980 bill nahorodny card 31 years later.  that's something for alvarez to be proud of and look forward to, right?