more cards from night owl, plus a contest

there were too many good cards sent my way by night owl to be contained to a single post, so here are some more.

this 1996 select certified wilton guerrero card

actually shows roger cedeno

1994 topps traded chan ho park

this is park, obviously, and it looks like he's pitching in a high school stadium

speaking of high school, here's a 2012 panini triple play matt kemp when i was a kid card

the back is all about how basketball was kemp's primary sport until late in his high school years.  now, is this card better than the early 70's topps boyhood photos of the stars subsets?  maybe.  but then again, maybe a black and white picture of kemp posterizing some kid under the basket would have been ok, too.

2003 topps bazooka paul loduca relic

2004 topps clubhouse collection chin-feng chen relic

2004 topps traded edwin jackson relic

2007 bowman heritage jeff kent relic

and 2008 topps brad penny relic

night owl was purging his relics, and i was one of the beneficiaries.

like i said, a lot of good cards there.  speaking of good cards, i've been meaning to have another contest of sorts.  i have a lot of good cards to trade.  you may have some dodgers you want to get rid of.  and, there are a lot of good cards up in my header.  just in case you aren't looking at the web version of the blog, here's my header, or at least the cards:

and here's the contest.

i count 31 cards in my header.  all you have to do is identify them.  get it right, and i'll send you up to 9 pre-1980 cards from the team of your choice in a pwe.  you can send one or two dodger cards back, if you like, but it's not required. heck, i'll probably send cards just for trying since there are a couple of obscured cards, plus a tricky one in there.  to make things easier, i've set up a key for the header:

you should be able to click that to get a larger version, but let me know if you need me to email it to you.  speaking of email, you can send your list (and mailing address) to me at gcrlatcomcastdotnet, and please do so by noon pacific on saturday the 25th.  good luck.  and thanks for the cards, night owl!

anybody know what time it is?

well, looking at tommy lasorda's wristwatch on this 2013 panini usa baseball champions card,

i'd say it's time for some random cards from the scanned folder.  seriously, though; when is the last time you saw a watch on a baseball card?  do managers really wear watches?

here's a 1997 pinnacle select todd hollandsworth card

holly can rest easy - recent dodger call-up erisbel arruebarrena's last name is one letter shorter than hollandsworth (the longest surname in team history).  the letters will still go armpit to armpit, though.

1999 topps finest mark grudzielanek

arruebarrena has as many letters as grudzielanek, but doesn't seem as difficult to pronounce.

2002 upper deck diamond collection chin-feng chen

chen was a highly touted foreign prospect in the dodger minor league system.  hopefully arruebarrena finds greater success at the big league level than did chen - he was just 2 for 22 in his major league career.

2003 upper deck mvp kevin brown/curt schilling game used base relic card

somewhat strange to have a base relic card with pitchers on the front.  what's even stranger is that the back of the card notes that the bases came from edison international field, aka the big 'a' in anaheim.  what the cuss?

2006 fleer tradition rafael furcal

furky hasn't appeared in the majors since 2012 (he was hurt for the entire 2013 season), but he's rehabbing in the marlins minor league system.  meanwhile, jeremy hazelbaker (the guy the dodgers got for alex castellanos which was the guy they got for furcal) is 26 with only 10 letters in his last name, but is hitting around .300 in double-a.

2008 upper deck sweet spot manny ramirez relic

this is really a red sox card with the dodgers logo on it.  2008 and mannywood seems like so long ago…

2013 bowman andre ethier blue parallel

and 2013 topps chrome refractor

it's still hard to believe that billy beane traded ethier for milton bradley and antonio perez.  the a's did reach the alcs with bradley in 2006, but perez was released and bradley was sent to the padres for former dodger andrew brown (the second time he had been traded for bradley) in 2007.  meanwhile, ethier has put up some nice seasons for the dodgers.  it's enough to make me want the dh in the national league so that ethier and carl crawford can both get their at bats.

random enough for you?

the only card that would reach me was this card of the preacher man

it helps if you channel your inner dusty springfield when you read that title.

i was too late to claim the fantastic 1954 bowman don newcombe card that joe at the sandlot used as trade bait, but i was able to claim this 1953 topps preacher roe card.

i was able to obtain that slice of cardboard goodness for some ny metropolitans that joe needed.  he added a few other cards to the package, including this 1998 topps gallery eric young card

that does a better job of correlating the subject and the text (in this case, 'expressionists') than fleer did with their emotion releases.  not quite the same concept, i know, but still.  night owl sent me an emotions card (trade post coming soon) of raul mondesi that said 'pounding' on it.

this 2008 bowman chrome prospects jaime pedroza card was also part of the trade fodder

pedroza made it to aa for the dodgers in 2010 and 2011, and spent the last two seasons in the braves organization.  2014 will be his age 27 season, so the clock is ticking on this prospect.

here's a james mcdonald 2009 topps card

mcdonald was traded to the pirates at the trade deadline in 2011 for short-timer octavio dotel.  he is currently a free agent after a disappointing second half in 2012 and a shortened season in 2013.  he's only 28, and it would seem that he is worth a flyer.  i'm hoping he lands somewhere and returns to his early 2011 form.

here's a true 'prospects' card from 2001 topps opening day

back then, these were three of the hottest prospects around.  i was super excited about chin-feng chen, and i know cub fans were drooling over the corey patterson hype.  and then there was the number 1 pick josh hamilton.  unfortunately for the dodgers, chen was a bust.  patterson has managed to have a career in the big leagues, and of course josh hamilton pulled things together and has had the greatest success of this prospect triumvirate.

last but not least, joe included a 2013 topps chipz clayton kershaw chip.  it had the dodger logo sticker on it

kershaw was underneath

 here's the back, just to be complete about things.

i bought a pack or two of these things but got rid of the ones i pulled - either by trade or sale - since they weren't dodgers.  i'll hang on to kershaw.

thanks for the trade joe!

more wax cracked

here are some more cards i scored from topher's charity box break held a few months back.

2005 topps carl erskine (on-card) certified auto

i am almost certain that topps used this design for their certified autos over a couple of different years.  it makes sense, i suppose.

here's a good ol' base card from 2005 topps - shawn green

sadly, greenie had played his last game for the dodgers when that card came out.

speaking of playing their last game, darren dreifort's 2005 topps card was his final tribute.  here's the back, with his complete career stats

here's a what-if.  what if the dodgers kept dreifort in the bullpen in 1998 instead of moving him to the rotation.  does he become an elite closer?  i think he had the stuff.  if so, do the dodgers still trade paul konerko for jeff shaw?  would konerko have become the player he did if he had stayed?  who knows.  if i recall correctly, the feeling was that dreifort was being paid too much to be a reliever.  unfortunately, the injuries got the best of him.  he wound up earning just under a million bucks per big league win.

here's a 'dem bums' insert from 2005 topps of duke snider

i don't have his real 1955 topps card.  yet.

from 2005 topps rookie cup i received a dave lopes 1974 topps reprint.  here's the back

the first item is interesting.  at what point did lopes break up those no-hitters?  he may well have led off each game with a hit, thus ending the no-no in the first inning each time.

2005 bowman jeff kent 1st edition

unfortunately, i didn't get a matt kemp rookie from the box.

i did get a card of former dodger mega-hyped prospect chin-feng chen from 2004 bowman chrome

and then a card of kemp from 2007 topps heritage

still looking for a bowman bison rookie, though.

finally, from the 2013 topps series 2 box, topher pulled this beauty for me.  a sandy koufax cut to the chase die-cut card

thanks topher! hope you do another one of these soon!

thorzulian group break bonanza!

it's a good thing when a plan comes together.  i had been essentially shut out of any hits (or many cards at all, for that matter) in some of thorzul's recent group breaks.  then along came his 2004 topps clubhouse collection and upper deck sp legendary cuts break.  i dutifully picked the dodgers, and wasn't disappointed.

first, the clubhouse collection:

here's chin feng chen

and his '20-sided die' jersey piece.  chen was at one time my baseball salvation, the guy who was going to bring the dodgers back to relevance.  he was replaced in that role by joel guzman who in turned got replaced by matt kemp.  i haven't let kemp relinquish that role.  yet.

you know it wouldn't be an early 2000's release without shawn green, right?

green was at one time my favorite player who also happened to be on my favorite team.  if i had bought the packs with these two cards in it back in '04, i would have been pretty happy.  but wait, there's more

how about jackie robinson?

it's a bat piece instead of a jersey or pants or whatever, but it it very cool.  i appreciate how topps went with the dodgers logo circa the 1950's for this card.  that is some decent detail.
there were no hits for me from the legendary cuts box, but i'm not disappointed.  i did get a nice johnnie b. baker,

big d,

johnny podres,

and steven patrick garvey

to complete my haul.

thanks for hosting thorzul!