dodger (and other) cardboard from mets cardboard

what makes more sense than receiving a mike piazza dodger card from justin at mets cardboard? not much.  i sent him a bunch of mets, and he sent me some dodgers and other good stuff for my collection.  here's the aforementioned strongest man in socal on a 1993 topps stadium club card

i don't know the full story of piazza switching from number 25 to 31, but i know it had to do with time wallach signing with the dodgers for the 1993 season.  i wonder how much wallach had to give to get the number from piazza.

here's a 1996 fleer joey eischen

part of the reason that i scanned this card was that i was pretty sure that eischen hadn't been shown on the blog before. he pitched in a total of 45 games for the dodgers over the course of the 1995 and 1996 seasons, and non-closing relievers weren't showing up on a lot of cards back then.  but then i remembered that he made his debut on the blog as part of a mother's cards post earlier this year.

1996 skybox dugout axcess eric young axcess airlines frequent flyer insert

i don't care much for card companies when they misspell things on purpose, like 'axcess'.  or 'authentix', as is the case on this 2002 fleer authentix shawn green power alley insert

however, if those cards featured the dodger stadium murals like this 2003 fleer focus jersey edition shawn green card

i'd be more accepting of the spelling.  i'm not going to kick them out of my collection, mind you, but i'm  going to shake my head every time i see them.

2004 topps total robin ventura

the santa maria native finished up his career playing more first base than third base for the 2004 dodgers.  he also pitched in a game.

2008 topps finest hong-chi kuo autograph

always cool to find an auto card in a trade package.  it's also cool to find a card from a set that you're trying to finish, like this jr towles card from 2008 upper deck timeline.

there's been so little movement on my part with that set that it took me a moment to figure out why i was getting a card of an astro that wasn't a tatooine or double play card.  speaking of double play cards, justin sent a bunch of those, too, more than i showed last weekend.  i'll show the others that were new to my collection later.  thanks justin!

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.