does raul mondesi regret his tattoo, and other random musings

while it is true that raul mondesi had a cannon for an arm, i wonder if the cannon tattoo visible on his 1998 upper deck card

was fully thought out.  from one angle it looks like a cannon, although the fuse is still lit even though the cannon has discharged, and from another angle one might mistake it for some sort of rocket. or something else, i suppose.

the back of that card is pretty interesting, too, as we have pylons and a car in the background.

i'm also curious about mondesi's 1996 fleer emotion xl card, although it's no fault of his that the emotion fleer slapped on there is 'pounding'

i don't feel pounding.  or tardy, for that matter.  what was fleer thinking?

along the same lines of lack of thought, here are a few other cards that i've scanned without a real purpose. although i suppose you could say that i scanned them for inclusion in a random cards from my scanned folder post, so there was a purpose. whatever.

1987 topps orel hershiser

1990 donruss mickey hatcher

1992 score rookie and traded carlos hernandez

1997 topps stadium club pedro astacio

2007 topps heritage derek lowe

2009 upper deck o-pee-chee scott elbert black parallel

and 2012 bowman chrome prospects jt wise

as in wise enough to not consider 'pounding' to be an emotion?

a common mistake

i recently took a quick look at justcommons.com and saw some cheaply priced dodger relics.  i quickly snapped up a few from 2013 topps' chasing history insert set - carl crawford

adrian gonzalez

and gary sheffield

except i didn't realize that sheff had chasing history cards for the yankees (and the marlins) as well as the dodgers.  oops.  i wish that the site had photos of the cards like comc does.

i also picked up a 2003 bowman draft & prospects joe thurston bat

and a 2005 topps pristine scott elbert sticker auto

elbert missed most of 2013 due to injury, but did pitch a few games in the minors.

to finish off the package, i snagged a couple of josh willingham autos from 2013 panini pinnacle

and prizm

i won't keep these for too long - i had a couple other collectors in mind when i purchased these.

overall, i will probably still gravitate to sportlots most of the time, but might return to justcommons - as long as i know who is a dodger and who isn't.

what a difference not quite a year makes

before 2013 topps update gets here, i guess i should get last year's update cards out of the purgatory that is my scanned folder.  i have shown a few of the dodger cards that i picked up out of last year's release, but never got around to showcasing these for some reason.  hopefully in a couple of weeks i will have cards of yasiel puig, michael young, ricky nolasco, and maybe even a non-ssp nick punto to show.  but first, 2012 takes the stage.

here's hanley

and his 'blockbusters' insert

hanley was the biggest dodger acquisition in the set that wasn't a ridiculous super short print.  i still don't have any of those, nor do i expect to ever have any.  those four cards are the only holes in my dodger topps flagship/update team sets from 1956 to date.  stupid shenanigans, topps.

there was another blockbuster involving a guy named ramirez, too

and then there were the all-star game cards - clayton kershaw

and matt kemp

plus kemp's home run derby card

this year, only kershaw will be featured.  assuming topps continues to make all-star cards a part of the update set.

on to the 'traded' or at least the more traditional part of update - here's jamey wright

wright joined the dodgers as a free agent and left as a free agent after the season ended.  he's currently in tampa bay where he put together a pretty decent season for the rays.

shane victorino

in victorino's third term with the dodger organization, he actually appeared in the majors wearing dodger blue for the first time.  for 53 games of the flyin' hawaiian, the dodgers gave up ethan martin and josh lindblom, plus a minor leaguer.  these days, victorino is in the postseason with the red sox.

matt treanor

became a free agent after the season ended and did not sign with another team.

matt guerrier

was sent to the cubs this year for carlos marmol.  guerrier pitched in 15 games for chicago, and had a 2-1 record with a 2.13 era in those appearances.  he's a free agent now (or will be once the postseason is done) and i hope he lands somewhere.

scott elbert

topps gave us a flagship card of elbert in 2009, but since then we have only seen him in 2012 update.  i would assume that he shows up again this year, as he pitched for the dodgers in 43 games, but we will have to wait and see.

elian herrera

herrera won't be back in update, as he only appeared in 4 games for the dodgers in 2013.

brandon league

was included in the flagship set this year.  he's got two more years, plus an option for 2016, on his contract with the dodgers.

aj ellis, et al.

that's a fun card.  here's the gold parallel

and the other parallel

lastly, here's the jackie robinson 1987 mini

perhaps topps will once again give us update minis this year.  i am actually looking forward to the release of update.  i might even buy a box for the first time in years.

what's this guy doing here?

i recently picked up a few lots of dodger autos and relics on the cheap.  in amongst the dodger goodness of one lot was this 2011 bowman platinum auto of clint robinson

clint robinson happens to be a member of the kansas city royals' organization.  he debuted this past season and was dfa'd just a few days ago.  bummer.

on to the dodger stuff - there was this 2009 topps 206 autograph of scott elbert

i get elbert and eric stults mixed up all the time.  elbert is still with the dodgers while stults is down in san diego.

there were also a couple of cards from 2009 topps ticket to stardom.  first, here's a chad billingsley jersey and ticket stub card

topps makes this too easy.  on june 22, 2008, chad billingsley got the win against the indians.  i was totally not expecting that - kudos to topps for matching up the ticket stub with the appropriate player.  as an aside, the dodgers' starting second baseman that day was someone named luis maza.

now let's check out this russell martin card from the same set

on june 10, 2008, russell martin was 3 for 5 with 3 rbi as the dodgers beat the padres 7-2.  not sure who's rear that is on the padres' ticket stub, but greg maddux started the game for the pads.  the leg kick looks too high to be maddux.  the dodgers' starter that evening was clayton kershaw, who was making his 4th career start.  neither pitcher figured in the decision.

here's a 2009 tristar projections josh lindblom auto

tristar did not project that lindblom would be traded to the phillies for a shane victorino rental.

also from 2009, here's an upper deck sp authentic james mcdonald autographed card

hindsight is 20/20, but this was another bad trade by ned. he sent mcdonald and andrew lambo to the pirates in 2010 for octavio dotel.  a month and a half later, ned flipped dotel to the rockies for a non-prospect minor league outfielder.

here's a prospect that ned hasn't traded away yet - angelo songco - on a 2001 donruss elite card

songco might make the jump to aa this year.  i hope he is able to bounce back from his leg injury that limited his production last year.

finally, we have an andre ethier relic card from 2011 topps update

it's from one of those workout jerseys that only exist to populate relic cards that wind up going for cheap in a team lot.  like this one.

um, yeah. update is live.

i swung by the target near my work at quitting time to see if, by chance, they had any 2012 topps update lying around.  they sure did.  i picked up a blaster and a rack pack.  i was lucky enough to pull this card out of the rack pack

that's one of those pesky short print variations.  it's ichiro and it's a yankee, so i scanned the back as i knew i wouldn't be owning it for too long

sure enough, it sold about two hours after i listed it on ebay.  it's too bad that it wasn't the matt kemp or clayton kershaw sp, though.  or even the cc sabathia one with matt kemp sitting next to him.  still, ichiro covered the costs and then some of the cards i picked up, so that means all of these were free.

here's a red parallel of kershaw's regular card in the set

 as well as a red version of fellow lefty scott elbert's card

 i also pulled the regular version of elbert

i did pretty well as far as dodgers go, which is a change for me.  one of the reasons i stopped buying packs was because i wasn't getting any dodgers.  literally.  i'm glad i lifted my self-imposed moratorium today.  because, otherwise, i wouldn't have been able to show you the jerry hairston card i pulled.

it's still weird to see number 6 out there.

here's matt kemp's home run derby card

kind of a checklist waste, but whatever.

shane victorino as a dodger

i am still not a fan of that trade at all.

i also got a juan rivera gold card

i thought rivera was in series 2.  wasn't he?  yes he was.  not sure what's going on here.

that's a pretty good dodger haul, but there was more.  there were a couple of dodgers lurking, like bobby abreu on cody ransom's card

 and dee gordon on former dodger ryan theriot's card

 and, i should have had another dodger had topps realized that randy choate

 was included in the hanley ramirez deal.  they've got hanley in dodger blue, and nathan eovaldi

in marlins colors, but i guess they forgot that choate also changed teams.

there were a couple of cool double play cards in my packs, too.  i really like this jamey carroll card

it's better than this john mcdonald card

even though the photos are very similar.

i wasn't really looking for bryce harper, although he was there on rick ankiel's card

seems like an excuse to get harper on another card, if you ask me.  ankiel was released at the end of july.  typically, that would mean he wouldn't make the final checklist cut.  but, with harper in the picture, anything is possible.

i did pull a harper card in one of the last packs i opened.

pretty sure that's dodger stadium he's playing in, which would make sense since he debuted in la on april 28.

as luck would have it, i pulled two gold parallels of that card, too.

each blaster comes with a manupatch again, and while i didn't get the hanley patch, i did get yu darvish

this will probably go the way of the ichiro unless someone out there is interested.

overall, i'm pretty happy that i stopped at target.  take a bow, ichiro, for providing me with some free cards.