adding some heart and soul to my collection

paul loduca ranks pretty high on my list of least favorite dodgers.  part of it stems from the reaction that jim tracy had after loduca was traded to the marlins in 2004 for brad penny and hee seop choi.  tracy broke down, saying that loduca was the heart and soul of the team, and even wound up switching his uniform number to 16 to honor the departed catcher.  i think tracy wound up taking his frustration out on poor hee seop.  anyway, i don't dislike loduca enough to keep him out of my collection, and this 2003 playoff piece of the game auto/relic card will attest to that.

it was one of many cards in a dodger lot i recently purchased on the cheap.  the lot also included this 2004 playoff absolute memorabilia auto of jason frasor

frasor was acquired by the dodgers from the tigers in 2002 but never appeared in a big league game wearing dodger blue. he was dealt to the blue jays for jayson werth prior to the 2004 season.  jim tracy didn't mind that trade as much, since he was stockpiling ja(y)sons (werth, phillips, repko, and grabowski) and the net ja(y)son loss in that deal was zero.

there were a couple of eric gagne relics in the lot - this one from 2004 bowman sterling

and this one from 2006 upper deck

darren dreifort was the highest draft pick the dodgers have ever had.  he was taken second overall in the 1993 june draft right after alex rodriguez.  this is a 1993 classic four sport autographed card

i wonder if dreifort would have had more success and fewer injuries had the dodgers kept him in the bullpen, although you don't use the number 2 pick on a reliever.

the previous year, one of the dodgers' first round picks had been ryan luzinski, seen here on something i believe to be a 1995 signature rookies autographed card

luzinski was a sandwich pick as the dodgers' compensation pick for the loss of eddie murray who signed a free agent deal with the mets (luzinski was selected a few spots ahead of johnny damon, for what it's worth).  it's worth noting that the dodgers' regular first round pick was lost to the blue jays thanks to the tom candiotti signing.  the jays took shannon stewart with that pick.

fast forward ten years, and the dodgers selected greg miller with their 2002 sandwich pick as compensation for the loss of chan ho park (james loney was the team's regular first round pick that year).  like luzinski, miller never made it to the bigs, but he did get a relic card in upper deck's 2002 prospect premieres issue

miller was looking like the real deal in 2003, but he ran in to shoulder problems and missed all of 2004. he returned to the dodgers' minor league system in 2005, but was never able to regain his control or finesse.

finally, here's a 2006 bowman heritage bat card of rafael furcal

furcal replaced cesar izturis as the dodgers' shortstop just as grady little was replacing jim tracy as manager.  and, as far as i can remember, little didn't freak out when izturis was traded to the cubs for greg maddux.  he must not have been the team's heart and soul.

from alston to young to me from someone

one day last week i got a couple of card packages in the mail, which, as you all can imagine, is not a rare occurrence. one of the packages, however, had me stumped.  there was a return address, but no name, and there was nothing inside the envelope other than a big brick of dodger cards.  no note.  i put that issue aside and delved into the cards.  they were provided in alphabetical order by last name, and while it wasn't aase to zimmer, it was close.  the first thing i saw was walter alston's mug.

this is a 2005 topps 'dem bums' insert card

it's cool because smokey didn't have a card in the 1955 topps set.  he did get a 1955 style card in the 1995 topps brooklyn dodger archives set, but it was different than the one above.

next up is adrian beltre

on a 2004 donruss career stat line card.  it's numbered to 262 since beltre's career batting average after the 2003 season was .262.  it's too bad it wasn't numbered /1 which would have been the number of botched appendectomies beltre had undergone.  i am compelled to remind everyone that beltre finished 2nd in the national league mvp vote in 2004 behind barry bonds, whose obp that year was .609!  good golly miss molly that's a high obp.

here's barry's former teammate bobby bonilla on a 1999 fleer tradition warning track parallel

it's actually a mets card, but i'll hang on to it.

i did not know anything about bob borkowski before i received this card

he was included in the 1955 topps set, but as a cincinnati red.  in fact, check out his card - it looks a lot like this one, as does his card from the 1995 archive set.  borkowski was the player the dodgers received in exchange for joe black.  he appeared in 9 games for the team in 1955, but did not appear in the postseason.

if this 1995 score 'hall of gold' card weren't so shiny,

you would see that delino deshields is turning two.  i wonder if there is a non-gold version of the card.  hall of glossy, maybe?

here's another shiny card, a 2004 ud reflections card of jason frasor

frasor was one of two pitchers that the dodgers acquired from the tigers in 2002 for hiram bocachica.  they flipped him in 2004 to the blue jays for jayson werth.

this 1996 fleer ultra greg gagne gold medallion card

scans better than it looks in person.  at first i thought it was a card from a pacific set.

much nicer is this 2000 fleer ultra todd hundley gold medallion card

i did a little bit of research on the address, and determined that the package (of which i will show more later) was sent to me by eutaw street cardboard as part of his 'name your team' promotion.  thanks kent!

your honors, your honor

i have been in fairly serious organizing mode lately - a side effect of trying to get the 'greatest double play card of all time' tournament set up.  anyway, i came across some cards from the 2004 playoff honors set that i hadn't previously seen, like this jason frasor card.

frasor is the guy we traded away to get jayson werth from the blue jays back in 2004.  i think rookie cards were short prints in the 2004 playoff honors set, so i'm not surprised that i was surprised by this card in 2012.  frasor pitched for the jays until last year, when he was sent to the white sox.  he's back with toronto now, however.

there were a number of inserts and subsets with this set - here's a card from the 'awards' insert set, this one featuring the 1988 national league cy young award winner

they even recycled the photo for the prime signatures insert set

my copy, of course, is without the signature.  i'm not sure why they issued non-signed versions as the card is clearly meant to be signed.

here's why i was pondering the 2004 playoff honors cards in the first place - double plays.  like rafael furcal

before he was a dodger, and his double play partner marcus giles

with a kneeling umpire.

derek jeter has a dp card too

which was certainly taken during the 2003 world series since that's juan pierre sliding in head first to try to break up the double play.  while i'm thinking of pierre, he got a pretty nice card in the set as well

which is similar to nomad's card

i am left to wonder, however, why playoff didn't put the player names and positions on the bottom of the landscape cards.  they rotated the team logos, but the cards would have been a bit better if everything were oriented properly. in my opinion anyway.

back to organizing.  who knows what else i will uncover...