a partial run through the 1998 mother's cookies dodger set

earlier today i posted some cards from the 1997 mother's cookies dodger team set.  it was the first year that the set went away from full-bleed photos, and the 1998 set followed suit.  here's glenn hoffman's lone card as the dodger skipper.

tripp cromer gets a dodger card

thanks to this set - one of two cromer as a dodger cards that i have (the other comes from the 1999 keebler dodgers set)

mark guthrie

joined the dodgers in the 1995 trade that sent ron coomer to the twins and brought kevin tapani to los angeles. he pitched for the dodgers in 205 games over 4 seasons, but the only cards i have of him in a dodger uniform come from this set, the 1996 leaf signature series set, and the 1998 pacific online set.

the same goes for darren hall

who pitched in 83 games for the dodgers over 3 years, and trenidad hubbard

except that his dodger cards are limited to this set, the '99 keebler set, and the '98 pacific online release.

scott radinsky shows up in these sets, plus the pacific online set as a dodger, and he

almost had a 1999 fleer card as a dodger, but i had to settle for a cardinal wearing a dodger uniform.

i'll end this post with the coaches

john shelby replaced reggie smith as the first base coach, but charlie hough took over for dave wallace, so the number of players from the team of my youth on the staff remains the same.  mickey hatcher shows up in place of longtime coach mark cresse although he was the hitting coach.  1998 was cresse's last year as the bullpen coach, but he didn't make the card for some reason.  rick dempsey took over for cresse as the bullpen coach in 1999.

a series of signatures

finding an autographed card in a pack of cards was still a relatively new thing in 1996, and leaf took the idea to an extreme that year with their signature series set.  it was the first set to offer an autographed card in every pack.  i did not partake back then, but over the past few years i have picked up many of the dodgers from the set.  it's nice to see on-card autos of the 'gritty' players and loogys and other roster filler types that don't usually get any 'hit' love.  it makes sense - the only way to keep the cost down for a set like that is to fill the checklist with the salt of the earth types.

here's chad fonville

little chad went on a tear in 1995 after coming over from the expos.  dude played everywhere, stole some bases, and was generally a sparkplug.  hit .500 in the nlds, too - 6 for 12 against the reds.  1996 was not as exciting, however.

darren dreifort

so much potential, too many injuries.

roger cedeno

after not showing much as a part-time outfielder for the dodgers, cedeno had a big year for the mets in 1999 - .313 average, 66 steals in 155 games - but the dodgers had arnold gooch.  ok, they had todd hundley, too.

tom candiotti

the candy man was 7-14 with a 3.50 era for a first place team in 1995.  that's weird.  ramon martinez was 17-7 with a 3.66 era.  it turns out that the dodgers scored 1 run or less in 11 of candiotti's starts that year.  of course, he also got shellacked a few times.

pedro astacio

or, as we called him, pistachio.  get crackin'.  the only pitcher i was ever able to 'throw' a no-hitter with in all my years of playing tony larussa baseball (and later the mvp baseball series) by ea sports.

later in the year, leaf put out an extended series with even more obscure players on the checklist.

here's carlos hernandez

although i don't know what last name he signed there.  there is no 'i' in hernandez.

dave hansen

pinch hitter extraordinaire

darren hall

hall pitched for the dodgers over the course of three seasons, but has very few cards to show for it.  such is the life of a middle reliever in the 1990's.

john cummings

cummings was a dodger for the last part of the 1995 season and the first part of the 1996 campaign.  he also only has one or two dodger cards to his name.

and then there is mark guthrie

guthrie joined the dodgers as part of the kevin tapani trade in 1995.  he wound up pitching in 205 games for the blue over the course of 4 seasons.  all that, and this is just one of two cards of him put out by major manufacturers showing him as a dodger - the other being from the good ol' 1998 pacific online set.

before there was topps total, there was pacific online

in 1998, pacific tried to connect baseball cards to the interwebs, without the crappy mini-cd that upper deck was putting out with their powerdeck release.  pacific online cards included a link that you could type in and then visit a page for that player.  no need for the stats on the back when you could type in a ridiculously long web address, wait for your dial-up, and get to the stats 10 minutes later.

what i did (and still do) like about the set, however, is how inclusive it was.  800 cards meant that everyone but joe shlabotnik was featured.  and, since 1998 was around the time when the dodgers were employing a bunch of short term out of place guys, the pacific online set is obscure dodger gold.  look at the back of the team checklist:

wait, let me enlarge it.

jim bruske?!? mike devereaux in a return to dodger blue!  thomas howard was a dodger?  darren hall?  tom prince - love the backup catcher love!  even the loogys - scott radinsky and mark guthrie (featured at the top of the post) are included.  that is just fan-freaking awesome.  it sucks not to have a card of brent leach or russell mitchell these days.

here's the front of the checklist just so sheff can't complain.

here's to you 1998 pacific online. even if your player sites are no longer active.