a smattering of dodger cards

it is time again for a post of random dodger cards from my collection, and more importantly, from my scanned file.  we'll start with darryl strawberry on a 1974 topps design from 1992 sports collector's digest

prior to archives or heritage, this was the only way we saw the stars (or disappointments) of today on the designs of yesterday.

1993 topps stadium club dodgers pedro martinez

and mike sharperson

with the dodgers playing the rangers, and delino deshields jr being on the rangers, vin scully told a story about the pedro martinez/delino deshields trade last night during the telecast.  he noted that when traveling secretary billy delury (who passed away earlier this year) called deshields to tell him he was now a dodger, his congratulatory remarks were met with a baby crying in the background and deshields saying "even the baby thinks it was a bad trade".  vin finished the story by noting that the crying baby was delino deshields jr, and so i miss regularly hearing vin call games even more.

1999 upper deck chan ho park

1999 was an off year for park - his era was well over 5 - but he still managed 13 wins.  he was only 25, and i thought he would eventually be the team's ace.  i was wrong.

2000 pacific invincible eric gagne

my favorite pacific release ever.  crazy cards and inserts.

2001 topps tom goodwin

from his second stint with the dodgers

2002 upper deck ultimate collection gary sheffield

just when you get comfortable with sheff on your favorite team thanks to his .998 ops over four years, he demands a trade.

2003 bowman chrome eric riggs

not to be confused with late 90's prospect adam riggs.  this riggs didn't make it to the majors, unfortunately.

2003 upper deck honor roll kazuhisa ishii

ishii had an era under 4 in 2003 despite a whip over 1.50 and a walks allowed total of 101 in 147 innings.  he had similar whip and walk totals the previous year, when his era was 4.27.  those kinds of numbers usually don't earn you a spot on the honor roll.

2003 topps retired signature tom lasorda

manager cards with inset photos are tough, because there just isn't much variation in managerial photographs.  here, topps opted for similar poses, but the inset picture comes from an earlier point in tommy's time as the club's manager. on a side note, anytime topps wants to bring this set back, i'm in, although i don't think they can issue a set featuring solely non-active players anymore.  too bad for us.

card games

i didn't realize until recently that there was an uno game licensed by mlb. 

it's not surprising given the history of playing card issues from the 90's and earlier, but i hadn't seen it anywhere before i purchased some oddball dodger items last month.  anyway, i was able to pick up the entire dodger team set

yes, apparently only eric gagne represents the boys in blue in the game.  at least he's not a 'draw 4' card.

another card game i didn't know about was mlb trade up

it was released in 2007, and was one of those interactive dvd board games.  thankfully, this guy broke up the game and offered me the rafael furcal card

i was aware, of course, of the better known mlb showdown game that has not only individual player cards that are easy to track and identify, but these other cards that may or may not feature players of one's favorite team.

this one features dodgers tom goodwin and angel pena with mark grudzielanek, a bat boy, and maybe even adrian beltre, but the image has nothing to do with the rally cap.  a tip of the rally cap, by the way, to all the people out there who catalog and list these types of cards by team.

also included in the lot were more of the 2005 topps hot button cards.  i picked up the jeff kent card a while back, but now he has some company.

jd drew

eric gagne

and hee seop choi

always a pleasure to find a hee seop choi dodger card.  and to find some oddballs that i didn't know existed.

good one, goodwin

[this is the thirty-seventh installment in the double dippers posts.  here are the previous posts - brett butler, omar daal, eric young, nick willhite, chris gwynn, mickey hatcher, dave anderson, don zimmer, rafael landestoy, dave hansen, jose vizcaino, hideo nomo, greg maddux, mike maddux, jon garland, chan ho park, vicente romo, gene mauch, denny lewallyn, von joshua, joe moeller, dioner navarro, rudy seanez, bart shirley, randy wolf, ismael valdes, bobby castillo, mike devereaux, pete richert, jay johnstone, jesse orosco, lee lacy, giovanni carrara, jeff weaver, ted sizemore,  and orel hershiser.]

tom goodwin came to the dodgers in the first round of the june 1989 draft.  just over two years later, he debuted against the cubs and hit a single in his first big league at bat.  goodwin played in a total of 103 games for the dodgers from 1991 through 1993, but was unable to secure a starting spot in la.  here's his 1993 topps card, by the way.

before the 1994 season, goodwin was picked up on waivers by the royals.  he spent almost the entire season in the minors - seeing action in only two big league games that year.  in 1995 however, he became the royals' starting center fielder and finished 9th in the american league roy voting.  here's his 1995 topps traded card

goodwin hit .288 in 1995 and then .282 in 1996 for kc, stealing 116 bases over those two seasons.  he split 1997 between kansas city and texas, where he played through the 1999 season.  he signed a free agent deal for 2000 with the rockies but was traded back to the dodgers at the deadline that season.  here's his 2000 fleer tradition update card as proof of his double dipping.

in his second tour of duty with the team, goodwin played in 161 games and stole 38 bases.  unfortunately, the dodgers wound up releasing him just before then 2002 season started.  he wound up playing in san francisco where he tormented the dodgers in a couple of july games when the two teams were neck and neck in the standings.  to make matters worse, the dodgers were paying the majority of his salary.

anyway, goodwin is currently the first base coach for the mets.  that's where i sent a few cards in the hopes he would sign.  he did, quite quickly.  here's his 1991 upper deck final edition card

a 1993 fleer card

1993 topps

and 1993 topps stadium club

all cards from his first turn as a dodger. thanks tom!

zooropa

released in july 1993, zooropa is one u2 album that i do not own. i bought it, i am pretty sure, when it came out as u2 had earned 'buy first, listen later' status with me after i heard war for the first time. this one got traded in at the used record shop pretty quickly, however. as such, i'm not too familiar with a lot of the songs on the album. i know 'numb' and 'stay (faraway so close!)' is pretty good, but the rest are lost on me. kind of like the 1993 dodgers. cory snyder, jody reed, steve wilson, rick trlicek, tom goodwin (the first time around).

they were all dodgers in '93, and i was at least somewhat aware of the fact, despite however uneventful their dodger tenures were. but i have no recollection of john desilva, kip gross, jerry brooks, or rod nichols as dodgers.


the day after the album dropped, the dodgers played in philadelphia and it took 20 innings before the phillies emerged victorious. the dodgers tied the game in the top of the 9th thanks to some wildness from mitch williams and, of all things, an eric karros infield single with the bases loaded. later, rod nichols, in one of his 4 appearances as a dodger, relieved ricky trlicek in the bottom of the 20th inning. the dodgers had taken a 6-5 lead in the top of the inning but trlicek allowed two singles to open the bottom of the frame. nichols allowed a third phillie to get on base on a botched sacrifice bunt before getting the first out of the inning, but then gave up a walk-off ground rule double to lenny dykstra. trlicek, who had pitched 4 scoreless innings in relief before the 20th inning, was saddled with the loss.

my ambivalence towards the 81-81 1993 dodgers (except for the arrival of mike piazza) doesn't extend to their cards or ttm attempts.  here are some tricky ricky trlicek cards i was fortunate enough to have him sign and return - 1994 score

1994 topps

and 1992 donruss the rookies (as a blue jay)

thanks rick.

will the real tom goodwin please stand up, please stand up?

hey - look at this!  it's tom goodwin's 2000 upper deck sp authentic card!

i didn't realize goodwin was so...shall we say...bulky?  or that he hit from the right side.  or that he looks just like adrian beltre. 

goodwin was the dodgers' first round pick in 1989, and he made his debut for them in 1991.  he was selected off of waivers by the royals in 1994 and spent the next 6 seasons in the american league.  that included the 1999 season, when goodwin was a texas ranger.  so, this must be a photo from 2000 when goodwin rejoined the dodgers (double dipper post coming soon), right?  well, goodwin started the 2000 season with the rockies but was acquired by la at the trade deadline, and he did face the cubs at wrigley in august, but how likely is it that a picture from a late august game would wind up on a card that same year? 

really there is no need to wonder about this - clearly that is adrian beltre, not tom goodwin.  why a guy like goodwin would be featured in a limited set like sp authentic is beyond me. my guess is that upper deck intended to include the dodgers' highly touted young third baseman in the set, but some amatuer at upper deck saw the photo and thought beltre's uniform number looked like '28' rather than '29' due to the wrinkling of the jersey.  goodwin, who had worn 42 for the dodgers his first time around, wore 28 in his second stint. 

it gets worse, and a bit better.  here's tom goodwin's 2000 upper deck spx card.

 

at least they got the picture on the left correct - that is tom goodwin.  on the right we still have adrian beltre, this time a few moments after the photo on the first card.  we also get a better view of todd hundley following the flight of the ball while lurking in the on deck circle.

i wonder what collectors think of these sorts of cards, especially the first one.  it's kind of like the 1995 topps traded carlos beltran rookie that is really juan lebron and the juan lebron card from the same set that is really carlos beltran.  i think the card that says beltran was always valued higher than the one that actually featured his picture.  i don't know how many tom goodwin collectors there are out there, or adrian beltre collectors for that matter, but i would be curious to know if they include these cards in their collections.

it doesn't matter for me, though.  upper deck at least got the team name on the card right.

ding ding ding went the corners

i was one of the very lucky ones to answer a question on a recent quiz posted by the ladies at dinged corners. ok, there were plenty of questions to be had, but i am very lucky to have received the cards that i did. they sent a bunch of dodgers along with a few cards of garvey, cey, russell and lopes. i will save those cards for a later post, but here are some other goodies.

we'll start off with the strongest man in so-cal, italian-american superstar slugger, mike piazza, getting after it on his 1993 leaf card.
sans facial hair. i still can't believe he was traded.

1992 topps stadium club tom goodwin.
i don't recall how many times goodwin played for the dodgers. twice, i guess. claimed off of waivers by the royals, and then the dodgers traded todd hollandsworth to the rockies to get him back 6 years later. i do remember that after the dodgers released him, he signed with the giants and proceeded to play extremely well against the dodgers even though they were paying the bulk of his salary.

1996 topps chad fonville.

fonville was a sparkplug for the dodgers in 1995 after coming over from montreal. unfortunately, he struggled in 1996 and then was traded to the white sox and ultimately bounced around from cleveland to the mets to the rockies to boston, where he finished his career in 1999.

2008 bowman draft picks and prospects chrome devaris strange-gordon.

here's hoping stephen king writes a book about the girl who loved devaris strange-gordon someday.

2007 topps grady little.this is one of those 2007 topps cards that looks pretty washed out to me. is it just the black borders? i didn't mind little as manager, but i wish he would have shown a little more fire, especially when the torre rumors started.

1987 donruss bobby welch.

his strikeout of reggie jackson in the 1978 world series is one of my most vivid dodger memories. i felt badly that he missed out on the 1988 championship, but he got one in 1989.

manny. 2009 topps heritage all star short print.

i appreciate how topps left manny as a red sock here. they didn't pull a 1975 bobby murcer and call him an american league all-star on a national league team. kudos.

and finally, it's a 2007 topps juan pierre.

bad photoshop job by topps. i don't think the dodgers have worn the blue jerseys in a game since the davey johnson era. juan figures to get the bulk of the playing time over the next 48 games, and i am sure he'll make the most of it.

thank you ladies! it really was a fantastic group of cards! not bad for answering a question about the giants!