sunday morning target dodgers

here are another 15 gentlemen (well, 14 since one guy on this sheet was a double dipper and so will get a post of his own) who wore the dodger/robin/superba/bridegroom/groom uniform between 1890 and 1990.  not a lot of household names here in this batch.

eddie basinski

basinski was a member of the 1944 and 1945 dodgers.  he played in a total of 147 games and hit .261 for brooklyn as the team's shortstop, replacing pee wee reese during world war ii.  basinski had not played organized ball prior to his stint with the dodgers, but he did spend several seasons in the minor leagues afterwards, and was even selected to the pacific coast league hall of fame in 2006.

wally clement

clement played for the superbas in 1909, hitting .259 in 92 games.

artie dede

dede had exactly one appearance in his big league career, and it came with the 1916 robins.  he made out in his lone major league at bat, but that was enough to immortalize him as a big league ball player.  he later went on to scout for the dodgers and yankees.

rube dessau

frank rolland 'rube' dessau pitched for the superbas in 1910, and posted a record of 2-3 in 19 games.  just prior to joining the superbas, he pitched for the baltimore orioles who were then a minor league team.  still, he earned a card in the t206 set with baltimore.  dessau later became a minor league manager.

bill w. hart

well, last week's question is answered.  the player in the photos used for both bill f. hart and bill w. hart's cards is bill w. hart.  william woodrow hart played for the dodgers from 1943-1945.  he hit .207 in 95 games with 3 homers to his credit.

roy hutson

hutson here looks a bit like a young fidel castro to me.  anyway, hutson was from missouri and owned a lifetime major league batting average of .500.  he played in 7 games for the 1925 robins, going 4 for 8 with a walk and a sacrifice.

mal mallette

mal's first name really was malcolm.  i suppose his parents appreciated the alliterative feel of malcolm mallette.  mallette's big league career consisted of two appearances for the 1950 brooklyn dodgers.  he pitched a total of 1.1 innings, striking out two new york giants in his debut.  following his playing career, he put his journalism degree from syracuse to use and became a sportswriter.

dan mcgann

mcgann spent a part of the 1899 season with the superbas, but was traded to the senators in july.  his time with brooklyn netted a .243 average in 63 games.  he later became a mainstay on john mcgraw's early new york giants teams.

glenn mickens

mickens spent part of the 1953 season in the big leagues with the dodgers.  he appeared in 4 games, making 2 starts, and finished with an 0-1 record and an era of 11.37.  the first batter he faced, ted kluszewski, hit a home run.  one of the five players mickens struck out in his career was ralph kiner.  unfortunately, kiner was also one of two players to hit a home run off of him.

gary moore

moore is the only los angeles dodger on the sheet.  he played in 7 games for the blue in 1970, hitting just .188.  two of his three big league hits, however, were triples, including one in his first major league at bat.

sam nahem

nahem's big league debut was also the only game in which he appeared for brooklyn.  it came in 1938 towards the end of the season. he was selected to pitch in the first game of a doubleheader against the phillies, and all he did was throw a complete game, allowing three runs, as the dodger won 7-3.  nahem was also 2 for 5 at the plate that day.  the dodgers traded him to the cardinals in the joe medwick deal a couple years later, and nahem returned to the big leagues with saint louis in 1941.

dolly stark

stark was with the club from 1910-1912.  his best season came in 1911 when he hit .295.  he hit below .200 in his other two seasons with brooklyn.  i am pretty sure that this photo is of dolly stark, the major league umpire, and not dolly stark the ballplayer, by the way.

ty tyson

unlike mal mallette, tyson owes his alliterative moniker to a nickname - his real name was albert thomas tyson.  he played for the robins in 1928 after two seasons with the new york giants.  he hit .271 in 59 games for the robins that year, his last in the majors.

rube yarrison

two rubes on one sheet!  we need more ballplayers nicknamed rube these days.  yarrison pitched in 3 games for the 1924 robins, and he was 0-2 with a 6.55 era in those appearances.

sunday morning target dodgers - with a member of the infield and a yankee black armband for ray chapman

i don't know how long i will keep these posts going, but there are plenty more sheets to be shared.  here's another one featuring 15 men who wore the brooklyn/los angeles franchise's uniform between 1890 and 1990, including the dean of the los angeles dodgers and shortstop of the team of my youth, bill russell.

russell's name appears high on many of the 'softer' franchise career leader lists.  among los angeles dodgers, he is first in defensive war, first in games played, second in at bats, third in hits, fourth in doubles, first in singles, first in sacrifice hits, first in intentional walks (hitting 8th will do that for you), and, fairly obviously, first in outs made.  when you factor in the brooklyn players, russell still ranks pretty highly in those same categories.

joe beckwith

beckwith was a dodger double dipper and won a world series ring in 1985 with this next guy's brother.

ken brett

in another case of the 'wrong brother' history of the dodgers (see the martinez brothers, guerrero brothers, and the gwynn brothers, among others), ken, and not george, brett wore dodger blue.  the elder brett joined the dodgers in 1979 after a short stint in minnesota, and went 4-3 with 2 saves in 30 relief appearances for the club.  in one of those appearances, he was pinch-hit for by manny mota, who used the opportunity to set the record for career pinch hits.  brett was himself a good hitter, and was 3 for 11 at the plate as a dodger.  unfortunately, brett was hurt in spring training the following season, and the dodgers released him.  a few months later, ken would join brother george in kansas city for the last couple months of the 1980 season.

bill buckner

billy buck was squeezed out of the dodger outfield despite a .289 average in 773 games for the blue when the team acquired dusty baker and reggie smith to man the corner positions.  as a result, he was dealt to the cubs for center fielder rick monday (and reliever mike garman) prior to the 1977 season.  the cubbies moved buckner to first base and the rest, including his 1980 national league batting title and his error in game 6 of the 1986 world series for the red sox, is history.  buckner finished his career with 2,715 hits - a total surpassed by only 61 other players in the history of the game.

moose clabaugh

clabaugh had a prodigious minor league career spanning 16 seasons.  he hit 346 home runs while maintaining a .339 batting average in the minors, according to this thorough post.  in the majors, not so much.  the robins brought him up to the big leagues in 1926 following a 62 home run season in the low minors, but he hit only .071 (1 for 14) with his lone hit being a double.

bud clancy

clancy played first base for the dodgers in 53 games during the 1932 season.  he had previously played for the white sox (as evidenced by his uniform above) and later joined the phillies.  his timing as a member of the dodgers was good, because he was featured as a member of the team on his 1933 goudey card, which happens to be the oldest dodger card that i own.

wes covington

covington finished his major league career (which began in 1956 with the milwaukee braves) with a stint as a dodger in 1966 following an early season release from the cubs.  he hit only .121 in 37 games for the dodgers, but was a part of their world series roster and made his final big league appearance against the orioles in the fall classic.

bill f. hart

i believe we have a case of mistaken identity here.  william franklin hart pitched for the brooklyn grooms in 1892.  william woodrow hart was an infielder who played for the brooklyn dodgers from 1943-45, and is certainly the player pictured on the card.  there is a card for bill w. hart in the set, so we'll have to see what photo that card features if and when i get to that sheet.  in the meantime, i'll ignore the photo and note that bill f. hart was 9-12 despite a 3.28 era for the grooms in his lone season with the team; a season in which the grooms went 95-59.

alex kampouris

kampouris was the pride of sacramento, as vin scully might say.  he was born in sacramento, played minor league ball in sacramento, worked in sacramento after his baseball career was over, and died in sacramento.  in between stints with sacramento's pacific coast league team, kampouris played for the dodgers, among other big league teams.  he spent 2-plus seasons with brooklyn from 1941 to 1943, hitting .267 in 45 games as a backup second baseman to billy herman.

wayne lamaster

lamaster was traded from the phillies to the dodgers during the 1938 season.  he wound up 0-1 in his three appearances for the dodgers.

steve lembo

lembo was a backup catcher who appeared for the dodgers in a handful of games in 1950 and 1952.  while he didn't appear in a game for the team in 1951, he did spend time with the big club and was the bullpen catcher who warmed up ralph branca in the third playoff game against the giants.  lembo later became a scout for the team and signed, among others, tommy davis and john franco.

don newcombe

newk began his major league career in 1949 with a shutout against the reds.  he went on to win the rookie of the year award, and then won the first cy young award (along with the mvp) in 1956.  he wasa 123-60 for the brooklyn dodgers from 1949 through 1957 (including two seasons lost to military service), but was 0-6 for the los angeles dodgers in 1958, a record that prompted a trade to the aforementioned reds.  he retired after the 1960 season with a career .271 batting average, and later even played a year in japan as a fielder, not a pitcher.

danny richardson

richardson spent 1893 with the brooklyn grooms, hitting .223 in 54 games.  he had previously played for the new york giants from 1884-91 and the washington senators in 1892.

hank thormahlen

thormahlen was a teammate of babe ruth's in new york before he was traded to the red sox in the deal that sent hall of famer (and dodger double dipper) waite hoyt to the yankees following the 1920 season.  in fact, i believe that the photo used for thormahlen's card comes from the 1920 season, as he is sporting a black armband (maybe two black armbands?) on his left sleeve, and the yankees were one of several teams to do so that year in honor of ray chapman, the indians' shortstop who died after being hit by a pitch in a game against the yankees in august of that year.  thormahlen actually relieved carl mays, the yankee pitcher who hit chapman, in that game.  as for thormahlen's tenure with the brooklyn squad, he was with the robins in 1925 when he appeared in five games, starting two of them.  he wound up with an 0-3 record, but did hit a triple in his final big league at bat.

dick whitman

whitman was almost a dodger double dipper.  he began his big league career with brooklyn in 1946, and remained with the club through 1949, hitting .266 in 191 games during that span.  his contract was then purchased by the phillies, but they traded him back to brooklyn after two seasons.  unfortunately, whitman never made it out of the minor leagues during his second tour with the organization and so left my dodger double dipper criteria unfulfilled.  he did play in back-to-back world series, however - with the dodgers in 1949 and with the whiz kids in 1950 - falling to the yankees each time.