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?

sunday morning target dodgers - gonna fly now

well, i dug out a few more sheets from the 1990 target 100th anniversary giveaway set to scan and show off.  as for the subtitle of the post - you can probably guess that there is a rocky (or two) coming up.  with that, here are 14 more members of the dodger franchise fraternity from one of those sheets - the 15th guy being a double dipper who will get a post all to himself later today.

rube bressler

bressler began his career as a pitcher for the 1914 athletics, and converted to the outfield while with the reds later that decade.  by 1921, he had given up the mound for good.  bressler joined the robins in 1928 and patrolled the outfield as their left fielder for four seasons, during which time he hit .302 in 457 games.

jim brewer

that's a nice shot of brewer in dodger stadium, with the 'three sisters' palm trees in the background.  brewer was one of the best relievers in dodger history, with 125 saves over 12 seasons with the club, starting in 1964.  he pitched in three world series for the dodgers, and was an all-star in 1973.

rocky colavito

here's the first rocky on the sheet.  a former american league home run champ, colavito played for the dodgers in 1968 for just over 2 months.  during that time, he hit .204 with 3 homers and 11 rbi. after playing in just 40 games for them, the dodgers released colavito and he finished out his career with the yankees.

bill crouch

crouch was 4-0 in his rookie season with the 1939 dodgers. he pitched in 6 games, starting 3 and completing each of them.  had his career ended there, i would bet that he and his father, also bill crouch, would have been the only father/son big leaguers to throw complete games in each of their major league starts (dad had one start and one complete game in 1910 for the browns).  alas, the dodgers traded crouch to the phillies where he made 5 starts in 1941 and completed only one.

tom daly

daly joined the bridegrooms after three seasons in the national league just as the brooklyn franchise joined the senior circuit in 1890.  he remained with the club for 12 years, although he missed the 1897 season.  daly was the team's primary second baseman for much of that time, playing in a total of 1096 games and batting .294 for brooklyn.

cecil espy

espy was the white sox' first round draft pick in 1980. i remember this because the la times made a big deal about the 1980 draft due to crenshaw high's darryl strawberry being picked first overall.  in reviewing the draft results, i noticed that espy was taken with the pick immediately prior to the dodgers' selection of ross jones (kelly gruber was the player taken right after the dodgers selected jones).  espy never played for the chisox, however, as he was dealt to the dodgers prior to the 1983 season for rudy law.  espy debuted in the big leagues during the '83 campaign as a september call-up.  he saw action in 20 games as a pinch-hitter, pinch-runner, and late inning defensive replacement, although he did start one game near the end of the season.  espy was back in the minors for the 1984 and 1985 seasons, and was then traded to the pirates in the bill madlock deal late in '85.  he didn't return to the majors, however, until he was with the rangers in 1987.  maybe that's when the picture used on his card was taken.

enzo hernandez

i've written about enzo before, and there's not much else to say since he only appeared in four games as a dodger in 1978. i'll just note that he was one of three dodgers to wear number 3 in 1978 - glenn burke and rudy law being the others.

dave j. hickman

dave here went by jim, as his middle name was james.  i am guessing that target used the dave to distinguish this guy from the other jim hickman who played for the dodgers.  you can tell that this one was a member of the 1916 robins thanks to the uniform he is wearing, and in fact, hickman was a robin from 1916 through 1919.  he hit .218 during that time while playing a fair amount of outfield, but he did not appear in the 1916 world series against the red sox.

joe oeschger

oeschger finished his 12 year major league career with a stint with the 1925 robins.  he pitched in 21 games, and had a record of 1-2 with a 6.08 era.  his name was already familiar to brooklyn fans, as oeschger was the pitcher for the braves who threw 26 innings against the robins on may 1, 1920 - a feat  also achieved by the robins' pitcher that day, leon cadore.  oeschger took his place next to cadore on a card commemorating the feat in the 1961 topps set.

charlie perkins

perkins was 0-3 with an 8.51 era for the 1934 dodgers. he pitched in 11 games, 2 of which were starts.  he had previously pitched in the majors for the 1930 athletics who won the world series, although perkins did not appear in the fall classic.

ken rowe

rowe was one of two rowes (don was the other - no relation) to appear on a 1963 topps rookie parade card.  he pitched in 14 games for the dodgers that year, putting up an era of 2.53 while splitting his two decisions.  rowe did not appear for the dodgers in the 1963 world series, and his contract was purchased by the orioles in 1964 bringing his dodger career to an end.

preston ward

ward was the dodgers' first baseman on opening day in 1948.  jackie robinson had moved to second base, opening the door for ward, a 20-year old rookie.  after a decent start (he was hitting right around .300 at the end of may), ward struggled in june and his average fell to .260 toward the end of the month.  he was sent down and gil hodges took over at first, and the rest is history.  after some more time in the minors, ward was picked up by the cubs, and he wound up playing in the majors for several years with the cubs, pirates, indians, and a's.

brad wellman

wellman spent the first five years of his big league career (1982-1986) with the giants, but signed with the dodgers as a free agent prior to the 1987 season. he managed to make it into three games as a dodger that year, appearing once as a second baseman, once as a shortstop, and once as a third baseman.  overall, he was 1 for 4 with an rbi as a dodger, and he signed with the royals after the season's end.

lave winham

winham pitched in one game for his hometown brooklyn superbas in 1902.  he lasted 3 innings, facing 15 batters and allowing 2 (unearned) runs.  the next year, he was pitching for the pirates in what would be his second and final big league season.  you don't see too many fedoras on baseball cards.

i will be back next week with another installment of these things, so don't fret.

a foray into 2014 topps series 2

i bought a blaster of 2014 topps series 2 over the weekend.  i was lucky enough to pull the two big rookies - masahiro tanaka

and jose abreu

although i didn't find any photo variation or sabermetric back variation short prints.

i got a few dodgers of consequence, including this double play on tatooine card of dodger cuban defector alex guerrero

and this checklist/season highlight card of fellow defector yasiel puig

i like the red accent with the blue on the puig card - better than the blue/gray combo on the regular dodger cards.

here's an andre ethier target red border parallel

featuring a photo from the 2013 postseason at dodger stadium.  in series 1, the cards of puig and kershaw with the postseason wall in the background were short prints.  that's not the case with ethier's card.

i was happy to find this next card in one of the packs.  it belongs to former dodger cody ross

but i like it because it is probably the only card that will ever feature ramon hernandez as a dodger.  it reminds me a bit of the cards in 2012 that featured dioner navarro (even though he didn't have his own card in the set) and also of aj pollock's card from 2013 update.  ross was obviously safe, by the way, as hernandez dropped the ball.  the photo comes from june 12, 2013 which is interesting because that was the last game of hernandez's big league career.  ross scored twice, including in the top of the 12th inning.  in the bottom of that inning, hernandez homered in what would be his last major league at bat.

guerrero's wasn't the only card i found featuring a double play card.  i like this donovan solano card a fair amount

it's got a good variety of color.

here's another double play card - it's marco scutaro's card.

i know that it's a double play because i mistakenly thought it was the same photo topps used in 2013, just differently cropped. when i went to confirm my suspicion and was disproved, i wound up searching getty images for the photo and found it - jon jay of the cardinals is sliding underneath there somewhere.

one more double play card - did gregorius

the little bit of cleat showing just in front of gregorius' left shin tells me it's a turn.

here's a nice photoshop job of former twin (and pirate) justin morneau

justin wasn't included in the update set last year, so i don't think there are any cards of justin in pirates' gear.  that's ok - his time there wasn't too memorable.  i'm glad he's doing better in colorado.

my commemorative manupatch was this rod carew rookie trophy patch

not bad, but it wasn't my favorite twins card of the blaster.  that honor went to this beauty

that is a great shot of a sundrenched target field with a josh willingham/ron gardenhire fist bump to boot!  looks like the willinghammer dropped a home run on the bad guys.  this card will probably be heading to alabama later this week, but it's one i thought about keeping.  i'm looking forward to seeing a lot more of target field in this year's update set.  which is probably the next time i'll buy a blaster.

they came through the mail

i've had some more through the mail autograph successes over the last month or so, including one former dodger - jose hernandez.  hernandez signed both his 2004 topps

(which may very well be the only baseball card to ever feature a strip mall in the background) and his 2005 topps card

for me from his current coaching assignment with the orioles triple-a affiliate in norfolk.  

the other successes i've had aren't dodgers, but they are players from the 1978 topps set which is very nice.  i think i am closing in on 300 cards signed from the set.

tim blackwell

legend has it that tim blackwell's mustache and phil garner's mustache were not allowed on the field at the same time when the pirates visited montreal - too much bristle-brush for one field to handle!  blackwell actually took his mustache to chicago for the 1978 season as he played for the cubs that year.

jim willoughby

willoughby changed the color of his socks in 1978, also going to chicago but playing for the southsiders.

jamie easterly

i recall that easterly shared space with rick rhoden on a 1975 topps 4-player rookie card, but i can also easily picture his solo 1976 topps card.  here, we can see that his mustache has filled in quite a bit since that 1976 topps card was issued.

don hood

don sent me his best wishes, which is great.  his actual signature is a very small part of the writing there.    he's got a burt reynolds thing going on there, which i suspect was very popular with the ladies in the late 1970's.

three players signed notes for me as well as their cards.  former twin jerry terrell

quoted two different bible passages - one on the card, and one on a note

terrell may very well be standing in holman stadium at vero beach in the photo used for his 1978 topps card.  the twins (terrell is airbrushed into his royals uniform) trained in orlando back then, so would have made the 100-mile trek to vero beach every spring, i am sure.

dyar miller

signed his card and wrote a note thanking me for being a baseball fan, and also sent his best wishes

i remember miller from his time with the angels, although he had his contract purchased by the blue jays during the 1979 season, so didn't get to pitch in the playoffs with the halos that year.  miller got his only major league hit (he spent a season or two with the mets in the early 1980's) off of dodger burt hooton.

last, but not least, here's roy thomas, who signed his 4-player rookie card

thomas was a first round pick of the phillies in 1971, but was traded a couple of times (and picked in the 1977 expansion draft) before debuting for the astros in 1977.  he made it back to the majors in 1978, but with the cardinals - not houston.  thomas wrote a short note in response to my comment that i grew up near lompoc, which is where he attended high school.

he sends his regards.

thanks to all for signing my cards!

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.