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.

vintage - old and new - from the card show

when is vintage old and new, you might ask?  well, when topps buys back its old cards, stamps 'em, and puts them in packs of 2015 cards, they are both new and old.  such is the case with these three cards - 1974 topps charlie hough

1979 topps vic davalillo

and 1979 topps lance rautzhan

i bought them at the card show a couple of weeks ago,  they were twenty cents apiece.

i spent a little bit of time in the vintage bargain bin, picking up some set needs.  i needed this 1971 topps yankee team card

and this al kaline card from the '71 set

was the lowest numbered card on my want list.

i picked up $10 worth of 1965 topps cards, the best/worst of which was this juan marichal card

fifty cents for marichal.

after paying up one dealer for some of the vintage, he threw a 1957 topps ted williams card down on the table.  did i mention i was collecting the 1957 set?  the card is trimmed and notched, but hey - it's ted williams and card number 1 in the set.  i bit.

it's the first williams card that i own from his playing days, and should be the last.  i was stoked to find one that fits my collection for less than the price of something that costs $10.01.

there were more cards obtained at the show, but those were via trade.  i'll show some of them on friday.

rhoden and john and hough

i consider don sutton to have been the ace of the team of my youth, but the dodgers of the mid to late 1970's had a pretty strong staff.  i got kind of tired of seeing doug rau pitch seemingly every time we trekked to dodger stadium, but it wasn't because he was a bad pitcher - i just would have rather have seen tommy john or rick rhoden or burt hooton more often.  anyway, it's boxing day and things are slow and i don't have any good post ideas, so here are some non-dodger cards of three members of the dodger pitching staff from the team of my youth.

1988 score rick rhoden

and tommy john

rhoden and tj were reunited on the yankees, although this was john's second time around with the club. here's the back of john's 1981 topps card

for no other reason than to show the 'on disabled list' text that defined his 1975 season and his legacy as well.

here's the back of rhoden's 1988 topps big card for no other reason than to note that rhoden was a fan of both bob gibson and hulk hogan

'his' comment in the ping pong cartoon is not entirely true - rhoden did get to hit as the yankees' dh in a game during the 1988 season.  here's the front of that topps big card, by the way

rhoden sports the same mustache on his 1988 leaf card

which is so much better than 1988 donruss.

here's a 1988 fleer superstars card of rhoden

i wonder what he's got in that gatorade cup.

rhoden finished out his career with the astros in 1989.  here's his 1989 fleer update card

tommy john, meanwhile, began his career in cleveland.  here's a 2003 topps retired signature card showing him in indians' attire.

and let's not forget about charlie hough, who was actually the dodgers' closer in 1977, saving 22 games for the nl champs.  he moved on to texas where he became a starter and found some success.  this is a 1987 donruss all-stars card of the knuckleballer

who finished his career with stints with the white sox and then the marlins.  this is a 1993 topps finest card of hough with the fish

as are these 1994 bowman

and 1994 topps stadium club cards

that last one being the rainbow foil parallel.

i did a 'torchbearer' post for sutton, so i'll do something similar for these guys.  i won't go into too much detail, but if you're wondering, the last batter rick rhoden faced in the majors was joe oliver (who hit into a double play). oliver doubled off of jorge julio in his last at bat; julio hit jorge cantu with his last pitch, cantu fouled out against rex brothers for his final appearance in the majots, so brothers (who was still pitching for the rockies in 2014) is carrying rhoden's torch.

john, meanwhile, allowed a single to devon white just before walking off the mound for the last time.  white singled off of albie lopez his last time up; lopez gave up a single to torii hunter with his last pitch, and hunter just signed with the twins for the 2015 season, so he'll continue to be tommy john's torchbearer for one more year.

finally, hough's last big league pitch resulted in a single to kim batiste, who later grounded out against darren holmes in his last big league at bat. with his final pitch, holmes gave up a single to marlon byrd, who is signed to play for the phillies once again in 2015.

there you have it. three pitchers from the team of my youth wearing other teams' uniforms and their torhbearers.  can you tell i'm running out of ideas for posts?

memorial patches for umpire john mcsherry

on april 1, 1996 - opening day in cincinnati - home plate umpire john mcsherry collapsed and died of cardiac arrest.  why then, you might ask, am i showing a card from the 1994 upper deck all-time heroes set featuring reggie jackson and lurking dodgers charlie hough and steve yeager?

i'm showing it because the umpire standing behind yeager, number 9 for the national league, is john mcsherry.

mcsherry began his umpiring career in 1971 and worked the world series in both 1977 (as seen above) and 1987.  he also umpired in 10 different national league playoff series and three all-star games, and was calling the balls and strikes for larry dierker's no-hitter in 1976.

i am not sure why exactly, but the mets added a patch to their uniforms in honor of mcsherry for the remainder of the 1996 season.  this 1997 fleer sports illustrated card of todd hundley shows the patch on his right sleeve

the patch is kind of hard to make out because it wasn't really a patch - it was actually embroidered as part of the jersey.  here's a close up

it's a little more clear on bernard gilkey's 1997 topps card

and rey ordonez's 1997 upper deck card

which is the one i have in my memorials binder.

mcsherry's fellow umpires also wore memorials in 1996.  as i recall, at first they wore black armbands as seen on brett butler's 1997 score card

but soon adopted the same embroidery that the mets sported.  in fact, the mets could have adopted the umpires' memorial; i am not sure how that played out.  in lieu of cards, here are some photos (from getty images) of umpires sporting the memorial in 1996

the umps, at some point, went to an actual patch.  here are some photos showing the patch version of the memorial

brett butler, again, with eric gregg sporting the patch

this resulted in patch overload for the umpires in the world series - the mcsherry patch is high up on the left sleeve of the umpires' jacket

it wasn't just national league umpires that wore the patch - here's al clark to prove it

although it seems like most al umps wore the patch on their right sleeves.  again, more photos from getty images

it would appear that charlie o'brien is upset

i was happy to find that photo - not just because of o'brien, but also because it showed the patch on the right sleeve of an al umpire wearing the navy shirt.  that confirms for me that the patch is also shown on this 1997 pacific gary disarcina card

which is a great addition to the memorials binder.  i also have this 2004 topps all-time fan favorite card of eric gregg

in the binder.  how fortuitous that topps used a photo of gregg from 1996.

i do have an actual john mcsherry card in my collection, by the way.  it comes from the 1989 t&m umpires set, and features mcsherry in dodger stadium.

i've got a couple other cards from that set in my dodger stadium binder along with the mcsherry as well - here's eric gregg (again)

and fred brocklander

both hanging out in chavez ravine.

as for mcsherry, he was 51 years old when he died.  he weighed well over 300 pounds, and his passing encouraged major league baseball to work on addressing the health of its umpires.  many, including gregg, lost weight as a result.  unfortunately, following his departure from umpiring, gregg re-gained much of the weight he lost and he passed away at the age of 55 due to a stroke.

the 1978 topps dodgers in 1995 were nonexistent

and so it came to pass that the last of the 1978 topps dodgers to be an active player in major league baseball, charlie hough, whose 25-season career ended with a need for a hip replacement in 1994, did not receive a card from topps in 1995.  1995 was the first topps flagship set without a member of the team of my youth since 1962.  that's crazy business, but that's what happens when you put manny mota's and charlie hough's careers together.

anyway, here's the 1995 topps charlie hough card that should have been

it turned out ok.  the '95 design is tough to play with.  plus, the photo selection could have been better - hough's throwing a fastball in that photo, not a knuckler.

here's the back, with all the career stats befitting a final tribute

i did my best with the diamond vision inset.  the only thing not represented at all on the back is the topps watermark under the stats.  here's the back of dave weathers' 1995 topps card that i used as a base for the hough

i lifted it from comc as i was too lazy to go dig for one in the basement.

while topps ignored hough, upper deck gave him a spot on the checklist.  no 'final tribute' shield, but still.  here's his 1995 upper deck card

with a knuckler grip photo!  and the back

hough went out with four straight losing seasons, but finished with an even 216-216 record.

upper deck came through again with a card for hough in their 1995 collector's choice set - front

and back

nice to see the full career stats, plus a photo of hough with a batting helmet on!

now that the 1978 topps dodgers as players are finished, we will be left with just 1978 topps dodgers as managers (except, perhaps, for the random flashback or some other type of subset card).  in 1994, there were again three 1978 topps dodgers managing in the majors, and they, once again, were not recognized by topps in the following year's set.  so, i made a 1995 topps card that should have been for tom lasorda

and, just like with the 1994 cards that should have been, i didn't care much for it.  i decided instead to use the mid-year all-star card from 1995 topps traded (hello hideo nomo!)

and do something along those lines for the managers.

lasorda again shares space with dusty baker, who was in his second year of managing the rival giants

1995 was lasorda's final full season as the dodgers' manager.  he guided them to a 78-66 record in the shortened season (remember, the start of the season was delayed by the lingering players' strike) and won another national league west division title in the process.  it was the dodgers' first trip to the postseason since 1988 when they won it all, but this time they were swept in the nlds by the reds, three games to none.  as for baker's giants, they finished in last (fourth) place in the newly realigned nl west, 11 games behind lasorda's club.

as for the other member of the club, johnny oates was fired by the orioles and so moved on to manage the rangers in 1995.  i put him on a card with the guy who replaced him in baltimore, former dodger phil regan

in his first year in texas, oates led the rangers to a 74-70 record, finishing four games behind the mariners and angels, who sat tied atop the american league west at the end of the 144 game schedule.  so, technically, after the one-game playoff, the rangers were 4.5 games back, but still, oates helped the club that was 10 games under .500 when the strike began in 1994 turn things around.  as for the orioles, they finished behind the red sox and yankees in the al east, and were 3 games behind the rangers in the wild card standings.

i've got more managerial cards that should have been to make for 1996 so stay tuned...