more cards to your mother's

i'm going to the mother's cookie jar one more time today, to show a few cards from some of the sets sent my way by mr. haverkamp.  these sets are great for back of the roster guys, but that's not all i will show.

from the 1988 set comes this steve sax card

'88 was saxy's last year with the dodgers, and when he left a part of my fandom went with him. he was a sort of link to the infield of my youth, having played with garvey, cey, and russell in 1982.

also from the 1988 set is a nice card of reliever ken howell

howell had 21 plate appearances as a dodger, going 1 for 19 with 2 sacrifices.  that's why this card is so great.

here's kirk gibson's card from the 1990 set

he may have been to ornery to pose for the cameras, so they had to use an action shot which is a true rarity in these sets.  i love to see the low corner railing in dodger stadium on cards!

here's a don aase card, also from the 1990 set.

alphabetically, he's first in the dodger book.

like aase, gary carter has a few cards as a dodger, but his 1991 mother's card

is still nice to have.

if it weren't for the dodger police set and the mother's set from 1991 (which gives us this card),

i wouldn't have any cards of barry lyons in a dodger uniform.  he played in just 9 games as a dodger during the first couple of months of the '91 season before moving down the 5 to anaheim.

darryl strawberry's 1992 mother's card

provides a view of the empty bat rack.  a bat rack as empty as daaaaaa-rryl's production in '92.

congratulations to hall of famer pedro martinez, who has this card in the 1993 set

which is also a good representative of the tim crews memorial patch.

i'll end with a few of the more obscure dodgers from a couple of these sets.  from the 1994 set, here's al (not to be confused with antonio) osuna

osuna joined the dodgers at the end of spring training (march, 1994) in a deal with the astros.  he went 2-0 for the dodgers over 15 appearances that season, despite having an era over 6.  he was released by the dodgers in 1995. 

perhaps one reason for osuna's release was that the dodgers had joey eischen on their roster for 1995.  this is eischen's 1995 mother's dodgers card

this is also eischen's first appearance on the blog.  looking into things further, it is clear that eischen had nothing to do with osuna's release.  osuna was let go in april, while eischen was acquired in may of '95 in the trade that sent henry rodriguez to montreal.  eischen pitched for the dodgers in '95 and part of '96 before being traded to detroit for chad curtis at the trade deadline.

like eischen, rick parker is making his debut on the blog, thanks to the 1995 mother's dodgers set.

parker was an outfielder for the dodgers in both '95 and 1996, although he didn't appear in the postseason in either of those years.  i'm glad he made the mother's cookie checklist, though.

thank god, the police

any fans of fletch out there? aside from the fact that fletch f. fletch hated tommy lasorda, i am a fan of the movie.  i even kind of like fletch lives.  anyway, the title of this post refers to the point where chief karlin (the number one drug pusher from here to oxnard) shows up near the end - but not to help fletch or the lovely gail stanwyck.  anyway, it's a lame way to say that this post is about some dodgers police cards.

starting in 1980, the lapd sponsored a stadium giveaway of oversized cards.  i recently picked up a few sets from a seller who advertised a lot of 6 sets.  it turns out that one of the sets he advertised he no longer had.  he didn't seem to think that it was a big deal.  he eventually gave me a partial refund, but i won't be buying from him anymore.

enough of that - here's the header card from the 1986 set - a nice team shot in dodger stadium of the 1985 western division champs

the dodgers didn't do much in 1986, so the header card of the 1987 set is just an aerial shot of dodger stadium

for the most part the cards all feature photos of the players at home in chavez ravine.  take fernando valenzuela, for example.  here are his 1987

1989

and 1986

cards.  all feature photos from pretty much the same angle.  thanks to the stirrups, we can see that they are not from the same game.

bob welch also has some repetitious cards in the 1986

and 1987 sets

i appreciate the red uniform number on the cards in 1986 and 1987.  not sure why the went away from it in 1989.

speaking of which, john tudor gets a night card in the 1989 dodgers police set

just like on his 1989 topps card.  both cards feature in-game action from dodger stadium which makes sense since all of tudor's starts at home in 1988 as a dodger were night games.  he did pitch on the road in a day game at philadelphia, but like i mentioned before - these sets tend to feature the players in the home whites.

well, fast forward to 1991, and we get barry lyons in the away grays.

lyons joined the dodgers in september of 1990, and appeared in three games.  the first two were on the road, and the third was at dodger stadium.  i'm surprised (and pleased) that there was a photo of lyons in dodger blue at all.  he was included in the set because he returned to the team in 1991, although he only made 9 appearances before being released in june of that year.  it is worth nothing that lyons had only one hit as a dodger, but at least it was a home run against the giants.

pretty sure that's the only dodger card of lyons, so unlike fletch i am genuinely thankful for the police that showed up.  although i wasn't facing incineration while wearing another man's suit at the time.