los angeles dodger managerial autographs managed

the los angeles dodgers have had only 9 managers in their 58-year history. compare that to the marlins, who have employed 13 managers (including two interim guys with just one game apiece) in their 23 years of existence.  all but one of the la dodger managers are still with us, and so obtaining autographs from each is not too difficult.

i've finally found the final piece to this collection, and so i will now display a complete set of la dodger manager autographed dodger cards.

1968 topps team (walt alston)

smokey passed away in 1984, so this card is obviously one that i purchased.  he first started managing the dodgers in 1954, and he won a total of 7 pennants and 4 world series, with 5 of those pennants and 3 of the world series titles coming in los angeles.  alston was at the helm for 2040 dodger wins - most all-time - and is enshrined in the hall of fame.  he gave way at the end of the 1976 season to tommy lasorda.

1978 topps tom lasorda

tommy signed this card for me through the mail, which was fantastic.  from the last four games of the 1976 season until his heart attack during the 1996 season, lasorda's dodgers won 1599 games, 4 pennants, and two world series titles, and lasorda himself was twice named the national league manager of the year.  he is second behind alston on the franchise's all-time managerial wins list, and he, too, is in the baseball hall of fame.  following the aforementioned heart attack in 1996, lasorda retired and bill russell took over.

1987 topps bill russell

like lasorda, russell signed this card (a final tribute) through the mail.  there is one card of him as a manager, and it comes from the 1997 mother's dodgers set.  i will try to get that one signed, but i don't believe ropes is signing through the mail anymore.  anyway, russell took over for lasorda in 1996 and led the team to a wild card berth. they were swept in the nlds, and were out of the playoff picture the following year which was russell's only full season at the helm of the club.  after 74 games in 1998, russell was fired by the fox regime about a month after the mike piazza trade.  it was the first time since leo durocher was relieved of his duties in 1948 that a dodger manager was fired during the season.  russell's 173 wins as the dodger skipper puts him 17th on the franchise list, and his winning percentage of .537 is good enough for 9th all-time (7th if we ignore interim managers clyde sukeforth and ray blades who won all three games they managed).  russell was replaced by glenn hoffman

1988 topps glenn hoffman

hoffman is (currently) the last of the former dodger players to manage the club.  he signed his 1988 topps card for me through the mail, and i may try to get him to sign a 1998 mother's dodgers card as well - it's the only one of him as a big league manager.  hoffman's dodgers finished out the 1998 season with 47 wins in 88 games, and those wins are the 25th most (out of 31) among the franchise's managers.  his .534 winning percentage puts him at 11th (or 9th), just a tick ahead of joe torre.  after the 1998 season, the fox boys were looking for a name, and they hired davey johnson to be the dodger manager.

2001 topps davey johnson

once again, the dodger manager in question signed a card for me through the mail.  johnson's debut as the dodger manager was a game for the ages.  on opening day, raul mondesi hit a 3-0 pitch into the stands for a game-tying three-run homer with two outs in the 9th, and then hit a two-run homer to walk-off the diamondbacks in the bottom of the 11th.  good times.  johnson wound up managing the team for two years, and the dodgers were 163-161 during his tenure (163 wins puts johnson 19th among the franchise's managers).  in 2000, they finished well behind the giants for second place in the nl west, and were 8 behind the mets for the wild card, and so johnson was fired after the season ended.  jim tracy was hired to take over.

2002 topps jim tracy

this is another through the mail autograph success, by the way.  tracy managed to manage the dodgers for five seasons, with the team winning 93 games and the nl west in 2004. although they lost to the cardinals in the nlds that year, they did win their first postseason game since 1988 (thanks to lima time!).  overall, tracy's dodgers were 427-384, and if it weren't for an awful 2005 season (you'll not be able to convince me that tracy wasn't trying to get fired that year - the second worst season for any la dodger team), his winning percentage would have been better. tracy ranks 6th all-time in wins for the franchise, behind five hall of famers, but he will probably be passed by don mattingly later this season.  the dodgers hired grady little to replace tracy following the 2005 season.

2007 topps grady little

i had to purchase this signed card.  

*update* little returned my ttm request after a fair amount of time with both his 2007 topps card 

and 2006 upper deck card 

signed.  very happy to have this success! *end update*

little's 170 wins in his two seasons as the team's manager puts him right between bill russell and davey johnson on the franchise's all-time list.  the dodgers won the wild card in 2006, but were swept in the nlds, and then finished 3rd in 2007.  little resigned as the team's manager after the 2007 season as it seemed apparent that frank mccourt wanted to hire joe torre to take over.

2009 topps joe torre

hall of fame manager torre, who signed this card through the mail, came aboard and led the club to two straight nl west titles and national league championship series berths.  the team faltered in 2010, however, and torre retired after that season. his 259 wins are 12th best among the franchise's managers, and his winning percentage is sandwiched by hoffman's and little's on the leader board. torre's bench coach, don mattingly, was picked to be his successor.

2014 topps heritage don mattingly

this card was the final card i needed for this post.  i had previously received a couple of signed mattingly cards through the mail with some help from reader cory, but i wanted a card of mattingly in dodger gear signed as well.  turns out i had to buy one.  mattingly is the current dodger skipper, and he has the team in first place this year, his fifth at the helm.  the team has won the nl west and made the postseason each of the last two years under mattingly, and they made it to the nlcs in 2013.  mattingly currently ranks 7th in managerial wins and tenure for the franchise, but should pass jim tracy in both of those categories by game 2 of the 2016 season.  after that, he's looking up at five hall of famers - alston, lasorda, wilbert robinson, durocher, and ned hanlon.  that's not bad managerial company.

the evolution of the manager

one of the things that i liked about the dodgers as i was growing up was how well they stayed connected with their past, and how close their past was to their present. the stability of the core players and manager allowed the fans to get from garvey to hodges in just a few steps. call it 'six degrees of walter o'malley'.

this hasn't been the case so much in recent years, and really since the advent of free agency, which makes sense. still, it's worth celebrating, so let's trace the dodgers' managerial roots, shall we?

i'll begin with burt shotton, primarily because i just scanned his 1990 target dodgers card.shotton was the manager in 1947, and then from the latter part of 1948 to 1950. branch rickey picked shotton to replace the suspended leo durocher for the 1947 season, and then tapped him again to replace durocher on a permanent basis after durocher failed to maintain the success in 1948 that shotton had generated the season before. choosing to manage in street clothes (although he would wear the team jacket and hat), shotton won two pennants (1947 and 1949) and came close to a third in 1950. despite this success, he was a victim of the power struggle between branch rickey and walter o'malley, and was replaced by charlie dressen.

charlie dressen (1951-1953) also won two pennants (1952 and 1953) and came darn close in 1951. that, of course, was the year of the 'shot heard round the world'. as detailed in roger kahn's 'the boys of summer', dressen believed that his success should be rewarded with a multi-year contract instead of the one-year deals o'malley liked to hand out. o'malley disagreed, and dressen was replaced with walter alston. dressen, who had previously managed the reds, would go on to manage the senators, braves and tigers, but would not win another pennant.

walter alston (1954-1976) won seven pennants in his 23-year tenure as manager; two in brooklyn and five in los angeles. in 1955 he led brooklyn to its only world series championship, and then won three more (1959, 1963, 1965) after the Dodgers moved to los angeles. he retired with 4 games remaining in the 1976 season, and was replaced by tommy lasorda. the dodgers retired his number (24) in 1977, and he was elected to the hall of fame in 1983.

tommy lasorda (1976-1996)

lasorda won the pennant in his first two full seasons as manager (1977 and 1978) but did not win the world series until 1981. a two-time nl manager of the year, he led the 1988 team to another world series crown. he also won four other division titles during his tenure, and his 61 post-season games managed ranks fourth all-time behind bobby cox, casey stengel and joe torre. lasorda's final game as manager was a 4-3 victory over the astros at dodger stadium on june 23, 1996. the following day he suffered a heart attack and formally retired a month later. he was replaced by the heir apparent, bill russell.

bill russell (1996-1998) finished the 1996 season as manager, compiling a record of 49-37 and earning the nl wild card. unfortunately, the dodgers were swept in the playoffs for the second straight year. in 1997, russell led the team to another second place finish in the nl west, but out of the wild card and playoffs. he was a victim of the fox takeover in 1998, and was fired in june shortly after the bungled mike piazza trade which was made without the knowledge of russell or the gm, fred claire. the dodgers promoted aaa manager glenn hoffman to take over. although it was a smaller sample size, russell's .537 winning percentage is higher than any other dodger manager that served between walter alston and joe torre.

glenn hoffman (1998)

finished the season as the manager with a 47-41 record. he remained with the club as a coach after fox and the sheriff (kevin malone) decided they needed a bigger name at the manager position and hired davey johnson.

davey johnson (1999-2000) finished just over .500 in his two seasons at the helm, including the first losing season of his managerial career in 1999. he was fired after a second place finish in 2000 and replaced with the mild mannered jim tracy. it is worth noting that johnson was the last player to get a hit off of sandy koufax.

jim tracy (2001-2005)

had 4 winning seasons in his five years as manager, including 2 90-win seasons. he was what i figured alston was - kind of quiet and not much of a motivator, but the team won. i don't know if that is really a proper comparison, though. anyway, to me it seemed that tracy began to make some strange decisions late in his reign which corresponded with an apparent dislike for gm paul depodesta. during the 2004 season, a season in which the dodgers won 93 games and advanced to the nlds, tracy was seemingly distraught by the trade of paul loduca, and even switched his number from 12 to 16 in tribute to the steroid-aided catcher. after the dodgers lost to the cardinals in the nlds 3 games to 1 (lima time!), tracy led the team on the field for a post-game handshake a la little league. then, in 2005, he continued his strange allegiance to players like jason grabowski, jason phillips, oscar robles, and mike edwards while eschewing hee seop choi. not surprisingly, 2005 was a disaster, and tracy stepped down after the season ended. shortly thereafter, new gm ned colletti brought grady little in to replace tracy.

little (2006-2007)

led the dodgers to the nlds in 2006 where they were swept by the mets. in 2007, the dodgers had two significant slumps late in the season which doomed them to 4th place in the division. this was the year where the generational conflict occurred between veterans such as luis gonzalez (boo!) and matt kemp (yay!) over playing time. frank mccourt and colletti seemed to leave little twisting in the wind following the season as they publicly courted joe girardi and joe torre. in the end, little resigned clearing the way for joe torre to be the new manager.

it's so far, so good for joe torre (2008-present). in his first season as dodgers manager, he led them back to the nlcs for the first time in 20 years, and here in his second year he has them sitting atop the nl west with the best record in the national league. while i am not complaining at all about torre's performance, there is a part of me that wishes russell could have continued the tradition of longevity as the dodger manager, but it wasn't meant to be. it would at least have been nice to hire a dodger like mike scioscia. it looks like he knows what he's doing.

thanks fox.

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!