rest in peace davey lopes

i was a fan.

more words here.

will there be a final tribute?

shortly after i started this blog in september of 2008, i received an email from ben henry, creator of the baseball card blog and someone with whom i had traded a couple of times. he said that he had poked around the site a bit, liked what he saw, and thought that it was smart of me to be focusing on a particular team and era.  i've thought a lot about that comment over the past 6+ years, and i've come to realize that he was right. even though i've branched out with tangential topics that make up part of my collection - the memorial patches and armbands, through the mail autograph successes, cards featuring dodger stadium in the background, double plays, final tributes, and tatooine cards to name a few - the focus on the team of my youth, and in particular the infield of steve garvey, davey lopes, bill russell, and ron cey, has always been there.

i've completed a few different series of posts related to the infield and the team - most recently the contents of my steve garvey collection, but prior to that the position by position evolution from the brooklyn years to recent dodger teams, the inclusion of members of the 1978 topps dodgers in topps flagship sets for almost 50 years, the career torchbearers for the primary starters from that team, and the year-by-year evolution of the infield itself during their playing days.

in doing so, i've enjoyed reliving the memories i have of those teams and of collecting cards during the late 1970's and early 1980's.  i've also enjoyed trading with other bloggers and reading their posts about what makes their collections unique.  i know that i have not been the most interactive blogger - i don't leave too many comments, i don't share much personal information, and i fail at responding to comments most of the time.  i do, however, put together a decent trade package.  it was never my goal to be the most heralded blogger or have the most popular blog, not that those are anyone else's goals, or bad goals to have, either. that's just not the reason for the 2,800 posts i've written. i didn't track readership or number of comments, and i didn't fret about posting every day - i just wrote and posted about cards as i saw fit.  i did it for myself, and in doing so, i gained a new appreciation of my collection - one that didn't exist when they were just cards in boxes and binders.

as a result of creating this blog and its subsequent impact on my collection and collecting habits, i've received and traded emails with jerry reuss, the hall of fame, dodger historian mark langill, and others (including a nastygram from a dodger player from the '90's), plus a comment from kevin pasley, and return mail from a host of former dodgers (including all four of the infielders for whom this blog is named) and other players who signed cards for me or wrote a note in response to a request.  even the great vin scully signed and returned a card for me, in what resulted in the greatest mail day ever. all of that is appreciated greatly, as are the comments from you folks who have read what i've written, and those of you who have traded with me to help make my collection what it is today.  the interaction with fellow bloggers (including the two that i've met in person - carl crawford cards and highly subjective and completely arbitrary) has been a true joy.  all of it has made for a great experience over the past 6-plus years.

during that time i have posted a lot of great cards (and some not so great) from my collection - old and new - and i've enjoyed posting about them, whether they were dodgers or even giants. however, there are a lot of great cards in my collection that i haven't shown on this blog, and i know that in the future there will be more great cards that enter my collection that won't be shown here.  i know that there will be more double play cards, and there will be more cards featuring memorial patches and armbands, and there will be more cards that feature the stunning beauty of dodger stadium in the background.  there will also, of course, be more cards featuring the players fortunate enough to play for the los angeles dodgers.

i will still be collecting those cards.  i would still like to trade if you have some of those cards.  but, i won't be posting about those cards.

i'm done.

i've done what i set out to do, which was to add my voice to the baseball card collecting community that was exploding in the fall of 2008; to make sure that the dodgers got a fair shake in that community; to highlight the excellence that was the dodger infield and the team of my youth; and to make it known that i was a collector with a passion and a collection worth sharing.

to me, it was worth it.

this was the infield of my youth.

garvey, cey, russell, lopes.

how about the foldouts from the steve garvey binders?

foldout cards kind of ticked me off when they first started showing up.  what good are they if they are to remain folded up?  i remember seeing some hard cases that would display the cards, but i'm a binder guy, not a hard case sort.  it's a good thing, then, that i found some 3-pocket pages (not the postcard kind) that work well with these things.

have a look:

those cards are:

1. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams team terrific game used hat logo relic (with bill russell, davey lopes, dusty baker, ron cey, and steve yeager) /50
2. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams team terrific game used team logo relic (with bill russell, davey lopes, dusty baker, ron cey, and steve yeager) /85
3. 2009 topps sterling sterling season relic autographs /10

three cards that celebrate the teams of my youth - mainly the 1977 and 1978 pennant winning years.  you know that i am a big fan of the timeless teams set, and i sure would like to find the other versions of that foldout relic card.  there's a version with the timeless teams brand (/35) seared into the bat pieces as well as one with the national league logo (/15), and one with stats (/5) - although i'm not sure what the stats one looks like.  i was a bit disappointed to find that the sterling card wasn't a patch card, but rather just material from the team's away jerseys during the time that they had color at the base of the sleeves.

here are the backs:

this is the last sheet in the main card part of my steve garvey binders:

those cards are:

1. 2011 topps triple threads relic combos double (with duke snider, sandy koufax, clayton kershaw, andre ethier, and matt kemp) /36
2. 2013 panini america's pastime hitter's ink booklet (with tony gwynn) auto /25

i really should move that hitter's ink booklet to a 2-pocket page.  i find it interesting that over steve garvey's career, he only had two teammates (for any substantial amount of time - i'm not counting the likes of jim bunning, hoyt wilhelm and frank robinson) who made the hall of fame - don sutton and tony gwynn.  and with this gwynn card, i have dual auto cards for garvey and both of those teammates.

here are the backs:

i mentioned before that i'll have a living post for my garvey collection that i'll update as i add cards. it will be more for my use than anyone else's, i imagine, but it will be cool to have it all in one place.

there is a lot going on on this sheet from the steve garvey binders, but something is missing

i'm only posting about one sheet in the steve garvey binders today, and it's sheet 70:

those cards are:

1. 2012 topps triple threads unity relics emerald /18
2. 2012 topps triple threads relic autographs 'dodgers great' /18
3. 2012 upper deck sp signature edition autograph
4. 2012 upper deck sp signature edition season signatures quad 1981 world series champions (with davey lopes, dusty baker, and ron cey) /15
5. 2013 panini elite extra edition bloodlines (with ryan garvey)
6. 2013 panini america's pastime pastime signatures auto /99
7. 2013 topps chasing history autograph
8. 2013 topps million dollar chase autograph /268
9. 2013 topps allen & ginter framed mini relic

i think there are five different versions of the relic autographs from triple threads - different in that the cut outs for the relics spell different things. i'm glad i have the 'dodgers great' version, even if it comes with padre uniform material.

i am again somewhat disappointed with topps for not giving garvey base cards in the chasing history set, as well as the allen & ginter set, but i'll take the autos and relics anyway.

i noticed after scanning this page that the garvey card from 2013 panini hometown heroes is missing.  i know i have it, i guess i've misplaced it in one of my boxes.  i'll have to dig it out and get it in its rightful spot.  when i do, i'll update this (or another post).

here are the backs:

here we see garvey's son ryan (which is actually the front of the elite extra edition card).  the younger garvey was drafted by the phillies in 15th round of the 2011 draft, but didn't sign and wound up being selected by the rockies in the 33rd round the following year.  he spent three years in the minors, but was released by the rockies in march of this year.

i went for blue on black friday

it's been well over seven months since black friday, so i am a bit unsure why it has taken so long for me to post about some of the cards i purchased that day.  especially since one of the cards i bought on ebay that day was this 1952 bowman duke snider card

it was cheap, thanks to some rounded corners, scuffing, and a bit of paper loss, but to me it looks the way vintage ought to look.  that is a pretty card.

i have been on the lookout for a 1972 topps venezuelan steve garvey card for a long time, but have only seen one come up for sale in that time. it was prohibitively expensive.  on the other hand, i picked up this 1977 topps venezuelan davey lopes card

for what i thought was a reasonable price.  these cards are really thin, with nothing on the back, by the way.

most of my black friday shopping was done on comc, where i picked up a 1950 bowman bruce edwards card

along with a 1951 topps blue back

ralph branca card

this was my first blue back - there are only three dodgers in the blue back set, and they seem to be a bit tougher to find than the red backs.

i found some post cards - 1961 post john roseboro

1961 post larry sherry

and 1962 post stan williams

that weren't butchered too badly by the scissor wielding children of the 60's and gladly added them to my cart.

it wasn't all vintage, however, as i purchased a couple of 1983 permagraphics cards of pedro guerrero

and fernando valenzuela

along with a 1983 topps glossy send-in valenzuela

i am pretty sure i have this card already, as i sent in wrappers for these sets pretty regularly, but i bought it anyway because it didn't look familiar.  i still haven't checked to see if it's a double or not.

the last couple of cards are blue and shiny.  from 2012 bowman, i grabbed the matt kemp

and duke snider

blue sapphire rookie reprint cards.  my black friday duke purchases spanned 60 years, now that i think about it.

this was money well spent without getting up early and fighting the crowds - i think i'll make a habit of 'blue' friday...

turning the pages of the steve garvey binder into 2005

the 53rd sheet in the steve garvey binder features six cards from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams, but i wish that there were more.  here is sheet 53:

those cards are:

1. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams (1974) bronze parallel /50
2. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams (1977) auto sp - print run of 35
3. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams (1981) auto sp - print run of 75
4. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary signatures dual auto (with davey lopes) /150
5. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary signatures dual auto (with ron cey) /150
6. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary combo triple signatures auto (with dusty baker) /50
7. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts
8. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts significant fact relic /1
9. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts historic swatches relic

i've written quite a bit about the timeless teams set, and used to have a bronze parallel of garvey's 1980 subset card, but i traded it for the 1974 version to help another collector out.  so, i still need three bronze parallels, four gold parallels, plus two autos, four gold auto parallels, and then there are the four 1/1 autos, too. that's a lot.  i should note at this point that there are other relic cards from the set, as well as some from other 2004 sets (and other years, too) that will be shown later. they are either encased or otherwise too big or thick to fit in a standard nine-pocket sheet.

the 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts 1/1 relic card is actually 1 of 99.  there are 99 unique "significant facts" printed on the cards which are stamped "1 of 1".  so, i have the only one that touts garvey's 95 rbi in 1975.  kind of a weak 1 of 1.  on the last card, we've got the padre relic swatch on a dodger card, which will happen again on the next sheet.

here are the backs:

 there's one more card from 2004, and it's on sheet 54:

those cards are:

1. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts significant swatches
2. 2005 baseball hero deck playing card
3. 2005 donruss classics stars of summer /1000
4. 2005 donruss classics stars of summer relic /250
5. 2005 donruss diamond kings
6. 2005 donruss diamond kings framed red
7. 2005 donruss diamond kings materials bronze /200
8. 2005 donruss diamond kings materials silver /100
9. 2005 donruss diamond kings materials gold /50

there is a triple-relic card from the 2004 sp legendary cuts set that i would very much like to find. it features garvey, along with his dodger teammates reggie smith and dusty baker. it's only got a 15 card print run, however, so it is unlikely that i will find it.

while i am missing some of the autos and parallels and auto paralles from the 2005 donruss classics stars of summer insert set, my five cards from 2005 donruss diamond kings represent only about one-tenth of the garvey cards available from that set.  ridiculous.  i'm missing 50 cards, according to beckett, including bronze, challenge (whatever that is), framed black, framed blue, framed green, gold, hawaii, and other variant parallels of just the base version of the card.  as i said, ridiculous.

here are the backs:

even without all of those parallels, there are still plenty of cards and pages to be shown.  stay tuned...

the rest of the infield (and others) show up in the steve garvey binders

not all of the cards in the steve garvey binders are of steve alone.  sometimes, he has company.  such is the case with one of the cards on sheet 44.  have a look.

those cards are:

1. 2003 topps all-time fan favorites relic
2. 2003 topps retired signature
3. 2003 topps retired signature black parallel
4. 2003 topps tribute
5. 2003 topps tribute gold parallel
6. 2003 topps tribute auto relic
7. 2003 topps tribute team tribute relic with ron cey and steve yeager
8. 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography dodger stars auto
9. 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography dodger stars auto bronze

i was happy to see cey and yeager show up on a tribute relic, even though it would have made more sense for them to do so with the other co-mvp of the 1981 world series, pedro guerrero, and not the garv.  i am missing the gold version of the garvey tribute auto relic, and i am sure it is as fantastic as the base gold parallel.  look at that sucker shine!

here are the backs:

moving on to sheet 45, the upper deck autographs continue with some familiar faces (and signatures):

those cards are:

1. 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography dodger stars auto silver
2. 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography doubles auto with ron cey
3. 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography triples auto with davey lopes and ron cey
4. 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography triples auto with bill russell and ron cey
5. 2003 upper deck sweet spot classic
6. 2003 upper deck sweet spot classic jersey relic
7. 2004 donruss classics team colors bat relic
8. 2004 donruss classics team colors combo material bat/patch relic
9. 2004 donruss classics team colors combo auto relic

the 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography dodger stars set was a fantastic group of cards for this fan back in '03.  it featured certified autos for bill buckner, tommy john, maury will, ron cey, bill russell, don sutton, duke snider, davey lopes, don newcombe, steve yeager, and, of course, steve garvey.  there were also the combo autos, three of which you see on that sheet.  each individual auto had the base (numbered to a variety of copies - garvey's is 320), bronze (most, like garvey's, numbered to 100 and with the "dodgers" inscription), silver (numbered to 50, and most with a year inscription), and gold (numbered to 10).  i am missing the garvey gold version, unfortunately.

here are the backs:

a note about the 2004 donruss classics team colors cards, which continue on sheet 46.  donruss essentially used the twins 'twin cities' logo on these cards which confused me at first.  you can't unsee it - have a look:

 those cards are:

1. 2004 donruss classics team colors jersey relic
2. 2004 donruss classics team colors jersey (pinstripe) relic
3. 2004 donruss classics team colors signatures auto
4. 2004 donruss elite extra edition back to back picks signature with ron cey
5. 2004 donruss leather & lumber rivals
6. 2004 donruss leather & lumber rivals material dual relic
7. 2004 donruss leather & lumber lumber cuts auto
8. 2004 donruss leather & lumber leather cuts auto
9. 2004 donruss team heroes

it is also strange to me that donruss used a dodger jersey for the combo bat/patch relic on sheet 45, but then went with a padres jersey for the other relics while still using a photo of garvey as a dodger.  at least upper deck switched from a dodger photo on the 2003 upper deck sweet spot classics base card to a padres photo on the relic insert since they were using a brown friars swatch.  donruss also took the 'back to back' literally with the elite extra edition auto card as you will see in a moment.

here are the backs:

there's the penguin!

still more to come - stay tuned...

black and blue ryu and some other dodger cards

i'm continuing with a sort of random rambling theme today.

this is a 2013 panini black friday hyun-jin ryu card

it was somehow available on black friday, 2013. i don't recall how i obtained it (sportlots, maybe), but it is not worth standing in line waiting for stores to open to obtain.  still, panini did the same sort of thing last year, and i'm guessing panini is doing it again this year.  ryu is out for the season now, following shoulder surgery.  

this is a 2013 panini pinnacle matt kemp museum collection parallel

it doesn't scan as well as the museum collection inserts from the 1990's.

still more panini - this time from 2014 panini golden age

dusty baker

davey lopes

and zack wheat

as pleased as i was to see dusty and davey and other dodgers from the team of my youth in this set, i don't consider them to be from the golden age.  wheat, sure, but not the others.

wheat also got an insert card in the release - it's a 1913 the national game card

and i wish this had been the base set design

now here's a 2007 topps turkey red andy laroche card

and a 1999 topps chrome jeff shaw card

moving on to 2010 upper deck, here's a biography insert of jeff weaver

marking the time that he beat his brother jered in a game between the dodgers and angels.

olmedo saenz didn't have too many cards, but he spent four seasons with the dodgers and made it into the 2007 topps update & highlights set

even though 2007 was his fourth year with the club.  not much of an update there - more like an omission.

last card for today is a 2008 topps stadium club beam team autographed card of delwyn young

i secretly hoped that delwyn and delmon young (no relation) would have wound up on the same team just for the potential confusion factor.  would they have had their full names on the backs of their jerseys? who knows.

the tommy lasorda managerial tree

with the brewers' firing of manager (and former dodger) ron roenicke the other day (he was replaced by another former dodger, craig counsell), i decided to finally finish pulling this post together.  in football, i used to hear a lot about the bill walsh coaching tree - all of the people who coached under bill walsh who went on to become head coaches themselves.  that tree is then expanded to include coaches under those head coaches who became head coaches, and so on.  my take on the tommy lasorda managerial tree is in regards to his players - not coaches, and this post will just look at the first tier of major league managers who spent some time playing under one thomas charles lasorda.

here's the man himself on a 2004 upper deck sp authentic card

that notes his managerial triumph in the 1982 all-star game in montreal while using a photo from about 20 years later.  incidentally, he had four future big league managers playing under him on that '82 all-star roster - dusty baker, tony pena, pete rose, and ray knight.

i'm focusing on his dodger players, however, and when tommy took over the dodgers late in the 1976 season, he had three future major league managers on his roster at that time:

dusty baker

davey lopes

and bill russell

who replaced lasorda during the 1996 season.

over the next 20-years, lasorda managed another 9 future managers.

johnny oates

ron washington

mike scioscia

ron roenicke

phil garner

 glenn hoffman

who took over for russell in 1998

kirk gibson

willie randolph

and juan samuel

this list does not include players such as bobby valentine, whom tommy managed in the minor leagues, nor does it include players such as joe ferguson, tommy john, gary carter, rick dempsey, mike marshall, or steve yeager who played in the majors under tommy and later managed in the minor leagues.

with the firings of kirk gibson last year and roenicke this year, scioscia is the only active manager to have played under lasorda. however, it is yet conceivable that this tree sprouts some new branches in the future, as such former "lasorda" dodgers and minor league managers bobby mitchell, brett butler, and tim wallach are currently working for big league teams as an instructor (mitchell) or big league coaches (butler and wallach).

and, in case you are wondering, bill russell's managerial tree's first tier consists solely of chip hale.

here's to more lasorda style hugs in the dugout!