1965 perfection

'two and two to harvey kuenn.  one strike away.  sandy into his windup and here's the pitch.  swung on and missed - a perfect game!'  

i can't tell you how many times i have heard vin scully's call of the final pitch of sandy koufax's perfect game, thrown on this date in 1965.  one of the shows on the sports talk station out of san diego used to use it as a lead-in to their bit in which they would discuss the best pitching performance of the day.  and, of course, scully's call of the entire 9th inning is loaded into my itunes catalog.

koufax wasn't just perfect on the mound that night in 1965, his topps card from that year is also about as good as it gets.

in fact, it is my favorite card of his.  i am so looking forward to heritage next year.

by the way, i also tip my cap to bob hendley, who threw a one-hitter opposite koufax that night.  congrats to both men on what may well have been the best pitched game in big league history.

garvey makes it to ginter

last year, steve garvey was included on the topps gypsy queen relic checklist, and this year he makes the jump to the big time, 2013 topps allen & ginter!  no base card, though, just a bat relic

it's a super short print, too.  i think that the card is fantastic.  perfect, even.  topps used a great early photo of the garv.  it's just too bad that there is not a base card, too.  i realize that there are a lot of dodgers on the checklist already, but i would have been ok with a garvey card instead of another duke snider or even chad billingsley card.

another dodger not included in the base set, but with a relic card in this year's release is zack greinke

pretty sure he's been airbrushed into a dodger hat there.

i picked up both of these relics in a 25-relic lot for about $65.  although there have been a couple of other garvey cards that went for less than $30 and a couple that sold in the $50 range, i think that i probably will do ok once i liquidate the rest of the relics.

before i do that, is anybody looking for any relics in particular?  other than the garvey, of course.

ride the ted lilly rainbow

ted lilly is no longer with the dodgers, and despite the news reports, he's not chucking for that team up north either.  however, his 2013 topps card, with the backdrop of dodger stadium and the visitor's bullpen is a slice of perfection.  i decided early on to try for all the parallels, and now i present the results of my efforts here.  it's not all sparkles and unicorns, however, as you will soon find out.

let's start with all the colors rolled up into one and go from there.  here's the black parallel

now camoflauge

this is not the base card (although it looks the same in this view). it's actually the card from the 2013 topps dodger set, with the borders featuring the absence of color

pink

target red

orange

emerald

silver sparkle blue

walmart blue

toys r us purple

gold

usually there is gold at the end of the rainbow, but not here.  instead there is silver.  as in silver slate

that's the scarcest of the cards, being numbered to 10

now, here's the bad news.  obviously, i have no printing plate to complete the rainbow.  but even worse than that is the fact that my orange copy is somewhere in usps neverland.  it was last seen leaving pennsylvania on august 4th and scheduled to arrive on august 7th.  the tracking info hasn't been updated since.  the orange version is numbered to 230, but it's part of the factory sets so who knows when the next version will come up for sale.  what stinks is that there were two on ebay at the same time, and i purchased the one that winds up getting lost in the mail.

it seems that wrigley wax can complete his rainbow without any issues, why oh why can't i?

i found another way to love the 2012 topps update adam kennedy card

remember how much i love(d) this card?  the 2012 topps update adam kennedy card?

in addition to the base, there was the black bordered version

and the blue bordered version from wal-mart.

the gold bordered version, numbered to 2012.

the gold sparkle version

and the version from target with red borders

there is the silk version

and, i also have a base version signed.

outside of a printing plate, i thought i had them all.  i was wrong.  a week or so ago, i stumbled across this - an orange bordered parallel

it's numbered to 210, and apparently was part of a factory update set.  is nice, no?  at any rate, it completes the 9-pocket page for this particular card.  thanks to the person who bought a factory set of this and broke it up.  i would expect that giants and orioles fans might go for the singles, too, but i'm not pursuing any more of the orange cards from the set.  although if you have some dodgers to trade, i am open to it...

the kid's final tributes are all right

if i were to rank the best 'final tribute' cards of all time (and i may eventually do that), the top 3 would be the 1973 topps roberto clemente, 1969 topps mickey mantle, and 1988 score steve garvey.  what can i say, i'm a garvey fan.  and, while i don't own a copy, the 1961 fleer ted williams card would be up there, too.

so many hall of famers didn't get their due the year following their final season since they were no longer active and not included on the set checklists, which is a shame.  in recent years, with the glut of card manufacturers, it was less likely that a marquee player would be overlooked, so modern era hall of famers (and fan favorites) seem to be receiving that final cardboard sendoff.

none may have had it better than gary carter.  take a look at the three mainstream releases he had in 1993.

topps

upper deck

 and score select

carter received a special tribute subset in the 1992 o-pee-chee set, but those cards didn't include his stats from his final season.  these cards do.  here are the backs with the kid's totals.

topps

 upper deck

 score select

he's still got the ball on all three cards, as if there were any doubt.  i love the lurking (colliding) mike scioscia on the select card, complete with the dodger stadium locale, but all three are great.  no spring training posed shots here - it's all action, all the time.  topps might get the nod from me, due in some part to the full career stats on the back, but it's not a slam dunk.

i'll be on a final tribute kick over the next few weeks - i've been doing some organizing.  unfortunately, not all of the cards will be as nice as carter's, which are pretty much perfection on cardboard.  stay tuned, though - i'm interested to know which ones you think are best.

2012 topps update adam kennedy, how do i love thee?

let me count the ways.

i love thee in the base card version, 

with the palm trees and dodger stadium; the white uniform, the red jersey number, the foliage covered bullpen wall, the right field pavilion, the low fence in the right field corner, the union 76 logo (even if it's on the outfield wall and not next to the field level scoreboard).  i love it all.

i love thee with black borders, numbered to 61.

i love thee with blue borders, even though you're from wal-mart.

i love thee with gold borders, numbered to 2012.

i love thee all gold and sparkly.

i love thee with red borders from target, even though it's not as red as the number on his jersey.

i love thee in silk form, too.

and, i love thee signed by the man himself - through the mail success y'all!

i will say that i didn't like thee with a blank back in the topps vault 'create-a-collectible 1/1' gimmick thing they have going on.  i would love thee in printing plate form, if anyone happens to see one of those.

now if only ted lilly would sign his 2013 topps card through the mail...

this may well be the greatest double play card of all time

it's also easily one of my top 5 favorite baseball cards ever.  yes, it's a 1953 bowman color pee wee reese card.

this one looks a bit dark only because it is still encased.

i'll get it out of there eventually.  i think i got such a good deal on it because the grading is so far off.  plus, i think some people don't realize how easy it is to remove cards from these cases and pass on them because they are tough to store or display.

i actually have two copies of the card, and i took this one out of the psa case it came in.

it was a psa 1 because of the pinhole in the top center part of the card. here's the back:

yee-haw.  the only negative about the card is that it's a staged photo.  everything else is awesome.  even the red sleeves on pee wee's shirt - they really make the colors 'pop'.

so, you see my quandary.  i still plan to do the 'greatest double play card of all time' tournament, but we all know going in that it will be tough to top that card.  so, should i even bother?  i say yes, because there are other great dp cards.  there are also other vintage double play cards, like this 1956 topps jerry coleman card

that i picked up recently, along with this 1956 topps roy mcmillan card

plus, mcmillan has jim gilliam lurking on his card!  that's good stuff.

this next one has me perplexed.  it's a 1972 topps alan gallagher in action card

when i saw it, i assumed it was a dp card.  but, after acquiring it, i looked gallagher up, and in addition to him having six middle names, it appears that he played third base exclusively while he was with the giants.  this looks like maybe he was covering second base for some reason, but i guess it's not a double play card.

i will assume that this one is, though - gallagher's teammate tito fuentes got his own in action card in the 1972 topps set.

tito was the giants' second baseman in 1971, and i'm not sure if he has any middle names.

moving on, i was able to pick up this 1983 thorn apple valley cubs card of larry bowa for cheap

tim foli looks pretty comfortable just lying on the dirt.  not a very aggressive slide at all.  the problem is that foli was an angel in 1982 and 1983 - he last played for pittsburgh in 1981 (although he would return in 1985).  so, i think maybe that is richie hebner taking it easy while bowa turns two.

hebner's teammate and foli's replacement dale berra turns two on his 1984 topps card

that may well be hubie brooks sliding in, by the way.

while ron oester forces out another pirate (looks like mike brown) on his 1987 topps card

this last dp card isn't vintage, but it's another dodger shortstop so i'll show it.  it's a 2002 topps total jeff reboulet card

nicely cropped by topps to keep the ball in the frame.

so, i still plan on holding the tournament.  i think i will purge my double play image folder during the week of/after christmas when nobody is reading and then work on finishing the seeding.  i was thinking about having people fill out their own brackets and offering a prize for whoever most closely matches my bracket, but that might be more trouble than it's worth.  stay tuned.