sunday morning target dodgers

the undisputed star of this week's sheet (although not the only hall of famer) is sandy koufax.

over the last 6 seasons of koufax's career, his record was 129-47 with a 2.16 era.  he struck out 1713 batters, threw 1632.2 innings, hurled 115 complete games, and weaved 4 no-hitters.  he also won an mvp award, three cy youngs, and two world championships.  has there ever been a better or more impressive run for a pitcher?

jim barbieri

barbieri spent half of one season in the big leagues.  he was called up in july of 1966, and stayed with the dodgers for the remainder of the season, including the world series.  he hit .280 during the regular season, but was 0 for 1 in the fall classic.  still, he became the first player to have appeared in the little league world series and the major league world series, and he also got a card in the 1967 topps set.

ed brandt

brandt pitched for the braves from 1928 through 1935 (he was a teammate of babe ruth's that last year) before joining the dodgers for a single season in 1936.  as a dodger, he was 11-13 in 38 appearances, and was traded to the pirates after the season ended.  a few years after his retirement, brandt died at the age of 39 after being hit by a car while crossing the street.

tommy corcoran

corcoran played shortstop for the bridegrooms during the 1890's - from 1892 through 1896 to be exact. his best season out of the 18 he played came for brooklyn in 1894 when he hit .300 and scored 123 runs.

henry cruz

cruz obviously played for the white sox, but before that, he was a dodger.  in fact, he played more games as a dodger from 1975 through 1976 than he did as a member of the white sox from 1977 to 1978.  in 102 games with the blue, cruz hit 4 homers with 19 rbi and a .225 average, while in 69 games with chicago, he hit 4 homers with 15 rbi and a .235 average.  there are a couple of cards of cruz in a dodger uniform - he's got an sspc card from 1975 (or 1976 depending on how you catalog it), and he shows up on a 4-player rookie card in 1976 topps as well.  oddly enough, cruz is one of two players from the virgin islands to show up on this sheet.

jay johnstone

johnstone was a dodger double dipper, but i have already told that tale.  instead of rehashing that, i will note that all three of his home runs in 1981 came as a pinch hitter, which is not really a surprise.  the first two came in consecutive at bats, however, which is interesting but not as impressive as del unser and lee lacy hitting home runs in three consecutive pinch hitting appearances.

john kennedy

kennedy was acquired by the dodgers as part of the big trade with the senators following the 1964 season.  good timing on his part, as he played for the national league champions in both 1965 and 1966, winning a world series ring in '65.  kennedy saw action in both postseasons with the dodgers, and was traded to the yankees following the 1966 series.  interestingly enough, this john kennedy was born on may 29, 1941 - 24 years to the day after president john f. kennedy was born.

bill madlock

madlock was a 4-time national league batting champ who joined the dodgers for the pennant run in 1985.  he helped the team reach the nlcs that year, hitting .360 after joining the club, and then hit .333 with 3 homers and 7 rbi in the championship series against the cardinals. unfortunately, madlock wasn't able to direct tommy lasorda to not pitch to jack clark with first base open, and the dodgers lost the series.  madlock returned to the team for the entire 1986 season, but was released by the team following a slow start in 1987.

al mcbean

mcbean is the second player on this sheet to hail from the virgin islands.  he is from st. thomas, while cruz is from st. croix.  anyway, mcbean was a dodger for parts of two seasons - 1969 and 1970.  he joined the dodgers following a one game stint as an original padre in 1969 and went 2-6 in 31 games for the blue.  in 1970, he appeared in just one game for the dodgers before being released which was strange because he threw a scoreless inning in that game.  he signed with the pirates following his release, and returned to pittsburgh where he had pitched for the first 8 seasons of his career.

joe orengo

orengo came to the dodgers in a midseason swap with the new york giants back in 1943.  the dodgers gave up dolph camilli in the deal, and later in the season they wound up sending orengo to the saint paul saints, who would become the dodgers' aa affiliate the following year.  in between, he appeared in 7 games as a dodger,  hitting .200 in 19 plate appearances.

doug rau

dougie was a pitcher on the team of my youth, and i saw him pitch in person quite a few times.  he won at least 13 games every season from 1974 through 1978, and helped the dodgers to the postseason in three of those campaigns.  unfortunately, an arm injury effectively ended his career in 1979, although he did return to the majors for a short stint with the angels in 1981.  he's probably best known for trying to convince tommy lasorda to let him stay in the game during an argument (warning - tommy and rau and even davey lopes all have potty mouths) on the mound in the 1977 world series.

mike vail

like cruz earlier, vail is obviously not shown wearing a dodger uniform.  i suppose this can be forgiven, as vail appeared in only 16 games for the dodgers after he was acquired during to the 1984 season.  he was just 1 for 16 in those games, but at least his lone hit was a walk-off single against the cardinals on july 6.

gus weyhing

weyhing joined the brooklyn superbas during the 1900 season and was 3-4 in 8 games pitched.  until former dodger mike morgan came along, weyhing held the distinction of having pitched for the most number of teams (11).  which reminds me, i need to get to my travels of mike morgan post someday.

hoyt wilhelm

so we start and end the post with hall of famers.  wilhelm ended his hall of fame career with the dodgers in 1972.  he managed 1 save in his final season, which was ended when the dodgers released him - just a few days shy of his 50th birthday.

you may have noticed that there were only 14 cards featured in this post - that's because, once again, one of the players featured was a double dipper.  he'll get a separate post later on.

standing on guard for thee

so, in addition to those 1973 o-pee-chee cards that i showed off earlier today, i also picked up some canadian cards from 1975.  the lot included the entire infield - garvey

cey

russell

and lopes

plus some other dodgers like bill buckner

ken mcmullen

and doug rau

rau is posing in front of the holman stadium bleachers that most recently showed up on 2007 topps dodger cards and 2009 topps heritage cards.

like his 1973 issue, 1975 was pretty much the same as its topps counterpart.  more so, in fact.

here, bill hands suffers some serious airbrushing on his 1975 o-pee-chee card just as he had back in 1973

and carmen fanzone still has his number inscribed within the cubs' logo on his helmet

unlike 1973, there is no french on the front of subset cards, like this nolan ryan card

but there is french on the back

pretty sneaky putting a trivia question on the back of lou brock's card for which the answer is lou brock.   and why specify the nl mark?  brock's 118 steals were the major league record at the time.

anyway, i am happy to have these o-pee-chee cards in the collection, even though i will probably only keep the dodgers.  i just can't see see myself being able to complete any o-pee-chee sets prior to 1977.

o-pee-chee has no new tale to tell, even if it is canada day

happy canada day to those of you who acknowledge such holidays.  i figured instead of showing off some justin morneau bowman international parallel cards (especially since i don't own any), i would go one better and show some o-pee-chee goodness that i have recently acquired.  unfortunately, the cards that i picked up are from a year where there were no variations.

on a side note, it's been a while since oh my o-pee-chee wrapped up its run, but i notice that it still gets a few views now and then. i had a good time going through (and acquiring) all of the variations that o-pee-chee had to offer.  in 1973, however, terry crowley is about to meet up with thurman munson

just as it is on his topps card.

and, duke sims is wearing dodger blue on glenn beckert's card

just as he does in the topps set.

bill hands is still a twin pitching in wrigley field

and dave johnson is still a brave turning two in yankee stadium

just like in the topps set.

likewise, dodgers willie crawford

 al downing

 and pete richert

look the same as they do in their topps versions.

there are some things that set the o-pee-chee set apart from its topps counterpart, however.  there is french on the front of some cards, like the rookie cards that included charlie hough

 and doug rau

 and on the postseason recap cards that included one of the best double play cards ever issued

 as well as on the boyhood photos of the stars, and this chris speier card shows.

of course, there is also french on the back.  and so we can learn that canadian native mike kilkenny carries his cartes de baseball in his sac

that is a far better cartoon than one that might have pointed out kilkenny having played for four different teams in 1972.

here's to you canada, and thanks for giving us o-pee-chee!

a nefarious 9 update

maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't.  i've made some changes to the nefarious 9 over there to the right.  if you're viewing this in mobile format, it won't make sense, so here are the 9 cards i currently covet the most.

1 - 2000 upper deck ultimate victory #105 koyie hill

2 - 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic steve garvey/reggie smith dual auto

3 - 2007 fleer soaring stars nomar garciaparra

4 - 2011 topps update dee gordon target red border

5 - 1987 drake's steve sax

6 - 1996 upper deck hideo nomo highlights 1

7 - 1996 upper deck hideo nomo highlights 3

8 - 1996 upper deck hideo nomo highlights 5

9 - 2013 topps heritage don mattingly

bonus non-dodger cards - 2009 ud o-pee-chee #36 mike pelfrey

there is a new number one on the list, and four new cards in total.  that's because i picked up a second copy of this 2004 fleer greats announcing greats featuring steve garvey and vin scully

when i first put this card on the list, i had hoped to do a dual-ttm thing, but i am pretty sure that vin isn't signing ttm anymore, so this one will go in my dodger binder while the first one i picked up stays with my garvey pc.  speaking of which, this next card would have been added to the nefarious 9 if i hadn't stumbled across it a couple of months ago.  it's a 1985 cramer spokane indians greats card of the nl iron man

i had purchased a complete set a few years ago solely to get the garvey, and so my dodger binder featured the garvey-less set.  davey lopes, bill russell, bill buckner, and tommy lasorda are among the other dodger minor leaguers to be featured in the set which is now re-completed.

doug rau isn't in that cramer set, but he was included in the 1977 kellogg's release.  i used to have this card - not sure where it went.

anyway, it was on the list and now it's not.  i'm digging the muttonchops.

from sideburns to a fu-manch, the 1993 o-pee-chee premier mike piazza card was on the list for just a couple of months.

looks like tommy there in the background, too.  it's hard to believe that there are piazza cards that i still don't own - especially ones like this.

the last nefarious 9 card that i picked up recently was the 2013 topps andre ethier 'out of bounds' sp.

it came with a copy of his regular card

which i happen to like better.

so, the list has been updated with some new pursuits.  here is the current nefarious 9:


1 - 2000 upper deck ultimate victory #105 koyie hill
2 - 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic steve garvey/reggie smith dual auto
3 - 2007 fleer soaring stars nomar garciaparra
4 - 2011 topps update dee gordon target red border
5 - 1987 drake's steve sax
6 - 1996 upper deck hideo nomo highlights 1
7 - 1996 upper deck hideo nomo highlights 3
8 - 1996 upper deck hideo nomo highlights 5
9 - 2013 topps heritage don mattingly

bonus non-dodger cards - 2009 ud o-pee-chee #36 mike pelfrey

let me know if you can help a blogger out - you will be rewarded!

some 1982 topps cards that should have been

well, it's been awhile since i tackled the subject of the 1978 topps dodgers.  i need to get a move on as we are only in 1982 along the evolutionary chain of topps releases featuring the likes of garvey, cey, hough and rhoden.

before we move on to 1983, however, there were some omissions in the 1982 set that i need to address.  i've already posted the jerry grote final tribute card that should have been (card 794 in the set) along with a 1982 topps highlight card of the infield (card 793), plus postseason cards celebrating the nlds (797), nlcs (800), and world series (801-808) that topps failed to make.

here are a few more, like the bill russell in action card (795)

complete with a back

russell was the only member of the infield to not get an 'in action' card.  i was bummed.  reggie smith got one, so there were four dodgers in the subset, plus don sutton.  no room for russell, i guess, although he had plenty of stuff to fill out the back.

here's tom lasorda (796)

for the first time since becoming the manager, tommy was left out of the flagship set.  topps got rid of the team card with the little manager photo, but instead of having manager cards like they did in 1978, they went without any skippers.  that's too bad.

it's also too bad that topps didn't give johnny oates his final tribute card in 1982.  here's what it might have looked like - it's card 798 in my set

 since oates played his last game in 1981, i did a back with his complete career stats

oates did indeed go on to manage in the yankees' system in 1982.  he also did indeed get a real final tribute from one of the three major card manufacturers that year.  fleer did the honors, and they actually gave us his full professional career stats on the back

here's the front of the fleer card.

that photo should look familiar.

the third member of the 1978 topps dodgers to make his last appearance in 1981 was doug rau (jerry grote was the other besides rau and oates).  he was completely ignored by all card manufacturers in 1982, so here's my take on his final tribute (card 799).

i used the photo from his 1981 topps traded card, but reversed it.  luckily, the angels' logo works backwards and forwards (cue aztec camera).  here are dougie's career stats

doug almost pulled a hoyt wilhelm at the plate there.  he also pitched a complete game in his big league debut.

topps also left out a few of the 1978 topps dodgers from the 1982 traded set.  not sure why.

tommy john was traded by the yankees to the angels at the end of august

he made 7 starts for the halos down the stretch, winning 4 and losing 2.  he had a couple of big wins against the second place royals in september, which helped the angels reach the postseason for the second time in their franchise history.

manny mota

mota didn't play in 1981, but the dodgers' first base coach did become activated by the team for the pennant drive in september of 1982.  in what would be his only plate appearance of the season and the final one of his career, mota faced off against jim kaat on september 1, 1982.  the dodgers trailed by a run, and there was one out with steve garvey on second.  ron cey had led off the bottom of the 13th inning with a single, but was caught stealing before garvey doubled.  mota was called upon to pinch hit for mike scioscia, and he grounded out to second.  but, he moved the runner over dangit!  a productive out!  the dodgers didn't score (dave sax lined out for the final out) and the loss put them 1.5 games back.  they would rally to get to as much as 3.5 games ahead of the second place braves, but ultimately finished the season a single game back of atlanta, thanks in part to joe morgan's home run off of terry forster in game 162.

don sutton was dealt to the brewers by the astros on august 30, 1982.  that transaction failed to register with topps, however, so this traded card exists only in my imagination.

until now, anyway.  i recall being disappointed when i opened my traded set late in 1982 and not seeing the gray perm between rick sutcliffe and frank tanana.  sutton made 7 starts for the brewers, and like john, helped the team to the postseason for the second time in franchise history.  sutton went one better, however, and led the team to their first pennant at the expense of john's angels.

so, those were the cards that should have been in 1982.  next time, we'll see the cards that really were in 1983.