sunday morning target dodgers - the spy who played baseball edition

here are 15 cards from a sheet in the 1990 target dodger 100th anniversary set.  some pretty interesting stories here, starting with this guy - moe berg

berg was an ivy-leaguer (he attended princeton and columbia) who spent his first year in the majors (1923) with the brooklyn robins.  he hit only .186 as a 21-year old infielder, but later found a niche in the big leagues with other teams as a backup catcher.  he also improved at the plate, and was able to carve out a 14-year major league career with four american league clubs following his one year in brooklyn.  the most interesting part of berg's story, however, is that he was a spy.  berg was fluent in several languages, and was added to the connie mack all-star team that was to make a tour of japan in 1934.  berg may have seemed out of place on such a team that featured babe ruth, lou gehrig, and others, but he was there to spend some time doing some recon for the us government.  other missions berg completed included a trip to switzerland to assess the germans' likelihood of developing the atomic bomb.

dolph camilli

i don't know that i've seen camilli's name spelled with an 'f' instead of the 'ph' before.  anyway, camilli (father of future dodger doug camilli) played for the dodgers from 1938 until july of 1943 when he was traded to the giants (in true rivalry fashion, he refused to report to the club).  during his dodger days, camilli was a two-time all-star and led the league in home runs and rbi in 1941, earning the national league's mvp award - the first dodger to win the award since dazzy vance in 1924.

chuck essegian

essegian had the good fortune to be traded to the dodgers during the 1959 season.  as a result, he was able to appear in the 1959 world series against the white sox, and he made the most of his appearances. after striking out as a pinch-hitter in the dodgers' game 1 loss, he hit a game-tying solo home run in the 7th inning of game 2 which the dodgers went on to win.  essegian pinch-hit again in game 5, drawing a walk in a losing effort, but came up big with his second pinch-hit home run of the series (hitting for duke snider of all people) in the 9th inning of the dodgers' 9-3 series clinching game 6 victory.

chico fernandez

fernandez was signed by the dodgers in 1951 and worked his way through the minors to the point where some thought the good fielding shortstop would eventually replace pee wee reese at the position for the dodgers.  fernandez was called up and debuted in july of 1956 and finished the season with a .227 batting average in 34 games.  the dodgers decided to deal fernandez following the season, and he became the phillies regular shortstop after they acquired him for elmer valo and a few other players.  he went on to play for the tigers, too, before they traded him to the braves on may 8, 1963.  later that same day, the braves dealt fernandez to the mets and he finished out his big league career that year with new york.

ned garvin

garvin joined the superbas late in the 1902 season, earning a win and a loss in his two starts for the club that year.  in 1903, he was 15-18 for brooklyn, and in 1904 he had a record of 5-15 (despite a 1.68 era) before he was picked up on waivers by the new york highlanders with whom he finished out the season.  bill james recognizes garvin as perhaps the "hard-luck pitcher of all-time" due to his consistently poor record and low era.

gail hopkins

local boy hopkins attended pepperdine and ucla in the 1960's but was signed by the white sox rather than the dodgers in 1965.  following a total of six seasons spent in the majors with the chisox and kansas city a's, hopkins joined the dodgers during the 1974 campaign.  he only appeared in 15 games for the 1974 national league champs, hitting .222 with 4 singles in 18 at bats.  he went on to play in japan for a couple of seasons and returned to the states to earn an m.d. and ph.d and practiced medicine in california and illinois for many years. his card features the left field pavilion of dodger stadium in the background, which is nice.

jim lindsey

lindsey had pitched for the indians, cardinals (in two different stints), and reds before joining the dodgers in 1937.  he pitched in 20 games for brooklyn, amassing a record of 0-1 with a 3.52 era.  that was the end of his big league career, although he continued to pitch in the minors for many more seasons.

jesse orosco

orosco had two stints with the dodgers, including that glorious 1988 season.  he is the all-time leader in games pitched with 1,252.  the only active pitcher with at least 1,000 games pitched is latroy hawkins who is right at the 1,000 mark.

phil regan

regan pitched for the tigers, often as a starter, from 1960 through 1965 when he joined the dodgers via trade prior to the 1966 season.  walter alston moved regan to the bullpen, and the pitcher responded with a tremendous season.  regan pitched exclusively in relief, appearing in 65 games and earning a record of 14-1 with what would have been a league-leading 21 saves had that been an official statistic back then.  regan was an all-star that year, as well as the comeback player of the year and reliever of the year, and he wound up pitching in two games of the world series as well.  regan's 1967 season was not quite as spectacular, and he was traded to the cubs just a few games into the 1968 campaign.  he did return to the dodger organization following his retirement as a scout and later as manager of the triple-a dukes in 1996.

packy rogers

rogers hit .189 in 23 games for the 1938 dodgers which was the only time he appeared in the major leagues.  he returned to the minors and eventually managed there for a few seasons following his service during world war ii.

sherry smith

smith had a record of 69-70 over his 7 seasons with the brooklyn robins spanning from 1915 into the 1922 campaign (he did not pitch in 1918 for some reason), but his era as a robin was 2.91 and he twice won 14 games in a season.  he was a big part of the robins' pennant winning teams of 1916 and 1920, and he threw 13.1 innings in game 3 of the 1916 fall classic only to surrender the winning run and take the loss opposite the bosox starting pitcher, babe ruth.  smith was 1-1 in the 1920 series against cleveland, giving up just one earned run in 17 innings of work in the robins' losing effort.

mike strahler

i think of strahler as one of the other guys on charlie hough's 1972 rookie card.  he pitched in parts of three seasons for the dodgers - 1970 through 1972.  in total, he appeared in 31 games as a dodger, earning a record of 2-3 with a save and an era of 2.76.  he made 2 starts for los angeles (both in 1972), one of which turned out to be a complete game victory for strahler in his final dodger appearance.  after  the '72 season ended, strahler was traded to the angels in the frank robinson for andy messersmith deal, and the halos traded him soon after that to the tigers.

dick stuart

stuart could hit. he hit .272 with 192 home runs in his first seven seasons, which were spent with the pirates and red sox between 1958 and 1964.  in fact, stuart led the american league in rbi in 1963 while with the red sox, and drove in 114 the following year.  unfortunately, he was not the best fielder.  in fact, stuart led his league in errors by a first baseman in each of those same seven seasons mentioned above.  after a down year with the phillies in 1965 (in which he finished second with 17 errors and hit just .234), stuart joined the mets for the start of the 1966 season, which is where the photo used on his card above comes from.  he was ultimately released by the mets during the season and was signed by the dodgers.  stuart hit .264 with 3 homers in 38 at bats for the dodgers, and even managed a couple of plate appearances for them in the 1966 world series.

lee walls

walls joined the dodgers following the 1961 season in a deal that sent charlie neal to the expansion mets.  he spent three non-descript seasons with the dodgers as a utility player/pinch-hitter, although i found his final big league appearance to be fairly interesting.  on the final day of the 1964 season, walter alston replaced his starting catcher (john roseboro) following the first inning with rookie jeff torborg.  roseboro had reached base, stolen third, and scored on a wild pitch prior to being removed from the game, but i don't know if his removal had to do with an injury or if it was just because it was the last game of the year and the dodgers were leading the colt .45's 5-0 after one inning of play.  anyway, torborg played through the eighth inning, but was replaced at catcher by walls for the 9th.  it was the first (and only) time walls had caught in a big league game, and it was also the last time he wore a big league uniform - the dodgers released him 10 days later.

robert wilson

wilson joined the dodger organization in 1950, but spent only two days in 1958 on the field in the big leagues.  he may have been up with the dodgers for longer than that, but his actual playing career consists of 3 games over 2 days in saint louis in may of 1958.  on saturday, may 17, wilson made his debut when he pinch-hit for stan williams against the cardinals' larry jackson and stroked a single.  he was replaced at the start of the following inning in the lineup by don drysdale.  the next day, in the first game of a doubleheader, wilson again pinch-hit (this time for clem labine), but struck out against the cards' billy muffett.  in the nightcap, wilson got the start in right field, but was replaced late in the game by gino cimoli following an 0 for 3 performance at the plate.  and that was that for wilson's big league career.

and you shall know them by their yellow backs

i caught myself by surprise a couple of years ago when i realized that i had a complete dodger team set of 1970 o-pee-chee cards.  i am not really sure how that happened, but it did.  one day i was cross checking lists with my early 70's dodger binder and there they were - all the gray bordered dodger goodness that o-pee-chee bothered to issue.  helped, of course, by the fact that there are six fewer dodgers in the o-pee-chee set than the topps - no canadian versions of jim lefebvre, maury wills, tom haller, don sutton, jim brewer or al mcbean.

i didn't have the same luck with 1971 o-pee-chee at the time, but i did pick up a large lot of dodger cards from the set a year or so ago, plus a few of the high numbers here and there since then to help me get closer to knocking another team set off the want list.

i'll show the lower numbered cards first...

claude osteen

everytime i see a '71 osteen, i wonder what the heck is going on in the background.  here's the back of osteen's card - it's yellow, but of course you already knew that because you followed along as i posted all about o-pee-chee over at oh my o-pee-chee, right?

it's been well over a year since things wrapped up over there, and i kind of miss posting and learning about the variations.  i'm not starting another blog though, especially since timeless teams is floundering.

here's sandy vance

the 'lesser' sandy, if you will

i really like the 'sunburst' behind the photos on the back.  it's different from the rectangular insert photo on the backs of the 1971 topps cards, and in my opinion, better.

von joshua

it's worth noting that on these cards, the french text comes first.

joshua was a dodger double dipper, by the way.

billy grabarkewitz

good to see the holman stadium seats in the background there.  jerry stephenson is hanging out, too, but i don't know who the seated dodger is.

it's too bad that grabarkewitz and mark grudzielanek played three decades apart.  harry caray wouldn't have known what to do if they were involved in a double play turn.

manny mota

this is a photo from shea stadium, like so many other cards in the 1971 set

the back of mota's card notes that he is 'a good hitter' who topped .300 in 4 of the previous 5 years.  he hit over .300 in 1971, too, as well as 1972 and 1973.

bill singer

if only the photographer had snapped the picture a moment earlier, i wouldn't be wondering who is walking behind singer.

no surprise that the back of the card mentions singer's no hitter thrown in july of 1970.  a joule sans coups, as it were.

duke sims

yankee stadium on a dodger card?  yes, thanks to the power of the o-pee-chee team variation!

nice to read that he was a yankee killer, too.

al downing

another team (and text) variation, which features a first year brewers uniform. 

downing would go on to have the best season of his career in 1971.

bob valentine/mike strahler

both guys had some big league stats prior to 1971, but topps still went with the minor league numbers on the back.

valentine and strahler (and grabarkewitz and singer as well) would be traded to the angels after the 1972 season with frank robinson in exchange for andy messersmith and ken mcmullen.

alan foster

i'm somewhat on the fence about including this card with my team set for obvious reasons.  foster was the guy traded to the indians for duke sims.

andy kosco was the player traded to the brewers for al downing, but his card came in a later series, so topps already had him as a brewer with a magic hat thus eliminating the need for an o-pee-chee variation.

bill russell

still an outfielder on the card, russell's conversion to the infield began in 1971

he actually played more second base than any other position in '71, but was moved to shortstop in 1972.

bill sudakis

it's too bad sudakis had bad knees.  on the other hand, had he been healthy, would steve garvey and later ron cey have been given a shot at third?  or joe ferguson behind the plate?  the mind boggles.

sudakis' co-mvp in the 1968 texas league was jim spencer who was the first player ever drafted by the california angels.

joe moeller

moeller was in his second stint with the dodgers when this card was issued

he was one of the few players on the team that had been a teammate of duke snider's.

jeff torborg

with danny ozark hitting fungoes behind him

singer's no hitter gets mentioned again, as does sandy koufax, as torborg was the catcher for sandy's perfect game as well as singer's masterpiece.    he later caught nolan ryan's first no hitter.

steve garvey

canadian rookie goodness!

and what's with all the black batting gloves?

don sutton

still pre-perm

and it still bothers me that he was released by the dodgers in august of 1988.

i'll show the rest of my 1971 o-pee-chee dodgers in a post later on today...

more of yesterday's 1971 los angeles dodgers

here's the rest of the dell's todays 1971 los angeles dodgers album.  the second of two stamp sheets

we have jim brewer, mike strahler (on what might be his lone solo dodger issue other than the 1990 target set), billy grabarkewitz, and bill russell.  the grabarkewitz photo is the same one used on his 1970 topps card, complete with lurking danny ozark. 

in the second row, it's pete mikkelson, duke sims, tom haller, and rich allen. or dick allen, if you prefer.  this is a pretty cool row.  unlike strahler, mikkelson was completely ignored by topps during his tenure as a dodger despite pitching in 155 games over four years for them.  duke sims got a dodger card in the 1972 topps set, but was in transition when the 1971 set was issued.  he was acquired in a december, 1970 trade with the indians so it's nice that he was able to get down to chavez ravine and put on a dodger uni in time for this release.  unlike al downing on the first stamp sheet of this album.  it's always good to see tom haller actually wearing a dodger uniform and there simply aren't enough items with rich allen in dodger blue.

the last row is a bastion of early 70's dodger goodness with claude osteen, don sutton, bill buckner and steve garvey.

here's the back to the stamps

rich allen is listed as an outfielder who also plays first base - so the dodgers played him mostly at third.  it's not all good news, as mikkelson is noted as having a history of control problems.  and, there's not a lot to say about strahler, so let's bring up kidney surgery.  quite the tidbit there.
there's a bit of a problem with the stat sheet

bill russell was not "nim" in 1969.  he debuted in april of that year and had 48 hits and a .226 average.  other than that the numbers look alright.
next page is an ad for all of the albums

the logos are color-corrected, unlike the envelope we saw earlier today.

here's the inside of the back cover.

these are more along the lines of 'dodger all-time stars' rather than la dodger all-time stars, but that's kind of picky.  i wonder what this page looked like for the expos, padres, brewers and royals.
back cover time

pretty cool to see scheduled double headers.  those were the days.  the days with todays 1971 los angeles dodgers.