sunday morning target dodgers - more housecleaning

just like last week, today's installment of cards from the 1990 target dodger giveaway feature some partial sheets.   when i first started showing these cards, i wasn't doing it by sheet, and now my ocd has caught up to me.

i've actually featured this max butcher card before (in this extremely lame post)

but i didn't say anything about him.  butcher's big league career began with the dodgers in 1936, going 6-6 with a 3.96 era in 38 games.  he was used as both a starter and reliever, and in 1937 he won 11 games (against 15 losses) including his first career shutout.  he was 5-4 for brooklyn part way through the 1938 season when the dodgers traded him to the phillies.

curt davis

twice in his career, davis was traded as part of a package for a hall of famer.  he was acquired by the cubs from the phillies in 1936 when philadelphia brought chuck klein back, and then two years later, the cubs sent him to saint louis in a deal for dizzy dean.  two years after that, in 1940, the dodgers acquired him, and this time he came along with a hall of famer (joe medwick).  davis pitched for the dodgers for the remainder of the 1940 season through the 1945 season, plus one appearance in 1946.  he was 66-54 with 13 shutouts in that span.  davis was the dodgers' starter in game one of the 1941 world series.  he took the loss after allowing three runs in 5.1 innings, but he held joe dimaggio hitless!

bill lamar

lamar began his career in 1917 with the new york yankees, and played for them until he joined the red sox in 1919.  that season was babe ruth's last in boston, and following ruth's sale to the yankees, the bosox sent lamar to louisville of the american association (aa) for a guy (tim hendryx) that was supposed to replace the bambino.  later that same season (1920), lamar joined the robins and helped them reach the world series.  he was 0 for 3 in the fall classic as the club fell to the indians.  lamar returned to brooklyn in 1921, appearing in only 3 games before he was sent to toledo of the aa.  he resurfaced a few seasons later with connie mack's athetics, and enjoyed some good seasons including a .356 season in 1925.

mike sharperson

sharperson is best known as the dodgers' lone all-star representative in their horrible 1992 season.  he hit an even .300 that year, but was batting .328 at the break.  he was 0 for 1 in the game, striking out against dennis eckersley in the 9th inning.  sharperson had first joined the dodgers during the 1987 season when they sent pitcher juan guzman to the blue jays in exchange for the infielder.  he played everywhere in the infield for the dodgers which i thought was pretty cool.  the dodgers released sharperson just as the 1994 season was starting, and he bounced around a bit.  he did get back to the majors with the braves in 1995, and was in the padres' organization in 1996 when he died in a car accident on his way to report to the big club, if i recall correctly.
 
the other 11 guys on this particular sheet are:  john rutherford and lonny frey (featured here); charlie babb (featured here); jack dalton (featured here); zack taylor (featured here); don hoak (featured here); clem labine and babe phelps (featured here); franklin stubbs (featured here); red barkley (featured here); and george stallings (featured here)

here's another partial sheet of guys that didn't get their due.

burt shotton

come to think of it, i did used this card in this evolution of the manager post.  oh well, it's worth noting again that shotton was jackie robinson's second major league manager, taking over for clyde sukeforth after two games into the 1947 season.  sukeforth, of course, was filling in for the suspended leo durocher.  shotton led the dodger club to the pennant in 1947 and then gave way to durocher.  shotton returned to the helm later in the 1948 season after durocher quit to manage the giants, and this time he stayed through the 1950 season, winning another pennant in 1949.  if you saw the movie "42", you might recall that shotton didn't wear a uniform as the manager, so the image used for the card may show him in his game attire.

roy gleason

like shotton's, i've shown gleason's card before - in an appropriate veteran's day post.  a promising player, gleason's baseball career was effectively ended with his service in vietnam.  he boasts a career 1.000 batting average, and his story is definitely worth checking out.  i am proud to sponsor his baseball-reference page.

herbie moran

moran played for brooklyn in 1912 and 1913 and had the two best seasons of his seven-year career.  he hit .271 as a dodger and superba, with a cumulative ops of .686. he was a member of the 1914 world champion boston braves, although he hit only .077 in the world series.

here are the other players that share space with shotton, gleason and moran on this sheet:  tacks latimer and ed lennox and george steele (featured here); bob caruthers and george cutshaw and red downey (featured here); nelson greene and doc mcjames (featured here); howard freigau and bill fischer and red evans (featured here); and dan griner (featured here)

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.