postcards from paradise

a funny thing happened on the way to this post.  i misplaced all of my dodger postcards.  i had scanned them, some of which are shown below, but i had planned to further investigate and try to determine the exact years that they were issued using the information on their backs and some of the very scattered data available on the interwebs.  oh well, i'll have to tackle that task another time.  in the meantime, it's summer, and i assume some traveling folks are still sending postcards to the poor saps that are stuck back at home working.  in that vein, here are some dodger postcards that i will classify as 1962 (circa) to 1971 (circa) dodger team issue postcards.

big d!

i chose 1962 because that is the season that dodger stadium opened, and beautiful chavez ravine is the backdrop for many of these.  some, including the don drysdale postcard above, the ron perranoski postcard below,

this larry sherry postcard

and this maury wills postcard

all feature the three sisters palm trees closed up as they were first installed.

these next two are certainly from 1967, as that was the only season that ron hunt

and gene michael suited up for the dodgers.

plus, the palm trees have opened up!

i figure that these wes parker

and jeff torborg postcards

are from 1966, but that's only based on the relative youthfulness of torborg and this website.

sadly, the postcards moved out of dodger stadium later in the decade to what i assume to be vero beach.  these al ferrara

and bill singer postcards

are assumed to be from 1968 based on the fact that the singer photo is essentially the same as this mudcat grant photo

and this zoilo versalles postcard (i think) has the same info on the back

i wish i could find these things to confirm.  anyway, grant and versalles were only dodgers in 1968, so it's pretty easy to figure those, just like the hunt and michael.  same goes for these next couple - maybe - as long as the dodgers didn't wait to use these photos several years after they were taken.

billy grabarkewitz

and bill sudakis

are both wearing the mlb 100th anniversary patch from 1969, so i figure these to be 1970 postcards, although they could also be 1969 items if the dodgers were really on the ball and published these right after the photos were taken during spring training.

i'm not quite as sure of this tom haller postcard

since he was a dodger from 1968 through 1971, but this dick/richie allen postcard is certainly from 1971 (his lone year with the team)

and it's back in paradise - dodger stadium.

i may get back there yet this season, and if i do, maybe i'll drop a postcard in the mail...

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...

sunday morning target dodgers

lots of good dodgers on this week's sheet.  these 14 shared space on the same sheet as double dipper lloyd waner.  let's have a look.

first up, is the penguin - ron cey

what can i say about cey that i haven't said before?  not too much, i don't think.  he is one of three dodgers from the team of my youth to appear on this particular sheet.

eddie ainsmith

ainsmith was born in russia, and while not the first russian born player, he enjoyed the longest career of any to date.  he caught walter johnson as a member of the senators for 9 seasons from 1910 through 1918 before moving on to a number of different teams.  one of those teams was the brooklyn robins, for whom he appeared in 2 games in 1923, amassing 10 plate appearances and 2 hits.

joe black

black won the nl rookie of the year award in 1952 thanks to his 15-4 record and 2.15 era in 56 games, 54 of which he appeared in as a reliever.  he also finished third in the mvp voting, although he received as many first place votes as did hank sauer, the winner of the award.  he pitched for the dodgers in both the 1952 and 1953 world series, but unfortunately for black, he was traded to the reds during the 1955 season and missed out on brooklyn's lone world series title.

dick egan

egan pitched in 20 games for the dodgers in 1967, his last of four seasons in the major leagues.  he has remained in the game as a coach and scout, mostly for the marlins and tigers. i like this card because of the angle of the photo, which gives a good view of the left field pavilion.

kirk gibson

gibby!  gibson won the mvp award in 1988 and hit a big home run for the dodgers as we all know, and that absolves him in my mind from trying to beat the dodgers as the diamondbacks' manager.

bill hallman

hallman appeared in 134 games for the bridegrooms in 1898.  he also played for the phillies, browns, a's, quakers, and something called the cleveland blues.  according to baseball reference, he is the only player to have increased his batting average 9 years in a row.

gene hermanski

hermanski played for the dodgers in the 1940's, debuting in 1943 and returning to the majors in 1946.  he was a dodger until 1951 when he was traded to the cubs in the andy pafko deal.  aside from helping the dodgers win pennants in 1947 and 1949, hermanski's career highlight was likely the three-home run game he had as a dodger in 1948.

tom lasorda

lasorda was the manager of the team of my youth, as well as the team of my early adult years.  from late in the 1976 season until the middle of the 1996 campaign, he was at the helm of the team.  i do not know why he had tom niedenfuer pitch to jack clark.

rick monday

monday was the center fielder on the team of my youth, and like cey up top, i have written about him quite a bit.  he may well be the only player honored with a solo bobblehead giveaway in which he is wearing a different team's uniform.

jerry nops

the orioles traded nops to the superbas prior to the 1900 season.  he was 4-4 in 9 games for brooklyn and then returned to baltimore for the following season.

harley payne

payne pitched for the bridegrooms in 1896, 1897, and one game in 1898.  he was 29-33 in 75 games, 67 of which were starts.  it's hard to see in the photo, but he also had a fine moustache.

jerry royster

royster was signed by the dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1970, and made his big league debut for them in 1973.  he had cups of coffee with the dodgers in 1974 and 1975 as well, amassing 13 hits in 29 games over those three seasons.  prior to 1976, he was dealt to the braves in the dusty baker deal and had several productive, or at least full, seasons there.  he retired after the 1988 season and eventually went into coaching.  he later replaced former teammate davey lopes as the brewers' manager in 2002.

bill singer

singer won 20 games for the dodgers in 1969, and later won 20 for the angels after being dealt in the andy messersmith/frank robinson trade.  he also threw a no-hitter in 1970, and was the first pitcher to earn a save after the statistic became official in 1969.

woody williams

woodrow wilson 'woody' williams was named for the 28th president of the united states - woodrow wilson - although he was born prior to wilson winning the white house.  for the dodgers, he played shortstop and third base in 1938, hitting .333 in 51 at bats.  williams returned to the minors and returned to the major leagues in 1943 with the reds and was their regular second baseman in 1944 and 1945.