sunday morning target dodgers

more cards culled from the monstrous 1990 target dodgers set that was given away at dodger stadium over the course of a few different games back in 1990.  the set features a card for just about every player and manager to don the uniform in a big league game during the first 100 years of the franchise's existence (they joined the national league in 1890).

elias sosa

sosa is one of my guys - a member of the 1977 nl champs and the 1978 topps dodgers.  he is best remembered for surrendering the second of reggie jackson's three home runs in game 6 of the 1977 world series.

ad gumbert

gumbert takes us way back to 1895 and 1896.  he appeared in games for brooklyn in each of those seasons - they were known as the grooms in 1895 but switched back to bridegrooms in 1896, according to baseball reference.  gumbert was 11-20 on the mound for brooklyn, but hit .343 at the plate during his tenure.

norm larker

larker's best season came in 1960 when he finished second to dick groat in batting average among national leaguers.  he was lost to the colt .45's in the expansion draft prior to the 1962 season, and was the first first baseman in houston franchise history.

johnny miljus

miljus pitched for the robins in 1917, 1920, and 1921, compiling a record of 7-4 over that time.  he later pitched for the pirates in the 1927 world series against the yankees.  after pitching 4 scoreless innings of relief in game 1, he uncorked two wild pitches in the bottom of the ninth inning of game 4, one of which allowed the series winning run to score as the yankees swept.

manny mota

another member of the team of my youth and the 1978 topps dodgers.  mota has worn the dodger uniform longer than anyone else - as a player from 1969 through 1979 (plus two more late season appearances in 1980 and 1982), and as a coach from 1980 through 2012 and into the first few weeks of the 2013 season.  i am guessing that the team will retire number 11 at some point in the future, even though mota is not in the hall of fame.

bud podbielan

bud's real name was clarence, and he was 7-7 for the dodgers during his time in brooklyn which lasted from his debut in 1949 until he was traded to the reds during the 1952 season.

reggie williams

both reggie williams that have played major league ball have suited up for the dodgers, but this is reginald dewayne williams.  reginald bernard williams didn't appear as a dodger until 1995.  this reggie williams was actually the team's primary center fielder in 1986, appearing in 128 games.

i'll probably be back with more of these next week.  stay tuned.

elias sosa final tributes

elias sosa got a final tribute from topps and fleer in 1984.  no donruss, unfortunately.  here is his 1984 topps card - front

and back, with complete career stats

here's his fleer card - front

 and back - also with complete career stats

including minor leagues, as fleer is wont to do.  sosa did pitch in the independent california league in 1987, but we won't let a brief return to the minors deter us from enjoying these final tributes.

sosa was the 11th member of the 1978 topps dodgers to retire (not counting tommy lasorda who will keep showing up on cardboard for awhile), and he went out a winner.  sort of.  the padres won the last game in which he pitched, although he did not figure in the decision.  he did single in his final big league at bat, however, which is probably almost as good as being an answer to a trivia question in a major motion picture featuring clint eastwood and justin timberlake.

here's to you elias sosa, even if you gave up one of reggie jackson's three home runs in game 6 of the 1977 world series.

the 1978 topps dodgers who weren't dodgers in 1983 (except one)

let's get this post started with charlie hough, who was in his 3rd full season with the rangers in 1983.  

it was also his second season as a full-time starter (although he did make one relief appearance that year).  he was 15-13 with 11 complete games and 3 shutouts to go with an era of 3.16.  that era mark was better than the 3.95 that he posted in 1982 which earned him a spot on the rangers' team leaders card

i was not a big fan of these team leader cards, probably because they weren't around when steve garvey was leading the dodgers in batting average, and by the time they did appear, he was hitting under .300. back to hough, who also had a scoreless innings streak of 37.1 innings late in the season, throwing three consecutive shutouts.  he also pitched 10.2 innings in one start in a losing cause earlier in the year.

it was good to see hough recently on the mlb network.  i caught a few minutes of that knuckleball show with tim wakefield and the hugely annoying kevin millar.  why he was on the show, or any show for that matter, is beyond me.  anyway, hough was there, too which was nice.

next up is tommy john.

john made 34 starts for the angels in 1983, and had a record of 11 wins and 13 losses.  he threw 9 complete games (one of which was a 12-inning effort!) and had an era of 4.33.

he also received a 'super veteran' card from topps

which recognized his (at that point) 20-year career (19 if you don't count the season he lost to his eponymous surgery).

lee lacy had only played for 12 years through 1982, 4 of which had been with the pirates.

he was in pittsburgh for another year in 1983, and he hit over .300 (.302) for the third time in three seasons.  he played 98 games in the field (playing all three outfield positions) and did not commit an error.  lacy hit 4 home runs that year, with one of them being his second career lead-off home run.

davey lopes didn't have any lead-off homers among his 17 long balls in 1983, but he did hit two in a game against former teammate don sutton

the second of those home runs came in the bottom of the 9th against the brewers on may 23 with the a's down by a run.  with lopes' blast having tied the score, the two teams played on until the 17th inning when lopes sacrificed to set up rickey henderson's game winning hit.  overall, lopes hit .277 and stole 22 bases in 26 attempts, including thefts of second and third in the same inning against the white sox on june 12.  1983 would be lopes' last year as an everyday second baseman, and he appeared in 147 games while also spending time at third base, dh, and the outfield.

rick rhoden went 13-13 for the pirates in 1983 in 35 starts.

rhoden also made a relief appearance, earning the only save of his career in a win against the cubs on april 17.  among his starts were 7 complete games and 2 shutouts, and his 244.1 innings pitched and 153 strikeouts were, at that point, career highs.

here's where we would normally see reggie smith, but i am going to give him a proper 'final tribute' sendoff, since 1982 was his last season in the majors.  so, we move on to elias sosa.

sosa, as seen above, got a nice action shot from topps in the flagship set as a tiger (plus an inset photo taken in yankee stadium), but he did his work in 1983 for the padres.  he was shown as a friar in the 1983 topps traded set.

1983 was also sosa's last year in the majors.  he appeared in 41 games, including the 600th of his career in his next to last appearance.  he also made his third and final career start in 1983, getting the call in the second game of a doubleheader on august 29th.  in that game, sosa hit an rbi single in what would be his final big league at bat, while allowing 3 runs in 5+ innings.  although sosa and the padres had the lead when he left the game, the pads wound up losing, unfortunately.  sosa did pick up a win earlier in the season to go with four losses, bringing his career record to 59-51.  sosa's career came to a close in atlanta, where he faced dale murphy (walk) and bob watson (fly out) in 0.1 innings of work on september 18.

don sutton had an off year for the brewers in 1983.

for the first time in his career, he failed to win at least 11 games.  his record was 8-13 in 31 starts.  although he had an era of 4.08, his whip was a respectable 1.19, and he probably should have had a record more in the neighborhood of 17-10 or something like that.  sutton did keep his streak of 100-strikeout seasons alive, however, passing the century mark in that category for the 17th season in a row.  one of those strikeouts, victimizing alan bannister of the indians on june 24, 1983, was the 3000th k of sutton's career.

sutton's career at that point was only 17 years old, too, which means that he had never struck out fewer than 100 batters in any season.  topps included sutton in the 'super veteran' subset

that is a young sutton there with the dodgers.  he's got his 'baby new year' ears.

so, there you go - the non-dodgers from the 1978 topps dodger lineup, as they were in 1983.  well, all except one.  even though i'm going to show reggie smith's cards in a separate post, i'll go ahead and update the evolutionary stats.  there were 17/27 members of the 1978 topps dodgers featured by topps in 1982. here's the tally to date:

baker 13 (1971-1983)
burke 2 (1978-1979)
cey 12 (1972-1983)
davalillo 14 (1963-1974, 1978-1979)
forster 12 (1972-1983)
garman 8 (1971-1973, 1975-1979)
garvey 13 (1971-1983)
goodson 6 (1973-1978)
grote 15 (1964-1976, 1978-1979)
hooton 12 (1972-1983)
hough 12 (1972-1983)
john 20 (1964-1983)
lacy 11 (1973-1983)
lasorda 9 (1954, 1973-1974, 1977-1981, 1983)
lopes 11 (1973-1983)
martinez 9 (1971-1976, 1978-1980)
monday 17 (1967-1983)
mota 18 (1963-1980)
oates 10 (1972-1981)
rau 9 (1973-1981)
rautzhan 2 (1978-1979)
rhoden 9 (1975-1983)
russell 14 (1970-1983)
smith 17 (1967-1983)
sosa 9 (1974-1983)
sutton 18 (1966-1983)
yeager 11 (1973-1983)

teams represented so far: 22 (dodgers, indians, colt .45's, pirates, white sox, astros, mets, a's, red sox, angels, expos, cardinals, braves, cubs, orioles, giants, phillies, yankees, rangers, tigers, padres, brewers)

unfolding the infield. almost.

i'm jumping the gun a bit here, as i haven't yet posted about the 1978 topps dodgers as they were portrayed in 1983, but i recently picked up a set of 1983 topps foldouts, and the members of that team made a pretty good showing.  unfortunately, bill russell didn't make the cut.  again.

for those of you who aren't familiar, the foldouts were issued in five different booklets covering active leaders in five different categories - batting average, home runs, stolen bases, wins and saves.  these booklets were made of 9 double sided panels that folded up into a booklet, similar to souvenir postcard booklets you see at touristy type drug stores.  that analogy makes sense, as the 'cards' are postcard sized.  there are 17 players featured in each booklet (the 18th panel being the cover).

anyway, here's how three-fourths of the infield, and a few other members of the 1978 topps dodgers looked in that set.

steve garvey made the cut in the batting average booklet, thanks to a .301 mark through the 1982 season.

bill madlock and his .316 average through 1982 is on the back.  rod carew was at the front of the booklet with a .331 career mark at that point.

garvey failed to make the cut for the home run booklet (he had 211 at the time), but ron cey and his 228 career round trippers just barely made the list

i should note that i believe both the garvey and the cey cards to be airbrushed.  garvey's hat looks pretty good, but his undershirt and collar are pretty suspect, as are cey's hat and striped collar.  this makes sense, as both popeye and the penguin were dodgers in 1982.  for the record, reggie jackson was at the top of the active home run list with 464 at the end of the 1982 season.

in the stolen bases booklet, there was a nice davey lopes card

although i doubt he is stealing home.  lopes was trailing ron leflore (who was actually no longer active), cesar cedeno, bert campaneris, and joe morgan in this category.  he finished his career ahead of leflore and cedeno, but couldn't catch campy or morgan.  the booklet contains cards of morgan (663 stolen bases), cedeno (503), leflore (456), lopes (446), omar moreno (412), rod carew (338), amos otis (336), rickey henderson (319), larry bowa (296), willie wilson (287), don baylor (259), julio cruz (257), mickey rivers (253), dave concepcion (249), jose cruz (242), garry maddox (234) and al bumbry (231).

moving on to the saves booklet, we have terry forster

like cey and garvey, forster finished up his dodger career in 1982, so i think this image is airbrushed, too.  the stripes on the collar look especially suspect.  forster's 103 saves put him behind then active and all-time leader rollie fingers who had 301 saves at the time.  forster also fell behind bruce sutter, rich gossage, and a few others.  he was ahead of elias sosa, though.

sosa's image is definitely airbrushed, wouldn't you say?  he was with the tigers in 1982, and moved to san diego for the 1983 season. 1983 turned out to be his last in the majors, and he earned a single save that year.  his 83 career saves puts him ahead of don aase but behind joe sambito on the all-time list.  here's the complete list of the 'relief aces' booklet:  fingers (301), sutter (194), gossage (184), tug mcgraw (180), gene garber (149), kent tekulve (127), bill campbell (110), forster (103), tom burgmeier (96), gary lavelle (95), dan quisenberry (91), jim kern (88), randy moffitt (86), ron reed (83), sosa (82), ed farmer (75) and greg minton (74).

let's go back to the home run booklet to celebrate rick monday and his appearance there

mo ranked ahead of darrell evans and the penguin on the list.  he was eventually passed by both, as he hit only a few more dingers in his career.  for the record, the home run booklet looked like this: reggie (464), carl yastrzemski (442), johnny bench (377), tony perez (363), mike schmidt (349), dave kingman (329), graig nettles (313), rusty staub (287), greg luzinski (262), george foster (261), john mayberry (255), bobby murcer (251), joe morgan (246), jim rice (237), monday (234), evans (232) and cey (228).

on to the starting pitchers.  first up, we have tommy john and his 237 career wins as of 1982.

another airbrush!  john was with the yankees for most of 1982 so that explains things.  john wouldn't quite get to 300 wins for his career, as he won only 51 games over the last 7 seasons of his career.  his former teammate, don sutton, did push past 300 victories, however.

and, unlike john, sutton was featured in the set with an actual non-airbrushed photo, even though he spent only part of the 1982 season in milwaukee

sutton finished with 324 wins which put him ahead of all but one of his peers in the booklet.  before we get to that, here's a non-1978 topps dodger who was included in the set:  jerry reuss

reuss is featured by way of his then 161 career win total.  he would eventually earn 220 wins for his career.  unfortunately, reuss's card has the slits in it for inserting the flap to close the booklet.  here's the full list of pitchers in the pack:  gaylord perry (307 wins), steve carlton (285), jim kaat (283), ferguson jenkins (278), tom seaver (264), jim palmer (263), sutton (258), phil niekro (257), john (237), nolan ryan (205), vida blue (191), jerry koosman (191), mike torrez (174), bert blyleven (169), joe niekro (162), reuss (161) and paul splittorff (152).  the only one sutton wouldn't catch was steve carlton, who finished with 329 wins.  nolan ryan did come up and tie sutton at 324.

finally, another non-1978 topps dodger, pedro guerrero.

petey and his .305 average made it into the booklet fairly easily.  he wound up at an even .300 for his career, better than garvey.  here's the full checklist for the batting average set:  carew (.331 batting average), george brett (.316), madlock (.316), lonnie smith (.314), willie wilson (.312), pete rose (.308), dave parker (.308), cecil cooper (.308), jim rice (.305), al oliver (.305), guerrero (.305), ken griffey (.304), fred lynn (.301), garvey(.301), bake mcbride (.300), keith hernandez (.299) and dane iorg (.297).

i saved some opc from the card show dust bin

there's only about a week's worth of posts left over at oh my o-pee-chee, so it only makes sense to show off the o-pee-chee cards i picked up at that sparsely attended card show last weekend. as i mentioned, the show tables were set up in a strip mall vestibule, but there was also a card shop there.  i wandered in and took a look at what they had to offer.  mostly current (2010-now) singles, but in one spot they had a few little boxes with cards from the 70's and 80's.  that included a handful of o-pee-chee cards.

i don't know why i bought them - i don't need them - but they looked so sad and lonely sitting there on the counter.  plus, i spent a whopping total of $2.49 at the show.

so, 1978 opc doug rau 

and 1982 opc burt hooton

you're with me.

you too, 1978 opc don aase (team and text variation)

and i couldn't leave 1978 topps dodger member elias sosa behind

not with my new collecting goal of acquiring all the cards of the players who made up the 1978 topps dodgers.

i also picked up a couple of double plays - neil walker from 2012 topps

and the o-dog from the same set (i already had the opening day issue)

plus a 2010 upper deck howie kendrick

i grabbed another angel - chone figgins - because of the lurking juan pierre in the photo.

finally, i snagged a hideo nomo insert from 1996 fleer ultra

in which he terrorizes the citizens of some anonymous ballpark (texas, maybe?).

all in all, i'm happy with my cheap pickups.  and my o-pee-chee pickups.  i just wish i could have saved more of them.

1978 topps dodgers in 1982 part 2

hey, charlie hough.  why don't you kick off this second part of the evolution of the 1978 topps dodgers 1982 post by showing us how to grip a knuckleball.

thanks!  in 1982, for the first time in his career, charlie hough made no relief appearances.  instead, the rangers used him exclusively as a starter and he responded by going 16-13 with a 3.95 era in 34 starts.  he pitched 228 innings and threw 12 complete games, 2 of them shutouts (one a 2-hitter and the other a 3-hitter).  thus began a 9-year string of 10 or more victories for hough as a ranger.

tommy john was in action on his 1982 topps base card, but was denied an in action card.  

go figure.  he also wrangled his way onto the yankees' team leader card 

thanks to his 2.63 era in 1981.  dave righetti actually had a lower era (2.05), but i assume that the rules for era-title qualifying were the same in 1981 as they are in full regular seasons.  that is, a pitcher must pitch an average of 1 inning per game, so 162 innings pitched is the typical minimum.  in 1981, the yankees played 108 games, and righetti had only 105.1 innings pitched to john's 140.1  in 1982, john's era rose to 3.66, but it was still the lowest on the staff as righetti's also ballooned, all the way to 3.79.  john was just 10-10 in 26 starts, but had 9 complete games and 2 shutouts for the bronx bombers before he was traded to the angels at the end of august.  

california was making a run for the pennant, and picked up john for some veteran moxie.  he went 4-2 with a 3.86 era in his seven regular season starts for the angels, and then was 1-1 in the alcs against the brewers.  he was the winner in game 1, but the loser in game 4; a game that turned out to be his final postseason appearance.  for whatever reason, john was not included in the topps traded set in 1982.  i might have to fix that with a card that should have been.  we'll see.

there's a lot of yellow on lee lacy's 1982 topps card.

with dave parker out with a thumb injury for a good part of the season, lacy got some solid playing time for the bucs in right field.  he also played left, center and even a couple of games at third base over the course of the 1982 season.  along the way, he hit .312 with 5 homers, 31 rbi and 40 stolen bases. one of his home runs was an inside-the-park job off of randy jones of the mets.

rick rhoden, in contrast to lacy, is going for the all black look on his 1982 topps card.  all the way to his mustache.

rhoden made 35 starts for the pirates in 1982, winning 11 and losing 14.  he had an era of 4.14 and had 6 complete games and 1 shutout.  his shutout was a 6-hitter against the braves in which rhoden helped his own cause by going 2 for 4 at the plate with a double and two rbi.  in fact, rhoden helped his cause quite a bit during 1982, as he hit .265 with 3 home runs and 12 rbi on the season.

elias sosa was shown as an expo on his 1982 topps base card, 

but he spent the year in detroit.  that's why we have the 1982 topps traded set, which put sosa in motown gear.

sosa joined the tigers towards the end of spring training and wound up spending the entire year, but only that year, on their roster.  he made 38 appearances for detroit, going 3-3 with 4 saves and a 4.43 era in 61 innings of work.  right after the season ended, sosa was on the move again as he had his contract purchased by the padres in october of 1982.

hey - look at don sutton's 1982 topps base card

and then his 1982 topps in action card

not a lot of variation there, although topps did put the photo with a tad more action on the appropriate card.  in 1982, sutton was toiling for the astros for most of the season.  he was 13-8 with a 3.00 era in 27 starts for houston when they dealt him to the brewers for kevin bass and two other players near the end of august.  down the stretch, he was 4-1 in his 7 starts for the brew crew, with two complete games and a shutout (a 7-hitter against the tigers in his second american league start).  his biggest victory, however, came on the last day of the season when the brewers and orioles started the day tied atop the american league east.  sutton outdueled jim palmer that day, throwing 8 strong innings to lead the brewers to a 10-2 victory and a division title.

sutton was also the winning pitcher in game 3 of the alcs against the angels, and he went on to start games 2 and 6 of the world series against the cardinals.  he took the loss in game 6 as the brewers failed to close out their first world series championship, but he didn't pitch well in either start.  like john, sutton was left out of the 1982 topps traded set.  i'll be sure to correct that oversight.

so there were 16/27 members of the 1978 topps dodgers featured by topps in 1982.  and, we'll get tommy back in 1983.  here's the tally to date:

baker 12 (1971-1982)

burke 2 (1978-1979)

cey 11 (1972-1982)

davalillo 14 (1963-1974, 1978-1979)

forster 11 (1972-1982)

garman 8 (1971-1973, 1975-1979)

garvey 12 (1971-1982)

goodson 6 (1973-1978)

grote 15 (1964-1976, 1978-1979)

hooton 11 (1972-1982)

hough 11 (1972-1982)

john 19 (1964-1982)

lacy 10 (1973-1982)

lasorda 8 (1954, 1973-1974, 1977-1981)

lopes 10 (1973-1982)

martinez 9 (1971-1976, 1978-1980)

monday 16 (1967-1982)

mota 18 (1963-1980)

oates 10 (1972-1981)

rau 9 (1973-1981)

rautzhan 2 (1978-1979)

rhoden 8 (1975-1982)

russell 13 (1970-1982)

smith 16 (1967-1982)

sosa 9 (1974-1982)

sutton 17 (1966-1982)

yeager 10 (1973-1982)

teams represented so far:  20  (dodgers, indians, colt .45's, pirates, white sox, astros, mets, a's, red sox, angels, expos, cardinals, braves, cubs, orioles, giants, phillies, yankees, rangers, tigers)