los angeles dodger managerial autographs managed

the los angeles dodgers have had only 9 managers in their 58-year history. compare that to the marlins, who have employed 13 managers (including two interim guys with just one game apiece) in their 23 years of existence.  all but one of the la dodger managers are still with us, and so obtaining autographs from each is not too difficult.

i've finally found the final piece to this collection, and so i will now display a complete set of la dodger manager autographed dodger cards.

1968 topps team (walt alston)

smokey passed away in 1984, so this card is obviously one that i purchased.  he first started managing the dodgers in 1954, and he won a total of 7 pennants and 4 world series, with 5 of those pennants and 3 of the world series titles coming in los angeles.  alston was at the helm for 2040 dodger wins - most all-time - and is enshrined in the hall of fame.  he gave way at the end of the 1976 season to tommy lasorda.

1978 topps tom lasorda

tommy signed this card for me through the mail, which was fantastic.  from the last four games of the 1976 season until his heart attack during the 1996 season, lasorda's dodgers won 1599 games, 4 pennants, and two world series titles, and lasorda himself was twice named the national league manager of the year.  he is second behind alston on the franchise's all-time managerial wins list, and he, too, is in the baseball hall of fame.  following the aforementioned heart attack in 1996, lasorda retired and bill russell took over.

1987 topps bill russell

like lasorda, russell signed this card (a final tribute) through the mail.  there is one card of him as a manager, and it comes from the 1997 mother's dodgers set.  i will try to get that one signed, but i don't believe ropes is signing through the mail anymore.  anyway, russell took over for lasorda in 1996 and led the team to a wild card berth. they were swept in the nlds, and were out of the playoff picture the following year which was russell's only full season at the helm of the club.  after 74 games in 1998, russell was fired by the fox regime about a month after the mike piazza trade.  it was the first time since leo durocher was relieved of his duties in 1948 that a dodger manager was fired during the season.  russell's 173 wins as the dodger skipper puts him 17th on the franchise list, and his winning percentage of .537 is good enough for 9th all-time (7th if we ignore interim managers clyde sukeforth and ray blades who won all three games they managed).  russell was replaced by glenn hoffman

1988 topps glenn hoffman

hoffman is (currently) the last of the former dodger players to manage the club.  he signed his 1988 topps card for me through the mail, and i may try to get him to sign a 1998 mother's dodgers card as well - it's the only one of him as a big league manager.  hoffman's dodgers finished out the 1998 season with 47 wins in 88 games, and those wins are the 25th most (out of 31) among the franchise's managers.  his .534 winning percentage puts him at 11th (or 9th), just a tick ahead of joe torre.  after the 1998 season, the fox boys were looking for a name, and they hired davey johnson to be the dodger manager.

2001 topps davey johnson

once again, the dodger manager in question signed a card for me through the mail.  johnson's debut as the dodger manager was a game for the ages.  on opening day, raul mondesi hit a 3-0 pitch into the stands for a game-tying three-run homer with two outs in the 9th, and then hit a two-run homer to walk-off the diamondbacks in the bottom of the 11th.  good times.  johnson wound up managing the team for two years, and the dodgers were 163-161 during his tenure (163 wins puts johnson 19th among the franchise's managers).  in 2000, they finished well behind the giants for second place in the nl west, and were 8 behind the mets for the wild card, and so johnson was fired after the season ended.  jim tracy was hired to take over.

2002 topps jim tracy

this is another through the mail autograph success, by the way.  tracy managed to manage the dodgers for five seasons, with the team winning 93 games and the nl west in 2004. although they lost to the cardinals in the nlds that year, they did win their first postseason game since 1988 (thanks to lima time!).  overall, tracy's dodgers were 427-384, and if it weren't for an awful 2005 season (you'll not be able to convince me that tracy wasn't trying to get fired that year - the second worst season for any la dodger team), his winning percentage would have been better. tracy ranks 6th all-time in wins for the franchise, behind five hall of famers, but he will probably be passed by don mattingly later this season.  the dodgers hired grady little to replace tracy following the 2005 season.

2007 topps grady little

i had to purchase this signed card.  

*update* little returned my ttm request after a fair amount of time with both his 2007 topps card 

and 2006 upper deck card 

signed.  very happy to have this success! *end update*

little's 170 wins in his two seasons as the team's manager puts him right between bill russell and davey johnson on the franchise's all-time list.  the dodgers won the wild card in 2006, but were swept in the nlds, and then finished 3rd in 2007.  little resigned as the team's manager after the 2007 season as it seemed apparent that frank mccourt wanted to hire joe torre to take over.

2009 topps joe torre

hall of fame manager torre, who signed this card through the mail, came aboard and led the club to two straight nl west titles and national league championship series berths.  the team faltered in 2010, however, and torre retired after that season. his 259 wins are 12th best among the franchise's managers, and his winning percentage is sandwiched by hoffman's and little's on the leader board. torre's bench coach, don mattingly, was picked to be his successor.

2014 topps heritage don mattingly

this card was the final card i needed for this post.  i had previously received a couple of signed mattingly cards through the mail with some help from reader cory, but i wanted a card of mattingly in dodger gear signed as well.  turns out i had to buy one.  mattingly is the current dodger skipper, and he has the team in first place this year, his fifth at the helm.  the team has won the nl west and made the postseason each of the last two years under mattingly, and they made it to the nlcs in 2013.  mattingly currently ranks 7th in managerial wins and tenure for the franchise, but should pass jim tracy in both of those categories by game 2 of the 2016 season.  after that, he's looking up at five hall of famers - alston, lasorda, wilbert robinson, durocher, and ned hanlon.  that's not bad managerial company.

what tomorrow may bring

tomorrow we find out if don sutton gets some company as the lone hall of famer from the team of my youth.  both steve garvey and tommy john are up for election by the expansion era committee.  i am optimistic but not expecting either to make the cut, unfortunately.

here's my (you've seen night owl's already) 2013 topps garvey million dollar chase autographed card

as well as a nice tommy john card from 2007 ud sweet spot classic

instead of either of these dodger greats, i think that another former dodger manager will get the call

unfortunately for me, it's joe torre and not bill russell.  i do think torre's new york success was largely due to the work of bob watson and buck showalter, and later the free spending of the steinbrenners (i give brian cashman even less credit than torre), but what do i know about what it takes to be a successful manager? nothing.  i expect bobby cox and tony larussa to join torre as hall of famers tomorrow, but i hope that there are a couple of other names announced as well.

joe torre curries favor with a dodger fan

i am a steve garvey fan, but for now, i find joe torre's attempt to own the dodgers a tad more appealing.  that is because i can be bought.  sure garvey has returned my ttm requests, but his partner in the dodger ownership endeavor, orel hershiser, has left me 0 for 2.  well, as of christmas eve, i am 1 for 2 with joe torre.

i sent him a couple of cards c/o the dodgers way back in 2009 when he was still managing the club.  reader and dodger auto hound had told me that torre was a pretty good signer some days (in person) but he wasn't too sure about ttm.  sure enough, i have not seen those cards since.

then last season, with torre essentially replacing bob watson in the mlb offices, i sent a couple more cards, this time to new york.  i was hoping torre would follow watson's lead and sign the cards and maybe even include his business card.  about 6 months later, i received them in the mail.

here's his 2009 topps card

and his 1978 topps card

bookends to his managerial career, actually.  that's pretty cool.

it's also cool because it means that i now have an autographed card from every dodger manager from walter alston to don mattingly.  i'll have to get a post together sometime.  in the meantime, i'll wait for the bulldog to sway my non-existent vote.

thanks joe!

topps outdoes itself and serves up variations - a side by side comparison of the 2009 dodgers

by now you know the drill.  topps put out blister pack team sets, and sometimes the cards were different from the flagship set.  2008 was a down year for dodger variations, but topps came back strong in 2009.  let's take a look.  as always, that's the regular topps card on the left, and the topps dodger set card on the right.  note the absence of manny ramirez from the team set - i suppose he was still unsigned when the checklist was being assembled.

anyway, here's number 'lad1' in the set, and for the second year in a row, it's russell  martin

if ever there was a card to not mess with, it was martin's regular issue topps card from the 2009 set.  my happiness in seeing a variation on the top card of the set was tempered by the fact it was martin's card.  still, variety is the spice of life, and i am happy to have it.

lad2 is clayton kershaw

2 for 2 in variations, but there is a serious lack of color on the team set card.  if only he were slightly rotated so we could see the red jersey number.  the photo comes off looking like something off of 2010 upper deck.

here's lad3 jonathan broxton

3 in, and we have 3 variations.  i like where this is going.  here i prefer the team set card.  brox is a little more menacing, while on the regular topps card, i am pretty sure he's just warming up.  that's based on the position of angel berroa's (?) blue glove behind him.

lad4 rafael furcal

gah. it's the same.  a nice card, though so i won't complain.

lad5 andre ethier

back to the variations, but i prefer the flagship.  poor logo placement by topps on the team card as well as a boring photo choice.

lad6 chad billingsley

same.  this is a lot like broxton's card, which is disappointing in general.  remember 2007 topps, with all those lookalike dodger cards from holman stadium?  that sucked.  plus, it looks like a billingsley warm up toss, too, because berroa is standing straight up in the background.

lad7 matt kemp

no diff, but not a bad card.

lad8 juan pierre

ditto.

lad9 james loney

back to variations, but again, i prefer the flagship.  i'm not too crazy about all the mid-thigh cropped shots.

lad10 hiroki kuroda

same.

lad11 blake dewitt

different but not as dynamic.

lad12 casey blake

not different.

lad13 mark loretta

hmm.  which is better, the series 2 loretta from a spring game against the white sox, or the airbrushed loretta that is basically him in a padres uni and a dodger helmet.  i'm not sure what to think.

lad14 hong-chih kuo

good golly miss molly!  topps didn't include kuo in series 1, 2 or the update set.  even after putting him in the team set, and even though he had appeared in 42 games in 2008.  obviously, advantage team set.

lad15 joe torre

i think i prefer the team set version of the walk to the mound.  perhaps joe is calling for kuo to be included in the set.  i find it interesting that he wears a watch, even while managing. 

  

well, that's it for 2009.  if you are keeping score, that's 8 photo variations, zero of those lame cropping variations, and one off the charts checklist variation.  a pretty good ratio given the sad stats from 2008.

topps serves up variations - a side by side comparison of the 2008 dodgers

after issuing the 2008 55-card 'premium' dodger team set, i was hoping for some variety with the 14-card blister team set.  hopes were dashed.  prepare to be underwhelmed with the 2008 side by side comparison. by now, you know the drill (here's the 2006 and 2007 comparisons) - the regular topps card is on the left, and the topps dodger blister team set card is on the right.

lad1 in 2008 was russell martin

and there is no other difference between the cards.

matt kemp is next

oooooooooooooooooh.  a cropping variation.  just like the 2007 topps-toppsdodgers luis gonzalez.  the blister pack card cuts kemp off at the knees.

andruw jones

if ever there was a card that needed not to be reproduced, this was it.  sadly, topps didn't change a thing on the front.  [edit] - topps did slightly adjust the cropping of jones' card.  couldn't they have done more?  use a better/real photo?

brad penny

no diff.

derek lowe

it's the same.

andre ethier

ahoy there.  we have an enlarged facsmilie autograph on the team set card.  not very exciting as variations go, however.

juan pierre

back to the same.  it was nice to see pnc park get some love in 2008. it's at the top of my ballparks to see list, but i can't seem to pull the trigger on a trip to pittsburgh.

jeff kent

no variation

james loney

i was hoping for something as lame as losing the rookie cup a la martin in 2007.  no dice.

chad billingsley

no variation

jason schmidt

after two years of variations, topps played it safe with schmidt in 2008

rafael furcal

same

jonathan broxton

identical

finally, we get to lad14, joe torre

from grumpy gus to genial grandpa.  the photo topps used in the base set was better intended for the heritage release with the vero beach bleachers in the background.

2008 was a low point for topps and these sets, although when one considers the 55-card dodger premium set it's hard to be too disappointed.  we had one two cropping variations, one autograph size variation, and one photo variation.  2009 will be better.  stay tuned.

2010 goose joak versions of topps update filler

so, what do i mean by that title?  i had created a few 2010 goose joak cards to highlight the four dodgers who made it to the all-star game, such as hong-chih kuo here, on a goose joak original i made towards the end of the season.

and what happened shortly after?  topps did the same thing in their update set.  here's their kuo card from the update series

and here are the all-star cards i came up with, followed by topps' offerings.

hong-chih kuo

andre ethier

rafael furcal

jonathan broxton

i also did a couple of combo cards, just like topps, although none of theirs featured any dodgers.  if i were really like topps, i would have come up with a stupid caption for these cards, like 'joined at the hip' for this one

or, 'two of us won't be here next year.  keep pitching like that and none of us will be here next year'.

any better ideas?