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...

sunday morning target dodgers - seven dwarves edition?

there are some interesting names on this sheet of cards from the 1990 target dodger 100th anniversary set.  benny, johnny, eddie, sloppy, zoilo, possum, and doc. a dodger version of the seven dwarves?  here are this week's cards - only 14 in this post because i stumbled on to another dodger double dipper who will get their own post later today.

doc bushong

bushong, a dentist and thus referred to as 'doc', was a member of the inaugural brooklyn bridegroom national league team of 1890.  it was also the final year of his 13-year big league career

chris cannizzaro

cannizzaro spent the 1972 and 1973 seasons with the dodgers as a backup catcher.  he hit .235 over that span, with most of his action coming during the 1972 campaign.  he has the distinction of having been both an original new york met and an original san diego padre, and he was the first all-star representative for the friars.

bobby castillo

castillo is a dodger double dipper who is credited with teaching fernando valenzuela how to throw the screwball.  'nuff said.  unfortunately, castillo passed away last year at the age of 59.

roy cullenbine

cullenbine began the 1940 season with the dodgers following two years with the tigers.  he played in 22 games and hit just .180 before being traded to the browns around memorial day.  he knew how to draw a walk however, compiling 23 of them in those 22 games for the dodgers, giving him an obp of .405.  cullenbine actually had 121 walks in 1941 and an obp of .452 for the browns. he eventually made his way back to detroit where he was part of their 1945 world championship team.

gene demontreville

demontreville was traded to the superbas in 1899 along with jerry nops for hughie jennings.  a few days later, nops was returned to the orioles and jennings came back to the superbas, but demontreville stayed in brooklyn. he broke the roster in 1900, playing every infield position plus some outfield, and hit .244 in 69 games.  that was his only season in brooklyn, however, as the boston beaneaters purchased his contract prior to the 1901 campaign.

gil english

english finished his major league career by playing the 1944 season with the brooklyn dodgers.  he had previously played for the giants, tigers, and bees, but had most recently been in the minors where he was the 1939 american association mvp.  english hit .212 in 27 games for the dodgers serving as a backup infielder.

johnny klippstein

klippstein was part of the return package that the dodgers received during the 1958 season in the trade that sent don newcombe to the reds. he had previously been in the dodger organization during the 1949 seasons, but was lost in that year's rule v draft to the cubs without having made it to the big leagues.  in '58, klippstein was 3-5 with 9 'saves' and a 3.80 era. he was 4-0 with a couple of saves in 1959, although his era was 5.91.  in what would be his final appearance as a dodger, klippstein pitched two scoreless innings in game 1 of the 1959 world series against the white sox, and later pitched against the dodgers in the 1965 fall classic as a member of the minnesota twins.

benny meyer

meyer's card is fantastic when you realize that his nickname was 'earache' because he was a yeller.  he debuted in the big leagues in 1913 as a brooklyn superba, and hit .195 in 38 games. the following year, he jumped to the federal league where he played for the remainder of his career, save a single at bat in 1925 when he was serving as a coach for the phillies.  he hit a double in that at bat, by the way.

eddie solomon

solomon looks a little like bob gibson on his card, doesn't he?  and i'm guessing that's either willie davis or jimmy wynn in the background since solomon only pitched for the dodgers in the 1973 and 1974 seasons.  he appeared in only 8 regular season games for the dodgers, plus one in the 1974 nlcs.  early in the 1975 season, solomon was traded to the cubs in the burt hooton deal.  solomon was killed in a car accident in 1986, just four years after his big league career came to an end. he was just 34 years old.

bob stinson

perhaps best known to card collectors as a guy who appeared on multi-player rookie cards three years in a row for three different teams (1970 topps as a dodger, 1971 topps as a cardinal, and 1972 topps as an astro), stinson was the dodgers' first round pick in the 1966 draft.  he played in 4 games for the dodgers in both 1969 and 1970, but was traded to saint louis for dick allen prior to the 1971 season.  stinson eventually made his way to the expansion seattle mariners for the 1977 season, and he was the first catcher in the team's history going 1 for 3 with a walk in their inaugural game.  he played into the 1980 season, making him a 3-decade player.

fay thomas

thomas was a brooklyn robin during the 1932 season.  he made 7 appearances for the robins, earning just one decision - a loss in his only start.  he also pitched for the giants, indians, and browns in the majors, but was a bigger success in the pacific coast league where he earned a spot in their hall of fame.  thomas is also known as the first big leaguer to come from usc, and as the actor who portrayed christy mathewson in 'the pride of the yankees'.

sloppy thurston

thurston's given name was hollis, and he apparently earned his nickname by being anything but sloppy in his appearance.  isn't it ironic?  anyway, he's shown on his card as a member of the white sox for whom he pitched from 1923-1926.  he earned a card in this set, however, by pitching for the robins from 1930-1933.  during that time, he was 33-29 with a 4.02 era in 108 games.

zoilo versalles

versalles was the 1965 american league mvp for the al champion minnesota twins, and he hit .286 in the world series against the dodgers that year. he must have made an impression, because after the 1967 season, the dodgers - still trying to replace maury wills who had been dealt to pittsburgh a year earlier -  traded ron perranoski, john roseboro, and bob miller to the twinkies to get versalles and mudcat grant.  versalles only played for the dodgers during the 1968 season (he hit just .196 in 122 games) as he was taken by the padres in the expansion draft that followed the year of the pitcher.

possum whitted

whitted's big league career began in 1912 with the cardinals, but it was in 1914 as a member of the boston braves that he won a world series ring.  he returned to the fall classic the following year with the  phillies, but lost to the boston red sox who had a young player named babe ruth on their roster. the phillies traded whitted (given name george) to the pirates in 1919 for casey stengel, and the robins picked him up from the steel city during the 1922 season.  after all that, whitted made one appearance as a brooklyn robin, going 0 for 1 as a pinch-hitter in an april game against the new york giants. soon thereafter, whitted was managing the toledo mud hens.

see you next sunday for more player tales from the 1990 target set!

i collect what steve garvey items i can, and what i can't, i can

over the course of a couple of packages, reader mark sent me an eclectic mix of cards - dodgers and double plays and players from the team of my youth that were no longer dodgers.  however, the coolest thing he sent was a 1977 rc cola can

i used to drink royal crown cola, but i had forgotten what cans from back in those days were like.  steel and sturdy and sometimes with ballplayers on them.  this one features one steven patrick garvey.

now, this posed a dilemma for me.  i have, at times, owned some oddball, non-card items featuring the garv, but i haven't held on to all of them.  that mainly has to do with storage.  i do have a couple of bobbleheads, but i decided that the best thing to do here was to dismantle the can.  more on that later.

here's another sort of oddball - a 1969 mlb photo stamp of one and done dodger shortstop zoilo versalles

after playing for the dodgers in 1968, he was selected by the padres in the expansion draft but was traded to cleveland before the 1969 season began.  this magic hat seems more dodger that indian, so i will classify this as a dodger stamp.  cool.

i could have sworn that i picked up a copy of this 1980-88 baseball immortals sandy koufax card

a couple of years ago after seeing it on another blog, but it appears that i was mistaken.  i am very happy that mark sent me this card.

i'm not quite as excited about this 1992 score jose offerman rising star card

but, as a team collector, you take the good with the bad.

here's a 1994 conlon tsn card of nap rucker

rucker spent his entire 10 year career with the brooklyn franchise.  they were known as the superbas, dodgers, and robins during that time, and in 1915 (the year represented by the card), they were the robins.  he finished his career with a 134-134 record despite a nice 2.42 era.  i guess the franchise didn't provide much run support even back then.  anyway, rucker may or may not have been the inventor of the knuckleball.

i am not convinced that this 1992 upper deck jose lind card features a double play turn

but i do know that it features dodger stadium's low railing in the background!

here's a card of one of the 1978 topps dodgers and another knuckleballer, charlie hough

i have kind of/sort of expanded my collection of players from the 1978 topps dodger team from just topps releases to all releases, so this card is welcomed even if it is just a 1992 donruss card.

so, now back to the garvey can.  i was able to open it up pretty easily, but it's not quite as flat and smooth as one would like.

still, it will fit into a binder pretty nicely.

mark - thanks for the trades!

the evolution of the shortstop - from reese to russell

only three positions left to address in these evolutionary posts - first, second, and short.  let's check the 6 in dodger history.

for me, dodger shortstops begin with…

pee wee reese (1941-42, 1946-56).  aside from the time he spent serving our country in world war ii, pee wee was a mainstay at short for the dodgers.  here's his 1954 bowman card

pee wee came over from the red sox organization in 1939, but only appeared in the majors as a dodger. during his time as the team's primary shortstop, he appeared in over 2000 games, scored over 1200 runs, had over 2000 hits, and reached base another 1100 or so times by walks.  he helped lead the team to 7 world series (all against the yankees), and hit .272 in 44 postseason games, the most by any dodger.  pee wee went with the team to los angeles, but shifted to third base in 1957, opening up the shortstop position for

charlie neal (1957)

i know that's neal's 1955 bowman card, but i hadn't shown it yet on the blog.  neal played shortstop in 100 games during the dodgers' final season in brooklyn.  he hit .270 with 12 homers, but was moved to second base when the team went west.  that means that neal replaced two dodger legends in the field in two consecutive years.  it also meant that the team had a new primary shortstop in los angeles...

don zimmer (1958-59)

yes, i know that's don zimmer's 1955 topps rookie card that i am using to mark the los angeles dodgers' first primary shortstop.  actually, pee wee reese was the first dodger to play shortstop in la, but zimmer replaced him in the team's second game and wound up playing in 114 games at the position in 1958.  the following year, zimmer appeared in 88 games (70 starts) at short so he gets the positional nod here over the other dodger to start 70 games at the position in '59, maury wills.

maury wills (1960-66)

how awesome is that 1962 bell brand maury wills card, by the way?  wills actually took over at short in june of 1959 and helped the dodgers get to the world series (and win) for the first time since 1955.  he manned the position for 7 and a half seasons before he was dealt away to the pirates.  during those years, wills earned an mvp award and led the league in steals six straight years.  he also set a record that will never be broken (unless the owners get really greedy and expand the season) by playing in 165 regular season games in 1962.  with wills traded to the pirates after the 1966 season, the door was opened for one of the players obtained in return to be the dodgers' shortstop

gene michael (1967)

although he only appeared in 83 games (66 starts) as the dodgers' shortstop in 1967, michael gets the nod over nate oliver, dick schofield, bob bailey, and tommy dean as the most used shortstop on the dodger roster in 1967.  he hit just .246 with 7 rbi, and his contract was purchased by the yankees after the season ended.  michael went on to be their primary shortstop for several years, while the dodgers went out and picked up someone else to fill the void.

zoilo versalles (1968)

i guess versalles had impressed the dodgers in the 1965 world series, as they traded bob miller, ron perranoski, and john roseboro to the twins to get him and mudcat grant.  unfortunately, versalles hit only .196 as the dodgers' everyday shortstop in 1968, and was taken by the san diego padres in the expansion draft after the season.  time for the dodgers to right the wrong that they had done a couple years earlier

maury wills (1969-1971)

yes, maurice morning wills returned to the fold by way of trade during the 1969 season.  an honorable mention goes out to ted sizemore, who started the season as the dodgers' shortstop, but moved to second base when wills was acquired, and wound up winning the nl rookie of the year.  wills was able to secure his spot as the team's primary shortstop in '69 by appearing in 104 games at the position, about 60 more than sizemore.  wills held on to the spot through the 1971 season in which he finished 6th in the league mvp voting.  while he was still with the dodgers in 1972, he was no longer the everyday shortstop, giving way to a converted outfielder...

bill russell (1972-1983)

ropes brought stability back to the shortstop position, holding on to the spot for 12 seasons.  he was named to three all-star teams during that run, and helped the dodgers win 4 pennants and 1 world series.  he was the shortstop of the team of my youth.  but, all good things must come to an end, and russell was eventually replaced as the everyday shortstop in 1984.  i'll get to that next time.

the evolution of the out of place guy, part 1

you know the guy, right? the free agent in decline your team signed but you don't really think of him as a 'member' of the team. the guy who came over in a trade but didn't really fit with the team or was only there for one season. or, the guy you had heard of but who you didn't realize even played for your team until many years into your fandom.

the dodgers have had their share of 'those' players, so here's a primer on the evolution of the dodgers' out of place guy.

we'll kick it off with moose skowron who was shown as a dodger on his 1963 topps card

skowron is best known (and almost exclusively known) as a yankee. he came to the dodgers in a deal for stan williams and had perhaps his poorest season ever, batting just over the mendoza line. he came alive in the 1963 world series though, batting .385 with an ops of over 1.000 against his former mates. his contract was purchased by the washington senators after the 63 season.

fast forward to 1968, and we have zoilo (once called 'zorro' on a topps card) versalleszoilo must have impressed the dodgers in the 1965 world series, because they traded for him two years later, sending john roseboro and ron perranoski (among others) to minnesota. versalles was the al mvp in 1965, but he was in serious decline by 1968. he hit only .196 for the dodgers that year - his only year in la - and was perhaps thankfully selected by the padres in the expansion draft prior to 1969.

so, with versalles gone, jim bunning was brought in to be the out of place guy. by the way, thank goodness for the 1990 target dodgers set, otherwise we might not have a card of jim bunning as a dodger. the phillies had traded bunning to the pirates prior to the 1968 season. after one-and a half seasons in pittsburgh, the dodgers acquired the future senator (united states, not washington) for a couple of minor leaguers and cash. he pitched fairly well for the dodgers (3.36 era in 56 innings) but was released after the season. the phillies took him back and bunning finished his career in philadelphia.

1971 saw dick allen joining the ranks, featured here on his 1971 topps super card (with the dodger stadium scoreboard in the background) allen had spent 1970 with the cardinals after 7 pretty remarkable years in philadelphia. he had a good year for the dodgers in 1971, too, but was traded to the white sox after that lone year in la. all he did the following year was win the al mvp.

on the same day dick allen was traded away, the dodgers traded for frank robinson, shown here on a 1989 smokey dodger greats card

like allen, frobby would spend just one year in la. unlike allen, that year would be pretty mediocre offensively. luckily for the angels (to whom robinson was traded), he would bounce back big time in 1973.

in 1975, juan marichal was a dodger, most definitely out of placehe had spent one year in boston after pitching exclusively for the giants organization and the dodgers decided to give him a shot. he lasted just two starts, completing six innings and striking out 1 before the dodgers released him.

in 1977, there was boog powell the former oriole had been released by the indians after the 1976 season. he came to the dodgers as a pinch hitter, but hit just .244 with no extra base hits in 53 at bats before being released in august of 1977.

we'll finish part one with another oriole, don stanhouse, who signed with the dodgers as a free agent prior to the 1980 season stan 'the man unusual' had saved 45 games for the orioles over the two previous seasons, but did not pitch that well in the 1979 postseason. he pitched even worse for the dodgers, saving just 7 games and posting an era of 5.04 to go with a whip of 1.84. the dodgers released him prior to the 1981 season. i believe that the stanhouse experience (along with fellow 1979 signee dave goltz) was a big reason the dodgers seemed to avoid the free agent market until 1987.

that doesn't mean, however, that they were without any 'out of place guys' during those years, as we will see in part 2.