how about a blog bat around challenge? the subject: cards that i (you) used to own

i have been buying packs (and sometimes boxes) of baseball cards since 1978.  some years, i bought more than others, but it's been a constant thing in my life since i was handed my first pack in 1977.  throughout that time, i've traded some cards away, and sold others, to further my collection.  there is one card, however, that i regret having dismissed from my hands, and that is the subject of this post. the card that i used to own that i wish i still did.

the very first card i felt remorse over trading was a 1978 topps steve garvey.  i had a double, but i was planning to start my dodger team set collection.  however, i needed a mickey rivers card for the full set, and my neighbor offered to give me rivers for garvey.  i made the deal, and my regret didn't last too long as i was able to get another garvey card fairly easily not too long thereafter.  before i get too far along, i'll show some cards that i used to own that i am ok with having sold or traded.

first up is this 2003 upper deck legendary cuts bill dickey cut auto numbered 09/25

i bought a box of legendary cuts that year for $60 and found this card in one of the packs.  i have no regrets about putting this up on ebay and taking the $200-ish that it commanded. still, i kept a photo of it for posterity.

similarly, i pulled this 1/1 mickey mantle magenta printing plate from a box of 2006 topps chrome

and sold it on ebay.  no regrets.

i've owned some non-gimmick cards that were pretty cool, but for one reason or another didn't fit into my collection.  like this 1909-1911 t206 jack egan card

and this 1951 topps luke easter card

both are nice and were cool to have, but likely fit better in the collections of some random ohioans.

there have been some other, even less spectacular cards that i've traded away yet felt the need to scan first and show here now, like this 1960 topps mound magicians card

this 2011 topps josh hamilton commemorative patch card

this 2012 topps carl yastrzemski facsimile auto stitch card

2011 topps diamond dig contest kelly johnson diamond die-cut black #/60

why did that have to be a d-back instead of a dodger?  obviously, i had no problem ejecting that card from my collection.

but now we come to the card that i do regret letting go of.  almost.  first, another story.  back in 2000, a friend and i split a box of upper deck legends.  one of my packs contained a mickey mantle jersey card with a pinstripe.  i shortly thereafter put it on ebay with a pretty high reserve, and while it was sitting there, my friend questioned why i would want to sell that card - "isn't that why you collect?", he asked. "to have a card like that?"  he was right, of course, and i was secretly happy that the card did not reach the reserve (it came within $15, as i recall).  i still have that mantle card, plus a couple of ruth bat cards that i've pulled from tribute packs, and several other non-dodger, non-double play, non-any of my mini collections that are just cool cards to own.

now, seriously, on to the whole point of this post.  i used to own this card:

well, not exactly that card, but another of the only 30 versions of the 2001 topps tribute walter alston patch cards that exist.  i could not find a photo of the card (i know i took one), but it featured a portion of the 100th anniversary of the national league patch worn by teams in 1976 (and visible on the 1977 topps manny mota card), which means that the uniform it was taken from was worn by smokey in his final season as the dodgers' manager.

i found the card in a local card/comic store.  it was on the 'markdown' wall, and was listed on sale for $49.99.  that was about the cost of a pack of 2001 topps tribute, if i recall correctly, and i knew that it was worth more than that.  now, i was not fully entrenched in collecting at this time (i bought cards more so out of habit and tradition), and really hadn't thought about what my collection was beyond maintaining my yearly dodger team sets from the topps flagship and traded sets, as well as my run of complete sets of those releases (a habit i abandoned a few years ago).  so, i bought the card with the full intent to sell it for a profit.  let me repeat that.  i, a dodger fan and collector of dodger cards, bought a 2001 topps tribute walter alston patch card with the intent to sell it.  and i did.  i made about $160, which was great, but future gcrl would become very disappointed in that past gcrl.

so disappointed, in fact, that i have kept my eye out for another version (or the same one) ever since.  i did find one on ebay (hence the picture of the card above), but it was already gone by the time i saw it.  my card sold to someone in alabama or arkansas - i do not remember which - so folks down that way, please keep an eye out.

in the meantime, i have added a different dodger manager's 2001 topps tribute patch card to my collection

that's alston's successor, tom lasorda, and his card features the red number patch that i enjoy so much.  i also own another patch from this set, one i pulled from a pack from a box i purchased in 2004 or so.

it's been about 11 years, and it may not neatly fit in my collection, but i'm not sure that i'm ready to part with eddie mathews yet.

so, what do you say?  what cards have you owned that you regret are no longer in your collection?  i'd like to read about it - either in the comments or as a bat around - because i feel your pain.

my 1960 topps sampler set

i haven't addressed my sampler sets for a while - in fact, i stopped with the 1959 set.  the idea here was that i would never complete a full set of any of the topps releases prior to 1970, so why not pick up a card from each team and each subset to create a sampler.  i've since decided to pare down the collection a bit, so i'm pulling the non-dodger cards.

before i do, however, i'm documenting the full sampler for posterity.  here's what i had for the 1960 set.

full disclosure: i used to have a 1960 topps al kaline card in here, but i used that as part of my entry into the traveling box put together by bad wax.  i saw the box a couple of times, and i assume that it is now defunct, especially since bad wax's site is no longer maintained.  it would be nice to know for sure, though.

you'll notice that the higher the numbers got, the fewer non-dodgers i picked up.

a couple of other things to note - the subsets in this set were team cards, rookie stars, combo cards, mangers, topps all-star rookies, world series recap, coaches, and all-star cards.  also, the manager cards are there to remind us that the 1960 set is not a completely horizontal set.

i scanned the back of one of the pages, and you can see that my set includes both white and gray backs

once i removed all of the non-dodger cards, this is what the pages looked like

that's what i consider the dodger team set to look like.  i decided to keep all 7 world series cards, including games 5 and 6 that are mostly white sox centric. the game 5 card features maury wills, so that was a no-brainer, and it seemed odd to only leave out one card from the subset.  on that second to last page, it's easy to see that it is pitching coach joe becker getting doused with booze on the celebratory card thanks to the coaches card being close by.

i'm not sure if i will bother to scan and display my samplers from 1961-1969.  they are larger in general due to the expansion of the leagues.  maybe i'll just show some selected cards from different teams and the different subsets instead.  stay tuned.

big o from big d

so, here's my 1960 topps don drysdale all-star high number card

it's a bit of a diamond cut, but that's ok.  it was one of the last cards i needed to complete my 1960 topps team set, but i've had it for a while now and figured it was worth posting.  the back of the card is fantastic

to see 'moider' in print outside of, say, old mad magazines is great.  too bad there is no mention of 'fershlugginer' or 'potrzebie'.  drysdale's slugging prowess again gets the cartoon treatment on the back of his 1963 topps card

which is kind of crazy because he won the cy young award in 1962.  you'd think topps would have a cartoon with that as the subject.

in all, big d hit 29 homers and drove in 113 runs in his career.  he matched the 7 homers he hit in 1958 with another 7 in 1965, and he even hit .300 that year.  he also hit two homers off of warren spahn that season - one when spahn was with the mets, and the other when spahn was pitching for the giants.  oddly enough, drysdale was 0 for 3 with 2 k's in all-star games, and 0 for 10 with 7 strikeouts in world series play.  so, if there's one fault that drysdale had, it's that he couldn't hit american league pitching.

motivated by minis

duane from democratic roadkill recently offered to send me some cards in exchange for some 2014 topps allen & ginter minis.  he really wants minis - so much so that he sent more cards than i expected, and i have been delinquent in completing the trade as i have tried to pick up a few more things to send in return.  here are some of the cards that duane sent.

he recently finished a 1960 topps set, so he sent some doubles my way.  fred kipp

danny mcdevitt

and john roseboro

it wasn't all vintage goodness (i'll show more of the vintage haul in a separate post) - there was some modern stuff, too.

i don't know that i've ever looked at the mike marshall and steve sax cards from 1989 score together at the same time, but they make for an interesting combination

as do these two cards from 2009 upper deck goudey - andre ethier, kirk gibson, clayton kershaw, and russell martin 4-in-1 red and green border

these cards remind me of sesame street.  russell martin is doing his own thing by wearing his headgear backwards.  and now the song is done.

minis are primarily what duane was after - he collects the a&g minis like nobody else - so of course he has plenty of extras.  here are a few from 2013 topps a&g that he sent - hanley ramirez, chad billingsley, ethier, and hyun-jin ryu

this stuff wasn't even the best part of the package duane sent, so stay tuned...

how about some vintage duke?

feeling vintage today, and i just happen to have a few cards of the silver fox scanned and loaded.  these aren't too vintage-y, however, as they are la dodger dukes.

1960 topps

1961 topps

classic duke pose on that '61.  similar to his 1952 topps card, which is one of two (1955 is the other) topps cards that i have yet to obtain of snider.

1959 topps baseball thrills subset

looks like the guy in the stands is protecting his privates.  this was the last 1959 topps dodger card that i needed for my set.

here's duke's last topps card from his playing days - his 1964 topps card

he was featured as a met in the 1963 set, too, but i don't have that high numbered card.  there wasn't a card issued for him in the 1965 set, unfortunately, as that would have been his final tribute.  of course, he would have been featured as a giant, so maybe it's not all bad.

duke appeared as a met again in the 2003 topps retired set

but topps fixed that in time for the 2005 version of the retired set

one of the first duke snider cards i ever owned was this 1983 donruss hall of fame heroes card

it was a year later that donruss had him in their regular set as the 'hall of fame diamond king' and puzzle subject.

here's another duke card from donruss, 2004 donruss studio to be exact

with the los angeles skyline behind him, he's shown in his brooklyn duds.  i think of snider as a brooklyn dodger - he had all of his best seasons there, and never was an all-star while in la - and the lack of the '52 and '55 cards in my collection is really starting to wear on me.  i'll probably do something about that.

the evolution of the dodger second baseman - beginning with jackie

just two positions left to review in my evolutionary posts.  this one is special to me because i spent most of my playing days at second base, and even though i was a steve garvey fan, i marveled at the dodger lineage at second base.  as a little leaguer, i traced it back from dave lopes to jim lefebvre to jim gilliam to jackie robinson.  i later learned that it wasn't quite that clean, but still.  at some point, it traces back to jackie, which is where i will start.  besides, it gives me a reason to show my 1952 topps jackie robinson card again, now freed from its plastic cage.

jackie robinson (1948-1952)

jackie was named the rookie of the year in 1947 when he was the dodgers' first baseman.  in 1948, brooklyn traded their second baseman, eddie stanky, to boston and gil hodges took over at first with jackie moving to second.  he stayed there for five seasons, winning the mvp award in 1949 and leading the league with a .342 average as well.

jim gilliam (1953-1957)

like jackie, gilliam was named the rookie of the year, but he won the award as the dodgers' second baseman in 1953.  that's his 1954 topps card - i unfortunately don't have a copy of his 1953 topps issue.  although gilliam also played some outfield in 1955 and 1956, he was the team's primary second baseman through 1957.  he finished fifth in the league mvp voting in 1956, when he hit .300 and helped the dodgers return to the world series.

charlie neal (1958-1961)

gilliam moved to the outfield in 1958 as the dodgers moved west, and so charlie neal moved from short to second.  he remained the dodgers' second baseman until he was traded to the mets following the 1961 season.  he made two all-star teams for the dodgers in his tenure as their second baseman, including the 1960 team as noted on his 1960 topps all-star card, and he also won the gold glove at the position in 1959.

jim gilliam (1962-1963)

with neal in new york, jim gilliam returned to the position in 1962, which is the year that the bell brand card shown above was issued.  he finished 6th in the mvp voting in 1963 as the team's second baseman, but once the world series came along, he moved to third base and dick tracewski played second in the dodgers' four game sweep of the yankees.

nate oliver (1964)

oliver was a second year player in 1964 when he hit .243 in 99 games and played more second base than any other dodger.  tracewski and gilliam also spent time at the position that season, but oliver started 97 contests there.  in 1965, however, he played second in only 2 games at the big league level.

jim lefebvre (1965-1966)

another dodger second baseman to win the rookie of the year award, lefebvre (shown on his 1965 topps rookie card) hit .250 with 12 homers en route to the honor.  he did better in 1966, hitting 24 homers with a .274 batting average while being named to the all-star team for the only time in his career.  he also began playing some third base, and spent most of the 1967 season at the hot corner.

ron hunt (1967)

hunt was acquired by the dodgers after the 1966 season from the mets in the tommy davis trade.  topps was abel to get him into the 1967 set as seen above, although the card is a bit of a high number (525).  he spent the 1967 season in los angeles before being traded to the giants prior to the 1968 campaign.  during his stint with the dodgers, hunt started 89 games at second base batting .263 while hitting 3 homers and driving in 33 runs.

paul popovich (1968)

with hunt going to the giants, the dodgers turned to popovich, an offseason acquisition from the cubs, to man second base in 1968.  his 1968 topps card there identifies him as an infielder, and he lived up to that billing by playing second, short, and third in '68.  still, his 80 starts at second base is what qualifies him for a spot in the team's evolutionary chain.  he hit only .232 on the season, and was traded to the expos early in the 1969 season, meaning that the merry-go-round of dodger second basemen would continue...