a christmas eve edition of random cards from the scanned folder

i'm putting this post on autopilot since it's december 24th and i'm traveling for the holidays.  enjoy some cards that i scanned without a clear purpose over the course of the last few years.

1994 pinnacle brett butler museum collection

i need to add cards from this parallel dodger team set to my nefarious 9.

1962 topps johnny podres

looks like johnny was out late in chicago last night.

1987 fleer league leaders bob welch

the wrigley field ivy in the background and the odd cropping of the photo reminds me of 1981 fleer

1991 upper deck dennis cook

batting practice in dodger stadium!  cook's wearing tommy john's number and doesn't seem to know what to do with the bat.  plus, a jim poole sighting as a background lurker.

1975 topps mini rick rhoden rookie card

in a related note, congrats to night owl on finishing his 1975 topps mini set.  he would not allow his scanner to skew a card from that set as wildly as mine has.

1998 upper deck black diamond alex cora

and here's the back of brett butler's 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition card.

and so the post is bookended by butlers.  i'll try harder next time.

merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.

why not hondo?

sometimes i look through my scanned folder for fodder for a quick post.  this morning is one of those times.  there are cards in there that i have passed over countless times, not sure exactly how to squeeze a time constrained post out of them.  well, today i passed over frank howard no longer.  because frank howard deserves a post.

just like he deserved to be in the 2001 fleer focus 'roy collection' relic insert set.  and he was!

the 1960 nl rookie of the year took home the hardware over, among others, fourth place finisher ron santo.  howard was the fourth dodger to win the award.

here's a 1962 topps howard

it's tinted, as you can see when you look at this next copy of his 1962 topps card

that one is signed by the capital punisher himself, thanks to a hall of fame sports signing.  i also sent in a copy of howard's 1965 topps to that signing a couple of years ago.

i am so glad that howard got a dodger card in the 1965 set when the other players in the big trade were shown as senators.

speaking of 1965 topps, i think i might seek out some 2014 topps heritage today so i don't have to scramble for a post in a few days...

too few dodgers

i ordered some cards from comc in november, but wound up cutting a few from my shopping cart for one reason or another.  not too long after i received my cards, dennis at too many verlanders announced that he was making a purchase of his own, and asked if anyone wanted anything.  i took him up on the offer and sent some cards to him in exchange for three of the cards i didn't pick up myself.  make sense?  

one of the cards that i dropped from my purchase was a 2013 panini golden age tommy davis auto

now tommy was a well traveled ballplayer, and there is no mention of any team or city affiliation on the front of the card.  i believe that the photo comes from his tenure with the dodgers, but so do the photos on some of his topps cards which feature him as a member of a different team.  the back of the card, however, tells me that davis is a dodger here for sure

this is my first certified tommy davis autograph.  i did pick up a couple of other autos through the mail a  couple of years ago - 1962 topps

 and 1965 topps

thanks to a private signing at hall of fame sports.

one of the cards that i did purchase from comc was this 1997 score wilton guerrero 'heart of the order' insert

it features a nice dodger stadium backdrop, with more dodger stadium scenery screened on the back

you don't see the top of the park on too many cards.  you might notice that the guerrero is numbered as 'dodgers 2 of 3'.  i failed to buy the other 2 dodger cards in an extreme lapse of judgement.  enter dennis.  he picked up the mike piazza

and raul mondesi

cards for me.  looking closely at the piazza and guerrero cards, score took the time to cover up the unocal and coca-cola logos that sat in the circles above the diamondvision and scoreboard, respectively.

looking more closely, i see that it's ismael valdes on diamondvision, meaning that i can determine the day the photo was taken.  based on the information that the cards and scoreboard gives me, this was a day game at dodger stadium against the cubs. ismael valdes came to bat in the bottom of the 6th inning.  the cubs scored one run in the top of the first. sammy sosa was batting third for the cubs.  raul mondesi was playing center.  piazza was not playing because the catcher is batting 7th in the dodger lineup.  when i put it all together, baseball reference tells me that the nice dodger stadium photo comes from may 21, 1995!  

as i am sure you can tell, when you put the cards side by side, we get a foul pole to foul pole view of the dodger stadium outfield and pavilion

and a harder to see panoramic view of the stands in place roughly between the bases

a big thank you to dennis for correcting my mistake of not buying the davis auto and the piazza and mondesi dodger cards myself.  thanks for the trade!

a fairly nice return

before last week, i had sent cards to ron fairly on two different occasions.  both times, there was no response.  no problem - they were shots in the dark.  one set of cards (a 1978 topps and a 1967 topps) were sent to his home address.  the other set (another 1978 topps and a 1968 topps) was sent to him c/o the mariners where he used to broadcast games. 

fast forward to last week when i noticed that he had signed and returned a few ttm requests according to  sportscardforum.  i quickly pulled a couple of fairly dupes - a 1962 topps and a 1978 o-pee-chee - and mailed them off.  i was pleased to find them in my mailbox just a few days later.

fairly was the last dodger to wear number 6 before steve garvey.  fairly was traded to the expos in june of 1969, and the garv made his debut in september of that year.  i actually knew him better as a broadcaster for the angels.

as much as i love the o-pee-chee variation (i recall pulling that very card from a pack in southern saskatchewan as a youngster), i only wish i had had a dupe of his 1978 topps card to add to  my partially signed set.  at any rate, it's great to finally have some signed fairly cards.

thanks ron!

the crosley memorial sleeveless armband

powel crosley jr owned the cincinnati reds from 1935 until he died of a heart attack in march of 1961.  the reds honored his memory by wearing a black armband during the 1961 season.  however, since the reds wore jersey vests, the armband actually extended around the left armhole.  here is jim brosnan's 1962 topps card to demonstrate.

crosley was kind of a jack-of-all trades who found success in inventing and developing products such as automobiles, refrigerators, radios, soap operas and even a radio station.  it was under his watch that the first night games in the history of major league baseball were played - lights were installed at what was now known as crosley field in 1935.

interestingly enough, the reds actually incorporated the memorial armband into their uniforms by adding an identical band to the right arm side of their jerseys.  they kept the look through the 1966 season.

here's to you, powel crosley jr!

the evolution of the dodger third baseman - part one of way too many

it's been a while since i've run down the lineage of a dodger position.  it's time to get to the infield, although i should probably update one or two of the previous posts.  i'll do that eventually, but for now, let's look at the hot corner.  this one will take a few posts to get through, as third base has not been a model of consistency for the dodgers except from 1973 through 1982.

as usual, i am starting with the late 40's/early 50's since that's when baseball cards became more prevalent.

billy cox (1948-1953)

look at that 1952 bowman awesomeness!  billy cox arrived in brooklyn after the 1947 season (along with preacher roe and gene mauch) by way of a trade with the pirates.  he helped the dodgers win three pennants (1949, 1952, and 1953) and was best known for his fielding abilities although he hit .291 in 1953 and .302 over his three world series appearances.  cox was prominently featured in roger kahn's book 'the boys of summer' but was unfortunately not a member of the 1955 brooklyn dodger championship team.  that's because he was traded (again along with roe) after the 1954 season to the baltimore orioles.  he spent just part of the 1955 season there before being traded to cleveland, but he chose to retire rather than report to the indians.

in his tenure as the dodgers' third baseman, cox appeared in 742 games and hit .259 with 46 homers and 245 rbi, and he saved who knows how many with his glove.

don hoak (1954)

yes i realize that i'm showing hoak's 1953 topps card rather than his more appropriate 1954 issue.  it's because i find it odd that hoak had a card in the 53 set since he didn't debut in the majors until the following year.  anyway, hoak and cox split time fairly evenly at third base in 1954 with hoak getting slightly more playing time and thus the entry here.  as a rookie, he hit .245 with 7 homers and 26 rbi.  one would have thought, perhaps, that with cox being traded after the season hoak would be given the third base job.  not so.

jackie robinson (1955)

good lord.  i'm burying my 1955 topps jackie robinson card three deep in a dodgers-centric post that hardly anybody but me cares about?  what's wrong with me?  nice card, anyway.

yes, jackie robinson slid over to the hot corner in 1955, starting there in 82 of his 105 games played for walt alston.  he had the worst offensive season of his career that year, hitting just .256 with only 16 extra base hits and 36 rbi.  still, the dodgers won the pennant and jackie started the first six games of the series.  after hitting .182 in those games, alston gave the game 7 start to hoak, who had the privilege of being on the field when johnny podres shut the yankees out for brooklyn's lone world series title.

in 1956, robinson made 71 starts at third during his final season, but was not the team's primary third baseman.

randy jackson (1956)

randy 'hansome ransom' jackson started just three games more than robinson in 1956, but that's enough to make the evolutionary list.  he had been acquired from the cubs prior to the season in a deal that sent don hoak (among others) to chicago.

jackson had been an all-star in his last two seasons with the cubs and was coming off a 21-homer campaign.  he played in a total of 101 games for the dodgers in 1956, and hit .274 with 8 homers and 53 rbi.  one of those home runs came as the middle part of a back-to-back-to-back sequence that started with a duke snider home run and culminated with gil hodges' walk-off blast against the phillies on june 29 - the only time three consecutive home runs have ended a game.  jackson helped the dodgers return to the world series in 1956, but he was hitless in his three fall classic at bats.

jackson returned in 1957 and started the season as the dodgers' third baseman.  however, a serious knee injury suffered near the end of april caused him to miss half the season, and precipitated a move to third by a dodger legend.

pee wee reese (1957)

good golly.  a '55 jackie and a 1957 topps pee wee reese in the same post? never mind the tape stains, this is a sweet piece of cardboard.

with jackson injured, pee wee took over at third and wound up playing 75 of his 103 games there that year.  at 38 years old, he hit .224 with a single home run and 33 runs scored.  he made the move to los angeles with the team, but was just a part-time player in 1958.

dick gray (1958)

dick gray made his major league debut on april 15, 1958 and was 2 for 4 with a single in his first big league at bat.  the next day, he hit the first los angeles dodger home run, and a couple days after that, he hit the first dodger home run in los angeles.  not a bad way to start.  gray wound up hitting .249 with 9 home runs on the season in just 58 games.  randy jackson and pee wee reese shared time with him at third, with jim gilliam, don zimmer, earl robinson, and even gil hodges helping out, but gray's 53 starts at the hot corner were more than anyone else, so he gets the spot in our countdown.

gray began the 1959 season on the bench, but got a few starts at third before he was traded to the cardinals in mid june.

jim gilliam (1959-1960)

the aforementioned gilliam brought some semblance of stability to the third base position for the dodgers as he took over in 1959.  sure, he still played second base and the outfield, but between 1959 and 1960, gilliam made a total of 246 starts at third base - more than any dodger in a two-year span since before even billy cox.  in 1959, gilliam led the league in walks and was named an all-star for the second time in his career.  he hit .282 and helped the dodgers win their first championship in los angeles.  in 1960, his average dipped to .248 although he matched his base on balls total from the previous season, and scored 96 runs.  in 1961, gilliam spent more time at second base, as the dodgers acquired a third baseman from the cardinals.  sort of.

daryl spencer (1961)

daryl spencer was acquired by the dodgers early in the 1961 season, and wound up starting 55 games for them at third base that year, despite having played nothing but shortstop for the cardinals prior to the trade.  he hit .243 with 8 home runs and 27 rbi for the dodgers, and then returned in 1962 to hit .136 with a pair of homers and 12 rbi in 77 games (57 of which included time spent at third base).  spencer's reduced playing time in 1962 meant that a familiar face was once again the primary dodger third baseman.

jim gilliam (1962)

believe it or not, walt alston trotted out jim gilliam as the dodgers' starting third baseman 60 times in 1962 - more than spencer, andy carey, lee walls, or even tommy davis.  that means that gilliam was the team's primary third baseman and second baseman that season!  in addition to those starts, gilliam found himself manning the hot corner 30 times as a result of in-game moves after starting elsewhere on the diamond.  overall, gilliam hit .270 in 1962, with an obp of .370 and 83 runs scored.

in 1963, gilliam made only 27 starts (and 55 total appearances) at third, because the dodgers had a rookie from oxnard ready to take over.

ken mcmullen (1963)

that's mcmullen's 1964 topps card.  i wasn't going to bury his 1963 rookie card way down here in this post.

as with most years, the dodgers employed a number of third basemen in 1963.  mcmullen got the most starts (66) out of his 71 appearances, so he gets to represent the year that the dodgers swept the yankees in the world series.  unfortunately, mcmullen did not appear in the postseason after hitting .236 with 5 home runs and 28 rbi during the regular season.  mcmullen only appeared in 24 games during the 1964 season, after which he was dealt to the senators in the claude osteen trade.

jim gilliam (1964-1965)

look who's back!  gilliam was once again getting the majority of the starts at third base in 1964 and 1965.  gilliam had a down year in 1964, hitting only .228 in 116 games (86 of which were spent at third with 62 starts there), but bounced back in 1965 to bat .280 with an obp of .384 in 111 contests (80, 77).

come back next time to see who took over for gilliam in 1966, and whether the dodgers could keep someone there for more than one season at a time.

what if they held the biggest card show of the year and i didn't show up?

this weekend is the biggest card show of the year in the twin cities (outside of twinsfest).  it attracts vendors from all over the region and beyond (plus mr. mint at least once).  it's the show where one dealer had boxes of 1975 topps minis and there were vintage bargain bins all over the place.

i had planned to go tonight and pick up a 1956 topps duke snider card to complete my '56 dodgers team set.  that's because earlier in the week i picked up this beauty of a card:

a 1956 topps roy campanella card.  it is a really nice looking card - one i have wanted for a long time.

as far as the show goes, i don't think i will be able to swing it.  the past two years i have gone on friday night when it opens, and i know i can't be there tonight.  tomorrow, the likes of frank robinson, pete rose, cal ripken jr, johnny bench, and eddie murray are signing autographs, but i won't be able to be there then, either.  on sunday, there is a slim chance that i could get there shortly before the thing closes at 4, so i guess i will go with the same refrain that dodger fans used back during the early part of campy's career - wait 'til next year.

so instead of that duke snider card, i'll show some other vintage cards.  these are some of the cards that i've picked up over the last couple of years but haven't figured out how to fit into a post.  problem solved.

1960 topps bob aspromonte

this was one of the last few 1960 cards i needed.  it's numbered in the 500's (547) and usually goes for a few bucks.  i put it off for as long as i could.  i think i used some 'ebay bucks' to finally acquire it.

1961 topps frank howard 

that's the card of the reigning nl rookie of the year who was also a member of topps' all-rookie team, but hondo got jobbed out of his rookie cup (which was actually a trophy back in 1961).  teammate tommy davis has the trophy on his card, but for some reason, topps left it off of howard's.  i believe that he is the only member of the all-rookie team to not get the trophy on his card.

1962 topps duke snider

here's the silver fox on his final topps card as a dodger.  luckily for me, his 1963 topps card (which is a high number) lists him as a member of the mets so i don't 'have' to bother.  this is a nice card for duke to go out on - a pensive look from within the walls of the coliseum.

1963 topps johnny podres

i should be on the lookout for an upgrade here.  podres' card is one of the few (moose skowron's is another that comes to mind) dodger card from 1963 to have the blue bottom.  i like it better than the more prevalent green or red.

1965 topps john roseboro

roseboro's card has that weird blue border up top.  i've never seen one that was orange all the way around.  by the way, i am very excited for next year's heritage release.  very excited.

1966 topps willie davis

the 3-dog here is a high number (535), so it took me a while to track down at a price i was willing to pay.  the corners are a bit soft, but it fits in my collection nicely.  now if only i could find a photo of davis in an angels' uniform, i could get to making that final tribute card that he never got.

1970 topps maury wills

this card, of course, is wills' first official topps card as a dodger (he's on one of the 1959 world series recap cards in the 1960 set).  which reminds me - a while ago i posted all of the topps cards that should have been of the 1962 league mvp and asked if there were any similar cards folks wanted to see.  three people responded so i'll probably take a stab at making each of the cards that they requested.  they are:

a 1951 or 1952 card of artie wilson (padrographs)
a 1983 card of harold reynolds (mariner1)
a 1979 card of jim bouton (dayf)

but, since a 1968 topps deckle edge wills was at stake, i need to designate a winner.  random.org tells me that the card goes to...

...dayf.

i'll get something thrown together sometime soon.

maury wills gets his due and you could too

i spent a couple of hours this weekend finishing up a project that has been sitting idle for a couple of years.  i, like many dodger fans who collect baseball cards, have long been disgusted that this 1967 topps card is the first official wills card in the topps catalog.

it's a high number, and my copy is creased and worn since that's the only way i was able to purchase one.  will's second card is from the 1968 set, and is much easier to find.  sadly, he's still a pirate.

he's still wearing a pirate uniform on his 1969 topps card, too, although he is listed as an expo.  it wasn't until 1970 that topps had wills in dodger blue on a card, and that only lasted until 1972.

i am well aware of the 1960 topps card that features wills (i do not believe it to be charlie neal), and i am also aware of his 1963 fleer card.  i wrote about them (and his 1963 post card) in this post a while back.

i previously made a 1973 topps card for wills to serve as a final tribute (it was one of the first such 'cards that should have been' that i made) but it took me much longer to go back to the start of his career.  here goes.

wills debuted in 1959 on june 6th, playing behind and batting ahead of sandy koufax.  here's what a wills card might have looked like that year.

i 'artified' the image to try to make it look a little more like the other cards from the rookie subset, and used a bob lillis card as a base.  lillis and ron fairly are the only two dodgers in the subset that i can think of off hand, and both of them debuted in 1958.  i'm guessing that even if topps had offered wills a contract, he wouldn't have been part of the '59 set.

here's what a 1960 topps maury wills card might have looked like.

the photo comes from the topps archives, and was marked 1959 or 1960, so it fits for sure.  this one might be my favorite of the bunch.

on to 1961

wills is a bona fide star, now.  he led the league in steals in 1960 and 1961, and finished 9th in the league mvp voting following the '61 season.  he also won a gold glove at shortstop and appeared in his first all-star game that year.  that was nothing compared to his 1962 season, however.

for the 1962 topps card that should have been, i didn't mess with success.

topps created that card for their 1975 mvp subset, and it was used in the 1982 kmart mvp set, and in the 1987 topps turn back the clock subset.  it works nicely.

for the 1963 topps card, i used a photo featuring the recently opened dodger stadium

i love the fact that the three ladies (does anyone other than vin scully call them that?) are still bound at the top.  this would have been a nice card.

this year, topps included wills as part of the heritage autograph checklist.  in doing so, they created a nice card of him in the 1964 style.  so, i used the same photo and came up with a similar result.

one of the main differences is that i put wills at shortstop and third base, as he spent 33 games at the hot corner in 1963.  it was the first time that he had played there in his major league career.

i am really looking forward to 2014 topps heritage.  here's the 1965 topps installment for wills.

again with the 3b/ss positioning.  he only played 6 games there in 1964, but i chose not to delete it from his card.  i say delete because i used a john kennedy card as the base, and he had '3b-shortstop' on his card.

here's what i came up with for 1966.

wills is back in dodger stadium, and you can see one of the palm trees has opened up a bit.  this photo is probably from earlier than 1965 or 1966, but i still think it works.

it was after the 1966 season that wills was dealt to the pirates, but i still made a 1967 topps card featuring him in dodger blue

topps also created a 1967 topps card with wills as a dodger for one of the fan favorites sets (you can see it in this post).  they used the photo that i chose for the 1960 card.

well, i know i feel better with these cards that should have been filling in the holes in wills' career, and, i am pretty happy with the way these turned out.  so much so, in fact, that i feel like giving away some cards.

here's the deal.  leave a comment with the name of a player for whom you would like to see a card that should have been.  i know a lot of these have been done already by many different folks, so try to think of something other than a 1977 topps hank aaron or a 1978 topps brooks robinson.

i'll randomly select one on friday and do my best to do the request justice.  i'll also provide a 1969 topps deckle edge wills card to the winner.  and probably some other stuff, too. so get your comments in by noon on friday, and let me know what you think.