three c's and a big d from fuji

everybody's favorite teacher from the bay area sent me some cards recently. you'd think by the title of this post that i didn't fare so well, as my gpa wouldn't be good enough to be academically eligible for the school's baseball team. however, a 'd' and three 'c's when it comes to dodger cards is pretty darn good.

here's a 1980 tcma 1959 world champions don drysdale card

drysdale was the winning pitcher in game 3 of the 1959 world series. he helped beat the white sox and bring the first los angeles dodger championship home, just four years after the franchise won it's first ever world series.

the three c's i received were these ron cey cards - 1976 topps, 2000 fleer greats of the game, and 1982 kellogg's

cey, of course, helped the dodgers win the 1981 world series - beating the yankees for only the third time in 11 tries.  note the helmet cey is wearing in the kellogg's card photo - no earflap.  he would be beaned in the head by goose gossage during the '81 world series and switch to an earflap helmet after that.

thanks for the cards fuji! enjoy your spring break!

here's the next installment of sheet from the steve garvey binders

here are sheets 8 and 9 of the first of two main steve garvey binders keep us in his los angeles years, but just barely.  here's sheet 8:

these cards are:

1. 1981 o-pee-chee
2. 1981 permagraphic
3. 1981 squirt
4. 1981 topps
5. 1981 topps scratch-off
6. 1982 donruss (diamond king)
7. 1982 donruss
8. 1982 drake's
9. 1982 fleer

here are the backs:

the 'oddballs' on this sheet - permagraphics, squirt, and drake's - all have some topps influence to them.  the photo on the permagraphics card is the same on garvey's 1981 topps (and o-pee-chee) cards; the 'dodgers' text on the squirt card is the same as the 'dodgers' text on 1978 topps cards with the back being a firm reproduction of 1981 topps; and the back of the drake's card is clearly the same design as 1982 topps.

one thing to note - i maintain that garvey was not included in the team photo that appears on the 1981 topps dodger checklist/tom lasorda card.  so, i don't have that card in the garvey binder.  if anyone can prove me wrong, i'd be happy to add it.

sheet 9 looks like this:

those cards are:

1. 1982 kmart
2. 1982 kellogg's
3. 1982 louisville slugger
4. 1982 o-pee-chee
5. 1982 o-pee-chee (in action)
6. 1982 permagraphic
7. 1982 topps
8. 1982 topps (in action)
9. 1983 donruss

and here are the backs:

the louisville slugger card came attached to a baseball glove. it may be from 1981 (or 1980 even - garvey is wearing the 1980 all-star game patch in the photo as he is in the o-pee-chee and topps cards), but i put it here in 1982 since beckett lists these things as '1982-89 louisville slugger' tags.  there's one of the garv in padres gear, too, which we'll see in a future post..  i know i am missing the 1982 permagraphic gold card that would go on this page, bumping 1983 donruss to the next.  maybe someday.

continuing with the steve garvey binders - 1979 into 1981 with some error action and a story of a simpler time!

sheets 6 and 7 get us into the 1980's in the first of two main issue steve garvey binders.  here's sheet number 6.

containing:

1. 1979 dodger blue
2. 1979 hostess
3. 1979 o-pee-chee
4. 1979 topps dodger team
5. 1979 topps
6. 1980 kellogg's
7. 1980 o-pee-chee
8. 1980 topps
9. 1980 topps dodger team

here's the flip side of the sheet

the most interesting card here is the first one.  i am not completely sure how the dodger blue set was distributed - i don't recall seeing it for sale at dodger stadium in 1979, and i went to a few games that year, but i may not have noticed as we didn't typically check souvenir stands.  for us, it was straight to the program vendor, then the dodger dog line, and then our seats.  on our way out of the stadium is when we might check out the souvenirs, but we usually attended a giveaway game so i already had my helmet or poncho or batting glove or whatever.  i do know that the set was wrapped in cellophane, because i have a sealed set that mrmopar sent my way a while back. anyway, garvey's card features him wearing a green dodger hat.  i believe that the dodgers might have been one of the first teams to wear green on st. patrick's day during spring training.  it's a nice quirk to the photo, and the photo itself is a nice break from most of the other cards in the set.

here's sheet 7:

it features:

1. 1981 donruss (error)
2. 1981 donruss (corrected)
3. 1981 donruss (action)
4. 1981 drake's
5. 1981 fleer
6. 1981 fleer (most hits nl)
7. 1981 fleer star stickers
8. 1981 fleer stickers (back)
9. 1981 kellogg's

and the backs:

there is so much cool stuff on this sheet.  1981 was a watershed year for me as a garvey collector.  first, there were more cards to collect than ever, and both donruss and fleer had two different garvey cards on their checklists.  then there were the stickers! garvey was card number 1 in the fleer star sticker set, and his likeness also adorned the sticker back that celebrated the 1974 all-star game in which he was the mvp.  however, the best thing about this sheet at the time was that there was a garvey error card!

my neighborhood friends and i opened a lot of 1981 fleer cards looking for all of the errors in that set, and kind of ignored donruss a bit. we wanted 'craig' nettles and reversed negative tim flannery!  i had  opened only a few packs of donruss, but didn't have too many dodgers until one day, when one of my neighbors said he was going to meet another collector in town.  get this - he had seen a flyer posted on a light pole near the local grocery store that said 'do you collect baseball cards? i do, and i have doubles to trade or sell' and gave the guy's phone number.  this is not crazy, this was just what it was like in 1981.  anyway, we rode our bikes to the guy's apartment (no thoughts of stranger danger), and i bought a brick of '81 dodger cards from him for $3.  it had a couple of team sets, plus a ton of doubles of most of the players.  i got home and put my cards in my closet and went about my business. a few days later, my neighbor tells me that the other guy wants his cards back because he learned that there was an error version of one of the garvey cards in the set.  i was most certainly not going to give any cards back because caveat venditor and any garvey error surely was going to pay for my college education.

unfortunately, the error was nothing dramatic like a reversed negative or wrong player photo - it was related to the text on the back.  here are the two versions side by side.

in the 1980 text of garvey's 'career highlights', one card (the one on the left) notes that garvey 'surpassed 21 hr for the 4th straight year.' the other card (the one on the right) says that garvey 'surpassed 25 hr for the 4th straight year.'  so, which is correct?  well, this is a trick question because they are both wrong.  in the previous four seasons, garvey hit 33, 21, 28, and 26 home runs, respectively.  so to say that he 'surpassed' 21 homers is incorrect.  garvey reached 21 hr for the 4th straight year.  but, semantics.  the one on the left is considered to be the corrected version, and the one on the right is the error.  you can get either version on sportlots for 18 cents.

much more to come from the steve garvey binders. stay tuned!

do iou?

i decided sometime in may that i needed a better way to track trades.  previously, i had used email folders to remind me of trades that had been agreed to - i had one folder for 'i have sent' and one for 'they have sent' and one for 'completed', and i would move the email around based on the status of the trade until it was in the 'completed' folder.  it worked for most of the last 5+ years, but now there are some packages that show up without warning (which is great), and so email is not all inclusive when it comes to trades.  

for example, i owed the writer's journey as jason sent me some cards unannounced.  included in his envelope was this 1983 donruss greg brock card

brock and i have a complicated relationship, thanks to the fact that he was supposed to replace steve garvey in 1983.  not his doing, but what was a 12-year old to do but wish that brock continued to be blocked by the nl iron man.  regardless of how i felt, this card was a hot commodity in my neighborhood in 1983 due to brock's 44 home runs in triple-a in 1982.  my friends and i were perplexed, however, by the text on the back - brock was a '1983 donruss rated rookie'

we didn't know what that meant.  the guy at the card shop didn't know either.  it became clear in 1984 when donruss moved the designation to the front of the cards that it was just another way of saying 'future star' and the like.

jason also sent a 1982 kellogg's ron cey

and a 2014 topps stickers carl crawford

i put together a return package and sent it off  - you can read about it here.

i also knew that i owed reader mark who sent some cards for my 1971 topps set

and i recently got the return package in the mail.

i know that i still owe dennis from too many verlanders for sending me a pwe with this card inside - a 2002 fleer fall classic steve garvey/tony perez rival factions insert

i've also received some cards from dennis as part of his recent giveaway that i will show off later.

anyway, in order to help me track my trades and not lose track of who i owe, i have added a 'trade tracker' gadget to the blog.  it's over there on the right (if you're reading this with the mobile version of the site, you need to select the web version to see what it).  it's pretty self explanatory, i think.  'incoming' are cards that i have received, and 'outgoing' are cards that i have sent.  (1) indicates which package was sent first to initiate the trade, and (2) indicates which package completed the trade.  any incoming packages marked with a (1) means that i owe cards to the sender.  so, you can see that i currently owe not only dennis, but also bo and pat at the hot corner (since march!), and you can also see that i have recently started and completed trades with fuji and the rhubarb runner.

i will probably leave completed trades up for a month or so (or until i publish the trade post which sometimes takes longer).  in addition to cards for dennis, bo, and pat, i am also working on packages for people (patp, nick, dollar store), and i don't know if these are return or initial packages to be honest.  i will assume that they are all return packages just in case.

the whole point to this is that i don't want to leave anyone who has sent me cards without a return package.  if i owe you cards, please leave a comment or send me an email, and i will add you to the tracker and send some cards.  like i said earlier, i tried my best to keep track, but i may have missed someone at some point.  and, if we haven't traded before (or even if we have - and thanks very much, by the way), rest assured that i will complete a trade so let's make it happen.

one post for every consecutive game

this is my 1207th post on this blog. i've missed some days, and even weeks, since starting this blog over 3 years ago.  steve garvey didn't miss any games during his consecutive games streak which lasted 1207 contests and ended on july 29, 1983.  it was a feat so impressive that it has a blog named after it.

in honor of reaching this milestone, i offer up twelve steve garvey cards - one for every one hundred posts/consecutive games.  yes, i know he ended his streak as a padre, but first humor me some dodger cards.

perhaps my second favorite garvey card (1978 topps cannot be topped) was issued in 1974.  this happens to be the o-pee-chee version

 as is this 1975 card recapping the 1974 nlcs

garvey aka mr. clean playing the part of pigpen.  very nice.

i had planned, and may still get around to posting oddball team sets, or at least the infield's cards.  in the meantime, here are some garveys that i had already scanned.  this is his 1977 hostess twinkles card

 and this is his 1979 hostess card

what are the chances that the photos come from the same shoot?  fairly high, i would guess.  now we move away from snack cakes towards breakfast cereals. here's a 1981 kellogg's card

followed by the 1982 kellogg's issue

i'm not sure when the garv started to wear the red-white-blue sweatband, but he didn't carry it over to the padres, that's for sure.  here's his 1987 donruss card

 along with a 1987 fleer star stickers card

and a 1999 fleer sports illustrated card showing the si cover from the week garvey broke billy williams' national league consecutive game record (a game which i attended)

you can see in that photo that garvey has chosen the matchy-match yellow sweatband.

back to the 1970's, sort of, with a 2001 ud decade 1970's card - this one's from the award winners subset

 with the 1974 nl mvp getting his groove on apparently.

his 2002 upper deck sweet spot classics card is more refined

it's an image from the 1978 world series (notice the jim gilliam '19' patch), and if i remember my sports illustrateds correctly, that photo is of garvey fielding a throw as thurman munson bears down on first base.  pretty sure.

last year, topps chose to reprint garvey's 1982 in action card

which showcased the part of his swing that had the least amount of action.  here's the (original) back so we can remind ourselves of some of popeye's accomplishments as a dodger

so that was twelve cards for twelve-hundred games.  i guess i need something to cover the other seven, so i'll use a card that should have been created by jason at the writer's journey.  it's a 2011 topps gypsy queen garvey

that uses an image of the dodgers' first baseman receiving applause for his 1000th consecutive game.

here's to you, nl iron man.  and thanks to all of you for reading all/most/some of my 1207 ramblings.

it's a hoot-enanny!

whenever cards arrive from the night owl.  i know there will be some nice dodger hand me downs in the package, and the latest envelope, received just a couple of days ago, didn't disappoint.  i had sent greg a couple of smaller packages over the last few weeks, trying to knock cards out of his nebulous 9 listing, and then sent a bigger box just last week - the same day he mailed this envelope to me!  good times.  anyway, on to the cards!

1996 pinnacle denny's hologram hideo nomo

the absolute coolest thing about this card isn't the hologram (that part is not very good to be honest). rather, it's that scout mike brito is featured!  he's the figure standing over the catcher's (is that piazza?) right shoulder, with the panama hat and radar gun.  that was his office until the mccourt's renovated dodger stadium and got rid of those true field level seats.  i also think that it's cool that someone, somewhere ordered a grand slam 13 years ago so that i could one day own this card.

1982 kellogg's dusty baker

the 3-d effect on these cards is about as lame as the hologram on that denny's card.

2006 upper deck national pastime nomar garciaparra

any excuse to post a dodger card of nomar.  this was one of those cards distributed on national baseball card day if you remembered to go into your local shop that day.  if you had a local shop, that is.

2008 topps chrome derek lowe blue refractor

i drool over dodger blue refractors.  very purty.

1999 fleer ultra raul mondesi

one of the few 1999 fleer ultra dodger cards not featuring a dodger stadium based photo.  here, raul is showing us how alfonso soriano will one day play the wrigley outfield.

2007 ud sp legendary cuts roy campanella

i'll bet roy was a badass.  3 mvp awards in 5 seasons - the only dodger catcher to win an mvp award, although...

this guy should have.  1998 pinnacle mint mike piazza

yes, larry walker had a monster year in 1997.  but if the voters overlooked dante bichette in 1995 in favor of barry larkin, then why not do the same in 97?  plus, now that we know what we know about ken caminiti, piazza should have won the 1996 award, too.  although there may be things we don't know about italian-american superstar slugger mike piazza, the strongest man in so-cal.

we'll end it with a truly cool card - 2010 topps matt kemp walmart black version

i am not a fan of the gimmicks and the walmart/target exclusives in general, but this card kicks ass.

thanks greg!  hope there were some good cards in amongst the stuff i sent your way!