the steve garvey binder moves into 1985

sweet sheet 16 of the garvey binders is chock full of brown and gold.  take a look.

for the record, those cards are:

1. 1984 topps tiffany
2. 1985 armstrong ceramics
3. 1985 donruss
4. 1985 drake's
5. 1985 fleer
6. 1985 fleer (nl all-stars superstar special)
7. 1985 fleer (nl pennant clinchers superstar special)
8. 1985 fleer limited edition
9. 1985 leaf

here are the backs

the armstrong ceramic card is pretty weighty. it really is ceramic.  not much to say about the other cards except that i was really disappointed in the lack of attention paid to garvey's 1984 nlcs heroics by the major card companies as well as his return to the starting lineup for the national league in the all-star game. kudos to fleer for acknowledging both of those accomplishments.

here's sheet 17:

1. 1982-89 louisville slugger
2. 1985 mother's cookies padres
3. 1985 o-pee-chee
4. 1985 o-pee-chee stickers (nlcs - batting)
5. 1985 o-pee-chee stickers (nlcs - posed)
6. 1985 o-pee-chee stickers
7. 1985 pacific cramer spokane indians greats
8. 1985 topps (record breaker)
9. 1985 topps

i put the louisville slugger card here in 1985 because why not.  and, after lamenting the lack of attention paid to the 1984 nlcs, there's a sticker of the garv hitting his walk-off home run against lee smith.

the lone dodger (sort of) card here is the seventh one - a 1985 pacific cramer spokane indians greats card.  that set is chock full of great dodgers from the 1970's who spent time at the team's triple-a affiliate.  garvey spent just one season in spokane (1970) and hit .319 with 15 homers and 87 rbi.

here are the backs:

i am pretty sure that 1985 continues for at least one more sheet...

them's the breaks. and the earflaps.

i've booked a spot in a few group breaks recently, including one hosted by the daily dimwit.  he busted a box of 2002 fleer greats of the game, and i came away with almost a complete dodger team set.

that's campy, wills, drysdale, jackie, cey, hodges, garvey, roe and the duke.  the only other dodger featured in the set that didn't come my way in this break is hack wilson.  i'm pretty sure i have a hack from this set lying around.

let's take a closer look at steve garvey's card from the set

i can't say that i recall him wearing the double-earflap helmets, but there are a number of photos around (like the one on this card) showing him thusly adorned.  it seems so little league-ish for a non-switch hitter.

and then there is ron cey, who famously went earflap-less

at least until he was beaned in the head by goose gossage in 1981.  then he saw the light and went with the single earflap.

also wearing earflaps on their helmets are gary sheffield and adrian beltre, who, along with kevin brown and chan ho park were part of my haul from the 2001 playoff absolute memorabilia box included in the break

the big hit of the break was an expired redemption card for dodger prospect carlos garcia

i tried to find an image of the redeemed card, but came up with no results.  oh what might have been, back in 2001.

thanks to the dimwit for hosting the break!

just one more fernando ttm success. plus some others.

i realized when i posted my 1984 topps fernando ttm success this morning that there was still one more success i have had with el toro that i hadn't shown.  it's one of my favorite cards of his - his 1990 upper deck card

you've got dodger stadium peeking through, the home whites, a little bit of the red number, plus fernando putting the bat on the ball.  a very nice card.

somewhere along the line, i picked up this card, purportedly signed by fernando.  it's from the 1987 fleer baseball's best box set.

it was part of a dodger autograph lot i got for cheap.  the card that caught my eye in the lot was this one, a 1986 donruss orel hershiser diamond king card

i guess hershiser was going through a first name is enough phase.  certified hershiser autos are tough to come by and are fairly spendy most of the time.  but at least there would be his full name.  still, i am happy to have this card in my collection.

also included in the lot was a 1986 topps card signed by ken howell

and a 1985 leaf card signed by alejandro pena

i prefer 1985 leaf to 1985 donruss because i like the touch of green.  why they didn't get rid of the donruss logo altogether is beyond me.

speaking of donruss, here's a 1989 donruss jesse orosco card signed by the guy who closed out the 1986 world series for the mets

i also have this card as a certified orosco autograph from the 2004 donruss recollection collection release.

that's enough 1989 donruss for one post.

here's jim gott's 1993 dodgers police card

and finally dave stewart's 1983 topps card

stew made an appearance at a signing last year and signed a copy of his 1978 topps bk dodger/update card that should have been card for me.  i'll show that some other time.

thanks again fernando, for signing my cards! and thanks to you other guys for signing for someone else who sold their cards to me!

mota! cey! cey!

yes, it is 11/

10/

10!

or, if you prefer, it's reese

reese

anderson

sheffield

this was supposed to be a cey! cey! cey! post on 10/10/10 but i was out of commission.  admittedly, 11/10/10 isn't as catchy.

as a side note, i often associate numbers i need to remember with jersey numbers, not just on binary days.  in fact, if you were to find my old combination lock from high school, you would be able to unlock it using the code

baker

valenzuela

guerrero

happy binary day!  tomorrow's the last one until next year, so plan accordingly.

1207 things i like about you

actually, these are 7 cards i like about 1207 consecutive games.  mainly because he sent them to me in a trade!  always nice to do business with a fellow garvey fan.

1985 leaf bill russell

leaf cards would have been better if they had given donruss the o-pee-chee treatment.  shameless plug.

1971 topps phil niekro

i received a few 1971 cards i needed, which is always an awesome thing. even moreso when it's a hofer.

1986 sportflics davey lopes

seeing davey at home in wrigley is weird.

1992 upper deck minors henry blanco

blanco must be playing for bakersfield if i know my dodger hats.  blanco debuted with the dodgers in 1997, playing third base.  he got a hit in his first major league at bat, and homered in his third.  he only had 5 at bats with the dodgers, and has played in colorado, atlanta, milwaukee, minnesota, chicago and san diego since then, mainly as a catcher.

1993 bowman omar daal

here i though daal was from venezuela, but he clearly hails from the black forest in germany.  daal went 4-0 in his third year in the bigs with the dodgers, although his era was over 7.  he was traded to the expos, but the dodgers got him back a few years later from the phillies.

1995 bowman rick gorecki

bowman must have liked (like me) the 1994 upper deck cards with the compressed photo on the left.  bowman, however, went one step further and reversed the negative!  i have to admit, this is a very strange card design.  it has a 'phantom zone' quality to it.  anyway, gorecki appeared in 4 games for the dodgers before being selected by the devil rays in the expansion draft.

finally, we have a 1991 jimmy dean darryl strawberry

i can't think of anything to say about darryl or jimmy dean, so i'll just say thanks rob!

hello larry! to both of you!

reader larry offered to help with my 2009 topps needs and to also send along some dodgers in a trade recently. he came through big-time!

here's a sampling of what i received:

we'll start with a different larry - larry burright and his 1962 topps card.a quick check of baseball reference shows that larry played for the dodgers in 1962 before going to the mets in 1963. he played a handful of games in 1964 and was done. he hit all four of his career home runs, including one inside the park job, as a dodger.

here's one of the 2009 topps - a david murphy.with a josh hamilton sighting!

a 2007 upper deck ramon martinez (ii).his bat looks to be defective.

1985 leaf orel hershiser.you can't have too many green leafy cards.

1997 pinnacle denny's jackie robinson.and a 2009 topps career best jackie robinson.i've seen some of the 1959 topps style 'jackie as a giant' cards from the national up on ebay. i have no desire to buy one though.

1967 topps world series game 4.this is how sandy koufax's career ended. with brooks robinson several feet in the air.

1999 topps gallery raul mondesi.i didn't realize that ra-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul put his number on the tongue of his shoes. kind of like grrranimals, but with numbers, i guess.

thanks again larry! let's do it again.

bringing on the heartbreak

another great batch of cards from matt over at heartbreaking cards of staggering genius. it all started with the 2008 topps stadium club russell "russ" martin. sure, it's the same picture as on his topps chrome card, but it's still a good one. i don't know of anyone other than topps that refers to martin as "russ". i am pretty sure it's not a "bob" clemente thing, so what gives?


2008 topps stadium club clayton kershaw.

i think i have mcdonalds residue in my system that is older than kershaw. i hate those unis, by the way.

1989 upper deck rick demspey.

how old school is dempsey? he caught without all the gear...and he liked it!

1992 fleer lenny harris.

lenny is doing a good job here of trying to fit into the box that fleer has created. a couple slight adjustments to his feet, elbow and bat, and he will have done it.

1985 leaf pedro guerrero.

dang, 1985 was a monster year for pedro. 99 runs in 137 games. an ops+ of 181. 3rd in the mvp voting. you just couldn't contain him, as the photographer here found out. despite what i am sure was the fastest shutter speed possible, pedro still manages to be blurry.

2006 topps opening day opening day

sure it's redundant, but i don't know what else to call it. this is the view that longtime dodger scout mike brito enjoyed for every game, weilding his radar gun, wearing his fedora and chomping on his cigar.

2006 topps jose valentin.

no airbrushing attempt here. i admire jose for trying to take the sheffield stain off of the penguin's number 10. too bad valentin stunk up the joint during his time with the dodgers. he was coming off a 30 home run season, yet managed to bat only .170 and achieve an ops of only .591. yikes.

matt, a bunch of cards are headed your way - some royals, some diamond kings, some handlebar mustaches, and some pitchers that seemingly pitched forever. enjoy!