the final active player pages from the steve garvey binders

twenty-five sheets are all i have in my steve garvey binders of cards from his playing days - excluding smaller and larger sized oddballs.  here is sheet 24:

those cards are:

1. 1987 m&m's
2. 1987 o-pee-chee
3. 1987 o-pee-chee stickers
4. 1987 ralston purina
5. 1987 ralston purina cookie crisp
6. 1987 sportflics
7. 1987 sportflics (factory set)
8. 1987 sportflics team preview
9. 1987 topps

the only difference between the 1987 sportflics card and the 1987 sportflics (factory set) card is that the factory set card has a copyright 1986 mark on the back, while the other card does not.

and, here are the backs

1987 sportflics was the first set to have color photos on the back. go figure.

and here is the last page of playing day cards of the garv - sheet 25

those cards are:

1. 1987 topps tiffany
2. 1988 score
3. 1988 score glossy

i recognize that garvey did not play in in 1988, but i include his final tribute card with the playing days cards.

here are the backs:

so, very soon we will start to see some of the way more than 25 sheets of steve garvey cards that have been issued after his retirement.  stay tuned.

seventy? seriously?

this is crazy, but don sutton - the lone hall of famer from the team of my youth - turns 70 years old today.  to celebrate, here are seven cards of his that i've not shown before.

2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts

2005 donruss throwback threads

2005 upper deck sp legendary cuts

2013 panini hometown heroes rivalry

1987 o-pee-chee box card

2007 upper deck sweet spot classic relic

2012 panini cooperstown credentials

as you can see, i don't discriminate when it comes to sutton - i'll take angels, a's, brewers, and even astro cards featuring the curly haired hof'er.

if it's sutton's 70th birthday, that means that it is also reggie smith's 70th birthday.  unfortunately, i am ill prepared with reggie's cards as he doesn't appear in many modern sets like sutton does.  i'll have to make it up to the right fielder of the team of my youth another time.

happy birthday to two of my favorite dodgers!

penguins look strange in pinstripes

i picked up a new (to me) ron cey card a few months ago.  it comes from the 1983 thorn apple valley cubs set, and it features the penguin in the cubs' pinstripes

that is a stranger sight to me than steve garvey in the brown padres unis for some reason.  at least it makes cey look taller.

cey also appears on the team card in the set - that's him in the middle of  the second row

the photo used there reminds me of the parents standing off to the side taking pictures of their kids on santa's lap while the official photographer snaps away.

cey's 1984 donruss card also has him in pinstripes

but his 1987 o-pee-chee box bottom card has him in the away uniform

it's still strange to me though - i need a return to normalcy.

that's better

who's that lurker?

in 1987, tony gwynn shared his o-pee-chee (and topps) card with a lurker from los angeles.

close inspection reveals that it is none other than alex trevino.  trevino was brought in prior to the 1986 season to back up mike scioscia as steve yeager was sent to seattle.  he wore number 29 and he started 50 games behind the plate for la, including 4 at jack murphy stadium. the june 15th game was played on sunday, so it may be the most likely to have been a day game. in that game, both gwynn and trevino had 1 hit, but while gwynn was 1 for 4, trevino was 1 for 1 with 3 walks (none intentional), two runs scored and he even threw out bip roberts trying to steal second.  not a bad day at the office for a lurker.

here's to you alex trevino, foreground lurker!

it's a matt young week crossover event - through the mail successes!

matt young week is in full swing over at oh my o-pee-chee!  young had variations in every set from 1987 through 1992, except for 1989, and i'm highlighting them all right now.  over on this site, i figured i would show the cards that matt has signed through the mail for me over the last year or so.

we'll start, appropriately enough, with young's 1987 o-pee-chee card

young was acquired from the mariners in exchange for lefty dennis powell.

1987 topps traded

he pitched just one year for the dodgers, winning 5 games while losing 8 and saving 11 others.

1987 fleer update

his first game wasn't very good as he came in with a 2-run lead in the 8th inning against the astros on 4/7/87.  granted, he came in with 2 on and nobody out, but he promptly walked the first batter he faced to load the bases and then allowed the tying runs to score on wild pitches.  he would allow a couple more runs and be saddled with the loss.

1988 score

young's final appearance as a dodger resulted in his 8th loss of the season.  he came on in relief of tim crews in the top of the 8th inning against the braves on 9/17/88 and allowed an infield single followed by a force out at home follwed by another single.  2 of the 3 inherited runners scored, and brad havens relieved young.  havens didn't fare much better, allowing his inherited runner to score, so young was charged with 2 earned runs in one-third of an inning.

1988 topps

in between those games, however, he had moments where his potential flashed and all was right in his world, like on 5/23/87 when he entered a game against the mets with 1 on and 1 out in the 8th with the dodgers leading by 2.  he allowed a single to keith hernandez, but got kevin mcreynolds and darryl strawberry to fly out to end the inning, and then he struck out the side (gary carter, howard johnson, and dave magadan) in the 9th for the save.

thanks matt, and hope you enjoy your week!

gcrl through the mail successes! almost!

over the span of two days a couple of weeks ago, i received in the mail cards back from all four members of the infield.  i had sent out some ttm auto requests to steve garvey, ron cey, bill russell and davey lopes during spring training and was over the moon to get them back.  especially since most of them were signed.  let's take a look.

1973 topps steve garvey

very nice.  i had one of these already, but wanted a second one to send to wes parker.  i think i'll send it next week and keep my fingers crossed.  it looks like garvey is only signing one card per request these days.  i sent him the 73 and a 1976 topps, but only the 73 came back.  that's ok.  luckily, i had a success a few months earlier in which he signed both cards i sent, including a 1982 topps in action

and, just to show that i don't completely ignore his padres days, a 2002 topps traded 'who would have thought' insert

i was really happy that topps included him in this set.  garvey is more of a regional guy, and west coast at that.  i would have expected a jim hunter or dwight evans card before a garvey.  thanks topps!

let's see what the penguin signed...

1975 topps ron cey

of the four, cey is by far the quickest and most reliable signer.  he is awesome.  i must confess i have sent probably a half dozen requests to him, and he never disappoints.

1981 topps ron cey

not the best card to get signed, as it's pretty dark.  the scan is darker than the card really is, though.

here are a couple more from a previous request:

1982 topps ron cey

i have kind of avoided using the 1982 topps set in my ttm requests simply because it has the facsimilie signature already on the card.  for the penguin, i'll make an exception.

1987 o-pee-chee ron cey

here's a card that has yet to be featured on the o-pee-chee blog.  notice that cey doesn't include any number when he signs a non-dodger card.  he wore 11 with the cubs and a's but doesn't acknowledge that in his autograph.  i wonder how he would sign a 1983 o-pee-chee card.  i'll have to find out.

time to see what the shortstop sent back...

1970 topps bill russell

russell's rookie card.  not yet an infielder.  he's one of the few, and maybe the only shortstop who i can think of that converted from the outfield successfully.  i know robin yount went the other way, but i can't think of any others who did what russell did in that regard.

1987 topps bill russell

his topps final tribute.

1984 fleer bill russell

and 1986 topps bill russell (dodgers leaders)

both cards of russell breaking out of the batters' box.  i miss vero beach and those brightly colored rows of seats.  they made for colorful and recognizable cards, if not interesting ones.

lastly, there is davey lopes.  i had a success with him early last season in my modest 1978 topps dodgers autograph quest but hadn't sent a follow up request until this spring.  part of that was due to the fact that people were reporting a spate of 'return to sender' for requests sent to lopes and the phillies in general.  well, things are no different now, as my cards came back with the dreaded yellow sticker.  that's ok - to borrow from meatloaf, 3 out of 4 ain't bad!

thanks steve, ron and bill!

now this was o-pee-chee...

back in my day, being an o-pee-chee card meant something dang-gummit! we were shown in our old team's uniforms and we liked it! well, i did anyway. after being disappointed with upper deck's resurrection of the o-pee-chee brand, let's renew our love of the variation, shall we?

1979 tommy john.

this card was unfathomable to me. a dodger on the yankees? no way. of course, it worked both ways, as andy messersmith and gary thomasson were yankees on the dodgers in this set. john had the same bad luck don sutton did in regards to the world series, although he at least appeared in the 1981 matchup. he was famously removed from game 6 early, and the dodgers went on to beat the yankees.

1980 joe morgan. the big red machine was almost completely dis-assembled after morgan returned to the astros. the astros released him a year later, which set the stage for him to go to the giants where he would eventually destroy my hopes for the 1982 season.

speaking of 1982, here's mark belanger.the defensive specialist was displaced in baltimore by cal ripken jr, and brought his gold gloves to the dodgers for a year. he made an uncharacteristic 4 errors in 86 chances at short, and retired after the 1982 season.

1985 rickey henderson. who would have thought that rickey would leave oakland? i was a big fan of 'billy-ball' and so had quite an interest in henderson, dwayne murphy, mike norris and the others. so i was surprised when rickey was traded to the yankees for jose rijo and a few other players, including eric plunk. in 1989, the yankees would trade him back to oakland for some players, including eric plunk.

1986 steve yeager.

aside from bill russell, yeager was the last of the dodgers from the 1978 team that i was so connected to. interestingly enough, he was a 'sign and trade' free agent, as the dodgers signed him and traded him a couple weeks later to the mariners for ed vandeberg. yeageer got to seattle just in time to play in roger clemens' first 20-k game. he only struck out once, though, out of two at-bats.

1987 greg brock. man, did i not care for greg brock. simply because he was garvey's replacement. it wasn't his fault, although he didn't do much of anything in the postseason the way garvey did. brock had his best season in 1987 for the brewers, where he had the pressure of replacing cecil cooper! if only greg had followed joe shlabotnik instead of two franchise favorites, he might not have had all the pressure.

i've enjoyed this trip down o-pee-chee memory lane, and i have a bunch more variations that i'll post in the future.