rhoden and john and hough

i consider don sutton to have been the ace of the team of my youth, but the dodgers of the mid to late 1970's had a pretty strong staff.  i got kind of tired of seeing doug rau pitch seemingly every time we trekked to dodger stadium, but it wasn't because he was a bad pitcher - i just would have rather have seen tommy john or rick rhoden or burt hooton more often.  anyway, it's boxing day and things are slow and i don't have any good post ideas, so here are some non-dodger cards of three members of the dodger pitching staff from the team of my youth.

1988 score rick rhoden

and tommy john

rhoden and tj were reunited on the yankees, although this was john's second time around with the club. here's the back of john's 1981 topps card

for no other reason than to show the 'on disabled list' text that defined his 1975 season and his legacy as well.

here's the back of rhoden's 1988 topps big card for no other reason than to note that rhoden was a fan of both bob gibson and hulk hogan

'his' comment in the ping pong cartoon is not entirely true - rhoden did get to hit as the yankees' dh in a game during the 1988 season.  here's the front of that topps big card, by the way

rhoden sports the same mustache on his 1988 leaf card

which is so much better than 1988 donruss.

here's a 1988 fleer superstars card of rhoden

i wonder what he's got in that gatorade cup.

rhoden finished out his career with the astros in 1989.  here's his 1989 fleer update card

tommy john, meanwhile, began his career in cleveland.  here's a 2003 topps retired signature card showing him in indians' attire.

and let's not forget about charlie hough, who was actually the dodgers' closer in 1977, saving 22 games for the nl champs.  he moved on to texas where he became a starter and found some success.  this is a 1987 donruss all-stars card of the knuckleballer

who finished his career with stints with the white sox and then the marlins.  this is a 1993 topps finest card of hough with the fish

as are these 1994 bowman

and 1994 topps stadium club cards

that last one being the rainbow foil parallel.

i did a 'torchbearer' post for sutton, so i'll do something similar for these guys.  i won't go into too much detail, but if you're wondering, the last batter rick rhoden faced in the majors was joe oliver (who hit into a double play). oliver doubled off of jorge julio in his last at bat; julio hit jorge cantu with his last pitch, cantu fouled out against rex brothers for his final appearance in the majots, so brothers (who was still pitching for the rockies in 2014) is carrying rhoden's torch.

john, meanwhile, allowed a single to devon white just before walking off the mound for the last time.  white singled off of albie lopez his last time up; lopez gave up a single to torii hunter with his last pitch, and hunter just signed with the twins for the 2015 season, so he'll continue to be tommy john's torchbearer for one more year.

finally, hough's last big league pitch resulted in a single to kim batiste, who later grounded out against darren holmes in his last big league at bat. with his final pitch, holmes gave up a single to marlon byrd, who is signed to play for the phillies once again in 2015.

there you have it. three pitchers from the team of my youth wearing other teams' uniforms and their torhbearers.  can you tell i'm running out of ideas for posts?

bo goes big

bo from baseball cards come to life went big in a (not so) recent trade.  he sent me, among other things, some dodgers from the 1989 topps big set.  here's tim belcher running the bases in dodger stadium while simultaneously looking longingly into the stands at a vendor selling dodger dogs.

mickey hatcher is doing normal baseball activities on his card, for once.

and jim poole is reveling in his time as an olympian on his card

poole is listed as a member of the dodgers on this card (check the back)

unlike his 1988 topps traded card.  unfortunately, poole didn't appear in the olympics.

here's franklin stubbs' card to finish off the dodgers that i received

bo also included a couple of 1988 topps big cards, due to their double play awesomeness.  oddibe mcdowell tried to break up two on his card

but it looks like willie randolph (i assume) was able to make the relay.

the other card bo sent was of none other than randolph himself, again turning two

thanks bo - i've got some more of the cards you sent lined up to post today.  stay tuned.

what's a wallach worth?

let's consult the expert on the subject, corey at the tim wallach blog.  i sent him a few timmy cards, and he sent some dodgers in return.

 

the hands down best card of the bunch was this 1989 starting lineup baseball greats don drysdale card

i say best because it was one i had not seen before.  i did some quick digging and found that the card was featured in this starting lineup two-pack

big d and reggie are indeed two baseball greats, but other than that, they have nothing in common.  they never faced each other, anyway.

as you might well know, you can't have drysdale without koufax.  corey included a 1982 kmart sandy in the package

there was another pitcher with ties to drysdale - orel hershiser - on an oddball of his own - a 1989 kaybee superstars of baseball card

hershiser, of course, broke drysdale's scoreless innings streak in 1988 en route to all kinds of hardware. 

here's a 1988 topps big mike scioscia card

big head mike likes the way little mike looks in the gear.

i'll end with a card from more recent times - a 2011 topps heritage dodgers dandies card

featuring matt kemp and andre ethier.  i would tie this all together with a reference back to drysdale as dandy don, but he was a football player.  let it suffice to say that a few tim wallach cards are worth a dandy package of dodger cards in return.  now you know.

double play cards above and beyond

here are the rest of the double play cards that i received from bo of baseball cards come to life a while back.  it is worth noting that bo contacted me and said that he had a bunch of dp cards that would be new to my collection.  at that time, i did not have my list of owned double play cards posted.  that meant that bo went through all my double play posts from the past (almost) 5 years, and figured out what i had and didn't have.  that is dedication to our hobby and to the trade.  i appreciate it very much.

here we go.  

1992 donruss triple play pat kelly (and ron tingley) awesome action!

even donnie baseball gets a mention.  i noted in the post earlier today that pat kelly must have a high ratio of double play cards.  this is further proof.

from the same set, here's cal ripken

standing over kevin maas (i think), who was apparently able to break up the double play since cal jr is left holding the ball.

here's an odd one - a 1988 topps big cory snyder

better remembered as an outfielder, the corndog did play some shortstop during his first few years in cleveland.  he turned 20 dp's as a rookie there in 1986, but this is more likely one of the 6 he turned in 1987.

here's a 1992 topps stadium club shawon dunston

landscape double play turns are nice.

here are a couple of turns from 1993 fleer ultra - freddie benavides

and luis rivera

plus a craig biggio turn from 1993 topps stadium club

1994 fleer jeff kent

and two each from 1995 donruss - gary disarcina

and jeff reboulet -

and 1995 leaf - craig biggio

and jose vizcaino

thanks bo!

the best card of the 1975 topps set just might be this one

that's because it's a double play turn!

although i don't know which game that play would be from, as brooks robinson wasn't on base a lot during the series, and as far as i can tell, was never forced out at second base.

here's another nice card, although it would be better if it weren't so dark.  it's steve sax's 1986 fleer card

saxy also makes the turn on his 1988 topps big card

although we only know this because of the big dust cloud.  also, topps must have used a photo of sax from the early 1980's for the head shot.  he looks pretty young.

here's some good ol' 1988 score - glenn hubbard

and jose lind

the colors work well on the hubbard card in my opinion, but not so much on the lind card.

from 1989 fleer, we have this marty barrett card

with frank white's back.

speaking of backs, here's the back of dave anderson's 1989 upper deck card

and the back of gregg jefferies' 1990 upper deck card

looks like ryno sliding in there.

i found some dp parallels in a dime box recently - from 1994 upper deck all-time heroes.  here's gene alley

 bert campaneris

 and jerry coleman

finally, a 2012 topps gypsy queen hanley ramirez

this one came by trade from marcus at all the way to the backstop.  it is much appreciated.  and remember, if you have any cards showing the double play turn that don't fit into your collection, send 'em my way!