revisiting the august a busch memorials

back in the very early stages of compiling cards for my memorials mini-collection, i showed these two cards as examples of the august a. busch jr memorials - initials on the home and away jerseys, and a black armband on the bp jerseys.

since then, i've come across better examples in my collection.  it's tough to top the 1991 upper deck ken dayley card for the armband, although i like this 1991 topps debut '90 card of ray lankford

and this 1991 bowman bryn smith is interesting as well

first of all, he's suttoning, but he's also wearing a lefty's mitt.  smith, of course, was a right-handed pitcher.

1991 upper deck also features good examples from bernard gilkey

and felix jose

but the card that kicks dayley out of the binder is this 1991 bowman ozzie smith card

as for the initials memorial, this 1991 fleer ozzie smith card gives us a better view than the dipino card up top did, as we see the 'jr' after the 'aab'.

that card also features a dodger stadium backdrop, so it's already in a different binder.

the memorial is visible, at least partially, on a bunch of other cards i've come across.  such as, 1991 donruss jose oquendo

1991 topps stadium club rex hudler

1991 international playing cards all-stars lee smith

1991 upper deck vince coleman

1991 upper deck jose deleon

and 1991 upper deck pedro guerrero

but those are mostly just partials.  fortunately, this 1991 o-pee-chee premier card of the former dodger displays the initials in their entirety.

plus, there's whitey herzog hanging out in the background.  petey goes into the binder.

as for the late august a. busch, he was the grandson of the founder of the busch brewery, and had presided over the cardinals since 1953 until his passing late in 1989.

fear the non-beard?

before i get to that beard nonsense, here's a friendly reminder/shameless plug that things are winding down over at oh my o-pee-chee!  only a handful of cards left before i have exhausted the roster of o-pee-chee variations, and there are some awesome ones lined up for the last week of posts.  go check it out, and tell 'em (me) that this 1982 o-pee-chee ken landreaux card sent you.

the landreaux isn't a variation, but it's still a cool card because of dusty baker (get well, dusty!) lurking in the background at shea stadium.

now, here's the beard.  or, more accurately, the non-bearded casey blake.

this card, as well as the others in this post, came by way of one of thorzul's el cheapo breaks.  while it is a card from 2004 upper deck usa baseball, thorzul randomed it off using the different teams blake has played for, and the dodgers came out ahead of the indians, twins, and the other teams for whom the blake has toiled.

here's mickey hatcher on his 1981 topps card

hatcher is now back with the dodgers for the third (or is it fourth?) time, as some sort of special assistant.

here's the underappreciated 1990 bowman jose offerman card

not sure what the mvp signifies.  maybe this painting won an award in the 7th grade art class in which it was obviously prepared?

i really don't like this card at all - never have and probably never will.  it's a 2001 topps ismael valdes

it reminds me of the davey johnson era because of those bad blue jerseys.  they also had a hat with a shiny gray/silver logo that they wore sometimes.  terrible.

here's shawn green on his 2003 topps card

i liked the 2003 set thanks to the blue borders.

finally, a jordan pratt shiny 2003 bowman chrome card

there were some other cards, too.  thanks thorzul!

the dodgers' journey

more dodgers in the mail thanks to jason at the writer's journey. all i had to do was send him some reds, including a couple of chris sabo cards, and wait for the dodgers to come rolling in.  here's a sampling:

1986 fleer stickers box bottom dodgers logo

i don't understand why the dodgers were featured.  they were nl west champs in 1985, but lost to the cardinals in the nlcs (first base was open tommy!) and the royals beat the cards in the series (the blue jays were the other postseason team).  maybe it's part of that royals/dodgers confusion that night owl has been writing about.  anyway, there is a checklist on the back which lists the 4 cards found on the bottom of the boxes.  in addition to the dodger logo, there is this card

1986 fleer stickers box bottom steve garvey

garvey was card number 1 in fleer's first star sticker set (1991) which was cool.  and, it's cool that he was included in the box bottom set.  but i still wonder why - he was clearly past his prime in 1985, although he made the all star team, and the pads were nl champs in 1984, not '85.  there were bigger stars to be had for sure.  donruss was putting dwight gooden on the bottom of their boxes in 1985.  anyway, i'm glad to have another garvey card to collect.

here's a true sticker, the fernando valenzuela 1988 topps sticker

along with a 1986 donruss highlights fernando

and a 1987 donruss all stars valenzuela

the card is 3x5.  both the 1986 highlight and the 1987 all star card deal with fernando's incredible appearance in the 1986 all star game when he struck out 5 american league all stars in a row - don mattingly, cal ripken, jesse barfield, lou whitaker, and teddy higuera.  what was the pitcher doing being allowed to bat in the all star game, you might ask.  well, that was back when the starters went 3 innings and so did their first replacements, although neither dwight gooden nor fernando came to bat thanks to the national league's offensive ineptitude for the first 6 innings of the game.

jason also sent some auto'd cards - a 1990 bowman jose offerman

this is way cool since i don't think e-fferman will ever return to the states in an mlb role.  i think there are  some dealers at the local card show that have some auto'd cards from his twinkie days, but i never thought to buy any.  so, this card is much appreciated.

as is this 1990 fleer lenny harris

and this 1990 topps lenny harris

lenny is back with the dodgers in a minor league hitting role and hopefully recovered from some health issues a year ago.  these are my first harris autos.

1973 topps dick dietz

dietz is one of those guys who was acquired in a trade with the giants.  it's a small club.  i think of dietz as a giant all the way, even though he was obviously a dodger.  i think that's because the first card of his i owned was his 1972 topps in action card.  plus, he was the guy who thought he had broken don drysdale's scoreless inning streak when he was hbp with the bases loaded.  the umpire ruled that dietz didn't try to get out of the way, so he wasn't awarded first.  ha ha - stupid giant.

we'll end with a guy i don't feature enough - shawn green on a 2004 bowman heritage card

green recently addressed some dodger rookies about the right way to play and be a big leaguer at their winter workouts.  i hope he told them not to be like him and instead sign through the mail.

thanks jason!