pee wee's patch

harold henry "pee wee" reese passed away on august 14, 1999 at the age of 81.  the dodgers quickly added a memorial patch to their uniforms, to be worn for the remainder of the season.  the patch, seen below

included the nickname "pee wee" and his retired jersey number, 1.

because it was relatively late in the season, examples of the patch on 2000 cards are fairly limited.  here's a 2000 upper deck mvp eric gagne card that shows the patch

it was placed on the left sleeve, above the dodger heroes patch worn by each player.  pee wee was included in the hero patch series, but i do not have a card of mark grudzielanek (who wore the reese hero patch) showing both patches.

this 2000 upper deck victory jeff shaw card

gives us another look at the memorial patch, including a close-up in the inset photo.

the patch is also visible on adrian beltre's 2000 fleer focus card

and the only other card i have that shows the patch is this 2000 pacific dodgers diamond leaders card

there's grudzielanek, but it's eric karros who is displaying the patch.  if only this getty images photo of chan ho park had found its way onto a card...

for the record, i have both the gagne and the diamond leaders card in my memorials binder.  i couldn't choose between the two, so they are both in there.

here are a couple of cards of pee wee himself, a 1992 ziploc card, 

and a 2003 mlb showdown 

i believe that this card is a promo, based on the foil stamp and the 'p51' numbering.  there's another version in the regular showdown set that lack the foil and is numbered 119.  kudos, by the way, to ziploc for using the older dodger logo on reese's card, although they coupled that brooklyn dodger logo with a photo of reese wearing a los angeles dodger cap.  sigh.

reese was the captain of the dodger teams of the 1950's, but he made his debut in 1940.  the following season, he became the dodgers' regular shortstop, and he helped the club win the pennant for the first time since 1920.  that marked the first of seven world series in which reese would play over the course of his career.  the dodgers faced the yankees in all of them, and won only the 1955 contest.

reese moved west with the dodgers in 1958, and was the starting shortstop for the los angeles dodgers' first game.  he played in only 58 more games that year, however, in what would be his last big league season.  reese was a 10-time all-star with 8 top ten mvp finishes over his 16-year career that spanned 19 years (3 seasons were lost to military service during world war ii).  he finished with 2170 hits and 1210 walks for an on-base percentage of .366.  although he later lamented the number of bases on balls he took ("if i had my career to play over, one thing i'd do differently is swing more. those 1200 walks i got…nobody remembers them."), his 1210 walks were within the top 15 career leaders at the time of his retirement and greatly contributed to his having scored as many runs as he did (1338) during his career. in 1984, reese was inducted into the hall of fame, and the dodgers retired his jersey as they do for their hall of fame players.

more smatterings from the pacific smorgasbord

i've got just a few more cards to show from the box that brian at play at the plate sent to me.  the box was mostly pacific brand cards, with some 2002 upper deck vintage thrown in as well.

here's a 1999 pacific prism otis nixon card

he's wearing the ellis valentine face mask, which actually reminds me of lando calrissian's helmet from the start of return of the jedi.

1999 pacific paramount ben grieve

1999 pacific private stock john olerud

i thought the olerud was an insert, but it was not.  just a shiny base card

2000 pacific paramount randy velarde

the mustard background works for the a's cards, but that was by design. there weren't any dodgers from this set in the box, but their cards have a blue background that also complements their uniforms.

2000 pacific private stock craig biggio

which is a sort of precursor to 2001 topps gallery and the upper deck masterpieces sets of the late 2000's.

this is a 2000 pacific diamond leaders card of the reds

i have a couple of these (the brewers and dodgers) in my memorials collection.

the last pacific card i'll show also comes from 2000 pacific.  it's a derek jeter ruby foil parallel

jeets was also prevalent in the 2002 upper deck vintage cards that were in the box - he shows up on three of the postseason scrapbook subset cards

i know that the first one there is more of an alfonso soriano card, but jeter is waiting at home plate so it's a jeter card, too.

thanks again for the great cards brian! i had a blast looking through the box.

plays at second base from play at the plate

i recently alluded to a big ol' box of cards that i received from brian at play at the plate.  it was mostly pacific cards with some 2002 upper deck vintage thrown in for good measure.  that was what i had requested when he put the spoils from a recent 5000 card box purchase up for grabs.  luckily for me, brian also fished out some double play cards and added them to my haul.  let's have a look at some.

1999 fleer tradition ricky gutierrez

ricky is joined on the card by a lurking matt luke, former dodger outfielder and double dipper, so that's nice.  he also demonstrates his awkward double play lean.

that lean is not shown on another gutierrez double play card from the bunch, this one from 1999 topps stadium club

but it does surface on his 2002 fleer ultra card that was also included

on to the non-ricky gutierrez cards

here's carlos baerga turning two on a 1999 fleer tradition card

the indians did the right thing by trading baerga when they did (during the 1996 season) as he experienced a pretty significant drop off when he joined the mets.  the indians received jeff kent and jose vizcaino as part of the return from the amazin's, and then parlayed them into matt williams for the 1997 season.  williams helped the tribe get to the world series, and then they traded him for travis fryman, who was a mainstay for a few seasons with cleveland.

1999 fleer tradition damion easley

and 1999 fleer tradition aaron ledesma

here's ledesma's teammate, miguel cairo, turning two on a 1999 topps stadium club card

as are mike lansing

and tony womack

there were some parallels in the box, too, like this 2002 fleer ultra gold medallion edition adam kennedy card

and quite a few ruby parallels from 2000 pacific.  among them were some double play turns like miguel cairo

who makes his second appearance in the post;

rey ordonez

who should have more double play cards than he does;

and miguel tejada

who may well have more double play cards than anyone else.  now, 2000 pacific had a black & white version of the card's front photo on the back, and since there were two tejada's sent my way, i'll add his back to the dp collection

this next one, i am considering to be a double play card because of jay bell's airborne state, and because why else would brian send me a 1998 fleer metal universe card of a royal?

you can't really see because of the scan, but bell is leaping over a butte rather than a sliding player.  it makes for some variety in the dp binder.

i'll showcase a few more dp cards from the patp box later...

double plays abound

jay bell is turning two at dodger stadium on his 2000 upper deck card.

this may well be a play from the first game of the davey johnson era - opening day 1999.  if so, that would be mark grudzielanek sliding in.  this was the game in which raul mondesi tied things up with a 3-run blast in the bottom of the 9th and then won the game with another homer in extra innings. 

here's mickey morandini turning two on his 2000 fleer ultra

and 2000 topps stadium club cards

not to be outdone, i've got three fernando vina double play turns to show - 2000 pacific (ruby parallel)

2000 topps chrome

and 2002 fleer ultra

however, this last one is more likely a stolen base attempt, i am afraid.

these last three are dp turns for sure, though.  2004 fleer platinum ray durham

1999 fleer tradition andy fox (warning track parallel)

2006 upper deck tony womack

all that's missing on that womack card is the 'now with reds' text.

in the year 2000

i used to watch conan every once in a while, and i recall the first time i saw his 'in the year 2000' bit.  it was in late 1999 and he predicted that in the year 2000, zombies would feast on human flesh and when they got hungry later, they would go to olive garden.  i found that to be quite funny.

this post has nothing to do with conan or his skits, however.  instead, i give to you a few cards that were produced in the final year of the 20th century.

2000 fleer focus jeff shaw

on which we clearly see the don drysdale hero patch.  i think of cards from this set as fleer's knockoff of 1981 topps.  oddly enough, upper deck would bring the cap design element back to cards in 2006 under the fleer banner.

2000 topps jeff shaw

the first topps gray border set since 1970.  it was a nice break from two years of gold borders.

speaking of gold, 2000 upper deck gold reserve kevin brown

aside from the full bleed, there were some similarities between the topps card design and the upper deck card design in the year 2000.

2000 upper deck sp authentic

there were a heckuva lot of kevin brown cards in the year 2000.

2000 pacific angel pena

pena is wearing the roy campanella patch, as any catcher should.  note that paul loduca wore the mike scioscia patch.

2000 pacific paramount devon white

yes, devon white was a dodger in the year 2000.  and in 1999 as well, when he wore the jackie robinson patch.  here's the back of his 2000 topps stadium club card

looks like devo played his best at dodger stadium.  he finished his career with 34 leadoff home runs, including one hit for the dodgers in the year 2000.

2000 skybox dominion adrian beltre

beltre was 21 in the year 2000, and he hit 20 home runs for the first time.  he's about to turn 35 and is about 600 hits shy of 3000.  i wonder if he will make it.

i really liked that skybox dominion set when it came out, but my favorite set of the year 2000 was the fleer greats of the game release.  fleer had put out the first gotg set in 1999 as a sports illustrated fueled set, complete with an autographed card in every pack.  that was cool, but i really liked the look and feel of the 2000 set over the gloss of the 1999 set.

here are a few of the dodgers from the set - tommy john

al lopez

preacher roe

and fernando valenzuela

the set featured on card autos, too.  not of fernando, unfortunately.  had there been one, it might well have been my favorite card of the year 2000.