before i get to archives...

i understand that 2015 topps archives is live. i also understand that they are using the 1957 topps design for one of the four subsets in the base set.  that's nice, although i do wish that 1978 would get some love sometime before heritage catches up in 2027.  speaking of heritage, the last time we saw the 1957 topps design was in 2006 with the topps heritage set.  this is the dodger team card from that set

it features a photo taken inside dodger stadium - a stadium that didn't exist in 1957.  here are a few more dodgers from that set - cesar izturis

hong-chih kuo

derek lowe

and bill mueller

i rather like the mueller card. it seems like an old-timey pose.  i understand that don sutton is featured in the 1957 topps design grouping in the archives set this year, and i hope that his card is also old-timey in flavor. 

here are some other random cards from my scanned folder.

2006 fleer andre ethier

2006 upper deck jayson werth

2006 topps jim tracy (through the mail autograph success!)

pretty sure tracy is standing in the same spot izturis was for the heritage card up above - notice the palm tree…

2004 topps jim tracy (through the mail autograph success!)

2005 upper deck roy campanella wingfield collection

and 2005 upper deck pee wee reese wingfield collection 

those last two are nice looking cards.  i don't think either campy or pee wee are in archives this year - it's koufax, duke, and jackie as far as brooklyn-era dodgers go.  i'll try to find some of them in a blaster sometime this weekend - stay tuned...

the evolution of the dodgers' first baseman, part 2

in the first installment of the evolution of dodger first basemen, we ended with hall of famer eddie murray signing a free agent deal with the mets, making room for someone else on the evolutionary chain.  the dodgers acquired todd benzinger via trade shortly after losing murray, but a rookie ultimately won the job in spring training.

eric karros (1992-2002)

yes, for 11 seasons, karros was the dodgers' first baseman.  that is the longest tenure since gil hodges, who just happened to be karros' dad's favorite player.  karros (shown on his 1992 upper deck card) was never an all-star, but he put up solid numbers.  he won the 1992 nl rookie of the year award with 20 homers and 88 rbi, and had probably his best all-around season in 1995.  that year, he led the dodgers to the postseason for the first time since 1988 with a .298 average and 32 homers and 105 rbi - good enough to win the silver slugger and finish 5th in the mvp voting. he also hit 2 homers with a .500 average in the nlds against the reds, but the dodgers were swept.  following the 2002 season, karros was traded to the cubs, but his name remains at or near the top of many los angeles dodger leader boards today.  karros is the all-time la dodger leader in home runs (270), and he is fourth (behind bill russell, willie davis, and steve garvey) in games played.  he trails only davis and garvey in total bases and doubles, and only garvey in rbi.  karros is also currently the all-time la dodger leader in strikeouts, but matt kemp (should he remain a dodger next year) will pass him as soon as he k's 54 more times.

i suspect that the karros/mark grudzielanek for todd hundley/chad hermanson deal was a salary dump (the dodgers saved themselves over $10 million (if one assumes that karros' option would have kicked in) with the trade, even taking on hundley's salary.  the dodgers had paul loduca behind the plate, so they didn't need hundley, but they did need a first baseman to replace karros.  so, they took the guy who had been playing there for the cubs.

fred mcgriff (2003)

a couple of weeks after trading karros to the cubs, the dodgers signed former southsider first baseman fred mcgriff.  that's his 2003 playoff prestige card, giving a sort of o-pee-chee vibe.  the crime dog had joined the cubs during the 2001 season after it became apparent that the team had gotten rid of mark grace too soon - matt stairs wasn't cutting it as grace's replacement.  mcgriff, who had averaged 30 home runs a season in his previous 16 seasons, needed just 22 to reach 500 for his career, and i sure thought that he would do it with the dodgers.  unfortunately, mcgriff hit only 13 home runs while playing in only 86 games.  in fact, he started only 79 games at first base, with jim tracy using seven other players at first (including ron coomer, robin ventura, daryle ward, paul loduca, mike kinkade, larry barnes, and even jolbert cabrera).  mcgriff returned to the devil rays for the 2004 season, but still fell 7 homers shy of 500.

shawn green (2004)

green, shown playing first on his 2005 upper deck card, had moved to the infield following the team's acquisition of milton bradley just prior to the beginning of the 2004 season.  earlier in spring training, green had worked out at first, but jim tracy said that he would be playing right field once the season began.  so much for that.  2004 turned out to be green's swan song for the dodgers, and he hit 28 homers with 86 rbi and a .266 average.  he also hit 3 homers in the nlds against the cardinals that year.  i was a big shawn green fan even before he joined the dodgers, and i was sad to see him go.

hee-seop choi (2005)

that's a 2005 bowman sterling bat relic card of hee-seop choi, once thought to be the answer for the cubs at first base following the departure of the aforementioned fred mcgriff and some seasoning behind karros.  instead, the cubs dealt choi to the marlins for derrek lee (a good deal as it turned out), and the fish sent choi to the dodgers in the 2004 trade that broke jim tracy's heart.  ok, that might be a bit extreme, but tracy lamented the loss of paul loduca in that trade, and i'm not completely certain that he didn't take some of his frustration out on choi.  choi began the 2005 season as the team's first baseman, and wound up hitting 15 homers with 42 rbi in 133 games, only 78 of which were starts at first base.  choi participated in the home run derby during the all-star break (he had hit 3 homers in a game against the twins in june and 6 in the series against the twinkies) but was essentially just a pinch hitter for tracy following the break.  he lost most of his starts to olmedo saenz in the second half.

nomar garciaparra (2006)

nomah! that's nomar's 2006 upper deck sweet spot update card - not sure why upper deck issued an update to sweet spot, but i'll take it.  there are too few cards of nomar as a dodger.  nomar had never played first base in the major leagues before joining the dodgers, but that's all he played in 2006.  he appeared in 122 games for the dodgers that year, 117 of which were starts at first.  as the nl comeback player of the year, nomar hit .303 with 20 homers, 82 runs scored, and 93 runs driven in.  he made the all-star team and finished 13th in the mvp voting, while helping the dodgers reach the postseason.  despite a move to third in 2007, nomar still played more games at first base, but not as many as james loney, the next step on the evolutionary chain.

james loney (2007-2012)

after four 'one and done' first basemen, loney (shown on a 2008 upper deck baseball heroes relic card) brought some stability back to the position.  he hit .331 as a rookie in 2007 in 96 games (85 of which were starts at first) and also hit 15 home runs.  other than a dip in 2010, loney was pretty consistent in his first few seasons with the dodgers, driving in around 90 runs and hitting in the high .280's.  he was slumping in 2012, batting just .254 with 4 homers and 33 rbi after 114 games played, when he was traded to the red sox in the megadeal that landed the dodgers their current first baseman.

adrian gonzalez (2013-present)

that's gonzalez's 2013 topps finest card, by the way.  gonzalez hit .297 as a dodger during the 2012 season after the trade, and then hit .293 in his first full season with the club.  this year, he is batting just .276 (through this past sunday), but he has eclipsed last year's 22 homers and 100 rbi with 23 long balls and 103 runs driven in so far this year.  i am hoping that he eclipses his postseason numbers from last year as well, as he hit over .300 with 3 homers and 7 rbi in the 2013 playoffs.

and so we have reached the end of not only the dodgers' first baseman evolution, but the evolution of each position.  you can use the 'evolution' label to find the posts for all of the positions (some may be slightly outdated as i began this with a run through the managers over five years ago).  it's been fun tracking the history of the dodgers by position using baseball cards, which was one of the goals i had when i started this blog almost 6 years ago, although that also means i am getting closer to the end.

a patch for warren spahn

warren spahn passed away in november of 2003 at the age of 82.  he had pitched for the braves' franchise in boston and milwaukee for 20 seasons, along with a final season split between the mets and giants, and so the atlanta braves wore a patch in his honor during the 2004 season.  the patch was shaped like home plate, with spahn's retired number 21 inside.

this 2005 fleer national pastime jd drew card gives a good view of the patch

but that is actually a dodger card.  i looked through my collection to see if i could do better by the winningest left-hander in history than that.

here's a 2005 fleer ultra chipper jones card

but the patch is tough to see.  how about this 2005 topps opening day andruw jones card?

that was the frontrunner for a while, but then i found this 2005 upper deck chipper jones card

that's the one in the binder.

spahn was a first-ballot hall of famer, going in with 83.2% of the vote in 1973.  he is sixth all-time in wins with 363 - the highest total for any pitcher in the modern era - and 63 of those wins came in games in which spahn threw a shutout - also the highest total for any pitcher in the modern era and sixth all-time.  those numbers would have been greater had he not lost three seasons to service in world war ii during which he was awarded the purple heart.  in 1999, spahn was named to the all-century team and in 2003 a statue of him was unveiled at turner field. i will assume that the braves take it with them when they move in a couple of years.

double plays haze

i am almost caught up with my double play collection.  i am hoping to have them all scanned, logged, and posted before 2014 topps update comes out and adds to the seemingly never ending stream of cards showing the double play turn at second base.

here are some that i have recently acquired or discovered in the bowels of my collection

2011 topps marquee ian kinsler

ichiro out!

2014 bowman ian kinsler

josh donaldson out!  kinsler photoshopped!

2011 topps marquee brandon phillips

i spy a sparky anderson memorial patch

2014 topps chase utley

we've seen this image before

2014 topps josh rutledge

one of two rockies to turn two in series 2.

2014 topps dj lemahieu

i'm guessing that it's alexi amarista that was just forced at second based on his small stature.  of course, lemahieu is 6'4" which makes amarista (5'6") look even smaller

2009 topps update gregorio petit

somewhat the reverse of the lemahieu card - i don't know who that is sliding in, but he looks humongous next to the petite petit.

2005 upper deck marcus giles

horizontal lines work well with horizontal card orientation

1998 upper deck collector's choice kevin stocker

former dodger garey ingram out!

1998 upper deck collector's choice neifi perez

hall of famer ryne sandberg out!

1998 upper deck collector's choice jeff kent

kurt 'what's that' manwaring out!

1998 topps stadium club delino deshields

that's a nice card, although i prefer the royce clayton card from that set a wee bit more

1994 topps stadium club joey cora

this guy keeps showing up with double plays.  it's got to stop at some point, right?

the number in red

every once in a while, somebody will share a list ranking baseball uniforms.  the padres are usually last on those lists, and the yankees are usually first.  i, of course, believe that the dodgers' home ice whites are the best in baseball.  i once read an interview with tommy john in which he said something that i had thought to be true for years - that the thing that makes the dodger uniform is the red number on the jersey.  just ask kaz ishii's 2002 topps 206 card.

and, no matter what panini (or even topps sometimes) tries to make us believe, the little number on the front has never been blue.  the red not only completes the red, white, and blue theme (steve garvey famously noted that when he was a dodger, he resembled the american flag, but when he went to san diego, he looked like a taco), it also adds some visual flair that helps eric gagne stand out from the crowd on his 2005 upper deck card.

walter o'malley had added the red number to the jerseys for the 1951 world series.  however, bobby thomson got in the way, and so the dodgers didn't debut the new look unis until 1952.  since then, every dodger uniform (even the sacrilegious blue tops) have featured the number in red.

when card companies started putting jersey and patch pieces into cards, i was quite the sucker for pieces of the red number.  i have a fair number of cards featuring the red number patch - here are just a few.

2005 donruss prime patches adrian beltre

no red number on the mariners' jerseys!

2005 playoff absolute memorabilia kevin brown tools of the trade

a bat piece, a regular away jersey piece, and a red number piece.

2004 playoff prime cuts rickey henderson

i've got a couple of patch cards of rickey from this set, but this one is my favorite.

i think the player of whom i have the most red patch cards is shawn green, but i have three or four such cards of steve garvey.  i probably would have more had fleer not gone bankrupt and actually fulfilled the garvey and garvey/fernando valenzuela patch redemption cards i sent in back in the mid-2000's.  anyway, one of the red patch garvey cards i have is this 2002 fleer fall classic card

which also features a red patch from tony perez's jersey.  i've got all the variations of this card, as you will eventually see when i post the contents of my garvey binders over the next few months.  i know you can't wait.

the best garvey red patch card that i own is the 2001 leaf certified materials 6/6 card, but this one is nice, too.

it comes from the same set (2001 leaf certified materials), but is numbered to /21.  it's from an early garvey jersey, as the red patch is made of wool.

red patch cards still pop up from time to time, usually in higher end product, and most certainly in lower print run varieties.  i'll make a run at some once in a while because i just can't resist having a piece of the best part of the dodger uniform.

i have many leather bound books and this card that looks of rich mahogany

actually, this 2005 bowman heritage brad penny mahogany parallel

does not really look like rich mahagony, but this post needed a catchy title.  after all, it's just a random cards from the scanned folder post.

here's a 2002 upper deck adrian beltre card

it features a pretty standard photo angle at dodger stadium - a nice photo of a right-handed batter taken from the first base dugout photographer's well.  we've seen it before, many times, like on bill madlock's 1986 woolworth's card

and raul mondesi's 2000 topps opening day card

other stadiums have the same vantage point, including the nameless stadium that provided the backdrop for this 1994 upper deck sp holo fx mondesi card

and, not all batters from that vantage point are right-handed, either.  case in point, this 2003 upper deck odalis perez card

complete with visible undie lines.

here's a better card of perez from 2005 upper deck

the home whites look really sharp on that card.

back to 2003, fred mcgriff's upper deck card from that year

makes good use of the horizontal design, thanks to the stratified seats at vero beach.

this 2003 upper deck 40 man card of beltre is almost a tatooine card

spoiled only by that little bit of grass by his left foot.

here's a 2010 topps 206 james loney card

it is a bronze parallel, i believe.  i was a fan of the 206 set when topps first released it in 2002 (loney had a card in that set, too).  not so much in 2010.  i have a partially completed 2002 set, in fact.  i will have to get my want list posted and take a run at finishing it.

finally, here is a 2008 etopps manny ramirez card

i picked this up cheap online sometime last year.  i am guessing that a lot of people had topps ship their cards after it was announced that etopps was ending.  i had bought a few cards from etopps in the early 2000's, but always had them shipped.  i didn't understand the idea of not having the physical card.

until the next time i am hurting for a post, stay classy scanned folder.