ud conspiracy - the number of the dodgers

so, i had long wondered about the way upper deck numbered its sets. every year, the dodgers had the '666' card assigned to them. after reading "card sharks" recently, i now know that it was by design. the guy who was in charge of numbering the sets hated the dodgers. probably a giants fan, jealous of the success the dodgers have enjoyed on the west coast while his pitiful team loses year after year.

anyway, here are the 'dodgers of the beast'

1989 kirk gibson world series highlight

if there is any call for jealousy, i suppose gibby's home run would fit the bill.

there doesn't appear to be any bias on the back, though.

1990 jose gonzalez.at least upper deck got the pictures right, unlike topps in 1991.again, no apparent malice. a nice photo of jose in dodger stadium.

1991 mickey hatcher. with an oversized glove. i think jose guzman later used this glove for an upper deck card, too. or does every team have an oversized mitt, just in case?

a nice photo of the stuntman on the back - either having received a hot-foot, or stamping out a flaming bag of dog turds. nice view of the left field pavilion in the background.

1992 bob ojeda.

with uncle tommy. i guess tommy is a polarizing figure, so i can understand the desire to give a card with him lurking the 666 number.1993 jim gottthe irony is nice here. gott, of course, translates to 'god' in german.gott's card would be the last of the '666' dodgers. primarily because upper deck trimmed the size of its sets in 1994 through 1997.

in 1998, though, they assigned numbers based on teams' cities alphabetically. this meant that the reds' steve cooke was assigned the number of the beast that year.

at least he's wearing red.