when life gives you lemons...

you paint that sh*t gold! that's the title of atmosphere's latest album, but more importantly, it is a mantra i try to live by. so, when andy announced he was closing up shop on the great 78 topps blog and offering up his collection, i decided to make the best out of a sad situation.

i had been thinking about upgrading my 78 set (the first set i ever put together) as i was not too kind to my cards thirty years ago. so, i asked andy to send me as many 78s as he wanted in exchange for some relics i had. he no doubt overcompensated by sending me the majority of the set. simply awesome. i'm going to wax poetic about 1978 topps in a (near) future post, but here's a random dodger from the cards andy sent - mike garman.
andy included a bunch of other great cards - 1971 topps, 1973 topps, 1974 topps mostly. just some fantastic stuff. here's a sampling.

1971 topps dodger team cardthere's steve garvey in the front row, second from the right. he's wearing a white batting glove instead of the black one he wears on his rookie card. there's also a red-headed guy in the back row but i can't tell if it's vin scully or not.

1971 topps claude osteenand a 1974 topps traded claude osteen. i had no idea osteen's nickname was 'gomer'. the dodgers had acquired osteen from the senators in the frank howard deal. he pitched well for them during his 9 years in la, winning at least 12 games each season. sent to the astros for jimmy wynn in december of 1973, osteen was traded to the cardinals near the end of the 1974 season. he then spent the 1975 season with the white sox, finishing his career one game over .500 and just shy of the 200 win mark.

another dodger trade victim, willie davis.
3-dog was a dodger for the first 14 years of his career before being sent to montreal for dr. mike marshall. he had a good year for the expos in 1974, and they rewarded him with a trade to the rangers for future dodger don stanhouse. willie would go on to play for the cardinals and padres before finishing his career with the angels in 1979. his stint with the angels came after spending the 1977 and 1978 seasons in japan. where's the 1980 topps final tribute?!?

a future dodger, johnnie b. baker.
i know i wasn't alone in mimicking the batting stances of players when i was a kid (i could do most of the dodgers along with some obvious ones like willie stargell, joe morgan, pete rose, brian downing and rod carew), but i may have been the only one who counted dusty baker's as one of my favorites. you have to kind of hunch over a bit, as dusty himself demonstrates here. in 1974, dusty was famously in the on deck circle when hank aaron hit number 715. who was playing the infield that day, you might ask? why it was garvey, cey, russell and lopes!

finally, another future dodger - a 1974 topps juan marichal.
yes, it's a giant. i know. they would be at the bottom of my list too. this is his last card as a giant, though. his 1974 topps traded card, which andy also sent, has him going to the red sox. anyway, i chose this card because it is quite an upgrade from the version i had owned since my younger days, and because it is actually one of my favorite cards period. it's a full body shot, and you really get a sense of his famous wind up. if topps had bothered to level out the photo properly, it's likely that his toe would be higher than the top of his head. to me, though, this card is perfect!

of course, andy is back now, with his 88 score r&t blog. be sure to check it out! thanks for the great cards!