29 July 2009

ted martinez ebay auto success!

ted martinez is awol on the ttm circuit, so i snatched this1978 topps card up off of ebay. i should note that i am assuming (and i know the risks of assuming) that the autos i have purchased on ebay are authentic. i really had no choice with johnny oates, and vic davalillo is pretty much in the same boat as martinez here. ted martinez had played in the majors for parts of 6 seasons before the dodgers selected him from the reds in the 1976 rule v draft. he had played for the mets and the a's (appearing in the 1973 world series for the mets and the 1975 alcs for the a's), but spent all of 1976 in the reds' minor league system.

for the dodgers, he hit .280 in 202 games over the course of the 1977, 1978 and 1979 seasons. his appearances were pretty evenly spread out at second, short and third. martinez was released by the dodgers just prior to the start of the 1980 season, and did not sign with any other team.

this is the 12th piece in my modest 1978 topps dodgers autograph project.

here's the tally:

team card
dusty baker
glenn burke
terry forster
steve garvey
ed goodson
burt hooton
tommy john
tom lasorda
dave lopes
ted martinez - ebay success!
rick monday
rick rhoden
reggie smith
elias sosa
don sutton
steve yeager
nlcs (davey lopes)

12/29 = 41%
at

5 comments:

  1. TonyJuly 29, 2009 at 2:27 PM

    If you sent to Garvey in c/o the Dodgers you might be in for a long wait. Mine was over a year in coming back, but unfortunately Garvey returned 2 cards that were not mine, and either kept or switched my 1977 OPC card that I needed, because I'm trying to get as many signed from that set as possible. Hope you have better luck. BTW, who are you going to get on the team card?

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  2. gcrlJuly 29, 2009 at 4:54 PM

    hey tony. thanks for the comment. i did send to garvey c/o the team, and received my two cards in about a month, so i consider myself lucky! i will post that success soon!
    i sent the team card to someone, and i am hoping it comes back. i will have a post soon with a status of the remaining cards from the set as i have hit a couple roadblocks.
    thanks for the comment, and i am envious of your 77 opc pursuit. have you had success with rick monday?

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  3. Matt RunyonJuly 29, 2009 at 6:16 PM

    This is a cool project. When I get ambitious I'm going to do this with one of the late 70s Giants teams (probably either 1976 or 1978).

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  4. TonyJuly 30, 2009 at 12:19 PM

    No, I haven't tried Monday yet. I don't have an address of him. So far, I have 41 1977 OPC's signed including some tough ones such as Bobby Bonds, Fred Patek, Mark Fidrych, a couple of HOF'ers, Minnie Minoso etc. All were done in person or TTM. I'm also tackling the 78 set as well. I have 21 of those signed.

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  5. TonyJuly 30, 2009 at 12:25 PM

    One of the advantages of these sets is that they are relatively small (264 cards). I'm not sure what I'm going to do with some of the HOF'ers in the set, I don't really trust sending my 77 Nolan Ryan in the mail...but most of the common guys are readily available.
    I'd really like to know if you have success with Don Sutton ;)

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