totally gross

today is kevin gross' wedding anniversary.  i know this because 19 years ago, gross threw a no-hitter against the giants, and vin scully let us know that it also happened to be his wedding anniversary.

it was the first dodger no-hitter since fernando valenzuela's no-no in 1990, which is not that long of a gap considering that the dodgers have been in a no-hit drought since hideo nomo's 1996 gem (in between gross and nomo, there was ramon martinez who no-hit the marlins in '95).  fernando didn't get so much as a highlight card to celebrate his no-no, but gross got a 1993 donruss spirit of the game card, the back of which was featured above.  here's the front

score also gave him a highlight card in 1993.  i sent a copy of it to him to sign a couple of years ago

in fact, over the past couple of years, i have sent a few ttm requests to the former dodger pitcher.  here's a 1991 fleer update

and a 1991 upper deck card

i like the 1992 donruss card because of all the blue

including the blue of the dodger bullpen

it's a rare case where i prefer 1992 donruss over 1992 topps (which had dodger stadium on the backs of the dodger cards)

on his 1993 topps card, gross is back in dodger stadium

i miss those field level scoreboards.  and the big unocal logos.

here's gross' 1993 upper deck card

which features a rare 'pitcher on the base paths' photo.  off the top of my head, i can only think of the 1989 fleer world series insert orel hershiser card that shows him sliding into third as another example.
in 1994, both topps

and upper deck had the same idea for gross

advantage upper deck.
1995 topps had another gross in dodger stadium photo

and his topps stadium club card from the same year went the oakley route

overall, gross was 40-44 with the dodgers, which was on par with his career.  he won exactly 60 games for the phillies, 20 for the expos, and 20 for the rangers, plus throw in 2 at the end of his career with the angels.  he also lost 66, 23, 24 and 1 games for those teams, finishing his career with a 142-158 record.  still, he achieved a level of baseball and dodger immortality thanks to his performance 19 years ago.

here's to you kevin gross, and thanks for signing all those cards!