scraping the bottom of the box

box bottom cards are sweet.  they're like those soup bowls for kids that have a cartoon on the bottom so if you eat all your soup, you get a smiling monkey staring back at you.  except, of course, you know the cards are there before you even rip into the box if you just flip it over.

of course, a box bottom card has its disadvantages as  it may get scraped and scratched and otherwise defaced, like this 1989 topps don sutton card.

still, the sutton card is desirable and significant to dodger collectors, as it is the only 1989 card sutton got from topps in 1989.  yes, he had a 'final tribute' in 1989 score, but because he was released by the eventual world champs in august of 1988, topps bumped him from the checklist.

it's similar to the 2008 'year in review' insert card that topps gave to david wells, even though he didn't get a card in the flagship set due to his retirement.

i may be the only person who lamented the lack of a 2008 topps david wells card.

back to the box bottoms.  i think 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee was the last set to have box bottom cards.  well, back in the day, o-pee-chee followed topps' lead, and as a result they gave sutton some box bottom love as well.

now that's good box bottom.  those canadians take care of their boxes, eh?

the reason sutton got one of these cards, reserved in those days for players reaching certain milestones, is that he made the 750th start of his big league career, second to only cy young. 

he wound up with 756 starts, and is now third on the list with nolan ryan taking over the number 2 spot.  joining sutton on the bottom of these boxes was his skipper, tommy lasorda

lasorda was so honored thanks to the 1000th managerial win of his career

tommy got a box bottom in 1990, too, as he managed his 2000th game.  although it looks like they were scraping the bottom of the box, er - barrel, for copy on this card.  what does his pitching for the a's in 1956 have to do with winning games as a manager?  maybe they were going to combine his wins as a pitcher with those he achieved while managing and then remembered he didn't win any games as a big league pitcher.  oh well, at least topps deemed sutton and lasorda worthy of the box bottoms and for that i am grateful.