dime box heroes

not to be confused with the always interesting posts over at nick's blog, these are actual dime box heroes.  cards from the 1994 upper deck all-time heroes set that i rescued from a dime box at a recent card show.  so what if i already had most of them?  they were a dime apiece.

here's roy campanella and a sprawling billy martin

game 4 of the 1953 world series was (obviously) won by the dodgers.  in the 9th inning, billy martin tried to score on a single by mickey mantle, but was thrown out by the dodgers' left fielder, don thompson.  thompson had just entered the game at the start of the 9th inning, replacing jackie robinson who had started the game in left.  the yankees were down 7-2 but loaded the bases with no outs.  after a strikeout and a flyout, mantle singled to score one run, but martin was out to end the game on thompson's throw.  thompson had also replaced robinson in the previous game (carl erskine's 14-k game), and those two defensive appearances were the only postseason games thompson participated in during his career.  the dodgers should have used him more during the series - they were 2-0 when he appeared in a game, and 0-4 without him!

here's steve garvey's card from the set

i would bet that the photo comes from the 1974 world series.  that looks like future dodger bill north getting back to first base safely.  if the photo is from game 1 of the series, north would soon be caught stealing.

the dime box also yielded many of the set's parallel cards, stamped with the 125th anniversary text.  here's charley neal to tell us all about it.

neal's card is one of many contradictions in the set.  he is shown and listed as a metropolitan, but the inset photo shows him as a dodger.

al oliver received a similar treatment

except the reverse - he's a dodger in name and in the big picture, but an expo in the inset.

let's get back to some world series action, courtesy of johnny podres' card

that's roy campanella and don hoak helping him celebrate the final out of the 1955 world series.  that would be the last time hoak was on the field for the dodgers, as he was traded to the cubs following the world series.  that's ok, however, as he wound up winning another ring with the 1960 pittsburgh pirates.

meet joe black

black pitched for the dodgers in the 1952 and 1953 world series, but was traded to the reds during the 1955 season, and missed out on the dodgers' title run.

back to campy, here's his diamond legends subset card

it features that photo of him at bat that we have seen a bunch of times over the past few years.

and, a post of dodger cards from this set just wouldn't be complete without the don newcombe card

believe it or not, i also picked up a card of a giant.  

i just couldn't leave 'the catch' behind

finally, here's a look at johnny vander meer's second no-hitter

the card features a photo of ebbets field on june 15, 1938.  the photo is not of the last out - the bases were loaded when leo durocher popped out to end the game - but it is from the game which makes this a night card as it was the first night game in ebbets field history.  by the way, that's babe phelps (number 9) kneeling on deck while buddy hassett gives it a go at the plate.

i had purchased this release as a complete set back in the late 1990's (without all the parallels) but had traded away a bunch of the non-dodger cards since then.  it was nice to see so many of them and be able to pick up a lot of the parallels, all courtesy of a dime box.