i did some more platinum diving

still looking to pull a puig from a pack.  i have a few 2013 topps allen & ginter cards thanks to topher at crackin' wax and his charity case break, and play at the plate (i hope) is holding a 2013 bowman platinum base of puig for me, but that didn't stop me from buying some more packs and another blaster a couple of weeks ago.  i did pretty well as far as dodgers go.  better than last time.

gold parallel adrian gonzalez

 gold parallel clayton kershaw

base hyun-jin ryu

here's a base of former number one pick carlos correa

i like the 'stros orange jerseys.  and no, correa is not in the dodgers' old bullpen - those vertical lines show up when i scan shiny stuff on the right side of my scanner.

a top prospect card! not of puig, but of some yankee farmhand instead.

i pulled some sapphire parallels - nori aoki

 and darin ruf

and some more gold parallels - manny machado

and mariano rivera

plus a numbered green parallel of kyle crick

a lone ruby parallel - giancarlo stanton

and an xfractor of brad miller

there were even two die cuts in the packs i opened - mark trumbo

and james shields

early on, i found a dodger top prospect card, not of puig but of corey seager

seager is the younger brother of the mariners' kyle.  only time will tell if the dodgers wound up with the better brother.  history is not on their side in that regard.

with just a couple of packs left to open, the clouds parted and lo and behold i had a puig top prospects card in my hands

huzzah!

all the non-dodger stuff is available for trade if you are so inclined.  i plan to spend some time this weekend getting caught up on all the packages i need to send out so speak up if you want any of this stuff.

retail therapy. with a nice pull

i had some time to kill this afternoon and found myself at a nearby big box retail store.  the one with the 'exclusive red parallels' in topps flagship products.  i actually needed a few items and, despite what the title of this blog might imply (the first part, anyway), i did not need therapy.  very happy.  that didn't stop me from picking up some packs of cards, however.  i took a shot on 2013 pinnacle, even though i had not seen what i had seen on the blogs so far.  my two packs were pretty meh.  i did get a team 2020 card of jurickson profar

and a base of the guy he kinda sorta will eventually replace, michael young.

you know, thanks to the lack of logos, patp may be able to convince himself that this is young in a red rangers jersey.  unless he looks at the lettering on the back too closely.

hey astros fans! there's at least one card for you in the set!  here's carlos pena.

although i don't think he's with the team anymore.  at first i thought pinnacle accidentally airbrushed his upper arm along with the jersey, but now i think he was wearing a compression sleeve.  the color is wrong though.  i think.  i haven't seen too much of the astros this year.

here's a joey votto parallel

i assume that this is the museum collection parallel.  cory snyder, what do you think?

he's not saying.  still, i assume that the votto is the mc parallel.

here's another insert i found in one of my packs - a ryan braun pinnacle of success

it's a clear acetate card.  i wish i had pulled an insert of somebody else.

i also grabbed a hanger pack of 2013 topps archives.  the insert in that pack was this rod carew 1972 topps bkb design card

the rest of the pack was not bad, with a lot of retired stars.  trade fodder all the same, however.

blasters of 2012 topps allen & ginter were marked down to $12.99 and i bit.  it was actually not a bad little blaster as far as inserts, parallels, and short prints go, but nothing spectacular.  in fact, the card that stood out most to me was this base adam dunn card

he looks like a float in the macy's thanksgiving day parade!

last, but not least, i bought a hanger pack of 2013 topps allen & ginter.  i already have the dodger team set, and most of the dodger mini relics, but what the heck.  i was pretty pleased to pull a super short print auto of college football coach nick saban.

roll tide and all that.  this card will pretty surely wind up on the bay unless there's a bama fan out there wanting to deal.

not a bad way to kill some time on a friday afternoon.  and yes, i opened all of this in my car in the parking lot.  how else would i have done it?

triple dipper juan castro

it's been a while since i have looked at a player that played for the dodgers, left the franchise for another, and then returned to wear dodger blue again.  double dippers, i call them.  sometimes, they even triple dip.

[this is the fiftythird installment in the double dippers posts.  here are the previous posts - brett butler, omar daal, eric young, nick willhite, chris gwynn, mickey hatcher, dave anderson, don zimmer, rafael landestoy, dave hansen, jose vizcaino, hideo nomo, greg maddux, mike maddux, jon garland, chan ho park, vicente romo, gene mauch, denny lewallyn, von joshua, joe moeller, dioner navarro, rudy seanez, bart shirley, randy wolf, ismael valdes, bobby castillo, mike devereaux, pete richert, jay johnstone, jesse orosco, lee lacy, giovanni carrara, jeff weaver, ted sizemore,  orel hershiser, tom goodwin, joe ferguson, eddie murray, matt luke, ken mcmullen, tim wallach, jerry grote, don sutton, ralph branca, todd hundley, elmer dessens, guillermo mota, joe beckwith, jamie hoffmann, babe herman, and joe medwick.]

juan castro made his big league debut in september of 1995 as, what else - a defensive replacement.  over the course of the next few seasons, he split time between aaa and the majors thanks mainly to his glove as his big league batting average hovered just under .200.  here is his 1998 pacific online card featuring a photo of castro from 1995 or 1996 (he stopped wearing number 60 prior to his 1997 appearances).

on april 1, 2000, the dodgers traded castro to the reds for a minor leaguer named kenny lutz.  it does not appear that lutz ever played in a game for any dodger affiliate.  castro, however, played for the reds for the next five seasons.  here is his 2004 topps card

after the 2004 season, castro signed a free agent deal with the twins who then traded him back to the reds in 2006.  they released him in 2008, but he was quickly signed by the rockies.  without appearing in a game for colorado, castro was traded to baltimore where he finished out the '08 season.  in january of 2009, castro signed with the dodgers, and became a double dipper.  here's his 2009 topps update card as proof

castro hit a robust .277 in his return to the dodgers.  he played in 57 games and saw time at short, second, third and even left field.  after the season, however, he opted to sign with the phillies, who had beat the dodgers in the 2009 nlcs for the second straight season.  if you can't beat 'em, join 'em i guess.  there were no cards of castro issued in 2010, so i made one using the 2010 goose joak originals template.

i have to believe that the highlight of castro's short time with the phillies came on may 29, 2010.  that was the day that roy halladay threw his perfect game. castro was 2 for 4 as the phillies' third baseman in that game, and he fielded ronnie paulino's grounder and threw it to first for the final out of the game.  a few weeks later, the phillies gave castro his release.

no worries, though, as ned colletti brought castro back to the dodgers for a rare third term.  here's another 2010 goose joak original i created to note the occasion.

castro even re-signed with the team as a free agent after the 2010 season before calling it quits during the 2011 campaign.  i saw somewhere around the time of his retirement that he had one of the lowest ops marks of any player with a significant number of plate appearances over the last 20 years or so.  clearly it was his glove that kept him around for 17 seasons, including three tours with the dodgers.

here's to you juan castro - a rare dodger triple dipper!

ride the ted lilly rainbow

ted lilly is no longer with the dodgers, and despite the news reports, he's not chucking for that team up north either.  however, his 2013 topps card, with the backdrop of dodger stadium and the visitor's bullpen is a slice of perfection.  i decided early on to try for all the parallels, and now i present the results of my efforts here.  it's not all sparkles and unicorns, however, as you will soon find out.

let's start with all the colors rolled up into one and go from there.  here's the black parallel

now camoflauge

this is not the base card (although it looks the same in this view). it's actually the card from the 2013 topps dodger set, with the borders featuring the absence of color

pink

target red

orange

emerald

silver sparkle blue

walmart blue

toys r us purple

gold

usually there is gold at the end of the rainbow, but not here.  instead there is silver.  as in silver slate

that's the scarcest of the cards, being numbered to 10

now, here's the bad news.  obviously, i have no printing plate to complete the rainbow.  but even worse than that is the fact that my orange copy is somewhere in usps neverland.  it was last seen leaving pennsylvania on august 4th and scheduled to arrive on august 7th.  the tracking info hasn't been updated since.  the orange version is numbered to 230, but it's part of the factory sets so who knows when the next version will come up for sale.  what stinks is that there were two on ebay at the same time, and i purchased the one that winds up getting lost in the mail.

it seems that wrigley wax can complete his rainbow without any issues, why oh why can't i?

i forgot to include the lurker stop in the spin around dodger stadium

this 1982 fleer card of gary lucas gives us a background shot of the dodger dugout

complete with lurking dodger coach monty basgall. it's always nice to see the coaches get some cardboard time.

a spin around dodger stadium

no surprise - fleer is going to lead this tour around chavez ravine.  let's start with a 1982 fleer jim bibby

with the scoreboard in right center field over his left shoulder.  now we are moving clockwise as the scoreboard is over bill dawley's left shoulder on this 1985 fleer card

this 1982 fleer silvio martinez card gets us to the right field corner,

with the visitor's bullpen just at the edge of the card oner his right shoulder, and the field level scoreboard at the other edge over his left shoulder.  that's the same scoreboard that gary woods is hanging out near on his 1982 fleer card

always nice to see the friendly dodger stadium ushers and their straw hats!

mike lacoss is playing catch in front of the dugout seats on his 1982 fleer card

as is his teammate (and future dodger) mike vail

those seats are long gone, and may be best remembered as the location where mike brito would stand with his radar gun and cigar during games.  brito, by the way, is the scout who signed fernando and yasiel puig, along with at least a couple dozen other major league players.

next up is reggie jackson's 1981 donruss card (one of them, anyway) which gets us to the camera well next to the dodger dugout

i am guessing that this photo is from the 1980 all-star game which was played at dodger stadium.

jose oquendo's 1985 fleer card gets us further up the line to the end of the camera well

and juan eichelberger's 1982 fleer card features the start of the field level scoreboard on the third base side

here's the end of that scoreboard on frank pastore's 1982 fleer card

this card is almost identical to bob welch's 1983 fleer card - with ray knight playing the role of ron cey.  john smoltz has a very similar looking card, too.

i can't let this post go by without using some dodger cards, so here is chan ho park's 2000 topps card with the low rail down in the left field corner

with a touch of the dodger bullpen gate also visible.

this 1994 mother's piazza card of (who else) mike piazza shows the other end of the bullpen with the left field pavilion and the diamondvision board

dave anderson's 1989 upper deck card picks up where piazza's card left off (note the 370 sign on the outfield wall)

and we'll end up in right-center with tony gwynn on a 1992 fleer ultra insert card

gwynn, who played right field as you all recall, has gone to his right to catch a ball up against the outfield fence in dodger stadium.  this is likely from april 12, 1991 as the dodgers hosted the pads on opening day.  these banners (seen better on this other gwynn card from 1992 fleer ultra)

were put up to commemorate the dodgers' world series titles on the opening day games that i attended, at least.  i don't recall seeing them otherwise.

so there you have it, a virtual tour of dodger stadium.  now here's an aerial shot courtesy of the good year blimp 1988 fleer

i am quite thankful for fleer and their use of photos from dodger stadium in their sets.  much like i imagine a cubs fan appreciates 1981 donruss or a yankee fan appreciates every topps set from the 60's and 70's.