hometown heroes

no matter how you slice it, cal ripken jr meets the definition of a hometown hero.  whether you take that term to mean a person from their hometown who made good, or a person who played well for your hometown team, or a person who played well for their hometown team, ripken fits the bill.  his was one of the cards i found in the four packs of 2013 panini hometown heroes that i purchased along with all my 2013 topps update cards.

players like joe mauer, kent hrbek, sandy koufax, and pete rose also come to mind - guys who wound up playing all (or most) of their career for their hometown teams.  clearly, however, panini means for this set to be more of a 'fan favorites' set, and not a collection of people who made the big leagues with their local team.  in fact, there is no hometown info for the players on the backs.

i was looking forward to this set because there are some nice dodgers from the team of my youth on the checklist - rick monday, dusty baker, davey lopes, etc - plus on-card autos from lopes, steve yeager and others.  steve garvey, unfortunately, is featured as a padre (and a short print).

anyway, here are some of the cards i found in my packs.

bob horner

it's been about 25 years since i pulled a bob horner card from a pack.

bill buckner (cubs)

billy buck also has a card featuring him as a dodger in the set

rickey henderson curtain call

rickey is properly featured as an athletic on this insert, but who really knows which jersey he is wearing in that photo.  it could be a dodger uni, but more likely a boston one.

oscar gamble

when gamble went to the bronx, his afro didn't make the trip.  gamble had two tours of duty with the yankees - this looks like the second go-around.

ron cey

first dodger!  cey's hometown team would have been the mariners, had they existed prior to 1977.  he's from tacoma.

dave stewart (short print)

stew is in the base set, too - probably as an oakland a.  that would make sense, as stewart is from oakland.  still, happy to see him in a semblance of a dodger uniform again.

joe charboneau

i think it's pretty cool to see a charboneau card in 2013.  his was the cautionary tale of rookie of the year winners, even though it was a back injury that did in charboneau's career.  i feared that steve sax would suddenly find himself incapable of hitting a baseball in 1983.

let me know if anyone is collecting this set - i am looking for the dodgers, but don't need any of the other cards i pulled.