rhoden and john and hough

i consider don sutton to have been the ace of the team of my youth, but the dodgers of the mid to late 1970's had a pretty strong staff.  i got kind of tired of seeing doug rau pitch seemingly every time we trekked to dodger stadium, but it wasn't because he was a bad pitcher - i just would have rather have seen tommy john or rick rhoden or burt hooton more often.  anyway, it's boxing day and things are slow and i don't have any good post ideas, so here are some non-dodger cards of three members of the dodger pitching staff from the team of my youth.

1988 score rick rhoden

and tommy john

rhoden and tj were reunited on the yankees, although this was john's second time around with the club. here's the back of john's 1981 topps card

for no other reason than to show the 'on disabled list' text that defined his 1975 season and his legacy as well.

here's the back of rhoden's 1988 topps big card for no other reason than to note that rhoden was a fan of both bob gibson and hulk hogan

'his' comment in the ping pong cartoon is not entirely true - rhoden did get to hit as the yankees' dh in a game during the 1988 season.  here's the front of that topps big card, by the way

rhoden sports the same mustache on his 1988 leaf card

which is so much better than 1988 donruss.

here's a 1988 fleer superstars card of rhoden

i wonder what he's got in that gatorade cup.

rhoden finished out his career with the astros in 1989.  here's his 1989 fleer update card

tommy john, meanwhile, began his career in cleveland.  here's a 2003 topps retired signature card showing him in indians' attire.

and let's not forget about charlie hough, who was actually the dodgers' closer in 1977, saving 22 games for the nl champs.  he moved on to texas where he became a starter and found some success.  this is a 1987 donruss all-stars card of the knuckleballer

who finished his career with stints with the white sox and then the marlins.  this is a 1993 topps finest card of hough with the fish

as are these 1994 bowman

and 1994 topps stadium club cards

that last one being the rainbow foil parallel.

i did a 'torchbearer' post for sutton, so i'll do something similar for these guys.  i won't go into too much detail, but if you're wondering, the last batter rick rhoden faced in the majors was joe oliver (who hit into a double play). oliver doubled off of jorge julio in his last at bat; julio hit jorge cantu with his last pitch, cantu fouled out against rex brothers for his final appearance in the majots, so brothers (who was still pitching for the rockies in 2014) is carrying rhoden's torch.

john, meanwhile, allowed a single to devon white just before walking off the mound for the last time.  white singled off of albie lopez his last time up; lopez gave up a single to torii hunter with his last pitch, and hunter just signed with the twins for the 2015 season, so he'll continue to be tommy john's torchbearer for one more year.

finally, hough's last big league pitch resulted in a single to kim batiste, who later grounded out against darren holmes in his last big league at bat. with his final pitch, holmes gave up a single to marlon byrd, who is signed to play for the phillies once again in 2015.

there you have it. three pitchers from the team of my youth wearing other teams' uniforms and their torhbearers.  can you tell i'm running out of ideas for posts?