sunday morning target dodgers

here are 15 more players from a sheet of cards that is part of the 1990 target dodger 100th anniversary set.

ray benge

ray benge knows what you did last summer, and i don't think he approves.  aside from having a disconcerting glare, i also know (thanks to baseball-reference) that benge pitched for the dodgers for three years - 1933 through 1935 - and amassed a record of 33-38 during that time.

ralph birkofer

birkofer joined the dodgers (along with cookie lavagetto) in a december, 1936 trade.  he pitched for brooklyn in 11 games (one as a starter) during the 1937 season, losing twice.

bruce brubaker

brubaker was a rule v draftee by the dodgers in november of 1966, and he made his big league debut with the club on april 15, 1967.  he replaced joe moeller with two outs in the 7th inning and struck out phil gagliano to end the inning.  pitching in the big leagues was just that easy!  not so fast - when bru came back out for the 8th inning, he allowed a double and a single, followed by a one-out, three-run lou brock home run.  he did strike out curt flood immediately after the homer, though.  that one appearance was the sum total of brubaker's dodger career, and he didn't return to the majors until he was with the brewers in 1970.

john douglas

here's a guy with two first names, plus a middle name of franklin.  douglas was 0 for 9 with 2 walks in his big league career, with all of his at bats coming in the 1945 season with the dodgers.

rube ehrhardt

ehrhardt spent the first five years of his career pitching for the robins from 1924-1928. he was used primarily as a reliever, although he did complete 21 of his 41 starts for brooklyn. overall, his record as a robin was 21-32 in 169 games pitched.

woody english

english was the shortstop on a couple of cub world series teams in the 1920's (he was also a bench player on the 1935 pennant winning cubs team) before joining the dodgers for the 1937 and 1938 seasons.  he was the dodgers' primary shortstop in 1937, hitting .238 in 129 games, but saw more action at third base than short in 1938.

gus felix

like john douglas above, this guy would have two first names if anyone named their kid felix these days.  felix played for the robins in 1926 and 1927, the last two seasons of his 5-year big league career.  he hit .273 in 264 games for brooklyn in that span.

pat hanifin

if you're looking for hanifin on baseball-reference, he's actually pat hannivan.  either way, he was a member of the 1897 brooklyn bridegrooms, for whom he hit .250 over 10 games. i thought that he may well have been one of the first canadian big leaguers (he was born in nova scotia), but closer inspection shows that there were over 50 canucks who appeared in the major leagues before him.

hugh hearne

hearne hit .283 for the superbas from 1901 through 1903. he was traded to baltimore during the 1903 season along with another hugh (jennings), but couldn't make it back out of the eastern league after that.

enos kirkpatrick

kirkpatrick broke into the majors with the dodgers in 1912, and played for them (the superbas, actually) again in 1913.  with brooklyn regardless of the team nickname, kirkpatrick hit .219 in a total of 80 games.  prior to the 1914 season, he moved to baltimore of the federal league and played there for two seasons.

ralph mauriello

there's no doubt which team nickname was being used when mauriello suited up for the franchise.  he was a member of the 1958 dodgers, earning a september call-up during their first season on the west coast. he pitched in three games that month, going 1-1 in his two starts, and having no decision in his lone relief appearance.  he remained in the minors after that before pulling the plug on his baseball career to put his electrical engineering degree from usc to use.  the 'pulling the plug' pun was intended, by the way.

kit mckenna

mckenna was 2-8 for the 1898 brooklyn bridegrooms, pitching 100.2 innings over 14 appearances. he pitched for baltimore in 1899, and thus finished his 2-year big league career.

art parks

not quite as good as rick waits or dave lopes, but parks' name does form a complete sentence.  he played for the dodgers in 1937 and 1939, but is better known as one of the players that was sent to the red sox in 1940 in the deal that secured pee wee reese for the franchise.

oscar roettger

roettger was the older brother of the more successful wally roettger, an outfielder with the 1931 world champion cardinals.  yet another example of the dodgers having (or keeping) the wrong brothers, the sax brothers excluded.  anyway, oscar played for the dodgers during the 1927 season, getting to the plate 6 times and reaching base twice - once on balls and the other by being hit by a pitch.

denny sothern

sothern finished his 5-year career with the robins in the latter part of the 1931 season.  he appeared in 19 games for brooklyn, hitting just .161 before calling it quits.

it's a good bet i'll be back next sunday with another sheet from this set. stay tuned...