henry cruz and geoff zahn through the mail successes!

few men have sported sunglasses on baseball cards as well as former dodger henry cruz.  he recently signed some cards for me through the mail, and each one of them is a revelation in recreational eye wear.

here's his 1975 sspc card

and here's his 1976 topps rookie card upon which his style of sunglasses has changed.

there are three very recognizable outfielders (chet lemon, ellis valentine, and terry whitfield - a future dodger) from the late 1970's/early 1980's on that card next to cruz, who hit .266 in 53 games with the 1975 dodgers, and then just .182 in 49 games for the club in '76.  he did have a two-home run game as a dodger in 1976, which was nice.  in fact, that game was 39 years ago yesterday!

towards the end of the 1977 season, a season in which the dodgers kept him in the minor leagues, cruz was picked up on waivers by the white sox where he became teammates with chet lemon, and thus we have a 1978 topps card that looks like this

yes, cruz signed one of those for me, too.  those glasses look more like the ones from his sspc card above.

i was hoping to have another signed 1978 topps card to show, but geoff zahn hasn't returned it yet.  i'm hoping that he does, but until then, he did send his 1975 topps card back to me

signed and with a bible verse reference.

cruz and zahn were teammates briefly in 1975 (zahn was traded to the cubs early in the season), with cruz playing left field in both of zahn's games as a dodger that year.  with the way zahn seems to be squinting in the dodger stadium sun, perhaps he could have used a pair of cruz's shades.

thanks to both cruz and zahn for signing my cards!