23 July 2015

postcards from paradise

a funny thing happened on the way to this post.  i misplaced all of my dodger postcards.  i had scanned them, some of which are shown below, but i had planned to further investigate and try to determine the exact years that they were issued using the information on their backs and some of the very scattered data available on the interwebs.  oh well, i'll have to tackle that task another time.  in the meantime, it's summer, and i assume some traveling folks are still sending postcards to the poor saps that are stuck back at home working.  in that vein, here are some dodger postcards that i will classify as 1962 (circa) to 1971 (circa) dodger team issue postcards.

big d!
i chose 1962 because that is the season that dodger stadium opened, and beautiful chavez ravine is the backdrop for many of these.  some, including the don drysdale postcard above, the ron perranoski postcard below,
this larry sherry postcard
and this maury wills postcard
all feature the three sisters palm trees closed up as they were first installed.

these next two are certainly from 1967, as that was the only season that ron hunt
and gene michael suited up for the dodgers.
plus, the palm trees have opened up!

i figure that these wes parker
and jeff torborg postcards
are from 1966, but that's only based on the relative youthfulness of torborg and this website.

sadly, the postcards moved out of dodger stadium later in the decade to what i assume to be vero beach.  these al ferrara
and bill singer postcards
are assumed to be from 1968 based on the fact that the singer photo is essentially the same as this mudcat grant photo
and this zoilo versalles postcard (i think) has the same info on the back
i wish i could find these things to confirm.  anyway, grant and versalles were only dodgers in 1968, so it's pretty easy to figure those, just like the hunt and michael.  same goes for these next couple - maybe - as long as the dodgers didn't wait to use these photos several years after they were taken.

billy grabarkewitz
and bill sudakis
are both wearing the mlb 100th anniversary patch from 1969, so i figure these to be 1970 postcards, although they could also be 1969 items if the dodgers were really on the ball and published these right after the photos were taken during spring training.

i'm not quite as sure of this tom haller postcard
since he was a dodger from 1968 through 1971, but this dick/richie allen postcard is certainly from 1971 (his lone year with the team)
and it's back in paradise - dodger stadium.

i may get back there yet this season, and if i do, maybe i'll drop a postcard in the mail...

4 comments:

  1. One of my favorite postcards is the Koufax from one of these series. I could never figure out the year though.

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  2. hey fuji. i'll have to keep an eye out - unfortunately, i don't have any koufax postcards.

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  3. Those postcards are beauties. Gene "Stick" Michael with the Dodgers? That's just strange enough that I feel the need to track it down.

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  4. Hello. I found some of these exact postcards at an antique store. They are about the size of a sheet of paper. I also found some smaller ones made by Dexter print. For the larger sheet size, there is no printer/manufacturer on the back. So you know who made them??

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