what's more 'holsum' than a baseball card trade?

this latest trade post comes courtesy of tony at off hiatus. he sent me the front end of a trade package (i'll send a return package very soon), and it was chock full of good stuff.  here's a 1990 holsum superstars orel hershiser card/disc

holsum was a bread company - i would have guessed dairy. this is now the only holsum card i have in my collection, and i didn't even know it was coming. that's one of the best things about this whole experience.

here's another oddball from the package - a 1983 donruss action all-stars fernando valenzuela card

and even more fernando goodness in the way of a 1988 panini sticker

there were more stickers to be found, including the late bobby welch

and matt young

who was traded with welch to the a's prior to the 1988 season. i was happy to see welch (and young, too i suppose) win a ring in 1989 after the dodgers got theirs in '88.

here's a 1986 fleer mini steve garvey card

which we've also seen recently in one of the steve garvey binders posts.

it's pretty cool to find vintage cards in a trade package, and tony came through with a couple of cards on cards from the 1957 topps set - lindy mcdaniel

and bobby gene smith

he also hit one of my needs from the 1971 topps set with this fantastic rodney cline carew card

thank goodness the doctor who delivered carew on the train wasn't named fester fonebone.

thanks, too, to tony for sending me cards!

a black armband for ken boyer

ken boyer spent the vast majority of his big league career with the saint louis cardinals.  he won the 1964 nl mvp award while with the cards, and helped them win the world series that year as well.  he also spent time with the mets, white sox, and dodgers, but returned to the cardinals following his retirement as a player to become a minor league manager, big league coach and eventually, in 1978, the team's manager.  although he fired from that position just 51 games into the 1980 season, boyer was planning to return to the organization as a minor league manager for the 1981 season before being sidetracked by a diagnosis of cancer.

boyer passed away on september 7, 1982, just as the cardinals were making a push for the national league east title.  the team added a black armband to their left sleeves for the remainder of the season and the postseason, as they were able to win the east, the national league pennant, and the world series.  the armband is visible on this 1983 donruss action all-stars card of bruce sutter

the 1982 cardinal uniform is sometimes used for turn back the clock nights in saint louis, and with the uniform comes the armband.  here's a 2013 topps daniel descalso walmart blue border card

that shows the now 30-plus year old uniform and the armband.  so, boyer is memorialized every so often.  not that he has been forgotten - the team has also retired boyer's number 14 and inducted him into their hall of fame.

pictures of men lurking and from foreign lands

here are a few more cards sent to me by dennis at pictures of men.  these first two were the only ones i specifically requested (other than random dodgers, of course).  here's a 2011 topps update sp card of roberto alomar.

he's turning two with omar vizquel hanging out in the background.  and then, we have joe mauer lurking in the foreground of the frank thomas diamond sparkle parallel from the same set

as you might be aware, dennis is a blue jays fan who lives north of the border, but south of me (just slightly).  so, it is no surprise that he included some o-pee-chee goodness in his package.  here's that perennial vedette de la ln, steve garvey

yes, he was quite a premier-but in his day.  i like how o-pee-chee just replaced 'topps' in the little baseball on the front of the 1981 cards, but i really liked that they used their little kids logo on the 1982 cards.  here's garvey au jeu from that set.

they had used that logo previously in 1979.  by the time 1985 rolled around, they were using just stylized text as seen on garvey's card from that year.

i'll end with a card featuring another member of the infield.  this is ron cey's 1983 donruss action all-stars card

i should have used this card in yesterday's post to show cey going to the earflap helmet in 1982 after he was beaned in the 1981 world series.  oh well, it works well here, too as i once again thank dennis for the fantastic package of cards.

thanks dennis!

oversized and indeterminate

i recently picked up a steve garvey oddball that i had been avoiding.  it's a jd mccarthy postcard from the 1970's.  

it's oversized, as a postcard should be, but what makes it more frustrating is that no one seems to know what year it was issued. as mrmopar pointed out, unless you get these things when they are first issued, good luck figuring out the year. i have vacillated between whether or not to collect non-standard sized garvey issues like this one for years.  i finally pulled the trigger on this one because the price was right - $4.99 shipped - and it came with four other cards, a couple of which i actually 'needed'.

from the flat black and white, we go to shiny refracting color and this 2000 topps finest shawn green oversized gems card

this is a blown-up version of a short printed regular sized card in the 2000 finest set (still need that one, by the way).  in between those two extremes of the lot were a 1984 dodgers police steve yeager card

 and a 1985 donruss all-stars fernando valenzuela card

now i just need the pedro guerrero card from this set

the last card that came in the lot was this 1983 donruss action all-stars fernando

which was complete with a signature of indeterminate origin.  at least i know that the card is from 1983, though.