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?

the grounded flight of the bumblebees

i'm working on a trade with matt from bob walk the plank, so i'm pulling together some pirates.  these cards won't be leaving my collection, however, even though they feature the black and yellow.

1984 donruss dave parker

the cobra is giving me the stare down from inside dodger stadium.  i will keep this card in my dodger stadium binder.

1984 donruss lee lacy

the black jersey/yellow pant combo is just not a successful look.

1984 fleer lee lacy

here it is again.  the fact that lacy wears yellow sleeves under the jersey puts it over the top.

1984 fleer rick rhoden

ah, a simple white jersey with the pillbox hat.

1985 donruss rick rhoden

i spoke too soon - there's the full yellow ensemble

1986 donruss highlights rick rhoden

rhoden at the plate!  he was voted the nl pitcher of the month for june of 1986 when he went 5-1 in 6 starts with a 1.99 era, 3 complete games, and 35 strikeouts.  he also kicked ass at the plate that month, going 9 for 19 with 3 doubles, 4 rbi, and 0 strikeouts.  kudos to donruss for putting a photo of rhoden with a bat on the card.  if i had three of this card, i'd keep one, send one to matt, and send the other to nick.

1987 donruss all-stars rick rhoden

now donruss put him back on the mound.  rhoden was an all-star in 1986 - his first time at the game since 1976 when he was with the dodgers.

1987 topps mini leaders rick rhoden

rhoden was second in complete games and fourth in era in 1986, so he received a card in this set.

i'm keeping the lacy and rhoden cards because while i really haven't committed to collecting non-topps base cards of the 1978 topps dodgers, i am not necessarily opposed to the idea either.

finally, i am not sending this 1991 topps gary redus to matt (or to wes for that matter)

because dodger lenny harris is lurking.

don't worry matt - i'll have some different (and hopefully better) pirates in the mail this week.

how to succeed at collecting without really trying

well, i guess you have to try at least a little bit.  in this case, you would need to develop an ebay rivalry with another steve garvey super collector and then start a blog and trade with him instead.  you send him a little 17-card factory team set, and he will send you a big box filled with oddball dodger stuff that you didn't even know existed, plus some cool steve garvey stuff.

yes, i traded with curt from 1978, the year it all began. it wasn't the first time he and i had made a trade, but it was likely the most lopsided.  i had asked him for a scan of a steve garvey sga item, and he obliged.  he also offered to send me a hard copy of it, and i told him i would send him a 2009 topps dodger factory set in exchange.  he didn't mention that he was also going to send a map.

from 1970, that is a aaa map of dodger stadium.  that is pretty cool.  i should have unfolded it and taken a picture of it.  it looks so easy on paper - so many freeways.  still, heed my advice if you go - plan to get there early.  no map will save you from stadium way or the downtown gates.  unless you get off the freeway and use the sunset route, but that's only for people in the know.

here's the garvey sga that started the whole transaction

this is what's on the back

it's all about consecutive game goodness.  the photo is from garvey's 1000th consecutive game, but the sga occurred on the occasion of his moving into fourth place all-time with his 1104th consecutive game.  of course, garvey went on to pass billy williams in 1983, but he was a padre by then.  he played in game number 1118 at dodger stadium, though, and my dad was kind enough to take me to see the game in person.  it is still to this day the only time i have received a steve garvey autograph in person.

more garvey goodness in the box, including this 1977 pepsi glove disc

i was hot and cold with these oddballs until just a few months ago.  i did have a few in my garvey collection, but not more than a couple.  now i have several of the msa discs that came out in the 1970's into the 1980's, including a 1981 blank back (trust me)

and a 1976 towne club version

speaking of discs, there were others in the box - and not just of steve garvey.  here are pedro guerrero

and fernando valenzuela

from the 1984 7-11 slurpee coin set.

fernando and garvey are together forever on this 1987 m&m's panel

those padres hats look really bad without the logo.  they look only slightly better with, however, as we see on this 1984 fun foods pin proof

i am glad curt sent this to me.  it is much easier to store in the binder than the actual pin back.

here's steve garvey in the metrodome, courtesy of the 1986 donruss pop-ups set

it's hard to believe that garvey was part of the home run derby held prior to the 1985 all-star game in minneapolis.  his slugging days were behind him by then, unfortunately.

there really was so much cool stuff in the box.  media guides, team issued photos, union oil portraits (from 1962 and 1982), fernando valenzuela perfect attendance certificates, magazines, and more.  it was the package that keeps on giving.

i'll show two more cards - this one is from 1977 landsman playing cards and features jackie robinson down the third base line

i think jackie is the five of diamonds or something like that.  these are similar to the playing cards that pepsi put out in 1978

last but not least is this 1987 donruss all-stars card of steve sax

with garvey gone, saxy became my favorite dodger and subject of a pretty good pc, but i never did pick up one of these.  now i have one and i hardly even had to try for it.

thanks curt!  that really was an awesome box of goodness.

the dodgers' journey

more dodgers in the mail thanks to jason at the writer's journey. all i had to do was send him some reds, including a couple of chris sabo cards, and wait for the dodgers to come rolling in.  here's a sampling:

1986 fleer stickers box bottom dodgers logo

i don't understand why the dodgers were featured.  they were nl west champs in 1985, but lost to the cardinals in the nlcs (first base was open tommy!) and the royals beat the cards in the series (the blue jays were the other postseason team).  maybe it's part of that royals/dodgers confusion that night owl has been writing about.  anyway, there is a checklist on the back which lists the 4 cards found on the bottom of the boxes.  in addition to the dodger logo, there is this card

1986 fleer stickers box bottom steve garvey

garvey was card number 1 in fleer's first star sticker set (1991) which was cool.  and, it's cool that he was included in the box bottom set.  but i still wonder why - he was clearly past his prime in 1985, although he made the all star team, and the pads were nl champs in 1984, not '85.  there were bigger stars to be had for sure.  donruss was putting dwight gooden on the bottom of their boxes in 1985.  anyway, i'm glad to have another garvey card to collect.

here's a true sticker, the fernando valenzuela 1988 topps sticker

along with a 1986 donruss highlights fernando

and a 1987 donruss all stars valenzuela

the card is 3x5.  both the 1986 highlight and the 1987 all star card deal with fernando's incredible appearance in the 1986 all star game when he struck out 5 american league all stars in a row - don mattingly, cal ripken, jesse barfield, lou whitaker, and teddy higuera.  what was the pitcher doing being allowed to bat in the all star game, you might ask.  well, that was back when the starters went 3 innings and so did their first replacements, although neither dwight gooden nor fernando came to bat thanks to the national league's offensive ineptitude for the first 6 innings of the game.

jason also sent some auto'd cards - a 1990 bowman jose offerman

this is way cool since i don't think e-fferman will ever return to the states in an mlb role.  i think there are  some dealers at the local card show that have some auto'd cards from his twinkie days, but i never thought to buy any.  so, this card is much appreciated.

as is this 1990 fleer lenny harris

and this 1990 topps lenny harris

lenny is back with the dodgers in a minor league hitting role and hopefully recovered from some health issues a year ago.  these are my first harris autos.

1973 topps dick dietz

dietz is one of those guys who was acquired in a trade with the giants.  it's a small club.  i think of dietz as a giant all the way, even though he was obviously a dodger.  i think that's because the first card of his i owned was his 1972 topps in action card.  plus, he was the guy who thought he had broken don drysdale's scoreless inning streak when he was hbp with the bases loaded.  the umpire ruled that dietz didn't try to get out of the way, so he wasn't awarded first.  ha ha - stupid giant.

we'll end with a guy i don't feature enough - shawn green on a 2004 bowman heritage card

green recently addressed some dodger rookies about the right way to play and be a big leaguer at their winter workouts.  i hope he told them not to be like him and instead sign through the mail.

thanks jason!