off hiatus and off my want list

who sends a 1954 bowman billy loes card

as part of a blind trade package? luckily for me, tony at off hiatus does. or did, in my case.  billy is really caressing that baseball there - i hope he's more careful with it than lennie and his rabbits.  this card is gloriously worn and it's one less '54 bowman that i need.

here's another brooklyn dodger sent by tony - it's gene hermanski

on what appears to be a card made for the 5th national convention held back in 1984.  here's the back of the card that led me to that conclusion

i'm guessing that hermanski was signing autographs at the convention.

now we get to the los angeles dodger portion of the post, with some great oddball cards.

1988 kaybee superstars of baseball pedro guerrero

it's true - petey was still a superstar at that time. he had hit a career high .338 in 1987, but the dodgers brought him back into the infield in 1988 and his trade to saint louis that season was deemed to be addition by subtraction.

1988 starting lineup talking baseball steve sax

and fernando valenzuela

the only talkin' baseball i know has to do with willie, mickey, and the duke.  sadly, none of those guys were included in the set.

more oddballs of el toro - 1987 fleer mini

in which fernando is wearing his shiny pullover and a hat that was certainly not a game issue, and his 1986 fleer mini

which features an oddly cropped photo.

here's a little photo of don drysdale on a 2004 upper deck sweet spot classics manufactured patch card

that features the national league logo.  i think the american league logo is better, mostly because i think that the glove that the eagle is holding on to in the nl logo looks odd.  better to have a baseball in that talon, i think.

finally, here's a 2013 panini hometown heroes card of paul loduca

yes, this is a dodger card (note the 'los angeles' pennant in the upper left) even though the heart and soul of jim tracy's dodgers is wearing his mets gear in the photo.  as a met, loduca hit .455 against the dodgers in the 2006 nlds.

tony hit 1.000 with this trade package.  so much so that i'll show some more cards that he sent later on! stay tuned...

the same old sob

in this case, sob refers to superstars of baseball, as in kaybee superstars of baseball.  you see, if you compare this 1987 kaybee superstars of baseball pedro guerrero card

 to this 1988 kaybee superstars of baseball pedro guerrero card

you will find a whole lot of repetitiveness in the design.  and they didn't stop there, as you will see when you look at this 1989 kaybee superstars of baseball kirk gibson card

at least fleer put in a tiny amount of effort to differentiate their 1988 baseball mvp design (here's fernando in dodger stadium)

from their 1989 baseball mvp design (featuring mike marshall, who was no one's mvp at the big league level)

sure, they basically just flipped the margins, but at least they tried.

all of these cards were sent to me by tom of the angels, in order.  tom also runs the 1995 skybox emotion blog, so there was one of those cards in the package, too.  eric karros is deep, apparently

as we all know, karros kicked off the dodgers' mid-90's run of rookies of the year by winning the award in 1992.  in 1994, a year after mike piazza won the award, raul mondesi was voted the best rookie in the national league.  here's a card of rauuuuuuuuuuuuuuul from 1997 upper deck collector's choice

that also features talking heads keith olbermann and dan patrick.  first direct espn tie-in with cards as far i as know.

i'll finish with the 1995 national league rookie of the year (sorry chipper), hideo nomo on a 2003 mlb showdown card

thanks tom! always a pleasure to trade halos for dodgers.