don't worry, bo also sent some dodger cards

this will be the last post about the cards that bo from baseball cards come to life sent me recently.  it was a great package containing double play cards, tatooine cards, cards featuring memorial patches, and, of course, dodger cards.

i am surprised that i have not yet shown this 1993 topps stadium club orel hershiser card

on the blog previously. its got the bulldog sitting in dodger stadium on a beautiful day for baseball.

this 2002 leaf rookies and stars brian jordan card

also features dodger stadium as a backdrop, with jordan running between the kevin brown and shawn green images on the outfield wall mural.

this 1992 classic best roberto mejia card

however, features vero beach's holman stadium as its backdrop.  that may well be carlos delgado kneeling behind mejia, by the way.  the dodgers lost mejia in the expansion draft to the rockies, but at least he made it to the majors.  that can't be said about the next guy.

1992 upper deck minors ryan luzinski

the dodgers' first round draft pick in 1992 made it as high as triple-a with the dodgers and later the orioles, but never got the call to the big leagues.

1992 upper deck minors todd hollandsworth

how convenient for the dodgers' bakersfield affiliate that they could use the brooklyn dodgers 'b' on their hats and helmets.  holly, of course, was the 1996 national league rookie of the year, but before that, he apparently enjoyed sorting grains of sand.

another dodger prospect of the mid-90's was paul konerko.  here's a 1994 topps stadium club card

celebrating the dodgers' first round pick in the 1994 draft.

originally a catcher, the dodgers moved konerko to first base, presumably because they had mike piazza behind the plate.  konerko is fielding his position on this 1998 pinnacle performers card

as well as this 1998 topps stadium club

they also tried him at third base and even the outfield.  he was, after all, the second best prospect in all of baseball heading into the 1998 season (as ranked by baseball america).  today, i don't think you trade that type of prospect for a closer.

i'll finish up with a couple of dodgers hanging out on tatooine - 1993 score select lenny harris

and jose offerman

one last thank you, bo! that was a fun package to sort through!

where in the world is my wallet card? - it wasn't at mardi gras...

the junior junkie has had his wallet card on display recently, enjoying the revelry that is to be had in new orleans, while my wallet card was in my wallet.  so, i let my 1974 topps steve garvey card hang out amongst the bounty that tj sent my way recently as part of his monster mailday.

a bit of vicarious living, if you will.

there were some beads, two blocks of cards and a couple of msa discs in the package. here are some of the non-dodger highlights.

double plays!

1992 classic best robert eenhoorn

this card is fantastic. a minor league dp, from a guy named eenhoorn, and with a expo minor leaguer who is wearing a generic expos jersey with the team's name instead of his own on the back.

also from 1992 classic best, here is jose olmeda

and a guy named carey sliding in.

1992 donruss mickey morandini

yes, tj sent me a card from the 1992 donruss set and i am glad for it!

1994 topps stadium club rey sanchez

1998 upper deck alex gonzalez

this card features a double play turn on the front…

and the back!

1999 pacific damion easley

not as nice as his 1996 pacific card

2004 upper deck bj upton

you know you play in a crappy stadium when the area upper deck chooses to highlight is the sign for the party area.

2008 upper deck first edition wilson betemit

hard to believe that betemit was at one time a dodger.  speaking of dodgers, there were a few of those int he package, too.  i'll show some of them later to prove it.

card show piazzapalooza

the 1990's were heady days for card collectors.  there were new manufacturers, legion sets, innumerable inserts and parallels.  i stayed pretty close to the topps flagship and traded sets throughout the decade, with a fair amount of upper deck in 1992-95 and again in 1998-99.  other than that, i kind of stayed out of the loop.

that means that i missed out on a ridiculous amount of mike piazza inserts.  a dime box at the card show last week made up for a lot of that.  first, i should clarify.  the box of cards i looked through wasn't necessarily a dime box.  i asked the dealer before looking through the cards what the deal was. he said that the price varied.  after i had found about 100 piazza inserts, he said 10 bucks.  i wound up with about 160 cards (about 120 of piazza), and he charged me 15 bucks.  so, just about a dime box.

on to the piazzapalooza! 

1993 fleer ultra all rookie insert

the colors pop on the black background. 

1993 fleer major league prospects insert

piazza wearing number 60.  the same number he wore at some point in the minors, as evidenced by these 1992 classic best blue bonus

and red bonus parallels

note the carl sawatski memorial patch, too.

here are a couple of inserts from 1994 fleer ultra - homerun king

and rbi king

there's the number 31 that we know.  i think piazza also wore 25 at some point, but 31 is the number he wore for the majority of his career.

1995 fleer update soaring star insert

those rods of green kryptonite are actually bats.  i didn't realize this until i looked at the back of the card just a few minutes ago.

1995 score hall of gold

hall of fame class of 2015? i hope so.

1995 upper deck sp silver parallel

i liked the gray gear that piazza wore.  i also liked the way he flipped his helmet after every game on his way out to the mound.

1994 king-b disc

seventh annual?  where are the previous 6 years of discs?

1997 bowman chrome international parallel

as jimmy kimmel used to say, that's 'italian-american superstar slugger mike piazza'.

1998 upper deck 10th anniversary preview insert

i have a few of these preview cards, but i don't think i have any of the actual 1999 10th anniversary team cards.  no dodgers in that insert set, i don't think, so maybe that's why.

piazza appeared on his share of combo inserts.  two of the most common players he was paired with were tim salmon (the al roy in 1993) and ivan rodriguez.  this is a 1996 upper deck sp marquee matchups insert 

where salmon got the 'marquee' part.

this is a 1996 topps stadium club midsummer matchup insert

which features rodriguez on the other side

rodriguez gets some time on the same side as piazza (and darren daulton) on this 1996 donruss dominators insert

so far, i have resisted the directive to remove protective film.

last card of this post, a 1998 fleer sports illustrated cover card featuring ken griffey jr

so good, so young, and so many inserts.  i'll show some more later today.  stay tuned...

carl sawatski memorial patch

former major leaguer carl sawatski served as the president of the texas league from 1976 through 1991.  after he died in november of 1991, the league decided that its players would wear a patch in sawatski's honor during the 1992 season.

here is mike busch's 1992 classic best card showcasing the 'ces' patch in sawatski's honor (his middle name was ernest).

i've also got a steve dixon card from the set showing the patch

and a derek reid, too

but the busch card is the one in the memorial binder.

sawatski had been a member of the 1957 world champion milwaukee braves and retired after 11 seasons in the major leagues.  a quick review of his stats at baseball reference shows that he hit two home runs in a game twice in his career, with the first time coming against the reds' don newcombe.  he also took don drysdale deep three times over the course of the 1961 season.  sawatski passed away from leukemia, which had been diagnosed six months prior.

this is the only (to date) minor league memorial in my collection.  it was not listed on the hall of fame's website where i found my original list of memorials, and i only learned of it because of busch's card being in my dodger collection.

attack of the revenge of the double plays, part 643

i have a few different ways of finding double play cards.  probably the most common way these days is by noticing cards posted on other blogs.  that includes cards that should have been, like this 1956 topps bill mazeroski card that was created by bob lemke

another way is by going back and looking through my collection.  i didn't always pull double play cards for the binder.  i recently decided to break my 1991 upper deck set to get at the double plays that weren't already in my dp collection.  i wound up with jerry browne

alvaro espinosa

mike gallego - front

and back

donnie hill

paul molitor

jody reed

ryne sandberg

and frank white

i also found a 1992 classic denny hocking card in my binder that had not yet been posted here

more perusing through the boxed up cards revealed the back of a 1994 topps travis fryman card

and a 1995 topps john valentin cyberstats parallel

as well as a 2001 topps stadium club orlando cabrera card

those are only a couple of ways that i find double play cards to my collection.  i will give examples of other methods another time.