lurkers are lurking - sometimes in plain sight

one doesn't need to look very far or hard to find the dodger making his way onto joe mccarthy's 1993 conlon collection tsn card

dodger manager burleigh grimes gets some foreground respect in the photo from 1938.  not sure when/where this would have been taken, as mccarthy's yankees faced (and beat) the cubs in the '38 fall classic.

grimes gets a mention on the back of that particular card, but that is usually not the case with lurkers.  take this 1999 fleer ultra jeff bagwell card, for example

tom prince is just as much of the card as is bagwell, but he gets no acknowledgement which is as it should be.

jose offerman finds his way onto kurt stillwell's 1993 donruss card

and eric karros (with a cloud of dust) enhances kevin higgins' 1994 topps card

i don't consider the stillwell card to be a double play turn because i can't verify it as such, even though it looks like it might be one.  offerman didn't get on base a whole lot against the padres in 1992, and when he did, he was often sacrificed to second with stillwell covering first.

now here's a blurry lurker.

that's dodger first base coach john shelby in the background on miguel batista's 2003 topps card.  i wish there were more cards like this featuring manny mota or, these days, davey lopes.

here are a couple of hall of fame lurkers - eddie murray shows up on scott stahoviak's 1996 score card

and we get half of cal ripken jr on rickey henderson's 1983 topps record breaker card

this card would have qualified as a 'classic combo' by topps' 2007 standards.

paying tribute to len koenecke

for the last few weeks of the 1935 season, the brooklyn dodgers wore black armbands to honor their deceased teammate, len koenecke.  you can see the armband on this 1993 conlon collection the sporting news card of dodger shortstop lonny frey

when i was researching the armband, i was surprised that i had never heard about koenecke's death before.  he had hit .320 for the dodgers in 1934, but was batting only .283 over 100 appearances in 1935. after the game on september 15, 1935 in chicago, the team headed to saint louis, and koenecke was informed that he was being sent home for the remainder of the season.  he then chartered a plane from saint louis to buffalo (his family was still in new york), but did not survive the trip.

the story goes that koenecke had been drinking before getting on the plane.  he was sitting up front with the pilot and sometime after takeoff became violent.  in the struggle that ensued, he was hit over the head with a fire extinguisher and died.  the plane landed near toronto, ontario, and koenecke was pronounced dead.  here's a link to koenecke's obituary.

as for frey, he lived to the ripe old age of 99, passing away in 2009.

tastes like chicken

tom baker pitched for the dodgers in the mid 1930's, amassing a record of 2-9 in 53 games for the blue.  baker was also one of the few players who have been traded from the dodgers to the giants, as he finished up his career at the polo grounds in 1938.  he is obviously, however, best remembered for his nickname.

luckily for me, the back of the card explains how baker got his reptilian nickname, although one might be tempted to call bs.  apparently, baker told a tale in which he came across an ornery rattlesnake on a road in his native texas.  the snake lunged at his car and embedded its fangs in one of his tires and the escaping air caused the snake to inflate like a balloon and it eventually 'exploded in (baker's) face.' 

bs baker might have been a better nickname.