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.

show me some emotion

oh, you bet your ass i'm as attentive as raul mondesi

when it comes to the new 1995 skybox emotion blog  brought to us by tom at the angels, in order.

there's a contest, too.  check it out.

show me some emotion

1995 skybox emotion perplexes me.  wait, emotions are feelings, so perhaps i should say that i feel confused when i look at some of the cards from that set.  like this ismael valdes card

striding is not an emotion. maybe the set should be called 'skybox action'.  or, it could have been 'skybox adjective' and the text could have said 'dressed'.  it's silly.  of course, 1995 was a silly year all around for fleer.

anyway, you don't have to look to far to find an ismael valdes card from 1995 that is filled with some emotion.  take a look at his upper deck collector's choice card (silver signature parallel) from that year,

and you get all of the pure joy you could want on a baseball card.  plus, it features some lurking teammates such as cory snyder, tim wallach, and i would bet dollars to pasta that the left arm in front of tim wallach belongs to tommy himself, perhaps the most demonstratively emotional man to ever wear a dodger uniform.

next time someone asks me how i feel, i will say 'striding' and let them figure it out.

dodgers in the night, exchanging glances...

true story. i returned from the post office the other day, where i had mailed a box of cards to a certain night owl, and found a package from the very same nocturnal bird in my mailbox. karma. fate. good fortune. whatever it was, he sent some very nice cards. here's a sampling.

2004 donruss studio hideo nomo studio starsvery much like those old perma-graphic credit card issues.

2006 topps turkey red duke snidera classic pose from the duke of flatbush.

1994 bowman's best billy ashley billy may have been the best the dodgers ever had at the three true outcomes. in 1995, he homered, struck out, or walked in 50% of his plate appearances. in 1996, he increased that to 56%!

1996 starting lineup jackie robinsoni had no use for the actual starting lineup figures, but it's nice to have one of the cards that accompanied them.

2008 topps heritage high numbers mark sweeney one of my 'magnificent 7'. i'll have to update that list soon - there are a couple others i've been able to get my mitts on.

1995 skybox emotion raul mondesi. attentive. really? that's the emotion mondesi exudes? how about brooding? sulking? no matter, he was still my favorite dodger for a few years.

2001 upper deck legends don drysdalebig d. i am guessing that picture was taken after his third consecutive shutout in 1968 during his 58.2 scoreless inning streak, although he looks fairly young for that to be the case. it is absolutely crazy to think that he did that in his last full season.

2007 bowman andre ethier the blue parallel. this one is numbered 111/500. i am so happy that we are beyond the luis gonzalez/andruw jones experiments and can just let andre and matt kemp play.

2006 upper deck sweet spot update greg madduxmaddux during his first foray into los angeles. why upper deck updates these types of issues is beyond me. still, it's nice to have more cards of maddux in a dodgers uniform!

thanks greg! i hope you enjoy the package i sent as well!