only bo is so precise with sending me cards for my tatooine mini collection

well, others have sent me tatooine cards (cards with only dirt in the photo background), but bo recently sent me a lot of them.  here are some of them.

1995 pinnacle reggie jefferson

1995 upper deck collector's choice wayne kirby

1995 upper deck collector's choice ray lankford

1995 upper deck collector's choice dick schofield

1995 upper deck collector's choice se derrick may

1995 upper deck collector's choice se lou whitaker

1996 topps stadium club al martin

2006 topps jake westbrook

1998 fleer tradition kevin young

1998 fleer tradition desi relaford

because you can try to keep desi close, but desi is going to run.

thanks bo!

a christmas eve edition of random cards from the scanned folder

i'm putting this post on autopilot since it's december 24th and i'm traveling for the holidays.  enjoy some cards that i scanned without a clear purpose over the course of the last few years.

1994 pinnacle brett butler museum collection

i need to add cards from this parallel dodger team set to my nefarious 9.

1962 topps johnny podres

looks like johnny was out late in chicago last night.

1987 fleer league leaders bob welch

the wrigley field ivy in the background and the odd cropping of the photo reminds me of 1981 fleer

1991 upper deck dennis cook

batting practice in dodger stadium!  cook's wearing tommy john's number and doesn't seem to know what to do with the bat.  plus, a jim poole sighting as a background lurker.

1975 topps mini rick rhoden rookie card

in a related note, congrats to night owl on finishing his 1975 topps mini set.  he would not allow his scanner to skew a card from that set as wildly as mine has.

1998 upper deck black diamond alex cora

and here's the back of brett butler's 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition card.

and so the post is bookended by butlers.  i'll try harder next time.

merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.

a memorial patch for chub feeney

charles s. "chub" feeney was a lifelong baseball man who got his start as a batboy for the new york giants thanks to the fact that his grandfather was the principal owner of the team.  in 1936, his uncle took over, and when feeney returned from service during world war ii, he made chub a club executive.  following chub's death from a heart attack in january of 1994, the giants wore a patch with his initials on their left sleeve during the strike shortened season.

you can see the patch on bill swift's 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition card

it's there on john patterson's 1995 donruss card

as well as the front

and back

of patterson's 1995 upper deck collector's choice card

dave burba's 1995 topps card gives a good view of the patch

as does this really shiny (only when scanned) 1995 leaf cornerstones card featuring matt williams and jr phillips

that card is nice but it's this 1995 sportflix uc3 matt williams card that is in the memorials binder

in between his return from military service and his death, feeney oversaw the giants' move to san francisco and very nearly became the commissioner of baseball in 1969.  after losing the vote to bowie kuhn, feeney was named national league president in 1970 and was the main force in convincing the owners of his league to resist the designated hitter rule.  feeney gave way to the new national league president, a. bartlett giamatti, in 1986 and retired.  joan kroc later convinced feeney to un-retire, and he agreed to join the padres as their general manager during the 1987 season.  he lasted in that role through the 1988 campaign, or at least through most of it, as he resigned during the season's final days after giving the finger to some fans who wanted a change made in the gm position.

an overdue greg maddux hall of fame post - with final tributes!

greg maddux was only 8-7 as a dodger in two partial-season stints and he won't be wearing a dodger cap on his hall of fame plaque, but his final tribute cards are all dodger goodness.

here's his 2009 topps heritage card

with his final season and career stats on the back

maddux was 2-4 with a no decision for the dodgers in 2008.  he rejoined the blue in august, so the sept. 14 and sept. 27 highlights mentioned above came as a dodger.  the 9/14 game was the no decision game, as the dodgers eventually lost 1-0.  the 9/27 game was the final game of maddux's career, so at least he went out a winner in the regular season.  maddux also pitched four scoreless innings for the dodgers in the 2008 postseason, which were his final big league appearances.

here's his 2009 upper deck card

with a few seasons' worth of stats on the back

it is true that maddux beat the pads on 9/1/08, but they turned the tables on him a week later.

here's his 2009 upper deck first edition card

which is pretty much the same as his regular upper deck card

here's his 2009 topps card

which is somewhat spoiled by the airbrushing.  however, it has his full career stats on the back, like a true final tribute should

it is worth noting that maddux's final win put him ahead of roger clemens on the all-time victories list, so he did achieve a major milestone with the dodgers.  he also collected his final career base hit in dodger blue, driving in what proved to be the winning run in that 9/1 game against the padres.

maddux will be joined in cooperstown by former teammate tom glavine, seen here on a 1995 upper deck collector's choice se card

featuring a dodger stadium backdrop, and by frank thomas, whose 1998 pacific crown collection didn't quite make the cut for my jackie robinson day anniversary patch posts

speaking of those posts, i mentioned that the white sox wore a nellie fox patch on the road instead of the jackie patch.  thomas' 1998 upper deck card gives us a good look at that patch

i probably should have looked for some glavine and thomas final tributes for this post, but i did not.  maybe some other time...

bo knows final tributes

bo jackson's baseball career ended when the players' strike began in 1994.  when the dispute was resolved the following year, bo did not return to the diamond as he chose to retire instead.  that means that his 1995 cards serve as true final tributes.  here's his 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition card

with complete stats on the back!

bo only spent 8 seasons in the major leagues, which doesn't include the 1992 season which he missed due to the hip injury that ended his nfl career.

here's his regular 1995 upper deck card

the back of which doesn't have his full season by season stats, but does have a photo of him taking grounders at first base.

even with that practice, bo remained an outfielder and dh - he never made an appearance in the infield.

here's his 1995 topps card

with the standard complete career stats that i appreciate so much from topps

aside from misspelling decathlon, topps did a good job of trying to encapsulate the awesomeness that was bo jackson in the few lines of text that they had available.  i remember his all-star game home run, his running up the outfield wall, the long touchdown run as a raider (after which he kept running into the tunnel), and the time he ran over brian bosworth near the goal line which happened in the same monday night game.

good times.

meanwhile, back on tatooine...

…baseball players are still looking for those pesky droids.

1993 upper deck had a few shots from the desert planet - bret saberhagen

jeff blauser

damon buford

and ron darling

two years later, they were back with sandy alomar in their flagship set

and ivan rodriguez in the collector's choice special edition set

along with lou whitaker, although this one is a silver signature parallel

1999 topps featured albert belle running from sand people

and 2000 fleer impact has sean casey sliding somewhere outside mos eisley

just as carlos beltran is doing on his 2000 topps stadium club

jason bay is making good time out running in for some of aunt beru's home cooking on his 2010 topps chrome card

finally, here's ernie banks kicking up some dust on a 2001 topps archives card

still no sign of the droids or those stolen plans, though.