more double play knowledge from bo

the double play turns were many in the package i received recently from bo, he of baseball cards come to life.  here are some more that were new to my collection:

1991 topps stadium club tony phillips

bonus appearance by the cobra

1991 leaf scott leius gold bonus

also featuring a brewer, but not dave parker. more like mike felder.

1993 pinnacle craig grebeck

i am assuming here that there is only one reason why grebeck would be airborne, and that is to turn two.

1993 topps stadium club william suero

with paul sorrento doing his best to break things up, but to no avail - suero made the turn and threw sandy alomar out at first on april 26, 1992.

here's the back of suero's card

which is his first topps issued card, because the front shows up on the back.

1993 upper deck jeff frye

not sure how i did not already have this one in the binder.

1994 score gary disarcina

with a hrbek sighting

and 1994 score rey sanchez

featuring a high kick from tom pagnozzi

1994 upper deck doug strange

featuring the double play turn on the front of the card, and 1994 upper deck ozzie guillen

with the turn on the back

1996 donruss pat listach

featuring a brewer turning two rather than trying to break it up

and, finally, two cards featuring the double play turning mainstay, brent gates.  first up is his 1996 topps stadium club card

followed by a 1995 fleer flair card

two has been turned.  thanks again, bo!

fun at the ballpark, indeed

it is odd to think that, after nearly seven years of posting, i have not yet featured this 1993 donruss triple play card of former dodger reliever roger mcdowell

so, when it arrived recently in a trade package from bo at baseball cards come to life, i figured that now was the time.  here's the back

 

mcdowell's teammates may have been amused by him wearing outrageous things, but i as a fan will just accept good baseball in a beautiful setting.  a setting like dodger stadium.  that's where this next card bo sent comes in.

that's a 1996 score select bret boone card, featuring a photo taken in dodger stadium.  the unnamed dodger in the scene is roberto kelly, who twice stole second against boone and the reds on july 30, 1995.  the wrist guard and red glove/sweat bands were a big clue as to the runner's identity, but really it was either him or chad fonville, and with kelly wearing number 21 it was fairly obvious.

this next one is easier.

that would be mitch webster sliding in while jose oquendo turns two in dodger stadium on his 1996 donruss card.

moving away from dodger stadium (to tatooine, in fact), we see rafael furcal sliding in front of freddy sanchez on sanchez's 2008 bowman card

as sanchez makes the double play pivot.

staying on tatooine, here's a 1993 score select joe girardi card

that would obviously fit into that particular mini collection of mine if it weren't already destined for the lurker collection thanks to dodger dave hansen making an appearance on the back

there are many more cards that bo sent that i'll be showing over the next few days - thanks for the cards bo!

two for the tributes

i remember being perplexed by this card when donruss included it in their 1985 release.

it wasn't really a highlight card, and the two smaller pictures revealed too much of the striped card design - what, there were no photos of yankee teammates dave winfield and don mattingly together available?  anyway, the american league batting title wasn't too much of a concern for me as i was growing up in southern california, especially when it was down to a pair of yankees.  still, i collected this card because every card collecting kid hoarded don mattingly cards in the mid-1980's.  for the record, donnie baseball went 4 for 5 on the last day of the season to overtake winfield (who went 1 for 4 that day) and win title .343 to .340.

fast forward 11 years, and the two players were again colliding in my collection thanks to their 1996 releases.  both winfield and mattingly called it quits after the 1995 season, making their 1996 cards final tributes.

both were featured by upper deck in 1996, but only winfield got the 'tribute' banner on his card

those are his full career stats on the back, just like a final tribute should be.

here's mattingly's 1996 udcc card

full stats, plus the acknowledgement of the fact that mattingly played for the yankees during the time of their longest postseason drought since 1920, but no tribute banner.

both players were featured in 1996 upper deck as well, with winfield being part of the 'young at heart' subset

nice to see a padres photo on the back, plus the full career stats

mattingly, meanwhile, got the multiple exposure treatment on his card

on the back, you don't get full career stats, but you can see that mattingly played pretty well in the 1995 alds against the mariners.  he hit .417 with a homer and 6 rbi, but seattle won the 5-game series after being down 2 games to none.  ouch.

both players also got a sendoff from pinnacle in 1996 - here's winfield's

and mattingly's

only mattingly, however, was featured by topps in 1996

there was a lot of red for the stats in his early seasons

winfield would have only had one red stat - he led the nl in rbi in 1979.  it's worth noting that mattingly's final game homer was not the last hit of his career (he singled in his last at bat), but it did indeed help the yankees win the first american league wild card.

both showed up again in score's 1996 set.  here's winfield

winnie's back only goes back to 1978

now mattingly's turn

 and his back shows the full career, since it didn't begin until 1982

1996 fleer ultra also had cards for both winfield (front)

(back)

and mattingly (front)

(back)

but those card backs are pretty useless as far as final tributes go.

the fleer flagship was better in that regard, although they didn't get all the years on the backs.  winfield:

and mattingly:

donnie baseball is wearing the mickey mantle memorial armband and number patch in the front photo there (separate post coming soon).  also, the text on the back of mattingly's card addresses his role in helping the yankees reach the postseason in 1995.  winfield first made it to the postseason in 1981 with the yankees.  that was when george steinbrenner dubbed him 'mr. may' as winfield was just 1 for 22 against the dodgers in the fall classic.  i was happy when winfield joined the blue jays in 1992 and had another shot at the postseason.  his key (title-winning) double in the world series that year against the braves' charlie leibrandt pleased me greatly.

i'll finish up with 1996 donruss.  given the lack of a topps winfield card, i'd say this one is my favorite final tribute of the hall of famer

we get full career stats on the back, including the lost 1989 season that wasn't shown on the collector's choice card

mattingly's card in the set

is complete as well

but topps wins pretty much every time.