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!

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!

a memorial for the mick

mickey mantle died on august 13, 1995, and the yankees quickly added a black armband to their jerseys for that day's game.  here's a getty images photo showing the players with the armband lined up in a moment of silence that day.

the following day, they added mantle's number 7 to their left sleeves in tribute.  bernie williams' 1996 bazooka card shows both, but the armband is mostly obscured due to the sleeve being upturned.

the memorial is also visible on the away grays of tony fernandez who appears on john valentin's 1996 bazooka card

it's a nice red sox-yankee rivalry double play turn

the number and armband show up on a few cards released well after 1996, too, like jack mcdowell's card from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams

and jim leyritz's card from 2003 upper deck sweet spot classic

another example is this don mattingly card from 2004 fleer greats

which is a pretty good representation of the memorial.  however, i've got two other mattingly cards in the binder for this particular remembrance. first, this 1996 upper deck collector's choice alds card

which shows the yankee captain (presumably) during the postseason series against the mariners.  the mick's memorial is front and center on the card, plus mattingly is wearing the home pinstripes.

as i mentioned up top, the yankees did play one game with just the black armband.  i think that this 1996 topps stadium club don mattingly card

uses a photo from that game on the front, and possibly the back

but it's hard to tell. mattingly did hit two doubles in that game, so it's possible.  at any rate, i've got this card in the memorials binder as the representative for the numberless memorial.  if i ever come across another copy, i'll put it with my other donnie baseball final tributes.

mickey mantle was a 3-time mvp (he also finished 2nd in the voting 3 times), an all-star 16 times, a world champion 7 times, and he won the triple crown in 1956.  he was a first ballot hall of famer who still holds the record for most world series home runs in a career (18) and for most home runs in a season by a switch hitter (54).

a couple of months before he died, mantle received a liver transplant.  he suffered from cirrhosis as well as cancer of the liver, the former brought on by years of heavy drinking.  shortly after the transplant, it was discovered that the cancer had spread to other parts of his body.  mantle was 63 years old when he died.

guess who sent me these cards...

i am guessing that nick at dime boxes kept a copy of this 1999 topps stadium club chan ho park card

for his collection before sending one to me.  it's the type of whimsical card that i would add to a trade package before sending it his way, if it weren't a dodger card that i needed.  shortly after he burst onto the scene, nick became one of my favorite trade partners largely because of how much fun it is to put a trade package together for him.  however, the stuff he sends in return is always great, too.

here's a 1999 skybox premium raul mondesi card

if you look at that card a certain way, it looks like rauuuuuuuuuuul is running backwards.  pick up your coach, raul - don't look at the ball.

before target red bordered parallels, there were still red bordered parallels.  this is a 2003 topps bazooka chad billingsley red bordered parallel.

this was before billingsley became seemingly susceptible to injury, and had all the promise in the world.  i am hoping for a big comeback from bills in 2015, but it doesn't look like it will be with the dodgers.

how about a 2004 topps cracker jack jose lima card?

the late jose lima was the only dodger between orel hershiser (in 1988) and derek lowe (in 2009) to win a postseason game.  he shut out the cardinals in the 2004 nlds to break an 0-8 postseason skid for the dodgers.

here's a 1996 topps stadium club antonio osuna card that i love for a couple of reasons.

first, it shows the license plate that osuna wore around his neck (it's askew on the left neckline of his jersey). i remember watching osuna pitch on tv in one of his first appearances and seeing that thing sway around like a tire swing.  you will have to remember that this is the mid 1990's, before there were a bunch of big pendants on chains worn by athletes during games.  the other reason that i really like this card is that i am pretty certain that padre first base coach davey lopes is lurking in the background.

here's the guy that lopes replaced as the dodgers' first base coach a few years ago on a 1986 fleer star sticker card.  it is, of course, mariano duncan

duncan was supposed to replace bill russell as the dodger shortstop when he came up in 1985.  while he was the team's primary shortstop that year, things didn't quite work out after that as tommy lasorda turned out to not be much of a fan.  duncan spent the entire 1988 championship season in the minors, but eventually won world series rings with the reds in 1990 and the yankees in 1996.

outfielder mike marshall, seen here on his 1989 topps uk mini card,

was a part of the dodgers' 1988 world championship team (he hit .231 with a homer in the fall classic against the a's), but his final postseason appearance came with the red sox in 1990.

here's the last card of this post, a 1977-84 renata gallaso carl furillo card

it was a great card to see in the trade package for many reasons - it's a carl furillo card, and there aren't too many of those; it's a card that i didn't previously have; and it features the right-handed furillo posing as a lefty.  it's the type of card that i would send to nick if i didn't need it for my collection.  thanks nick!

an initials memorial for the royals' owner's wife

muriel irene kauffman, the wife and partner of the kansas city royals' founding owner ewing m. kauffman, passed away in march of 1995.  the royals wore a patch with her initials for the 1995 season.

you can see the patch on keith lockhart's right sleeve on his 1996 upper deck collector's choice card - front

and back

as well as this 1996 topps stadium club jeff montgomery card

but the card in my collection for this memorial is brent cookson's 1996 pacific card

muriel kauffman was a passionate supporter of the performing arts in kansas city, and a theatre within the kauffman center bears her name in tribute.

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...