a smattering of dodger cards

it is time again for a post of random dodger cards from my collection, and more importantly, from my scanned file.  we'll start with darryl strawberry on a 1974 topps design from 1992 sports collector's digest

prior to archives or heritage, this was the only way we saw the stars (or disappointments) of today on the designs of yesterday.

1993 topps stadium club dodgers pedro martinez

and mike sharperson

with the dodgers playing the rangers, and delino deshields jr being on the rangers, vin scully told a story about the pedro martinez/delino deshields trade last night during the telecast.  he noted that when traveling secretary billy delury (who passed away earlier this year) called deshields to tell him he was now a dodger, his congratulatory remarks were met with a baby crying in the background and deshields saying "even the baby thinks it was a bad trade".  vin finished the story by noting that the crying baby was delino deshields jr, and so i miss regularly hearing vin call games even more.

1999 upper deck chan ho park

1999 was an off year for park - his era was well over 5 - but he still managed 13 wins.  he was only 25, and i thought he would eventually be the team's ace.  i was wrong.

2000 pacific invincible eric gagne

my favorite pacific release ever.  crazy cards and inserts.

2001 topps tom goodwin

from his second stint with the dodgers

2002 upper deck ultimate collection gary sheffield

just when you get comfortable with sheff on your favorite team thanks to his .998 ops over four years, he demands a trade.

2003 bowman chrome eric riggs

not to be confused with late 90's prospect adam riggs.  this riggs didn't make it to the majors, unfortunately.

2003 upper deck honor roll kazuhisa ishii

ishii had an era under 4 in 2003 despite a whip over 1.50 and a walks allowed total of 101 in 147 innings.  he had similar whip and walk totals the previous year, when his era was 4.27.  those kinds of numbers usually don't earn you a spot on the honor roll.

2003 topps retired signature tom lasorda

manager cards with inset photos are tough, because there just isn't much variation in managerial photographs.  here, topps opted for similar poses, but the inset picture comes from an earlier point in tommy's time as the club's manager. on a side note, anytime topps wants to bring this set back, i'm in, although i don't think they can issue a set featuring solely non-active players anymore.  too bad for us.

a new type collection?

i am not completely sure that i am going to add another mini collection, but i do know that i enjoy most cards that show players' names and numbers on their back.  it's fairly subjective - not as cut and dried as say, my dodger stadium in the background collection - as i don't like every card that features a players name/number on the back.  anyway, here are some cards that would definitely make the cut in my 'nob' collection. if i were to officially add it, that is.  

1999 topps gallery vladimir guerrero

1994 topps stadium club rickey henderson rainbow foil parallel

1998 topps paul molitor

1995 topps stadium club sandy alomar jr best seat in the house insert

2009 upper deck derek jeter

2011 topps marquee stan musial

so, the bulk of the cards would be like those above - action shots, and usually at the plate.  sometimes there are non-action shots that fit the bill as well.

1999 upper deck karim garcia

2012 topps kyle blanks

there are also those cards that meet the letter of the law regarding the collection, but just don't resonate with me for some reason.  here are two examples

2010 topps alex rios

2011 topps update jered weaver

luckily, that rios card fits in my tatooine mini collection, and i may make a spot for the weaver in my lurker collection, thanks to former dodger alfredo griffin hanging out in the background.

i think what i like about these cards is that they use images that are similar to what i see as a fan when i go to a game.  watching on tv, we get different camera angles that focus on the action from the front.  or, perhaps they are just cards featuring good action (for the most part) photography.

craig biggio vs. royce clayton in a double play showdown

i can't seem to stop finding cards of craig biggio and royce clayton which feature double play turns.  this post will exhaust the ones from my scanned folder, but i am sure there will be more.

1995 score biggio

i'm not sure biggio got the relay throw off on this one. twice on july 9, 1994 the astros attempted to force mark parent at second (they were successful once), but both times the batter was safe at first.  i will guess, based on the direction that the throw seems to be coming from, that this was the attempted force in the first inning on an anthony young bunt.  both were safe.

i have no idea about the dp shown on royce clayton's 1994 upper deck sp card

other than he definitely made the relay

1996 upper deck biggio

the astros are back at wrigley

1998 pacific omega

as are the cardinals

1998 fleer sports illustrated then and now biggio

and 1998 upper deck collector's choice biggio

pretty sure that's the same play from two different angles

1999 fleer ultra clayton

now he's with the rangers

biggio is back in philly on his 1999 upper deck card

where he's stepping on helmets

clayton wins this round thanks to his 1998 topps stadium club card

that is a double play card nicely done.

final tributes like it's 1999

2 hall of famers played their final games in 1998 - paul molitor and dennis eckersley.  in 1999, upper deck tried to fool us by producing a final tribute card of wade boggs, but that proved to be premature.  here are some bona fide 1999 final tributes of molly and eck that i have in my collection.

1999 fleer tradition paul molitor

look at those full career stats on the back!

molly's career had begun at the same time i began collecting cards.  he was my favorite non-dodger for a while (until steve garvey went to san diego), and i was happy to have been able to see him play in person when he joined his hometown twins.

i don't have eck's 1999 fleer tradition card, but i do have his 1999 pacific crown collection card

it's only got one season of stats on the back, but a whole lot of espanol

here's molitor's

with a paul waner (dodger double dipper) mention

molitor also got a card in the regular 1999 pacific set

which has the full career stats on the back

molitor also got a card in the pacific private stock set

but the career stats on the back

take a back seat to the box score from the twins' second game of molitor's final season.

topps didn't produce cards for either of these guys - not even a checklist or highlight card - but upper deck did them justice with base cards and the 'final tribute' shield.

here are eckersley's complete career stats

and here's molitor's 1999 upper deck card

which, for some reason, leaves three seasons off of the back

molitor is currently 9th on the all-time hit list, but will be surpassed by derek jeter as soon as today (jeter is sitting on 3318 career hits).

as for the head-to-head stats, 11 of eckersley's 2401 career strikeouts came from molitor, and 13 of molly's 3319 hits came off of eck.  overall, eckersley got molitor out most of the time as would be expected, but molitor won the war - he hit .310 with a 1.024 ops off of eckersley over the course of their fine careers.

some notable final tributes

here now, at the end of the year, it seems to be a good time to post some final tributes.  most of the final tributes that i collect are of certain infielders, dodgers, hall of famers or other notable players.  however, i also collect the cards that carry the 'final tribute' designation (or similar notations) which were especially prevalent in upper deck releases of the late 1990's.  in many cases, these were the only such cards made for some retiring greats.

take this 1996 upper deck collector's choice kirk gibson card, for example.

it's the only card he received after announcing his retirement during the 1995 season.  the udcc tribute designation is not as elaborate as it is on the flagship releases, but it serves its purpose.  as you can see from the back of his '96 final tribute, gibson reached a couple of nice milestones - 1500 hits and 250 home runs - before he retired.

and there's that word - 'improbable'.

another former dodger who hung them up during the 1995 season was dave stewart.  like gibby, his 1996 upper deck collector's choice card is his lone final tribute

stew returned to the a's after a couple of seasons (and a world championship) in toronto.

things didn't go as planned in his return, and he retired after 16 starts.

another pitcher who returned to the scene of his greatest successes after spending some time with the blue jays was phil niekro.  here's his 1988 score card that captured his return to the braves for one final start

i much prefer this to the lame 'one-day' contracts that people sign these days (most recently roy halladay) so that they can retire as a member of their initial or most familiar franchise.  niekro did it right, although he got lit up in that one last start.  the back has his entire big league starts, as any self-respecting final tribute should.

niekro did get a card in the 1988 topps set (a record breaker with his brother joe in which he is still shown as an indian) which was the same way that topps said goodbye to the likes of al kaline, brooks robinson, lou brock, and the trio of gaylord perry, johnny bench, and carl yastrzemski.  i prefer the way score did things.  classic also put out a three card subset of niekro in their 1988 set - one with him as an indian, one as a blue jay, and one as a brave.  i don't have any of those, but nick does.

back to upper deck - here's a 1995 goose gossage card.  it lacks the final tribute designation, but gossage pitched his last pitch in 1994.

gossage had joined the mariners after he was released by the a's just before the '94 season started.  he was pitching well when the players went on strike in august.

gossage also had cards in the 1995 fleer, pacific, and score sets, plus the upper deck collector's choice set, as well as the fairly unnecessary 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition set

this set gives us all of gossage's career stats

gossage became a free agent after the 1994 strike-shortened season ended.  i'm not sure if he tried to latch on with a team after the strike ended in 1995 or if he decided to call it quits on his own.

mickey tettleton did call it quits on his own - in july of 1997.  usually, a midseason retirement doesn't bode well for that player getting cards the following year.  thanks to upper deck, there are two mickey tettleton final tributes, complete with the final tribute designations.  here's his 1998 upper deck card

tettleton had only 4 hits in 1997 - all for extra bases - when he retired.  here's the back

and here's the collector's choice version

again with the complete career stats on the back

i can't believe neither card mentioned froot loops.

like tettleton, lee smith announced his retirement in july of 1997.  and, like tettleton, smith received final tributes from upper deck in their flagship and collector's choice sets in 1998.

here's what a career spent amassing 478 saves (then a record) looks like

i'm not sure why the border of smith's cc card has gray borders when tettleton's is white

whatever the reason, the back has the full career stats, too, with a note about smith becoming the first pitcher to appear in 1000 games.

even though smith announced his retirement in july and didn't pitch in the major leagues after that, he did attempt a comeback in 1998 with both the royals and later the astros.  that would have been embarrassing for upper deck if smith had returned after his career had already been celebrated with these final tributes.  or maybe not.

that exact thing happened to them with dennis martinez.  here is martinez's 1998 upper deck card with the final tribute designation

martinez was released by the mariners in may of 1997 and didn't pick up with another team.  he 'retired' with 241 career wins, just two shy of juan marichal's record for latin pitchers.

martinez also had a final tribute in the 1998 collector's choice set, but i haven't bothered to pick that one up because, unfortunately for marichal, dennis martinez signed with the braves for the 1998 season and once again had a final tribute in the 1999 upper deck set.

he wound up winning 4 games in his return to the national league, taking marichal's place atop the leader board.

martinez also had cards in the 1999 sets from pacific, fleer si, and pacific crown collection, but not collector's choice.  maybe upper deck wasn't completely convinced of martinez's retirement this time.