remembering the rocket

the montreal canadiens are still battling in the stanley cup playoffs, so it seems like a good time for this particular memorial patch post.

back in 2000, montreal still fielded a major league baseball team, and when montreal native, canadien (and canadian) legend and hockey icon maurice 'the rocket' richard passed away in may of that year, the expos wore a black number 9 patch on their right sleeves in his honor.  richard, of course, wore number 9 for les habitants from 1942-1960, leading them to 8 stanley cup titles.  this is the only instance that i know of where a team from one sport has honored a player from another with a memorial patch.

geoff blum is wearing the memorial patch on his 2001 upper deck victory card

which is one of two double play cards i have in which the patch is visible.  the other is this 2001 upper deck augie ojeda card

pretty sure that the expo who tried to break up two is jose vidro, whose 2001 donruss elite card also features the patch

i was going to use this vladimir guerrero card from 2001 upper deck reserve as the example for this memorial in my collection

but then i came across this 2001 upper deck ultimate victory card of milton bradley which shows the patch so nicely

so it gets the nod.  besides, i'll keep that vladdy card in my vladdy pc.

richard was the first player in nhl history to score 50 goals in 50 games, and was the league's all-time leading scorer until another player wearing number 9, gordie howe, came along.  still, i doubt the tigers will wear a gordie howe patch when he passes away.

what can nick do for you?

obviously, the title up there is a play on the slogan for ups - what can brown do for you.  nick, in this case, is everyone's favorite dime box digger, and proprietor of the blog that got my vote for blog of the year last year.  and what he can do for you is send you some great cards that you didn't even know that you needed.  including some cards of, you guessed it, kevin brown.  so my play on words doesn't really work, but it's late at night and i need to get this trade post cranked out and scheduled.

this here is a 1999 fleer mystique card

that nick found for me in what i assume to be a dime box.  or maybe it's a flea market find.  or a yard sale pickup.  who knows.  this next one looks like he had to go into the matrix to set it free. it's a 2000 topps own the game insert of kevin brown

this same insert appeared in topps chrome and topps limited releases that year.  yes, topps gave us a crossover parallel insert set.  very strange.  the precursor to upper deck's starquest and that yankee history megaset from a few years back.

nick also found a couple of upper deck cards of gary sheffield that used the same photo.  compare this 2000 upper deck ovation superstar theater insert

with this 2000 upper deck ultimate victory card

kind of the 'topps stars' effect, if you know what i mean.

nick located some cards of a great dodger from yesteryear who doesn't get a lot of play from the card companies - tommy davis.  this is a 2001 upper deck sp legendary cuts card

and this one is a 2013 panini golden age card

these go well with the golden age auto i received from too many verlanders recently.

another dodger from the early los angeles days that we don't see too often is john roseboro.  nick found a 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts card of him, too.

the dodgers had a nice group of players in that set, with the likes of bill russell, dusty baker, tommy lasaorda, reggie smith, and steve garvey joining the usual reese-campy-robinson-drysdale types.

here's a very shiny 2004 bowman's best chin-lung hu card that i had not seen before opening the envelope from nick

at first i thought is was a chin-feng chen card because it seemed more like a late 1990's bowman's best  card.  of course, chen was still with the dodgers in 2004, while hu was just in his first year of a ball.

up next is a 2003 upper deck play ball dolph camilli reprint

this is a reprint of the 1941 play ball issue, and i believe the photo is the same one used for camilli's 1961 fleer card.  it is interesting to me that the world's fair patch was 'removed' in both the original and this reprint play ball release.  of course, it may not be the same photo, and this could just be camilli's signature pose.  kind of like how don sutton 'suttons'.

last, but not least, nick found me a card from the 1977-80 tcma the war years set.  it's the first one of these in my collection, too.  this is lewis riggs

riggs was a third baseman who joined the dodgers in 1941 after a few successful seasons in cincinnati (he was part of their 1940 world championship club), and he helped the dodgers reach the fall classic that year.  in 1942, riggs joined the armed forces and served for three years during world war ii.  he returned to the dodgers in 1946, appearing in just one game before the team released him.   i knew none of this before i saw this card and looked riggs up.

so, that's what nick can do for you - find a bunch of cool cards that inspire you to learn about history.  i can't wait for my next lesson.  thanks for the cards nick!

the collector who wanted a hill and wound up with three of them

when it rains, it pours, as another blogger recently opined.

the number one card on my nefarious 9 list for quite a while was a 2000 upper deck ultimate victory koyie hill card.  that's not a very common card to put on a list and hope that someone out in blog land happens to have a copy for trade, i admit.  the reason it was on the list to begin with is that i hadn't seen many ultimate victory cards around the lcs or card show dime boxes, and was in fact hoping that someone somewhere did have some to spare.

months passed, and i eventually picked up a copy of the card from comc.

rest assured, it is a dodger card.  see the dodger logo on the back?

not more than a couple of weeks later, i received a copy in the mail from kerry at cards on cards.  then, just a couple of weeks ago, a third copy showed up courtesy of dennis from too many verlanders.  so, i now have three of the 2000 upper deck ultimate victory koyie hill cards, each numbered to 2500

that's 0.12% of the print run!

similarly, not too long after i picked up a couple of copies of the 2004 upper deck matt kata card

(one for the double play binder, one for the dodger stadium binder, and one for the lurker binder - hello ron coomer!), i received more copies of the card from the junior junkie and then nick from dime boxes just yesterday.

and that one wasn't even on a want list!

i'll show more of the cards, including other nefarious 9 needs, that i received from kerry, dennis, tj, and nick in future posts.  thanks for thinking of me guys!

e-7?

if this topps chrome card from 2011 featuring rafael furcal scanned more clearly, 

you would see that furky is turning two in the phone booth, which must be quite a trick from the outfield.  yes, topps, for some reason, changed furcal's position on his card.  they had it right in the flagship release, and i don't know how it came to be changed for the chrome issue, especially since the photo is the same.

that card (and the ones that follow) came my way from night owl quite a while back. in fact, i have already posted about a more recent trade that he and i completed.  that's bad trade post blogging.

this john cummings card is from 1996 fleer

and has a matte sort of finish, while this greg gagne card is from 1996 fleer

and has a glossy finish.  the gagne card is actually from the team set that was (i assume) sold separately.  cummings was a pretty effective reliever for the dodgers in the latter half of the 1995 season, and gagne was a newcomer to la in 1996.  i am pretty sure that the photo on his card is shopped, as he was number 7 for the dodgers, not 21.

greg included another one of those 1997 upper deck jackie robinson cards for me

which is not to be out shadowed by this 1998 fleer metal universe ismael valdes card

the card shows a curvy stretch of road behind valdes, which i assume is supposed to represent southern california.  i can't tell if it's from pch or the ortega highway, but maybe a photo of the stacked and backed 405 would have been more appropriate?

here's another card that doesn't scan very well - a gary sheffield upper deck ultimate victory card from 2000

that's all i have to say about that.

finally, here's adrian beltre on a 2000 topps stadium club card

beltre is making a funny face in dodger stadium against the angels.  pretty sure this is an interleague game during the regular season, and not part of the (used to be) annual freeway series since it's obviously a day game.  and look at that jersey!  i hope the dodgers regret ever wearing those blue jerseys in a real game.  if i recall correctly, davey johnson wanted to mix things up.  well, the yankees would never have worn a black jersey in order to mix things up.  i also hope the dodgers regret playing musical chairs at third base since beltre's departure.

thanks for the cards, greg.  i don't regret receiving them.