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.

los angeles dodger managerial autographs managed

the los angeles dodgers have had only 9 managers in their 58-year history. compare that to the marlins, who have employed 13 managers (including two interim guys with just one game apiece) in their 23 years of existence.  all but one of the la dodger managers are still with us, and so obtaining autographs from each is not too difficult.

i've finally found the final piece to this collection, and so i will now display a complete set of la dodger manager autographed dodger cards.

1968 topps team (walt alston)

smokey passed away in 1984, so this card is obviously one that i purchased.  he first started managing the dodgers in 1954, and he won a total of 7 pennants and 4 world series, with 5 of those pennants and 3 of the world series titles coming in los angeles.  alston was at the helm for 2040 dodger wins - most all-time - and is enshrined in the hall of fame.  he gave way at the end of the 1976 season to tommy lasorda.

1978 topps tom lasorda

tommy signed this card for me through the mail, which was fantastic.  from the last four games of the 1976 season until his heart attack during the 1996 season, lasorda's dodgers won 1599 games, 4 pennants, and two world series titles, and lasorda himself was twice named the national league manager of the year.  he is second behind alston on the franchise's all-time managerial wins list, and he, too, is in the baseball hall of fame.  following the aforementioned heart attack in 1996, lasorda retired and bill russell took over.

1987 topps bill russell

like lasorda, russell signed this card (a final tribute) through the mail.  there is one card of him as a manager, and it comes from the 1997 mother's dodgers set.  i will try to get that one signed, but i don't believe ropes is signing through the mail anymore.  anyway, russell took over for lasorda in 1996 and led the team to a wild card berth. they were swept in the nlds, and were out of the playoff picture the following year which was russell's only full season at the helm of the club.  after 74 games in 1998, russell was fired by the fox regime about a month after the mike piazza trade.  it was the first time since leo durocher was relieved of his duties in 1948 that a dodger manager was fired during the season.  russell's 173 wins as the dodger skipper puts him 17th on the franchise list, and his winning percentage of .537 is good enough for 9th all-time (7th if we ignore interim managers clyde sukeforth and ray blades who won all three games they managed).  russell was replaced by glenn hoffman

1988 topps glenn hoffman

hoffman is (currently) the last of the former dodger players to manage the club.  he signed his 1988 topps card for me through the mail, and i may try to get him to sign a 1998 mother's dodgers card as well - it's the only one of him as a big league manager.  hoffman's dodgers finished out the 1998 season with 47 wins in 88 games, and those wins are the 25th most (out of 31) among the franchise's managers.  his .534 winning percentage puts him at 11th (or 9th), just a tick ahead of joe torre.  after the 1998 season, the fox boys were looking for a name, and they hired davey johnson to be the dodger manager.

2001 topps davey johnson

once again, the dodger manager in question signed a card for me through the mail.  johnson's debut as the dodger manager was a game for the ages.  on opening day, raul mondesi hit a 3-0 pitch into the stands for a game-tying three-run homer with two outs in the 9th, and then hit a two-run homer to walk-off the diamondbacks in the bottom of the 11th.  good times.  johnson wound up managing the team for two years, and the dodgers were 163-161 during his tenure (163 wins puts johnson 19th among the franchise's managers).  in 2000, they finished well behind the giants for second place in the nl west, and were 8 behind the mets for the wild card, and so johnson was fired after the season ended.  jim tracy was hired to take over.

2002 topps jim tracy

this is another through the mail autograph success, by the way.  tracy managed to manage the dodgers for five seasons, with the team winning 93 games and the nl west in 2004. although they lost to the cardinals in the nlds that year, they did win their first postseason game since 1988 (thanks to lima time!).  overall, tracy's dodgers were 427-384, and if it weren't for an awful 2005 season (you'll not be able to convince me that tracy wasn't trying to get fired that year - the second worst season for any la dodger team), his winning percentage would have been better. tracy ranks 6th all-time in wins for the franchise, behind five hall of famers, but he will probably be passed by don mattingly later this season.  the dodgers hired grady little to replace tracy following the 2005 season.

2007 topps grady little

i had to purchase this signed card.  

*update* little returned my ttm request after a fair amount of time with both his 2007 topps card 

and 2006 upper deck card 

signed.  very happy to have this success! *end update*

little's 170 wins in his two seasons as the team's manager puts him right between bill russell and davey johnson on the franchise's all-time list.  the dodgers won the wild card in 2006, but were swept in the nlds, and then finished 3rd in 2007.  little resigned as the team's manager after the 2007 season as it seemed apparent that frank mccourt wanted to hire joe torre to take over.

2009 topps joe torre

hall of fame manager torre, who signed this card through the mail, came aboard and led the club to two straight nl west titles and national league championship series berths.  the team faltered in 2010, however, and torre retired after that season. his 259 wins are 12th best among the franchise's managers, and his winning percentage is sandwiched by hoffman's and little's on the leader board. torre's bench coach, don mattingly, was picked to be his successor.

2014 topps heritage don mattingly

this card was the final card i needed for this post.  i had previously received a couple of signed mattingly cards through the mail with some help from reader cory, but i wanted a card of mattingly in dodger gear signed as well.  turns out i had to buy one.  mattingly is the current dodger skipper, and he has the team in first place this year, his fifth at the helm.  the team has won the nl west and made the postseason each of the last two years under mattingly, and they made it to the nlcs in 2013.  mattingly currently ranks 7th in managerial wins and tenure for the franchise, but should pass jim tracy in both of those categories by game 2 of the 2016 season.  after that, he's looking up at five hall of famers - alston, lasorda, wilbert robinson, durocher, and ned hanlon.  that's not bad managerial company.

big mac ttm attack!

i was out of town over the holidays, and so i returned to a fairly large stack of mail.  included in that stack were a couple of self-addressed stamped envelopes that i recognized as ttm returns, including one that was at least a couple years old due to the envelope that i was using back then.  it was postmarked out of santa ana, which immediately made me think it was a dodger - davey lopes or tom lasorda perhaps?  i was sort of right - it was this card, a 2001 topps golden moments subset card, signed by current dodger hitting coach mark mcgwire.

i had sent this card to big mac in 2011 when he returned to baseball as a coach for the cardinals.  i was among those heading to the ballpark early to watch mcgwire take bp in 1998 (i went to a couple games in saint louis, and one in minneapolis to see big mac that year) and it was pretty impressive.  the only other time i had seen mcgwire in person was the 1988 world series when he was much younger and obviously smaller.  he could still rake, though.  i'm not an apologist for mcgwire or jose canseco, but i was/am a fan of them both.  i was really happy to see this card come through.  i actually sent him a couple more cards after he joined the dodger staff - maybe those will make their way to me in a couple more years.  thank goodness for forever stamps!

the other ttm return was a 1978 topps card of leo foster

i was equally pleased to receive another card from the 1978 set, especially after my assumption that i wouldn't be seeing any more of these.  foster returned the card after several months, so maybe there is hope for a few more making their way back to me.

thanks to both guys for signing and returning the cards!

on the road with mike morgan

mike morgan pitched for 12 different teams in 13 different stops (he double dipped with the cubs) over the course of 22 big league seasons.  those 12 different uniforms morgan wore were a record until octavio dotel made it to 13 in 2012.

morgan began his career as the 4th overall pick in 1978, and he was rushed to the majors less than two weeks later by a's owner charlie finley who obviously wasn't paying attention when the rangers made the same mistake with david clyde earlier in the decade.  morgan pitched a complete game in his big league debut as an 18-year old, but took the loss.  he lost his other two starts that season, and was 2-10 for the a's in 1979.  so, by the time this 1980 topps future stars card featuring morgan

was released, he was 2-13 as a major league pitcher, and he had also pitched in his last big league game for the franchise.  as an aside, kirk gibson was taken by the tigers with the 15th pick in that draft, and cal ripken jr was taken with the 22nd pick of the 2nd round.  i point this out not to disparage mike morgan, as he had a decent big league career, but rather to note that the team that drafted ahead of the orioles in the second round was the dodgers, who passed on ripken (then a third baseman) to take a different high school shortstop named clay smith.

anyway, morgan spent all of 1980 in the minors, and was traded to the yankees following the conclusion of the season.  he made it back to the majors in 1982, going 7-11 for the bronx bombers in 23 starts and 7 relief appearances.  he was traded to the blue jays after the season ended (with fred mcgriff!), but we were still treated to this 1983 fleer card showing him in yankee apparel.

topps also had him as a yankee in their 1983 set, but included him as a blue jay in the 1983 traded set

with the jays in '83, morgan was 0-3.  he pitched in 16 games, 4 of which were starts.  he spent all of 1984 back in the minors, and was taken by the mariners in the rule v draft prior to the 1985 season.  morgan took his 9-27 career record to seattle, where he made 2 starts (he was 1-1 in those starts) in 1985 before becoming a fixture in the rotation for both the 1986 and 1987 seasons.  he lost 17 games in both of those campaigns, however, leading the league in that category in 1986.  still, he won 11 and 12 games, respectively, kept his era below 5.00, and threw his first 3 career shutouts with the m's.  morgan was still a mariner on his 1988 donruss card

even though he was traded to the orioles in december of '87.  they got things updated in the 1988 donruss baseball's best set (also known as the halloween set)

morgan spent just that one season with the orioles, going 1-6 in 22 games, 10 of which were starts.  he had a cumulative record of 34-68 and had pitched for 5 different teams when dodger gm fred claire traded mike devereaux to the orioles in march of 1989 to acquire the 29-year old morgan.

the dodgers used morgan primarily as a starter to begin the 1989 season, and he responded nicely to his first taste of national league play.  morgan was 6-8 with a 1.79 era at the all-star break, but lost his first three starts of the second half with his era jumping to 2.61, and so was sent to the bullpen for the remainder of the season.  he finished with a record of 8-11 and a (by far) career best 2.53 era.  here's his 1990 upper deck card, featuring him dealing in dodger stadium.

over the next two seasons, the dodgers used morgan almost exclusively as a starter (he had one relief appearance against 66 starts in that span).  morgan was 11-15 in 1990, leading the league with 4 shutouts, and posted the first winning record of his career in 1991, going 14-10 with a 2.78 era and an all-star berth to boot.  morgan got to pitch the 9th inning of the midsummer classic, retiring hall of famers kirby puckett, carlton fisk (by strikeout), and roberto alomar in order.  he was also the national league player of the week for the last week in june, thanks to two complete game victories.  as a dodger, morgan was 33-36 with an era just over 3.00, and he decided to sign with the cubs as a free agent.

morgan went on to have one of his best seasons in 1992, going 16-8 with a 2.55 era in 34 starts.  he pitched for the cubs for a total of 3-plus seasons before being traded to the cardinals in june of 1995.  here's his 1993 bowman card

as i mentioned above, morgan had two different stints with the cubbies. the first time around, he was 30-34 in 85 starts.  from there, he was 9-14 for the cardinals between june of 1995 and august of 1996 when he was released.  the reds took a chance on morgan for the last month of the '96 season, and he posted a 2.30 era in 5 starts for them, although he was just 2-3 in those games.  he stayed with cincy in 1997, going 9-12, and was signed by the twins for the 1998 season.  morgan was traded to the cubs during the 1998 season after pitching in 18 games (17 starts) for the twins in his first american league (non-interleague) action since joining the dodgers in 1989.  he was 4-2 for the twinkies, but 0-1 for the cubs down the stretch.  still, morgan got his first taste of postseason play with those 1998 cubs, pitching a perfect 1.1 innings over two appearances in the nlds against the braves.  from there, it was on to texas for the 1999 season where the 39-year old went 13-10 in 34 appearances, 25 of which were starts.

at this point in morgan's career, he was 134-180, having pitched for 11 teams, and his days of being primarily a starter were behind him.  he signed with the diamondbacks, his record breaking 12th team, for the 2000 season, and stayed with them through the 2002 campaign - the last of his career.  here's his 2001 topps card

because the diamondbacks used morgan primarily as a reliever, he pitched in more games (120) wearing their hideous uniforms than any other - the dodgers were second at 107.  he had a record of 7-6 with 5 saves for arizona, and also picked up a world series ring in 2001 (he threw 4.2 scoreless in the fall classic against the yankees, although he did allow an inherited run (turned out to be the winning run) to score in game 3).

so, there you have it.  mike morgan was 141-186 for 12 different teams.  he won more games (33) for the dodgers than any other team, and also had his lowest cumulative era (3.06) in dodger blue.  so, here's a signed 1991 donruss card that i picked up at the local monthly card show a couple of years ago.

it was signed during his fleeting tenure with the twins, which ended with that trade with the cubs.

i suppose i'll do one of these for dotel, since he spent all of a month or so with the dodgers.  stay tuned...

who is rick monday's career torchbearer?

in his final big league at bat, the dodgers' rick monday, the center fielder on the team of my youth, faced the reds' jeff russell 6/20/84 as pinch-hitter and struck out.  this is monday's card from the 1984 dodgers police set

mo finished his career with 1619 hits and one huge postseason home run.

jeff russell, shown here on his 1995 fleer update card,

pitched in his last game on 9/27/96 as a member of the texas rangers. the last batter he faced was the angels' randy velarde who drew a walk.

here's randy velarde on his 2002 topps total card

which is appropriate because velarde played in his final game on 9/29/02 for the oakland a's and grounded into a 5-4-3 double play in his last at bat.  the pitcher that induced the dp was cj nitkowski of the texas rangers.

on june 7, 2005, nitkowski (i could only find a 2001 topps card of cj)

pitched in the big leagues for the final time.  he was with the washington nationals then, and in a game against the a's, he gave up a single to eric chavez and then walked scott hatteberg before being lifted for a reliever.

now with the reds (as evidenced by this 2008 topps year in review insert that i lifted from ebay), hatteberg

was used as a pinch-hitter on may 25, 2008 against the padres.  he faced off against bryan corey and fouled out to the catcher in what turned out to be his last big league appearance.

corey, who had relieved greg maddux to face hatteberg, made his last big league appearance just a couple of months later.  he doesn't seem to have many cards, so i'm showing a 2006 topps '52 card of him in a bosox uniform.

anyway, in the padres' game on august 9, 2008, corey was summoned from the bullpen to start the 9th inning against the rockies' 3-4-5 hitters.  with an 8-2 lead, corey allowed a single to matt holliday and then another to brad hawpe, and he was removed in favor of cla meredith.

brad hawpe, shown as a padre on his 2011 topps card,

eventually made his way to the angels' roster in 2013 where he played his last game in anaheim against the twins on july 22, 2013.  playing first base, hawpe's final big league at bat ended in a ground out while facing sam deduno - a former teammate of hawpe on the 2010 rockies.

deduno

pitched for most of 2014 with the twins (that's his 2014 topps card above), but was picked up on waivers late in the season by the astros.  i'll assume that he'll continue to carry rick monday's torch in 2015 for the 'stros.  if not, curtis granderson becomes monday's torchbearer which would be ok - from one center fielder to another.

a black armband for bob lemon

former yankee maanger and scout bob lemon died in january of 2000, and the team's owner george steinbrenner decided that the club would honor lemon by wearing black armbands for the 2000 season.  pitcher mike stanton's 2001 topps card gives a good view of the armband

as does jose canseco's 2001 fleer ultra card

well, not the front of the card - the back

i am not ashamed to say that i was a canseco fan, and his short tenure with the yankees really bothered me.  he was picked up on a waiver claim by the team who were trying to block the blue jays from landing him.  it didn't seem like the yankees expected the devil rays to just give canseco away, but they did and joe torre publicly expressed his confusion regarding brian cashman's move.  don't worry, though - i have a different card in the collection for this memorial.  it's derek jeter's 2001 fleer ultra card

 the captain looks pretty young there.

bob lemon was a third baseman who was converted to a hall of fame pitcher by the cleveland indians following world war ii.  although he was the team's center fielder at the beginning of the 1946 season (he was in the outfield for bob feller's no-hitter on april 30 against the yankees), manager lou boudreau decided to put him on the mound, and the rest is history.  following his retirement as a player, lemon began managing in the angels' minor league system and was chosen to replace charlie metro as the royals' manager during the 1970 season.  

lemon also managed the white sox before he was hired to replace billy martin as the yankees' manager towards the end of july, 1978.  the yankees were 52-43 at that point, 10.5 games behind the first place red sox.  they responded to lemon's presence (or was it martin's absence?) and went 47-20 the rest of the way to force a game 163 against the red sox for the al east title, wherein bucky freakin' dent happened.  lemon's yankees beat the dodgers in the world series that year, just as martin had done the year before, and his place in yankee history was secured.  still, lemon was fired and replaced by martin during the following season.

fast forward to 1981, and the boss was again playing musical chairs with his managers. he had lemon (who had been scouting for the team since his firing in 1979) replace gene michael with just 25 games left in the season and a postseason berth assured based on their first half finish in the strike-shortened year.  lemon again won the pennant, although this time the dodgers beat the yankees, thanks in part to lemon's decision to remove tommy john for a pinch-hitter early in game 6 that didn't pan out.  lemon was again fired (this time replaced by michael) early in the 1982 season, and he returned to his job as a scout which he kept until his death at the age of 79.

the twins' calvin griffith memorial patch

calvin r. griffith, the lifelong baseball man who inherited the washington senators from his uncle clark in 1955, passed away in october of 1999.  for the 2000 season, the minnesota twins (the team formerly known as the washington senators) wore his initials on their left jerseys in griffith's memory.  you can see the patch on this 2001 topps jacque jones card

as well as his 2000 upper deck mvp card

doug mientkiewicz (possibly the twins' next manager) is wearing the patch as he tries to break up an adam kennedy double play turn on kennedy's 2001 fleer ultra card

and joe may sports the patch on his 2002 topps heritage card

there's the patch again on torii hunter's 2003 upper deck big league breakdown card

but it's hunter's 2002 fleer platinum card that represents this memorial in the binder

griffith moved the senators to the twin cities in time for the 1961 season, and he remained the team's owner until 1984 when he sold the franchise to carl pohlad.  griffith's tenure saw many great players come through the twins' system, and the team won the 1965 american league pennant to go along with a couple of other division championships, but his legacy was tarnished by racist comments made near the end of the 1978 season.  as a result of those comments, rod carew sought and received a trade, and the twins continued to languish in the american league west for the remainder of griffith's ownership tenure.