clearing out the scanned folder - miscellany edition

not every card that i scan is a dodger card, which makes sense because my collection has a fair share of cards featuring players from other teams.  sometimes, however, i get ahead of myself and scan some stuff without a specific post in mind. other times, i do have a post in mind, but it never comes together.  and then there are some cards i scan because they fit into one of my mini collections.  there are some of each in this post.

2000 skybox dominion scott rolen

i believe that i figured out a long time ago that the dodger catcher lurking on this card is angel pena, so i'll go with that.

1975 sspc elias sosa

sosa was a brave just before he became a dodger. he was part of the deal that brought lee lacy back to la for mike marshall.

1995 upper deck mike blowers

here's another future dodger, as blowers played for the dodgers later in the 90's.  thanks to this card, we know that blowers once caught a foul ball at tiger stadium at 2:55 (or is it 2:56?) in the afternoon.

1997 bowman vladimir guerrero

one of my last remaining player collections.  it was good to see vladdy in this year's archives release.

2001 topps archives jack morris

and 2001 topps archives lou whitaker

both cards are part of my 1978 topps master set.  still waiting for the design to be used in the revitalized archives release.

2002 topps 206 mike piazza team 206 insert

still working on this set

2008 upper deck timeline brandon jones

still working on this set, too.

2014 topps stadium club albert pujols

pujols just recently passed steve garvey on the all-time hits list. i scanned this card because it fits in my 'nob' collection, should i decide to make it an official collection.

1992 megacards babe ruth babe's farewell

this card also belongs in that collection.  it features a cropped version of nat fein's pulitzer prize winning photo, and is a great card to have. i'm glad i scanned it.

meanwhile, back on tatooine...

…baseball players are still looking for those pesky droids.

1993 upper deck had a few shots from the desert planet - bret saberhagen

jeff blauser

damon buford

and ron darling

two years later, they were back with sandy alomar in their flagship set

and ivan rodriguez in the collector's choice special edition set

along with lou whitaker, although this one is a silver signature parallel

1999 topps featured albert belle running from sand people

and 2000 fleer impact has sean casey sliding somewhere outside mos eisley

just as carlos beltran is doing on his 2000 topps stadium club

jason bay is making good time out running in for some of aunt beru's home cooking on his 2010 topps chrome card

finally, here's ernie banks kicking up some dust on a 2001 topps archives card

still no sign of the droids or those stolen plans, though.

cash in the mail

yes, norm cash came to me by mail with his hand out.

it actually helped me out, as this was one of the cards i needed for my 1974 topps set.  it came from scott at sport cards ate my brain, and it didn't arrive alone.

i also received this all-star card of amos otis and cesar cedeno

the equivalent of which today would be, what? adam jones and andrew mccutcheon?  the cool thing about this card is that when their careers were all over, otis and cedeno sat atop of each others similarity scores on baseball reference.  how serendipitous.

did you know that todd worrell was a competitor?  well, 1997 topps finest wants you to know

i consider worrell to have been the dodgers' first real 'modern' closer - no offense meant towards the likes of jim gott or jay howell or roger mcdowell or any of the other guys that did the job in the late 1980's and early 1990's.  worrell was the first dodger to record over 30 saves (he recorded 32 in 1995), and his 44 saves in 1996 stood as the team record until this guy came along

that would be eric gagne on his 2000 pacific private stock card.  gagne saved 52 games in 2002 to pass worrell on the team's season high list, and then he saved 55 games in 2003 for good measure.  his 45 saves in 2004 also gets him the third spot on the list.

andy pafko doesn't show up on any team leader lists, but his iconic first card of the 1952 topps set gets a lot of replay.  this is from 2001 topps archives

and may well be as close as i get to owning the real thing.

gil hodges' 1952 topps card was also reprinted by topps, although this one is from 2002 topps chrome

and isn't necessarily enhanced by the shiny.

here's a 2004 playoff honors parallel card of hideo nomo

and a short print of his fellow countryman kaz ishii from 2004 topps heritage

i wonder if ryu hyun-jin will get the sp treatment like ishii did.  i will guess that there will be some interest in his cards, so i expect he will.  speculators will speculate, i guess.

finally, here is a 2009 topps finest james mcdonald blue refractor

that's a good bunch of cards, and there were more in the trade package.  thanks for the trade scott!

ay karim-ba!

i've picked up a few auto/game used dodger lots lately, and they all seem to have one thing in common:  karim garcia autos.  here are just a couple of the former dodger prospect.

this one is from 1995 classic 5 sport

and this one comes from 1996 best

but wait, that's not all. nick from dime boxes sent me a package recently, and wouldn't you know it - karim garcia made an appearance.  not once, mind you, with this 1996 topps stadium club card

but twice, thanks to this 1997 score select parallel

garcia debuted in 1995 as a 19-year old for the dodgers, and went 2 for 3 in his first big league start.  he wound up getting only 20 at bats that year, and just one in 1996, as the dodgers had todd hollandsworth higher on the depth chart.  in 1997, he got a little more playing time (and not just in september), but was selected by the diamondbacks in the expansion draft, and away he went.  garcia wound up playing for 7 teams over his 10-year career, which included two stints with the indians.  garcia made it to the postseason once, but his 2003 yankees lost to hollandsworth's marlins in the world series that year.

nick also sent a very nice 2001 topps archives card of roy campanella

now if only i had a copy of the real thing...

here are a few more goodies - 1994 pacific tom candiotti

with the knuckleballer showing good pee-wee baseball pitching form.

joe thurston was another dodger prospect who wound up bouncing around a bit

i hadn't seen that 2003 upper deck honor roll card, so i was happy to receive it.  thurston spent time with the astros, phillies, and twins organizations this year.  i have a soft spot for dodger second base prospects, so i hope he is able to hang on somewhere.

speaking of prospects, here's a prospective superstar.  at least according to upper deck

that's ricardo rodriguez on a 2001 ud pros and prospects card.  the dodgers wound up trading rodriguez to the indians in 2002 for paul shuey.  he debuted in the big leagues that year and pitched into the 2007 season, although his last major league appearance was in 2005 for the rangers.

finally, there were some 1987 leaf cards, like this one of mike scioscia

and two saxy steve sax cards

it's a good thing nick included the other leaf cards, otherwise i would have mistaken the diamond king for the donruss version.

thanks for another great trade nick!

a reese by any other name...

[this is my round 2 entry in nacho grande's blog bracket contest.  thanks for your votes in the previous rounds!]

when we card collectors first met the reds' second baseman featured on the 2001 topps stadium club below (for me it was 1992), he was known as calvin.

then, sometime around 1994, a few cards started to come out with his name shown as pokey.  by the time he made his big league debut in 1997, he was all pokey, all the time.  now this wasn't as strange to me as tim raines becoming 'rock' or dwight gooden becoming 'doc', because i didn't know anything about him and probably didn't even realize that calvin and pokey were the same person at first.  still, once i figured out that pokey was calvin, it brought to mind the confusion i had in the late 1970's when the former dodger pitcher eddie solomon

suddenly became buddy solomon.

what happened?  how did eddie become buddy and why?  did he legally change his name? was it an error card?  i didn't consider the possibility at the time that it was just a nickname, yet i didn't give any thought to the fact that yogi berra was not called 'larry' on his 1973 manager card or babe ruth was not recognized as 'george' on his 1973 and 1976 cards that i had in my collection.

i suppose that by the time calvin/pokey rolled around, i was much more aware of nicknames on cards, thanks in part to the well documented (and somewhat strange) changes that raines and gooden made to their names on cards.  and, once i figured out that it was the same guy who had previously been known as calvin, i cut him some slack.  after all, i thought that maybe he was just  emulating another baseball player with the same last name - harold, that is. 

we know him better as 'pee wee', so why not know calvin as 'pokey'?

the dodger's journey

as many of you know, jason at the writer's journey recently traded a bunch of cards for cards of his team, the reds. i, of course, asked for dodgers, and jason provided quite a selection. around 600 cards of the boys in blue came my way, including:

1988 score mike ramsey.

jon weisman of dodger thoughts selected mike ramsey as the most obscure but memorable dodger. he's also one of the few 'same name, different guy' players the dodgers have had - mike marshall and ramon martinez are the other ones i know of.

1981 drake's steve garvey.

1992 megacards babe ruth.reminiscent of the 1962 topps cards documenting the babe's career. this one is fairly informative regarding ruth's hopes of becoming a manager while the dodgers viewed his hiring as a coach to be more of a gimmick to draw fans.

1991 donruss eddie murray.

this is the year after eddie led the majors in batting average but failed to win a batting title. thanks, willie mcgee.

2001 topps archives preacher roe.this isn't a certified auto, so it's either an in-person/ttm or someone practicing their preacher roe signature.

one of the best things about this whole adventure is that jason created a digital card to mark the occasion - a 2008 topps steve garvey.

i figured i should return the favor, so i took a shot at a 2007 topps todd hollandsworth.this would be the 'no signature' variation. hollandsworth wrapped up his career in 2006 by playing a partial season with the reds. alas, there was no final tribute. until now.

jason - thank you for the cards! i hope you enjoy the 800 or so reds i sent back your way!