turning the pages of the steve garvey binder into 2005

the 53rd sheet in the steve garvey binder features six cards from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams, but i wish that there were more.  here is sheet 53:

those cards are:

1. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams (1974) bronze parallel /50
2. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams (1977) auto sp - print run of 35
3. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams (1981) auto sp - print run of 75
4. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary signatures dual auto (with davey lopes) /150
5. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary signatures dual auto (with ron cey) /150
6. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary combo triple signatures auto (with dusty baker) /50
7. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts
8. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts significant fact relic /1
9. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts historic swatches relic

i've written quite a bit about the timeless teams set, and used to have a bronze parallel of garvey's 1980 subset card, but i traded it for the 1974 version to help another collector out.  so, i still need three bronze parallels, four gold parallels, plus two autos, four gold auto parallels, and then there are the four 1/1 autos, too. that's a lot.  i should note at this point that there are other relic cards from the set, as well as some from other 2004 sets (and other years, too) that will be shown later. they are either encased or otherwise too big or thick to fit in a standard nine-pocket sheet.

the 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts 1/1 relic card is actually 1 of 99.  there are 99 unique "significant facts" printed on the cards which are stamped "1 of 1".  so, i have the only one that touts garvey's 95 rbi in 1975.  kind of a weak 1 of 1.  on the last card, we've got the padre relic swatch on a dodger card, which will happen again on the next sheet.

here are the backs:

 there's one more card from 2004, and it's on sheet 54:

those cards are:

1. 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts significant swatches
2. 2005 baseball hero deck playing card
3. 2005 donruss classics stars of summer /1000
4. 2005 donruss classics stars of summer relic /250
5. 2005 donruss diamond kings
6. 2005 donruss diamond kings framed red
7. 2005 donruss diamond kings materials bronze /200
8. 2005 donruss diamond kings materials silver /100
9. 2005 donruss diamond kings materials gold /50

there is a triple-relic card from the 2004 sp legendary cuts set that i would very much like to find. it features garvey, along with his dodger teammates reggie smith and dusty baker. it's only got a 15 card print run, however, so it is unlikely that i will find it.

while i am missing some of the autos and parallels and auto paralles from the 2005 donruss classics stars of summer insert set, my five cards from 2005 donruss diamond kings represent only about one-tenth of the garvey cards available from that set.  ridiculous.  i'm missing 50 cards, according to beckett, including bronze, challenge (whatever that is), framed black, framed blue, framed green, gold, hawaii, and other variant parallels of just the base version of the card.  as i said, ridiculous.

here are the backs:

even without all of those parallels, there are still plenty of cards and pages to be shown.  stay tuned...

basking in the glow of a topps certified bill russell auto with some non-certified successes

i am not sure that this morning's post regarding the 2014 topps archives bill russell autograph card really conveyed the excitement i felt when i first saw it.  rest assured, i went from disbelief to excitement to a steady state of happiness in a short order of time.  it's only a card for which i have been waiting for, well, ever since topps started putting autographed cards in their packs.

meanwhile, i've had a few other russell autographed cards sitting patiently in my scanned folder.  this is a 1985 donruss card that i picked up in a lot of dodger auto'd cards

looks legit.

these next three - a 2001 upper deck decade 1970's

2004 upper deck legends timeless teams

and 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts

were all the result of a ttm success i had with the former dodger player, coach, and manager over 2 years ago.  look at upper deck recycling images in 2004 just like topps does today!

russell doesn't sign through the mail anymore, and only upper deck had issued certified russell autos until this year (as part of the 2003 sp chirography set, the 2004 legends set, and the 2005 upper deck classics release).  still, i'm hoping you haven't seen the last of the bill russell autographs that i will acquire for my collection.

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!

different kinds of birthday cards for steve garvey

i'm taking advantage of one last chance here in the central time zone to say happy birthday to steve garvey.  thanks to everyone who joined in today.  here are a few more garvey cards that have been hanging around in my scanned folder for various amounts of time.

2004 upper deck legends timeless teams autograph (1981 dodger team subset)

hey! a timeless teams card.  speaking of which, my timeless team blog will return to life after the first of the year.  i think all of the garvey autos in the set were short printed, and i only have two of them.  this one is pretty perfect - that same fielding pose that i discussed in an earlier post - plus it's actually a photo from 1981 on a card referencing the 1981 season!  here's the back, letting me know that it is, in fact, signed by garvey.

here's a much more recent garvey auto - from 2012 panini national treasures

he's shown as a padre complete with a cream looking uniform.  not sure if the padres ever wore such a thing, or if panini/donruss hasn't been taking care of their stockroom.  here's the back

panini recognizes the fact that garvey was an all-star in 1984 and 1985, even if topps flagship sets didn't.

here's another padre garvey card, this one from 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic

hail the brown and orange patch!  this patch comes from the padres' taco unis, as i think garvey used to call them.

sticking with the brown, here's a 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts 'historic swatch'

that's clearly some padres' laundry on a dodger card, as tricky dick mcwilliams says on the back

that's ok - he's not the only dodger to suffer such a fate.  here's don sutton's card from the same set

with what is clearly a piece of an oakland a's uniform, as confirmed by mcwilliams on the back

glad they were both dodger cards, though.  and, did you see who is lurking there behind sutton?  i recognize the left arm of steve 'popeye' garvey!

and with that, i say good day to garvey's 65th birthday.

thanks again to all who joined in to wish the first baseman of the team of my youth a happy birthday.  i will compile the contest entries in the morning and get a winner post up around noon or so.  and, just to be clear, i will randomize the list of blogs who posted birthday wishes (plus those who promoted the contest) on random.org 6 times.  i thought about doing 65 randomizations, but that seemed like a lot.

emerald city dodger gems

larry over at emerald city diamond gems and the 1979 topps blog recently sent me some dodger cards.  here's the proof, starting with a 1979 tcma stars of the 50's george shuba

i don't have too many cards of shuba.  he is probably best known for shaking jackie robinson's hand at home plate after robinson homered for montreal, the dodgers' farm team in 1946.  he also was nicknamed 'shotgun' which meant the dodgers of the early 50's had a shotgun and the reading rifle in their lineup.

here's a 1981 fleer card of mickey hatcher

even when he's not doing something goofy on the front of one of his cards hatcher looks goofy.  nice to see dodger stadium and the dugout seats behind number 44.  next up is number 45, terry whitfield (who is also standing in dodger stadium), on his 1985 fleer card

the dodgers had brought whitfield back from japan for the 1984 season.  i was less than enthused, only because he had previously played for both the yankees and the giants.  yuck.

let's cleanse the palette with a 1986 topps card of orel hershiser

it's the tried and true vero beach shot.  one thing i don't miss now that the dodgers have moved spring training to arizona.

here's one of the dodgers' entries in the inagural upper deck star rookies subset from 1989

i think they had three - ramon martinez, juan bell, and william brennan.  brennan was the least successful of the three, appearing in a handful of games for the dodgers in 1988 and the cubs in 1993.  too bad, because i have a bunch of his cards.  he wore number 35 for the dodgers which i will always associate with bobby welch.  in fact, welch was barely gone to oakland before brennan was given the number.  that was crazy to me.

speaking of numbers, one day mike sharperson (seen here on his 1992 leaf card)'s number 27 will be retired by the dodgers

that's because it is now worn by matt kemp.  oh, hello alfredo griffin. i almost didn't see you in the background.  and what is that cub ballboy doing?

finally, there was a 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts significant swatch insert featuring none other than steve garvey

sure, the fabric is from his days in san diego, but it's the garv with fantastic blue forearms.

thanks larry - i'll get your cards out this week.

thorzulian group break bonanza!

it's a good thing when a plan comes together.  i had been essentially shut out of any hits (or many cards at all, for that matter) in some of thorzul's recent group breaks.  then along came his 2004 topps clubhouse collection and upper deck sp legendary cuts break.  i dutifully picked the dodgers, and wasn't disappointed.

first, the clubhouse collection:

here's chin feng chen

and his '20-sided die' jersey piece.  chen was at one time my baseball salvation, the guy who was going to bring the dodgers back to relevance.  he was replaced in that role by joel guzman who in turned got replaced by matt kemp.  i haven't let kemp relinquish that role.  yet.

you know it wouldn't be an early 2000's release without shawn green, right?

green was at one time my favorite player who also happened to be on my favorite team.  if i had bought the packs with these two cards in it back in '04, i would have been pretty happy.  but wait, there's more

how about jackie robinson?

it's a bat piece instead of a jersey or pants or whatever, but it it very cool.  i appreciate how topps went with the dodgers logo circa the 1950's for this card.  that is some decent detail.
there were no hits for me from the legendary cuts box, but i'm not disappointed.  i did get a nice johnnie b. baker,

big d,

johnny podres,

and steven patrick garvey

to complete my haul.

thanks for hosting thorzul!