clearing out the scanned folder - dodger edition

scans of cards sometimes languish in my scanned folder. newly acquired cards or cards i've stumbled upon while going through my collection get scanned sometimes without a true purpose.  these are such cards.

2008 donruss playoff prime cuts don sutton

aside from the infield, i think sutton might the guy that i am most pleased to see pop up in new releases.

1993 topps stadium club mitch webster

at one time, i thought about doing a full on mitch webster series.  for some reason, i consider him to be perhaps the most obscure dodger to be featured on the most number of cards.

2001 upper deck legends gary sheffield

sheff had some monster seasons for the dodgers

2000 topps gallery gary sheffield

this is a fantastic card. i love that topps kept the photo even though the netting is visible in the foreground.

1992 silver star hologram dodger stadium card (front)

and back

i believe it was night owl that brought this must-have for my dodger stadium card collection to my attention. it was a giveaway back in 1992 when i was busy studying for finals and getting ready to graduate from college instead of paying attention to promotions at chavez ravine.

2005 bowman brian sprout

2005 bowman brian sprout gold parallel

2005 bowman chrome brian sprout

sprout is the head coach at the local high school these days.  i've met him a couple of times, but never mentioned that i have some of his cards.

1996 pinnacle zenith mike piazza

and 1997 fleer circa mike piazza (back)

it sure looks to me that the back of the circa card is a reverse negative and not a purposefully done lefty switch that fleer did on some of their other cards.

2002 topps super teams 1955 brooklyn dodgers (duke snider, pee wee reese, and jackie robinson)

the red numbers are missing (they were added to the jerseys in 1952), and so is gil hodges.  this super teams set flew under the radar, and i don't know how i came across the few cards i have in my set from it.  anybody else recall this set?

is he back?

matt kemp's got his average up to .283 for the season, and in the last two weeks, he's hitting .391 with 6 homers and 13 rbi plus two stolen bases.  still, that's not necessarily 2011 matt kemp or even 2012 matt kemp, but it's better than 2013 matt kemp.  i am hopeful that the injuries are healed and the confidence is back, and that don mattingly doesn't overthink his four outfielder situation and just lets kemp play.  meanwhile, this is kemp's 1972 topps basketball design insert from 2013 topps archives

featuring the brooklyn dodger helmet and the la dodger sleeve patch.  must have been a photo from an april 15 game.  i've been meaning to show that card for about a year now, but i guess i've been waiting for signs of life from the dodger (former) center fielder.

let's take a trip back in time and visit some card backs.  this one is from 2005 bowman

so, the dodgers hoped kemp "would develop into a bigger version of…brian jordan".  kemp is just 29, and i would say that mission has been accomplished, aside from the nfl career.

here's the front of the 2005 bowman card

sadly, i don't have one of the chrome autographed versions.

here's another back, this one from 2005 topps total

so, it appears that matthew could excel at the high-a level?  27 home runs, 90 rbi, .306 batting average, and an ops of .918 in 2005 at high-a vero beach.  yes, he did excel at high-a.

here's the front of that card, with kemp sharing space with heath totten

totten got his k/9ip ratio up to 6.2 in 2005 at triple-a, but that wasn't enough proof that he could "mow down hitters" to earn a call-up from the dodgers.  instead, he wound up going to the phillies organization before eventually returning to the dodgers' minor leagues in 2008.

here's one more kemp - this one from 2012 topps heritage featuring the league rbi leaders from 1963 and 2011

the "then and now" theme plays well with kemp's return to form.  i just hope there is a lot more of his "then" in his "now".

the mets' tug mcgraw memorial patch

i remember tug mcgraw as a phillie - i wasn't around in 1969 when he was part of the miracle mets, and i was too young to remember him leading them back to the postseason in 1973.  that was the year that he coined the phrase 'ya gotta believe', a phrase that the mets used to honor mcgraw after he passed away in january of 2004 from brain cancer.

you can see the 'ya gotta believe' patch on the right sleeve of tom glavine on this 2005 bowman gold parallel card

it's there under that huge shea stadium 40th anniversary patch.

i'll show the phillies' memorial to the reliever later today.

more wax cracked

here are some more cards i scored from topher's charity box break held a few months back.

2005 topps carl erskine (on-card) certified auto

i am almost certain that topps used this design for their certified autos over a couple of different years.  it makes sense, i suppose.

here's a good ol' base card from 2005 topps - shawn green

sadly, greenie had played his last game for the dodgers when that card came out.

speaking of playing their last game, darren dreifort's 2005 topps card was his final tribute.  here's the back, with his complete career stats

here's a what-if.  what if the dodgers kept dreifort in the bullpen in 1998 instead of moving him to the rotation.  does he become an elite closer?  i think he had the stuff.  if so, do the dodgers still trade paul konerko for jeff shaw?  would konerko have become the player he did if he had stayed?  who knows.  if i recall correctly, the feeling was that dreifort was being paid too much to be a reliever.  unfortunately, the injuries got the best of him.  he wound up earning just under a million bucks per big league win.

here's a 'dem bums' insert from 2005 topps of duke snider

i don't have his real 1955 topps card.  yet.

from 2005 topps rookie cup i received a dave lopes 1974 topps reprint.  here's the back

the first item is interesting.  at what point did lopes break up those no-hitters?  he may well have led off each game with a hit, thus ending the no-no in the first inning each time.

2005 bowman jeff kent 1st edition

unfortunately, i didn't get a matt kemp rookie from the box.

i did get a card of former dodger mega-hyped prospect chin-feng chen from 2004 bowman chrome

and then a card of kemp from 2007 topps heritage

still looking for a bowman bison rookie, though.

finally, from the 2013 topps series 2 box, topher pulled this beauty for me.  a sandy koufax cut to the chase die-cut card

thanks topher! hope you do another one of these soon!

sports cards that blew my mind

sometimes when i will try to initiate a trade, i'll get a response along the lines of 'i don't think i have anything that you would want for that card'.  that's ok - no problem.  of course, it usually doesn't take much to get  stuff from me, but if you have sent all of your dodgers to any of the other dodger collectors out there in our blogosphere, that's ok.  i understand.

i don't have a trade bait page, and conversely not all of my want lists are up to date or even comprehensive.  maybe i can be tough to trade with from that aspect.  still, i have been able to complete a number of trades over the past few months and i have not been disappointed.  hopefully, my trading partners can say the same.

case in point, i contacted scott at sport cards ate my brain and offered a vintage brave and some others for some random dodgers.  then i noticed his trade bait page (maybe i have to get me one of those) and i asked about a couple of cards he had listed.  he agreed to send me the cards i inquired about, along with some other dodger cards.  um, yeah.

here's one of the cards that caught my eye - a 2008 topps co-signers dual sticker auto card of andy laroche and chin-lung hu

in addition to the cards i specifically requested, he sent some bowman.  gold bowman

shiny bowman

refractor bowman

crazy xfractor bowman

photoshopped shiny confusing set name bowman (of the son of the dodgers' third base coach)

seriously, what is this set?  2009 bowman chrome draft? 2009 bowman chrome draft picks and prospects? 2009 bowman chrome draft picks, prospects, and wbc?  put the name of the set on the back like upper-freakin'-deck did in the last few years of their existence.  that would be a big help.

here's a 2008 upper deck goudey card that i must have even though it didn't look familiar to me at all.

do ken griffey jr. super collectors include the national league cards from this set in their collections?  just curious.

there was even a 1995 classic 5 sport auto card of roger cedeno in the package.

but the coolest card in the package was probably this 2010 topps update manufactured bat barrel card of manny ramirez

thinking back, i asked if the manny 'relic' or the laroche/hu auto would be available.  scott sent them both.  that is several kinds of awesome.

consider my brain eaten, or mind blown.  just a great trade.  thanks scott!

traded cards from traded sets, and a contest!

a while back, andy from traded sets asked me if i would be willing to trade a couple of cards i had shown here on the blog. one was this tim raines bat relic and the other was the 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee ellsbury-granderson-figgins jersey trio i featured in this post. well, andy's back with a contest, and you could win that very same triple jersey card!

almost as important, here are the cards i received from andy:

2005 bowman vladimir guerrero bat card
the main piece of the trade.

2009 upper deck o-pee-chee vladimir guerrero face of the franchise

probably not the face of the angels anymore. it will be strange to see vlad in a different jersey next year.

completing the big daddy vladdy portion of the post, here's a 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee black bordered paralleland a hong chi kuo bbpjust a reminder, i am still trying to complete the set, so check it out and help a blogger out!

2009 upper deck goudey russell martin 4-in-1this is a card that belongs on sesame street (or was it electric company?) since ryan doumit is doing his own thing. and now the song is done.

back to the opc with a joe mauer award show hopefully on monday there's another award for mauer.

more mauer power - opc moments bbp

still not sure why he's 'old-school'. still think maybe it's the helmet.

finally, a 2009 topps heritage justin morneau
a short print, even.

thanks andy! good luck with the contest!

twins fest, day two

it was 6 below when i got in line on saturday morning, about 2 hours before opening. mauer was signing at 9 and morneau at 11. i had decided to head straight for morneau (he wasn't signing on sunday) and come back for mauer on sunday. as it turned out, a couple of guys ahead of me were going to mauer and killebrew, and they suggested working together to 'divide and conquer'. as a result, we all wound up with mauer and morneau's autographs, saving me a trip back on sunday. plus, we were able to get rod carew's autograph, as his line had shortened considerably by the time we were through morneau's line. i passed on the additional $10 for hof authentication, though.

with that accomplished, i went back to the field to pick up a few more cards, starting with an impulse purchase of a 2005 bowman andy laroche jerseybefore hitting some of the 76's i had seen the night before, such as pops and some fast guys.after a few more 1970's (including a couple of pristine checklists and tom haller)my want lists are dwindling.

so, i dug through some vintage bargains. here's a 1952 clyde kingi also picked up a 1953 dick williams (yes, that dick williams - before he went all burl ives) and a 1954 billy herman.i found a decent looking 1967 drysdale and couldn't resist.and really, what's the point of having a drysdale if you don't get a koufax to go along with it? so, i picked up a 1964 world series sandy.

after starting out poorly, i would say twins fest was a success this year. i got the autographs my son wanted and some great cards that i wanted. here's hoping they let the twins use the metrodome again next year for this even though their lease will be up.