night owl sent a lot of lefties

i am glad that night owl is a dodger fan.  the well deserved popularity of his blog brings with it an expanded trading pool, and other dodger collectors like myself benefit from the hand me downs.

it's been quite a while since i received my most recent package of dodgers from new york state, yet i haven't finished putting together the return package.  what do you get the card collector that has too few holes in his collection?  i'm working on it.

one thing i noticed was that there were a lot of left-handed dodgers in the package he sent.  like johnny podres, of whom there was a 1961 post card

fast forward about 40 years, and we find kaz ishii on a 2002 fleer tradition update this day in history relic card

and a 2005 topps heritage chrome refractor

the relic card references may 4 (may the fourth be with you, by the way), as that was the day in 2002 that ishii made his sixth major league start, and earned his sixth major league win.  he was 8-10 over the course of the remainder of the season.  i saw his 9th start of the season in milwaukee, and he did not look very good.  he walked 6 in 5+ innings of work, but still got the win since that was the game that shawn green hit four home runs and drove in seven.

here's a 2010 topps update hong-chih kuo relic card

2010 was a good year for kuo. he was an all-star, and his era during the regular season was 1.20.  unfortunately, things seemed to fall apart after that.

2014 bowman chrome prospects julio urias

urias is 18 years old this season, and his k/9 ratio is still well above 11.  his win-loss record at the moment is 1-2 in double-a, but i don't think anyone is worried.

folks shouldn't be worried about clayton kershaw, either, as he shut out the nationals over 8 innings yesterday while striking out 14.  here's his 2014 panini prizm diamond dominance card

receiving that card in the package was a surprise, as it means that at least a couple of people bought packs of prizm and sent that card to night owl.

here's a 2015 topps fernando valenzuela highlight of the year insert

that was nice to receive.  fernando was never my favorite pitcher on the dodgers - i would say bob welch and then orel hershiser held that title during fernando's run - but his start to the 1981 season was undeniably awesome.

enough with the pitchers, here are some lefty batters that also showed up in the package.  this is a 2005 donruss champions jd drew impressions relic card

and this is a 2011 topps lineage andre ethier 1975 mini relic card

like i said, i'm glad night owl is a dodger fan.

too many sorianos and yet not enough

i posted earlier today about three different packages i received from dennis at too many verlanders in the semi-recent past.  one of the packages came as a result of him asking folks to claim stacks of certain cards as part of his 'spring cleaning giveaway/contest'.  i claimed a stack of alfonso soriano cards, mostly back from his days as a second baseman, hoping for maybe a black armband or some double play turns.  here are some of the cards that i received.

starting in the upper left, we have a 2003 fleer tradition update 1963 fleer insert, 2000 upper deck victory, 1999 topps hd, 2002 leaf rookies & stars, 2003 leaf, 2001 topps chrome traded rookie reprints, 2005 fleer national pastime, 2008 upper deck sweet spot, and 2001 topps stadium club.  he's got a black armband on the last card, so that would most likely be for the club's former manager bob lemon (official memorial post coming soon).

there were no double plays in the stack, but i did uncover this 2005 topps heritage soriano twin killing card elsewhere in my collection

in the process, i stumbled across a few more that i hadn't shown on the blog yet.  here's a 1998 fleer tradition homer bush card

bush was made expendable by the yankees once soriano arrived on the scene, and he was dealt to the blue jays with david wells in the roger clemens deal.  here's bush turning two again, this time as a blue jay on a 2000 fleer impact card

last but not least, and in no way tied to soriano that i can think of, other than soriano stumbled to rob steve lombardozzi jr of a hit earlier this season, here is a 1988 score card of steve lombardozzi sr

i think i missed this one because second base is so dirty, but that's a dp turn fo sho.

thanks for the cards dennis!

card show recap - here's what i bought from the second dealer

here's the deal - i am recapping the goods i picked up at the card show last weekend.  guess how much i spent with each dealer and/or how much i spent overall and win some cards featuring players from a team of your choice.  it's just that simple.  the first post was up this morning.  here are all of the cards that i bought from the second dealer i visited.

this guy was from oklahoma, where the wind comes rushing down the plains.  he came straight from the national, making what he figured would be his lone minnesota appearance. nice guy.  he was selling mostly autographed baseballs, but had a couple of boxes of latter day singles, plus some hits in a case.  i stuck with the singles.

he was nice enough to have them ordered by team, which helped immensely since i was kind of on a time crunch.

2010 topps update brooklyn dodgers short print

duke, jackie and pee wee with a big ol' bat.  i had this card already, but couldn't pass it up.

2013 topps heritage sandy koufax/clayton kershaw then and now

after 2015, we won't see any dodgers on the heritage then and now cards for a long long time.

2005 topps heritage shawn green

can't believe this is the first time i have shown 2005 topps heritage on the blog.  i was so turned off by my bad 2001 topps heritage experience that i really didn't buy much of the stuff until 2010.  so, i need dodgers from those other years.

2004 bowman koyie hill gold

it's not the hill that sits atop my nefarious 9, but it was calling to me, for some reason

1999 bowman chrome adrian beltre international

they don't show up in the scan very well, but the palm trees and water in the background of this card were calling to me as well.

finally, i picked up two cards from 2013 topps spring fever - matt kemp

and adrian gonzalez

i couldn't remember which ones i had from the set.  i knew i had aj ellis, so i just went with kemp and gonzalez.  turns out i had kemp, needed gonzalez.

ok, that does it for dealer 2.  let me know how much you think these 7 cards cost me in the comments!