memorial patches for the pohlads

eloise pohlad, the wife of twins' owner carl pohlad, passed away in november of 2003, and the club added memorial patches to their right sleeves for the following season in memory of her.  they were simple patches, with the first name of her signature stitched inside a color coded rectangle - one for the away grays, one for the alternate blues, and one for the home whites.  you can see the gray patch on lew ford's 2005 fleer flair card

and the blue one is visible on torii hunter's 2005 donruss timeless treasures card

both of those cards are in my memorials binder, but i haven't been able to find a card that shows the white patch.  there weren't too many baseball card photographers at the metrodome in 2004, i suppose.  here's a picture of hunter at home from the 2004 alds against the yankees that shows the white patch.

and here's a better look at all three versions of the patch

in 2009, the twins wore a very similar patch for eloise's husband carl, who passed away at the age of 93 in january.  there was only one version of his patch, however.

had there been a white version to go with the home uniforms, we would have had a card showing it, as nick punto's 2010 upper deck card

features a photo from inside the metrodome with nicky wearing the 1983 throwback home whites.  speaking of the metrodome, the patch above the 'carl' patch is the 'final season of the metrodome' patch.  even old, multi-purpose dome stadiums got the commemorative patch treatment.

here's the patch on the alternate blue jersey of joe mauer, courtesy of his 2010 bowman card

looks like joe is on tatooine there.

here's francisco liriano's 2009 topps allen & ginter national pride insert showing the patch on the home white pinstripes

the patch shows up again, this time on the away grays, on alexi casilla's 2010 topps card

on delmon young's 2010 topps card

and on justin morneau's 2010 topps opening day card

and his chrome card

which, even though it uses the same photo as the opening day card, it's cut a little tighter so the patch is a little bigger.

i've got liriano's 2010 allen & ginter card in the binder

carl pohlad was the guy who bought the twins from calvin griffith in 1984 to keep them in minnesota, but he was also the guy who almost sold the team to a north carolina group in 1997, and the guy who was willing to let the team contract in 2001.  still, he was the owner during their run to two world championships (1987 and 1991), and despite his willingness to sell or contract the team,  pohlad oversaw the run of division titles in the 2000's, with the last under his watch coming in 2006.

the construction of target field began in 2007, and although carl pohlad did not live to see it completed, a statue of him and his wife was erected in the plaza outside gate 34 - the main entrance to the stadium.

uh, wait - what? hey! good god those are baseball card boxes!

pay attention to your peripherals, kids.  even when driving on a saturday morning running errands.  you never know when you might be passing by folks setting up a here-to-fore unknown flea market and catch a glance of some familiar white cardboard boxes being added to a table.

that's what happened to me last saturday.  i doubled back after completing my errand (hastily, i might add), and sure enough, my well trained eyes had not deceived me.  there were three or four large white boxes set up - dime boxes at that.  two of the boxes were even sorted by team.  by team!  what a timesaver.

i wound up buying 140 cards for 13 bucks.  it was awesome.

the very first card i saw was this 2008 topps chrome matt kemp xfractor

nice.

there were a bunch of non-team sorted inserts, too.  like this 2013 topps lance berkman cut to the chase die cut card

a 2013 topps opening day aroldis chapman blue sparkly parallel

and a 2010 topps angels/vladimir guerrero gold parallel

i wound up buying about 25 different gold parallels from 2006 topps update, as well as a few gold, emerald, and walmart blue parallels of 2013 topps.

there were some rarely seen sets represented in the boxes like 1999 upper deck victory.  i grabbed some dodgers and a double play card that was new to me.  hello orlando cabrera

let's get back to the dodgers.  here is a nice and shiny 1998 donruss mike piazza fantasy team insert

fellow rookie of the year raul mondesi was represented by this 1999 pacific private stock card

i also picked up a black bordered mini of rafael furcal from 2010 topps allen & ginter

in total, i had found 110 singles featuring dodgers, double plays, memorial patches and a few others that will turn into cards for some of you out there in baseball card blogging land.

the other 30 cards i bought were part of a twins' stadium giveaway set from 2005.  it features 29 of the most memorable twins moments throughout their history.  the 29 tied in with the local station that carried twins Saturday games that year.  can you tell that the station was the twin cities' fox affiliate? yes, the 30th card in the set features homer simpson.  

note that the geniuses who produced the set also misspelled 'collectable' as 'colletable'.  d'oh!

 

here's a look at nine of the cards from the set.  many of the images look like they were tv screen grabs, which makes sense, i suppose.

in addition to the homer card, we have cards commemorating the all-star game at the met in 1965 (the twins also hosted the all-star game in 1985 (at the metrodome) and will host it again in 2014 at target field).  there is also an homage to harmon killebrew's monster home run (which is still honored inside the mall of america), dave winfield's 3000th hit, eric milton's no-hitter (i was supposed to be at that game), bob allison's catch in the 1965 world series that robbed jim lefebvre of a base hit in game 2 (the twinkies beat sandy koufax to even the series at one game apiece), paul molitor's 3000th hit, kirby puckett's home run to win game 6 of the 1991 world series, and the first postseason game in twins history - game 1 of the 1965 world series.

the twins faced, of course, the dodgers in that series.  the photo which was used on this card features dodger reliever howie reed as he pitches to either mudcat grant or zoilo versalles.

back to the allison card for a moment - at target field, the twins have done a great job recognizing the history of the franchise, as well as baseball as a whole in the twin cities and the state of minnesota, too.  there is a wall where they have posted famous quotes and calls regarding the twins, and the dodgers' own vin scully is represented by his call on that catch by allison.  here's a picture i took during a tour of the stadium.

here are the rest of the cards from the set

that's not a bad set - killer, carew, tony o, and herbie pulling ron gant off the base.  not a bad flea market find.

pelts of elk and bison and manny, oh my!

i picked up a few dodger autograph and relic lots a while back.  it's great when folks group a bunch of dodger specific stuff together and the price of the whole is less than the sum of the parts.  you know what i mean.  for me, the star of this particular lot was this 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee card featuring andre ethier, james loney, and matt kemp.

this is the 'elk' (ethier, loney, kemp) referred to up in the title.  yes, i was stretching for a catchy post title.  anyway, i like the colors on the card.  i used to have a similar card featuring three non-dodgers, but i traded it away and mildly regretted it ever since.  i have a soft spot for o-pee-chee, don't you know.

speaking of which, here's a 1998 pinnacle plus card of mike piazza that was part of the lot for some reason.  it includes a text line straight out of o-pee-chee's playbook - 'traded to mets 5/22/98'

which, while correct, totally ignores the 8 days he was with the marlins.

back to the relics, here's a 2010 topps allen & ginter matt kemp card

and an andre ethier card from the same set

ethier showed up thrice in the lot thanks to this 2010 upper deck offering

so we've seen the 'elk' and we've seen the bison, that means it must be time for the manny.  this is from 2010 topps national chicle, a set that holds a bit of allure for me.  i have grown to like it a bit more.  not enough to try to complete it or anything like that, but i'm not repulsed by it either.

that is a decent likeness, even if the batting helmet is too clean.  as is the one on this 2009 upper deck goodwin champions card

not sure how that happened, although i suppose it is possible that upper deck cleaned the helmet up a bit.  i like how the storm cards are gathering around manny in 2009 while it is merely cloudy on chad billingsley's card from the same set.

manny served his first suspension in 2009, while chad was doing his usual 190+ innings of work.

finally, for this lot anyway, we have a 2001 bowman relic card from alfredo silverio

who appeared and homered in the 2011 all-star futures game.  he hit .306 in 132 games at aa chattanooga in 2011, but sadly was injured in a car accident in early 2012 forcing him to miss the entire season.  i haven't heard anything lately, but i am hoping he is able to return to the minors this season.

dp or not dp?

i have slowly been prepping for the 'greatest double play card ever' tournament for quite a while now.  it turns out, there are more of these things than even i imagined.  i decided to hold off on the tournament until i finished cataloguing all of my double play cards.  look for the tourney to kick off towards the end of the season.

part of the problem is that topps keeps churning out cards showing the turn at second base.  some are pretty cool, some are not.  here are some recent and not so recent double play cards.

this first one, from 2012 topps, is actually not a double play turn.  

as far as i can tell, the play shown on the above card comes from the bottom of the 9th inning on august 28, 2011.  kyle seager was on first base with no outs when josh bard hit a grounder to beckham.  the white sox were up 9-2, so beckham just went for the sure out at first rather than try to get seager at second.  so, not a dp turn, but still a pretty cool card.

this one is definitely a double play turn - it's robinson cano (red border target exclusive, y'all!)

with josh hamilton steamrolling in.

let's take a break from the new stuff and look back at some double plays unearthed from my collection. 2004 topps seemed to have quite a few.  here's alex cintron

and ray durham

current dodger mark ellis

and cristian guzman

jeff kent (i see you, pokey reese!)

and jack wilson

2009 topps gave us jj hardy

and placido polanco

last year, there were a couple of good troy tulowitzki double play turns, including the one from topps' opening day release

although i still like the topps marquee card better.

back to 2012, and we have recently surging power hitter trevor plouffe making the turn in oakland.

this card is actually from the 2012 topps twins team factory set.  i just received the regular topps issue in the mail yesterday, so you'll see this card again in a near future trade post.

finally, here's a card from 2012 topps allen & ginter, featuring alcides escobar (right? is that the right escobar? i kind of wish the first names were on the cards)

i am envious of the braves, white sox and any other team whose outfield walls have those murals that we first saw at dodger stadium.  i really wish they would get rid of the mccourt-installed billboards and either go back to the blue padding or the murals.