seventy? seriously?

this is crazy, but don sutton - the lone hall of famer from the team of my youth - turns 70 years old today.  to celebrate, here are seven cards of his that i've not shown before.

2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts

2005 donruss throwback threads

2005 upper deck sp legendary cuts

2013 panini hometown heroes rivalry

1987 o-pee-chee box card

2007 upper deck sweet spot classic relic

2012 panini cooperstown credentials

as you can see, i don't discriminate when it comes to sutton - i'll take angels, a's, brewers, and even astro cards featuring the curly haired hof'er.

if it's sutton's 70th birthday, that means that it is also reggie smith's 70th birthday.  unfortunately, i am ill prepared with reggie's cards as he doesn't appear in many modern sets like sutton does.  i'll have to make it up to the right fielder of the team of my youth another time.

happy birthday to two of my favorite dodgers!

off hiatus and off my want list

who sends a 1954 bowman billy loes card

as part of a blind trade package? luckily for me, tony at off hiatus does. or did, in my case.  billy is really caressing that baseball there - i hope he's more careful with it than lennie and his rabbits.  this card is gloriously worn and it's one less '54 bowman that i need.

here's another brooklyn dodger sent by tony - it's gene hermanski

on what appears to be a card made for the 5th national convention held back in 1984.  here's the back of the card that led me to that conclusion

i'm guessing that hermanski was signing autographs at the convention.

now we get to the los angeles dodger portion of the post, with some great oddball cards.

1988 kaybee superstars of baseball pedro guerrero

it's true - petey was still a superstar at that time. he had hit a career high .338 in 1987, but the dodgers brought him back into the infield in 1988 and his trade to saint louis that season was deemed to be addition by subtraction.

1988 starting lineup talking baseball steve sax

and fernando valenzuela

the only talkin' baseball i know has to do with willie, mickey, and the duke.  sadly, none of those guys were included in the set.

more oddballs of el toro - 1987 fleer mini

in which fernando is wearing his shiny pullover and a hat that was certainly not a game issue, and his 1986 fleer mini

which features an oddly cropped photo.

here's a little photo of don drysdale on a 2004 upper deck sweet spot classics manufactured patch card

that features the national league logo.  i think the american league logo is better, mostly because i think that the glove that the eagle is holding on to in the nl logo looks odd.  better to have a baseball in that talon, i think.

finally, here's a 2013 panini hometown heroes card of paul loduca

yes, this is a dodger card (note the 'los angeles' pennant in the upper left) even though the heart and soul of jim tracy's dodgers is wearing his mets gear in the photo.  as a met, loduca hit .455 against the dodgers in the 2006 nlds.

tony hit 1.000 with this trade package.  so much so that i'll show some more cards that he sent later on! stay tuned...

rivalry week?

well, ucla played usc this past weekend, but even though that was the college football rivalry i knew growing up, around these parts it's rivalry week when the golden gophers take on the badgers.  minnesota and wisconsin play this upcoming weekend, so i decided to wait until now to show a few cards i've obtained from the 2013 panini hometown heroes rivalry insert set.

the concept is similar to the topps 'who would have thought' series in the 2001 and 2002 traded sets, except these card focus on players who have played on both sides of a specific rivalry.  like dusty baker, who played for the dodgers and giants

i believe that both photos come from his dodger days, by the way.  in his lone season with the no-cals (1984), baker hit .276 against the dodgers.  during his time with the braves and dodgers, he hit .283 against the giants.

tommy john pitched for both the dodgers and the yankees

he faced the bronx bombers in the 1977 and 1978 world series.  he took the loss in game 3 of the '77 fall classic, but won game 1 in 1978 and also pitched well in game 4 that year.  unfortunately, the dodgers fell to the yankees both times.  john jumped to the yankees for the 1979 season, and wound up pitching against the dodgers in the 1981 world series.  he shut them out for 7 innings in his game 2 win, and then threw two more scoreless innings for the yankees as a reliever in game 4.  john got the start a few days later in game 6, but was prematurely pulled from the game for a pinch-hitter after allowing just one run in 4 innings of work.  bobby murcer flew out to end the yankee's half of the fourth, and the dodgers went on to win the game and the series.

like baker, orel hershiser wore both dodger blue (twice) and giant orange

the bulldog spent the 1998 season with san fran, and was 2-1 against the dodgers.  they were the only team against whom he had more than one victory.  over the rest of his career (which includes a season with the mets and three with the indians in addition to his dodger years), hershiser was 22-9 against the giants.  that's the highest victory total he posted against any opponent, which is nice.

i knew that there wouldn't be a steve garvey card in this insert set (the padres don't rank as a rival for the dodgers), but i did sort of hope for a duke snider card since he finished his career as a giant.  other possibilities included reggie smith (he also finished as a giant), juan marichal (he finished his career as a dodger), and if panini really wanted to be a bit out of the ordinary with the checklist, moose skowron (he helped the dodgers sweep his former yankee teammates in the 1963 world series).

good luck to the gophers this weekend - they are going to need it.

these cards didn't come from the dollar store

but they did come from doug at sportscards from the dollar store.  a 1986 sportflics fernando valenzuela

 a 2014 topps triple threads yasiel puig

and a 2013 panini hometown heroes steve yeager auto!

that's above and beyond.

thanks doug!

another bobby lost

sadly, former dodger pitcher bobby castillo passed away on monday - the second pitcher named bobby from the team of my youth to die this year.  i was reminded that arpsmith had recently sent me a 1982 topps castillo card that was signed by the pitcher himself

i was able to have castillo sign a couple of cards previously, but this one is much more boldly signed.  rest in peace, bobby.

arpsmith included another signed card from 1982 - a 1982 fleer burt hooton card to be exact

i appreciate having a socal connection with what seems to be a decent lcs nearby.  in addition to the in person autos he found there, arpsmith also sent a 2007 upper deck spx autographed card of delwyn young

and a 2007 ud artifacts jersey card of jeff kent

here's a 1994 upper deck fun pack mike piazza checklist card

unlike collector's choice, i think the silver signature was standard on this card.  also, piazza's wearing the tim crews memorial patch on this card.  there will be, of course, a separate post regarding that memorial someday.

speaking of collector's choice, here's a 1997 udcc hideo nomo all-star connection insert

nomo didn't make the all-star team in 1997, in fact, the only time he appeared in the midsummer classic was in his rookie year of 1995 when he was the game's starter.

pee wee reese, on the other hand, appeared in 10 all-star games, including 9 straight from 1945-1954.  here's a 2012 panini cooperstown crystal parallel of the dodger shortstop that arpsmith included

the kaleidoscope pattern and cropping of the familiar photo distract me from the fact there is no logo.

there's no logo on this next card either, but lest there be any doubts, tommy lasorda is still in charge.  he is 'calling the shots' according to this 2013 panini hometown heroes insert

clearly he did not call jack clark's shot in the 1985 nlcs.

thanks for the cards adam!

gone green

even before he was a dodger, i was collecting shawn green cards.  when he was a dodger, i collected his cards with an even greater passion.  when he was no longer a dodger, i stopped seeking out his cards.  still, i've got a lot of shawn green cards.

one that i had to pick up last year was this 2013 panini hometown heroes curtain call insert

it celebrates his 4-home run game in 2002 (i was there!) which really was a ridiculous offensive display

i give thanks to adrian beltre who hit a two out home run in the 9th inning to allow green to bat one more time and get his fourth homer that day.  hard to believe that was just over 12 years ago now.

so, i have a lot of shawn green cards as i mentioned up top.  here are a few that made their way to my scanned folder.

this one is from 2000 pacific revolution

it's an 'on deck' insert.  looks like green is on deck in an aquarium somewhere.

2001 bowman's best

2001 upper deck evolution

2002 bowman chrome xfractor

2002 donruss super estrellas poder de cuadrangula insert

this means 'home run power' i believe.  green had it in 2001, that's for sure.  he hit 49 that year, the most ever by a dodger/groom/bridegroom/superba/robin player.

here's the back of his 2002 upper deck card with his first two years of dodger stats showing

you may also notice that upper deck was back to its anti-dodger shenanigans in regards to card numbering.

2003 bowman chrome refractor

on which green plays his position under the watchful eyes of tom lasorda.  i miss the murals.

here's a card from 2004 upper deck diamond collection all-star lineup

2004 was green's last year in la, as evidenced by his 2005 fleer platinum card

which is really a diamondbacks card, and so was off my radar until recently.

i found this 2006 topps card of green actually wearing a diamondbacks uniform

in a repack recently.  like i said, i pretty much stopped seeking out his cards after he left the dodgers.  i did, however, make certain that i acquired his cards in 2008.  that's because, after the 2007 season with the mets, green retired and so his 2008 releases were final tributes.

here's his 2008 topps card

with his complete stats on the back

it's nice that he made it to 2000 hits

here's his 2008 upper deck card

also with the entirety of his big league career on the back

and, of course, his nearly identical 2008 upper deck first edition card

it's been nice to see that green has returned to the dodgers in recent years as a spring training instructor. maybe he'll return to card releases like archives as a dodger in the future, too.

get your garveys ready

don't forget that sunday is steve garvey's 65th birthday, and it's also contest time here on the blog.  go to  this post for the details on how to win a 1952 topps card.

i've got a few garvey cards ready to post myself, but i figured i didn't need to wait for sunday to post all of the recent additions to the collection.  this here is a 2013 panini hometown heroes steve garvey short print.

panini made no effort to conceal the san diego brown.

in addition to the garv, i picked up the dodger team set.  i've shown a couple of dodgers before, so i won't bore you with stew and the penguin again.  instead, let's start with the current dodgers in the set.  here's yasiel puig's base card (he also has a short print)

 hyun-jin ryu

clayton kershaw

anyone think that three leftys in the rotation (if the dodgers were to acquire david price) would be a bit much? nah, me neither.

matt kemp

as much as i like kemp and kershaw and puig and ryu, my favorite thing about this set is the retired players.  i picked up a kirk gibson curtain call insert

separately from the team set.  i think his base card in the set is technically a tiger card.

here's orel hershiser

 and fernando valenzuela

but the set goes even further back, with rick monday

and dusty baker

and even bill buckner!

billy buck has another card in the set as a cub.  not sure why panini didn't do that for garvey.

the last two dodgers are tommy lasorda

trying to whistle, and davey lopes

lopes also got an auto in the set

as did steve yeager, ron cey and the garv.  i'm still on the lookout for those cards.  especially the garvey.