black and blue ryu and some other dodger cards

i'm continuing with a sort of random rambling theme today.

this is a 2013 panini black friday hyun-jin ryu card

it was somehow available on black friday, 2013. i don't recall how i obtained it (sportlots, maybe), but it is not worth standing in line waiting for stores to open to obtain.  still, panini did the same sort of thing last year, and i'm guessing panini is doing it again this year.  ryu is out for the season now, following shoulder surgery.  

this is a 2013 panini pinnacle matt kemp museum collection parallel

it doesn't scan as well as the museum collection inserts from the 1990's.

still more panini - this time from 2014 panini golden age

dusty baker

davey lopes

and zack wheat

as pleased as i was to see dusty and davey and other dodgers from the team of my youth in this set, i don't consider them to be from the golden age.  wheat, sure, but not the others.

wheat also got an insert card in the release - it's a 1913 the national game card

and i wish this had been the base set design

now here's a 2007 topps turkey red andy laroche card

and a 1999 topps chrome jeff shaw card

moving on to 2010 upper deck, here's a biography insert of jeff weaver

marking the time that he beat his brother jered in a game between the dodgers and angels.

olmedo saenz didn't have too many cards, but he spent four seasons with the dodgers and made it into the 2007 topps update & highlights set

even though 2007 was his fourth year with the club.  not much of an update there - more like an omission.

last card for today is a 2008 topps stadium club beam team autographed card of delwyn young

i secretly hoped that delwyn and delmon young (no relation) would have wound up on the same team just for the potential confusion factor.  would they have had their full names on the backs of their jerseys? who knows.

everything's shinier in texas

how else to explain the nice package of shiny dodger cards i received from the play at the plate dude a while back?

brian sent some cards from 1997 fleer flair showcase, including one with hideo nomo at the bat

one with raul mondesi looking annoyed with his own antics

one with eric karros looking exasperated by the shortcomings of my scanner

and one with mike piazza seeing red on the back

he also sent a mondesi

and a nomo

from the 1997 upper deck ud3 set, and another karros from the 1998 upper deck spx set

more karros from 1999 fleer brilliants

as well as an adrian beltre rookie from the same set

those cards are brilliantly shiny

as are topps gold label cards.  these are from 1999, and we get karros

and beltre again

this particular beltre card, from 2002 donruss originals, is not shiny

nor is this 2013 panini pinnacle clayton kershaw card

but they are appreciated nonetheless.

this matt kemp card, also from 2013 panini pinnacle, is clear and shiny

while this adrian gonzalez museum collection parallel from the same release is kind of a mess when scanned

back to some really shiny stuff, brian also sent a trifecta of purple refractors from 2013 topps chrome - adrian gonzalez

andre ethier (stupid scanner)

and paco rodriguez

thanks brian!

this card is on fire

i received a nice package of cards from marcus at all the way to the backstop recently.  adrian gonzalez was pretty excited about it - check out his 2014 topps opening day fired up insert

marcus told me he was sending a couple of yasiel puig cards, so i was pretty fired up, too.  here's a target red parallel of puig's 2013 topps update rookie debut card

and here's puig on his 2013 pinnacle card

i understand the erasing of the logos and team names, but does pinnacle really need to re-color the uniform numbers from red to blue?  they are not now, and never have been, blue.

you can see the red number on juan samuel's 1991 us playing card company all-stars card

sammy did indeed represent the dodgers in the 1991 all-star game.  he was 1 for 1 in the game, but the national league lost 4-2.

i was also able to pick up a few dodger needs from 2014 topps heritage thanks to marcus.  i've had fairly bad luck pulling dodgers in the two blasters i bought, so these are appreciated.  here's one of the league leader cards that clayton kershaw appears on

plus cards of don mattingly

and brian wilson

my favorite of the bunch, though, is the maury wills/jacoby ellsbury then & now insert

i had this one queued up in a future sportlots purchase, so the timing of this trade package couldn't have been better.

now if only i could find one of wills' autographed cards from the heritage set…

thanks marcus for the trade!

swing and a trade

it's time for an overdue trade post.  this one features cards i received from bert at swing and a pop up last year.  i was able to help out with some of his set needs, and he sent me some dodgers in return.  works for me.

here's a 1985 donruss alejandro pena

quick - what does pena have in common with dazzy vance, johnny podres, sandy koufax, don sutton, kevin brown, and clayton kershaw?  well, beside the fact that they all pitched for the same franchise, they are the only brooklyn/los angeles pitchers to have led the league in era.  pena was the leader in 1984, the only season in which he was used exclusively as a starter.  unfortunately, he hurt his shoulder late in the season and didn't return until the end of the 1985 season.  he wound up in the bullpen, and was the winning pitcher in game 1 of the 1988 world series thanks to kirk gibson.

now for a 1988 kmart pedro guerrero card

pena missed out on guerrero's scorcher of a june in 1985, but i didn't.

it was awesome.

i had thought that there was a chance that the dodgers would break their rookie of the year drought last year with yasiel puig.  it didn't happen (maybe this year with alexander guerrero?).  here's the guy who started the run of roys in the 1990's, eric karros, on a 1993 score card celebrating his award

karros eventually was traded to the cubs, and the dodgers replaced him with fred mcgriff.  here's his 2004 topps opening day card

this was kind of like 1989 when steve sax went to the yankees to replace willie randolph, and willie randolph went to the dodgers to replace steve sax.  i was among those that thought mcgriff would hit his 500th home run as a dodger (he needed 22), but he was limited to 86 games and hit only 13 bombs. that was still one more than karros hit for the cubs, and they each drove in 40 for their respective teams. karros did have that big home run to deny roger clemens his 300th win when the yankees visited wrigley field for the first time since the world series in 1932.

here's a 2004 upper deck sweet spot classic jackie robinson

one of four or five cards he has in the set, i believe.  i have added the one that i still need to my 'nefarious 9' (which now stands at only 3 cards. i'm working on it!).  send one my way, and you will be rewarded.

i still miss russell martin.  here's his 2007 topps allen & ginter card

and here's a 2008 upper deck sp authentic card on which he shares space with the padres' jake peavy

cards like this give me pause.  did upper deck put these two together for a reason? or were they just (at the time) high profile or in this case up and coming division rivals?  for the record, through 2013, russell martin has faced only two pitchers more than jake peavy (dan haren and matt cain).  in 39 plate appearances, martin has only 4 hits (one double), no rbi, and 11 strikeouts.  advantage, peavy.

before there were blue borders, there were walmart black parallels, like this 2010 topps andre ethier card

and before that, it was pinnacle that ruled the black-bordered world.  here's a 2013 panini pinnacle card of carl crawford that brings to mind those releases from the early 1990's.

bert - thanks for a great trade.  let's do it again sometime.

a common mistake

i recently took a quick look at justcommons.com and saw some cheaply priced dodger relics.  i quickly snapped up a few from 2013 topps' chasing history insert set - carl crawford

adrian gonzalez

and gary sheffield

except i didn't realize that sheff had chasing history cards for the yankees (and the marlins) as well as the dodgers.  oops.  i wish that the site had photos of the cards like comc does.

i also picked up a 2003 bowman draft & prospects joe thurston bat

and a 2005 topps pristine scott elbert sticker auto

elbert missed most of 2013 due to injury, but did pitch a few games in the minors.

to finish off the package, i snagged a couple of josh willingham autos from 2013 panini pinnacle

and prizm

i won't keep these for too long - i had a couple other collectors in mind when i purchased these.

overall, i will probably still gravitate to sportlots most of the time, but might return to justcommons - as long as i know who is a dodger and who isn't.