sixty years since sandy's debut

60 years ago today, sandy koufax made his big league debut.  now here's his 2015 topps museum collection sepia parallel

koufax was 19 years old when he relieved jim hughes (who had been pinch-hit for by johnny podres) in a game against the braves on june 24, 1955.  he went two innings, allowing a hit and a walk but no runs.  in fact, the first three batters koufax faced in the majors reached base - the first batter, johnny logan, singled.  the next, eddie mathews reached on an error charged to koufax, and the third, hank aaron walked.

so, koufax loaded the bases with nobody out and walter alston may have been questioning his decision to keep koufax on the roster over tommy lasorda (or not), but sandy struck out bobby thomson and then induced a 6-4-3 double play from joe adcock to end the inning.  the following innning was a 1-2-3 affair with koufax striking out his second victim, lew burdette, to end the frame and his debut.

koufax went on to pitch in 11 more games during the 1955 regular season, making five starts, two of which resulted in shutouts (one was a 2-hitter), but he did not pitch in the world series that year.

i still need more nomar

i was pretty excited to see that nomar garciaparra was featured as a dodger in the 2015 topps museum collection release - at least as far as the relic cards go.  i was so excited that i almost forgave him and topps for not being a part of the 2007, 2008, or 2009 sets.  almost.

i went out and found some relic cards from the museum collection set, and here they are:

jumbo (or momentous material)

quad jersey

and quad bat

i've eyed a couple of relic/autos, but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

i hope that this is a sign of things to come, with nomar dodger cards eventually showing up in archives or tribute or somewhere else.

until then, here are some cards that were made during his dodger tenure that i haven't shown before:

2006 bowman heritage

2006 topps turkey red (red parallel)

and 2007 upper deck

maybe my opinion will change should topps flood its products with nomar dodger cards, but i'm willing to take that chance.  please, topps - more nomar!

the bruce seid memorial patch

bruce seid was named the director of scouting for the milwaukee brewers in november of 2008.  prior to that, he had been an area scout and cross-checker for the brew crew after spending the early parts of his career scouting for the padres and pirates.

after seid died of a heart attack on september 2, 2014, the team added a memorial patch to their right sleeves in his honor.  you can see the patch on this 2015 topps museum collection ryan braun sepia parallel

seid had also spent a couple of years in the cubs' minor leagues in the early 1980's as an infielder, but didn't advance beyond the low-a ranks.  he was 53 years old when he died.