sunday morning target dodgers - the final edition

one of the first things one notices about the 1990 target dodger 100th anniversary giveaway set is that there is no order to the sheets. the card numbers are seemingly randomly assigned to them, and so there is no first or last sheet to the set.  fittingly, i've been scanning and posting the cards in a unorganized manner, so there is really no rhyme or reason as to why this is the last sheet to be posted. there are no big names that i've been saving, just 15 men who wore the uniform of the franchise at some point during their first 100 years in the national league.  let's have a look.

joe bradshaw

bradshaw played in two games for the 1929 brooklyn robins.  that was it as far as his big league career went. two games, four innings pitched, two runs allowed.  i do not know why he is wearing what seems to be a new york giants uniform in the picture on his card, nor do i even know whether that photo is indeed bradshaw or not.

larry burright

burright shared time with jim gilliam as the dodgers' second baseman in his rookie season of 1962.  he appeared in 115 games and hit .205.  after the season, burright was traded to the mets for travelin' bob miller.

george crable

crable was a pitcher for the 1910 brooklyn superbas who, like bradshaw up top, saw action in only two big league ball games.  according to baseball reference, he started (and completed) one, and then relieved in the other, but somehow pitched only 7.1 innings and earned no decisions.  i'll venture a guess that his complete game was a rain shortened tie.

pea ridge day

henry clyde was his given name, but day grew up in pea ridge, arkansas, and so was dubbed pea ridge. true to his arkansas roots, day would apparently give a hog call following a strikeout of an opposing batter.  he brought his arm to the brooklyn robins in 1931 following a couple of seasons with the cardinals and one with the reds in the 1920's.  he was 2-2 for the robins in 22 appearances, but his career was ended due to arm problems and day turned to the bottle.  in 1934, day took his life by slashing his own throat.

bert delmus

baseball reference spells his last name 'delmas', but either way, this guy was a member of the 1933 brooklyn dodgers and he hit .250 in 12 games.  he played nothing but second base, so i don't know why his position is listed on the card as the generic 'inf' for infielder.  he didn't field particularly well - 3 errors in 34 chances - and all 7 of his hits were singles.

alex ferguson

ferguson finished off his 10-year major league career by pitching in 3 games for the 1929 brooklyn robins.  he was 0-1 with a 22.50 era in two innings pitched over those three games, and so it was likely easy to see the end of the line.  ferguson had previously pitched for the yankees (in two separate stints), red sox, senators, and phillies. he started two games for the senators in the 1925 world series, and in doing so, he became the pitcher with the highest regular season era (6.18) to start a postseason game.  this record has since been surpassed by oliver perez in 2006 (6.55).  this is a bit misleading, as ferguson began the 1925 season with poor performances for the red sox and the yankees before joining washington and amassing a nice 3.25 era in his seven appearances for the senators down the stretch.

tom fitzsimmons

in four games for the 1919 brooklyn robins, fitzsimmons was 0 for 4 with a walk and a run scored.  that is the sum total of his major league career.

john grim

grim was a member of the brooklyn grooms/bridegrooms/superbas from 1895 through 1899.  he caught a total of 310 games over that span, while also playing some first base and outfield.

bob hall

hall played for the phillies in 1904 and then began the 1905 season with the new york giants. after playing in one game for them, the giants loaned him to the brooklyn superbas for the remainder of the season. while the giants went on to win the world series, hall appeared in 56 games for the 8th place superbas, hitting .236 along the way.

joe klugman

klugman hit .165 for the 1924 robins, appearing in 31 games and playing mostly second base.  the following year, he hit .329 in 38 games for the indians. go figure.

tom lovett

lovett was an original brooklyn national leaguer, playing for the club in 1889 during their final season in the american association, and staying on in 1890 as they joined the senior circuit.  he won 30 games in 1890, and had a nice 2.78 era to boot.  the following season, lovett was 23-19 with a 3.69 era.  after sitting out the 1892 season, lovett returned to brooklyn for the 1893 campaign, but was only 3-5 in 14 games with an era over six.

gene mccann

mccann was a pitcher on the 1901 and 1902 superbas.  he went 3-5 in 9 appearances over those two seasons, which were the only two of his big league career.  mccann later managed in the minor leagues for several years and then became a scout for the yankees.

lefty o'doul

o'doul began his big league career in 1919 as a pitcher with the yankees.  arm troubles forced him to reinvent himself as a position player, and he began the second phase of his major league career in 1928 with the giants, but the robins acquired o'doul from the phillies following the 1930 season.  it was in 1929 that o'doul hit .398 for philadelphia to lead the league, and he had hit a robust .383 for them in 1930 (fourth best in the league) so brooklyn certainly had high hopes despite the fact that o'doul was 34 years old heading into the season.  o'doul did not disappoint - he hit .336 in 1931 for the robins and then led the league with a .368 batting average in 1932 for the dodgers.  he finished 3rd in the mvp voting that year, but was traded to the giants during the following season.  o'doul retired with a .349 batting average (4th all-time) but is not in the hall of fame due to having only seven seasons as a position player.

ray schmandt

schmandt played for the robins from 1918 through 1922.  he was 0 for 1 in the 1920 world series, but hit .270 overall for the robins during his five seasons with the club.

henry schmidt

schmidt is the only player in major league history to win at least 20 games in his only big league season.  coming from oakland of the california league where he won 35 games in 1902, schmidt joined the superbas for the 1903 campaign and went 22-13 in 40 appearances. of those 40 games, schmidt started 36 (completing 29 - 5 by shutout), and finished the other four as a reliever.  he also appeared in another game as an outfielder, logging an assist on his only fielding chance from that position.  following the season, schmidt decided that he preferred to pitch on the west coast, and he rejoined his oakland ballclub (who had moved to the pacific coast league) and promptly won 26 games in 1904.

it's fitting that this sheet of obscure brooklyn/los angeles ballplayers is the last in the set to be featured here.  these sorts of sheets were my favorite for the simple reason that i learned something new about my favorite franchise and its players.  i hope you did, too.

sunday morning target dodgers

let's dive right into another sheet of 15 dodger cards from the 1990 target 100th anniversary giveaway set.  actually, only 14 cards. i found another dodger double dipper.

del bissonette

i am guessing that bissonette is wearing a portland pilots uniform. that was the team that he managed in his home state of maine in the late 1940's. before that, however, he was a ballplayer touted as a babe ruth type talent, largely because he was both a left-handed pitcher and a skilled batter.  he hurt his arm at some point before signing with brooklyn, and so focused solely on hitting.  as a rookie for the robins in 1928, bissonette played in a league-leading 155 games, and hit .320 with 25 home runs and 106 rbi.  he was the robins' first baseman for the next three seasons as well, and after his first four years in the majors, bissonette owned a .308 career batting average with a .376 on-base percentage and a ops of .870. not ruthian, but not bad, either.  unfortunately, bissonette severed his achilles tendon in a spring training volleyball mishap in 1932, and he missed the entire season. he was back in 1933, but underperformed and was traded away.  he failed in his attempts to return to the majors, and eventually went into managing - both at the minor and major league level.

billy earle

earle was an early version of craig biggio for the 1894 brooklyn grooms.  he played both catcher and second base (and had played outfield and other infield positions for teams earlier in his career) while hitting .340 in 50 at bats.  although he was just 26 when the season ended, and he owned a .286 lifetime average in addition to his positional flexibility, earle did not continue to play in the majors after his brooklyn experience.  some believe that this was due to his penchant for studying things such as hypnosis which made his teammates uncomfortable.

duke farrell

farrell was a member of the brooklyn superbas for four of his 18 years in the big leagues, playing for them from 1899-1902.  he helped the superbas win the pennant in 1899 and 1900, and then played for the first world champions in 1903 - the boston pilgrims.

freddie fitzsimmons

fitzsimmons finished his 19-year career with 7 in  brooklyn.  he pitched for the dodgers from midway in the 1937 season through 1943, amassing a record of 47-32 in that time.  his best season by far was 1940 when he was 16-2 with a save in 20 appearances (18 starts), finishing fifth in the league mvp voting.  the following season, fitzsimmons helped the dodgers return to the world series for the first time since 1920, and earned a no-decision in game 3 of the fall classic despite pitching 7 scoreless innings against the yankees.

joe gallagher

gallagher joined the dodgers during the 1940 season, and played in 57 games for them.  he hit .264 with 3 homers and 16 rbi during that time.  when 1941 rolled around, gallagher enlisted in the armed forces rather than return to the diamond.  he did return to baseball following world war ii, and roomed with jackie robinson at montreal in 1946.

jay howell

howell was obtained by the dodgers prior to the 1988 season, and he formed a closer tandem with jesse orosco in their championship season.  unlike orosco, howell remained with the team for a few seasons, saving a total of 85 games for the dodgers from '88 through 1992.

bill lohrman

lohrman was a dodger for less than a calendar year. he was obtained in a trade with the new york giants in july of 1943 and dealt to the reds in may of 1944.  in between, lohrman pitched in 9 games for the dodgers, going 0-2 with 2 complete games in 2 starts.

lew malone

you know what those checkered uniforms mean...yes, malone was a member of the 1917 brooklyn robins.  he appeared in only one game that season (as a pinch-runner), but returned in 1919 to play in 51 games for the robins.

buck marrow

marrow pitched for the dodger in 1937 and 1938.  in 21 appearances, he had a cumulative record of 1-3 with a 5.50 era.

teddy martinez

martinez was a member of the team of my youth, playing for the dodgers from 1977 through 1979. he played 3 of the four infield positions (no first base for teddy), and spelled ron cey, bill russell, and davey lopes for a total of 202 games during his tenure with the dodgers. a veteran of two postseasons prior to joining the dodgers, martinez did not appear in either the 1977 or 1978 playoffs or world series.

al nixon

nixon played in 21 games for the robins over the 1915, 1916, and 1918 seasons. he hit .333 over those games, but didn't play in the majors again until 1921 when he was a member of the boston braves.

jorge orta

orta joined the dodgers prior to the 1982 season in the deal that sent rick sutcliffe to cleveland, and the dodgers traded him to the mets for pat zachry a little over a year later. in his lone season in los angeles, orta hit .217 in 86 games.  despite what his card above says, orta played zero games for the dodgers as an infielder.

willie ramsdell

ramsdell was a knuckleball pitcher (hence his nickame - willie the knuck) who debuted for the dodgers as a 31-year old rookie in 1947.  he was 1-1 that season in two games, and then went 4-4 for the dodgers in 1948 while appearing in 27 games.  he had a cumulative era of 5.26 over those two seasons, but when he returned to the majors in 1950, he posted an era of 2.84 in his five apparances for the dodgers.  ramsdell later pitched for the reds and cubs, and in june of 1952, he pitched the last 6.2 innings for the cubbies in a game against the dodgers in which carl erskine threw a no-hitter.  oisk missed a perfect game by walking one batter in the third inning.  that batter was willie ramsdell.

mike sandlock

sandlock played for the dodgers in 1945 and 1946.  he appeared in a career high 80 games in 1945, playing primarily at catcher and, of all places, shortstop.  he hit .282 that season, but just .147 the next, and didn't appear in the majors again until 1953 when he was with the pirates.  sandlock is currently 99 years old, and is quite possibly the oldest living major leaguer.

the 15th player from the sheet will show up a bit later today.  stay tuned.