random greatness from the scanned folder

i doubt that there will be a reason to post this 2006 upper deck future stars autographed card of tim hamulack

in anything other than a 'random cards from the scanned folder' post, so guess what?  this is a post featuring a bunch of cards that have been wallowing in my scanned folder for some time.  hamulack (besides being a sentence that yoda might utter if he were to be displeased with the meat selection at your easter brunch) pitched for the dodgers in 2006 and went 0-3 in 33 appearances.  i can't say that i recall too much about him, and i assumed that he was a lefty specialist that the dodgers brought on board to face barry bonds and todd helton and other nl west lefty sluggers.  well, he faced bonds only twice in 2006 - hamulack walked him and then hit him with a pitch a couple days later.  not bad.

1982 fleer dodger logo sticker

i wish to goodness that fleer had put dates on their stickers.  luckily, i know that this comes from 1982 because it's got a photo from the 1981 all-star game at cleveland's municipal stadium on the back

it looks like a gloomy august night in cleveland, but that may just be the 1982 fleer effect.

1992 fleer ramon martinez and ozzie guillen superstar special

this card baffled me when i first saw it.  'teenage sensations'?  guillen was 28 and entering his 8th season in the majors in 1992, and ramon was 24.  neither debuted in the majors as a teenager, so fleer must have really been reaching to make a connection here.  it turns out that both made their professional debuts at the age of 17.

1994 topps stadium club henry rodriguez rainbow foil

you can't go wrong, really, with a bat rack/helmet cubby shot.  nice cameo by darryl strawberry's (upside-down) helmet.  i don't know whose helmet is next to daaaaar-ryl's - no dodger wore 51 during oh henry's dodger tenure, at least according to baseball reference.

1996 topps ismael valdes

dodger fans remember valdes for having delicate skin.  look closely and you might see a blister on his pitching hand.

2002 upper deck superstars adrian beltre

he sure would look good at third for the dodgers these days

2009 upper deck chin-lung hu

back in 2007, poor vin scully had to wait almost 3 weeks after hu had been called up for the first time to  note that 'hu's on first'.  in his previous five games, hu had homered, pinch-ran for olmedo saenz (who had doubled), and made outs until he singled in his fourth at bat of his sixth big league game.  i am sure it was a relief to all to get that joke out of the way.

2010 bowman andre ethier expectations

i believe that ned's expectations for ethier is to enjoy being the fourth outfielder.

2013 topps pro debut matt magill

magill was 0-2 in six starts for the dodgers last season.  this year, he's appeared in a few card releases with an auto here and there, like hamulack up above.  he's yet to be called up to the bigs this year, but there's always september.

what can nick do for you?

obviously, the title up there is a play on the slogan for ups - what can brown do for you.  nick, in this case, is everyone's favorite dime box digger, and proprietor of the blog that got my vote for blog of the year last year.  and what he can do for you is send you some great cards that you didn't even know that you needed.  including some cards of, you guessed it, kevin brown.  so my play on words doesn't really work, but it's late at night and i need to get this trade post cranked out and scheduled.

this here is a 1999 fleer mystique card

that nick found for me in what i assume to be a dime box.  or maybe it's a flea market find.  or a yard sale pickup.  who knows.  this next one looks like he had to go into the matrix to set it free. it's a 2000 topps own the game insert of kevin brown

this same insert appeared in topps chrome and topps limited releases that year.  yes, topps gave us a crossover parallel insert set.  very strange.  the precursor to upper deck's starquest and that yankee history megaset from a few years back.

nick also found a couple of upper deck cards of gary sheffield that used the same photo.  compare this 2000 upper deck ovation superstar theater insert

with this 2000 upper deck ultimate victory card

kind of the 'topps stars' effect, if you know what i mean.

nick located some cards of a great dodger from yesteryear who doesn't get a lot of play from the card companies - tommy davis.  this is a 2001 upper deck sp legendary cuts card

and this one is a 2013 panini golden age card

these go well with the golden age auto i received from too many verlanders recently.

another dodger from the early los angeles days that we don't see too often is john roseboro.  nick found a 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts card of him, too.

the dodgers had a nice group of players in that set, with the likes of bill russell, dusty baker, tommy lasaorda, reggie smith, and steve garvey joining the usual reese-campy-robinson-drysdale types.

here's a very shiny 2004 bowman's best chin-lung hu card that i had not seen before opening the envelope from nick

at first i thought is was a chin-feng chen card because it seemed more like a late 1990's bowman's best  card.  of course, chen was still with the dodgers in 2004, while hu was just in his first year of a ball.

up next is a 2003 upper deck play ball dolph camilli reprint

this is a reprint of the 1941 play ball issue, and i believe the photo is the same one used for camilli's 1961 fleer card.  it is interesting to me that the world's fair patch was 'removed' in both the original and this reprint play ball release.  of course, it may not be the same photo, and this could just be camilli's signature pose.  kind of like how don sutton 'suttons'.

last, but not least, nick found me a card from the 1977-80 tcma the war years set.  it's the first one of these in my collection, too.  this is lewis riggs

riggs was a third baseman who joined the dodgers in 1941 after a few successful seasons in cincinnati (he was part of their 1940 world championship club), and he helped the dodgers reach the fall classic that year.  in 1942, riggs joined the armed forces and served for three years during world war ii.  he returned to the dodgers in 1946, appearing in just one game before the team released him.   i knew none of this before i saw this card and looked riggs up.

so, that's what nick can do for you - find a bunch of cool cards that inspire you to learn about history.  i can't wait for my next lesson.  thanks for the cards nick!

then, not now

in a continuing effort to pare down the number of cards sitting patiently in my scanned folder, i bring you a post featuring cards from 2008.  yes, 2008.  five years ago, when mannywood was taking hold and the dodgers were relevant in the dog days of august for the first time in a few years.

unfortunately, the only way they made it on to the 'then and now' topps heritage inserts was on the backs of their stars from yesteryear.  like don drysdale

and johnny podres

who represent the blue on those two 2008 topps heritage inserts.  peavy is the only one of the four to have won the cy young award in 1959 or 2007, which are the years that these cards are based on.  that's not the focus of the cards, however.  the drysdale/peavy card deals with strikeout leaders, and each of the pitchers shown did in fact lead the big leagues in k's.  the podres/bedard card represents the k/9 ratio, in which bedard was tops in 2007.  even so, the card is still off, as podres was 6th.  drysdale was 2nd, and herb score was first.  i'm not complaining about a 'bonus' dodger card though.

2008 donruss playoff prime cuts jackie robinson

i thought donruss didn't have a license in 2008.  looks like they forgot to 'glare out' the brooklyn 'b'.

2008 upper deck timeline chin lung hu (2004 ud legends design)

this card reminds me that i have been neglecting my timeless teams blog.  again.

2008 upper deck premier russell martin and james loney patch relic card

these two former dodgers are on their way to the postseason, just like in 2008.  loney, of course, hit that big grand slam against the cubs in the nlds that year to set the tone.

2008 topps stadium club clayton kershaw 1st day issue

looks like kid k is on his way to a third straight era title.  he also leads the league in strikeouts, and hopefully the voters can look past his relatively low (14) win total to award him his second cy young award.

i feel better getting these cards over to the 'posted' folder.  i need to do this more often.

thar was gold in them thar k-marts

before there was wal-mart black or target red or toys r us purple. there was k-mart gold.  back in 2008, topps included gold-ish bordered cards in packs sold exclusively at k-mart.  i think the local k-mart here was still open then, but i didn't got there much.  i did pick up a 2008 chin-lung hu k-mart parallel insert recently, however.

it was part of an oddball-ish lot on ebay that was tailor made for a dodger collector like me.  without any big hits or big names, it sat at it's low opening price the whole time, so i got it for a song.  here's a sepia parallel of jeff kent's 2006 topps triple threads card

and another serial numbered card, this time a 2005 donruss timeless treasures eric gagne card

2005 was the last year where gagne was the guy for the dodgers in most sets.  he got hurt early on and then pitched minimally in 2006 before moving on to texas and boston in 2007.

the lot also included this black bordered 2012 topps gypsy queen jackie robinson mini

and this duke snider mini from the same set

the duke has that red gyspsy lady on the back.  trust me.

there were a couple of other cards in the lot, too.  i like finding these things that, for some reason, sellers think will create a bidding war.  keep 'em coming is all i can say.

sports cards that blew my mind

sometimes when i will try to initiate a trade, i'll get a response along the lines of 'i don't think i have anything that you would want for that card'.  that's ok - no problem.  of course, it usually doesn't take much to get  stuff from me, but if you have sent all of your dodgers to any of the other dodger collectors out there in our blogosphere, that's ok.  i understand.

i don't have a trade bait page, and conversely not all of my want lists are up to date or even comprehensive.  maybe i can be tough to trade with from that aspect.  still, i have been able to complete a number of trades over the past few months and i have not been disappointed.  hopefully, my trading partners can say the same.

case in point, i contacted scott at sport cards ate my brain and offered a vintage brave and some others for some random dodgers.  then i noticed his trade bait page (maybe i have to get me one of those) and i asked about a couple of cards he had listed.  he agreed to send me the cards i inquired about, along with some other dodger cards.  um, yeah.

here's one of the cards that caught my eye - a 2008 topps co-signers dual sticker auto card of andy laroche and chin-lung hu

in addition to the cards i specifically requested, he sent some bowman.  gold bowman

shiny bowman

refractor bowman

crazy xfractor bowman

photoshopped shiny confusing set name bowman (of the son of the dodgers' third base coach)

seriously, what is this set?  2009 bowman chrome draft? 2009 bowman chrome draft picks and prospects? 2009 bowman chrome draft picks, prospects, and wbc?  put the name of the set on the back like upper-freakin'-deck did in the last few years of their existence.  that would be a big help.

here's a 2008 upper deck goudey card that i must have even though it didn't look familiar to me at all.

do ken griffey jr. super collectors include the national league cards from this set in their collections?  just curious.

there was even a 1995 classic 5 sport auto card of roger cedeno in the package.

but the coolest card in the package was probably this 2010 topps update manufactured bat barrel card of manny ramirez

thinking back, i asked if the manny 'relic' or the laroche/hu auto would be available.  scott sent them both.  that is several kinds of awesome.

consider my brain eaten, or mind blown.  just a great trade.  thanks scott!

in my ongoing crusade to collect dodger cards...

...i received some cards from jeff at my sports obsession.  these cards were sent to me a looong time ago, and they have sat in my scanned folder for far too long.  sorry jeff.  here's a shiny 2002 donruss rookie crusade card of victor alvarez.

alvarez, you might recall, is the guy with the interesting signature.  putting a sticker on this card, however, would probably be too much.  although something tells me that donruss did just that.  hold on - yep, they did. gross.

here's a 2004 donruss card of dave roberts

it's a career stat line parallel, so it too is shiny and even serial numbered.

there were some more recent cards in the package, too, like this 2008 upper deck timeline chin-lung hu card

hu got a ton of cards in 2008.  now, four years later, i thought he was out of baseball after being released by the indians earlier this year, but he is playing in an independent league.

here are a couple of cards from 2009 topps ticket to stardom - chad billingsley

and manny ramirez.

remember him?

here's a 2010 bowman card of carlos monasterios

monasterios spent the entire 2010 season on the dodgers' 25-man roster as a rule v draftee (acquired via a trade with the mets).  to date, that is the only season in which he has pitched in the big leagues.  he underwent tommy john surgery in 2011 and had another surgery earlier this year.  the dodgers released him in april, and it will be interesting to see if he lands with another team.

here's one of those shiny refractor things from (i think) a cereal box or blaster of 2010 topps

another jackie for the collection.

i think when i received the package, this was a newly issued card.  no joke.  it's a 2011 topps heritage andre ethier card

i think i may have scanned it because it was the first of the 2011 heritage cards i had seen.  thanks for the trade, jeff!

more happy returns

yesterday i showed off some of the coaches and retired types that reader cory was able to coax into signing some of my cards for me.  here now are some actual players.  like andre ether, who signed a 2008 topps allen & ginger

as well as a 2009 topps allen & ginter

james loney

and hiroki kuroda

also signed allen & ginger cards, both from 2008.  i think we can all agree that allen & ginter looks just fantastic signed.

less awesome looking, but still pretty cool, are the cards that chad billingsley signed, including his 2005 topps rookie card

(hello joel guzman, my former dodger salvation) and his 2009 topps heritage card

also signing a 2009 topps heritage was juan pierre

and george sherrill

although his is from the high-number release.  for the record, i've had separate ttm successes with bills, pierre, and sherrill.  but not with chin-lung hu who signed a 2008 upper deck timeline card

that looks just as nice signed as do the actual 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams cards on which this card was based.

also from the timeline set, i had sent a reed johnson card which he signed

unfortunately for me, johnson has never returned his lone dodger card from 2010 topps update that i sent to him last spring.  finally, it just so happened that alfredo amezaga was in dodger camp in spring of 2010, and i sent a 2009 topps card just in case.

amezaga signed it but never did appear in a big league game for the dodgers.  that's not a bad haul, but there was more.  i'll show the rest tomorrow.