et tu, bill russell?

steve garvey wore a padres uniform.  ron cey suited up for the cubs and a's.  davey lopes wore the uniform of the a's, cubs, and astros as a big league player, and then wore rangers, padre, brewers, nationals, and phillies gear as a coach/manager at the big league level.  there are plenty of cards that show evidence of those three infielders wearing non-dodger uniforms, but i didn't think that was the case for the fourth - bill russell.

there was only one season in which russell wore a non-dodger uniform in the major leagues, and it was in 2000 when he served as the bench coach for the tampa bay devil rays.  i didn't think that there were any cards showing russell in his devil ray gear, and i may be correct, but i did stumble across this card, a 1999 multi-ad sports orlando rays card 

showing the shortstop of the team of my youth as the manager for tampa bay's triple-a team the year before joining the big league club as its bench coach.  this came after russell was fired by the fox folks and our hopes of another long-tenured dodger manager were dashed.  any and all cards of bill russell have a place in my collection, so i was happy to find this one.  and, apparently, there is another minor league card of russell showing him as the skipper for the shreveport swamp dragons in 2002. that was a giants farm team (shudder).

speaking of giants, i also found a couple of cards showing reggie smith, the right fielder for the team of my youth, wearing giant gear.  although, it's not san francisco giant duds, it's the uniform of the yomiuri giants

both cards are from the 2013 bbm legendary foreigners 2: deep impact set, according to check out my cards.  both cards are incredibly awesome, as well.  after spending one season (1982) with the nocal giants, reggie went to japan for a tumultuous year and a half, starting in 1983.  that second 'off shot' card is pretty cool, with reggie tipping his cap.  it would fit in my 'nob' mini collection, although i still haven't made that an official thing.  

i do have an official 'tatooine collection' featuring cards with nothing but dirt in the photo background.  this 2006 topps mickey mantle 2002 card fits the bill.

in 2006, topps essentially created mantle cards for all of the sets that had left card number 7 vacant - i believe it was from 1997 on.  still waiting for a mantle in the 1978 topps design...

moving along with some other recent pick-ups, there are few images that work better for companies without a license to use logos than the maskless catcher in gear.  such is the case with this 2013 panini elite extra edition mike piazza historic picks insert

there were 75 rounds in the 1988 draft, although not all teams participated in all rounds, and piazza is the lowest pick in the draft to make it to the majors.  the dodgers took eric karros 56 rounds earlier, in the sixth round of that draft.

speaking of sixth round draft picks, here's a shiny matt kemp 2011 topps finest refractor of matt kemp

kemp was the dodgers' sixth rounder in 2003.  i also grabbed a 2007 topps chrome blue refractor parallel of kemp

for my latest target as far as team sets go.  also new to the collection towards that endeavor are rafael furcal

derek lowe

and jason schmidt

just four left - randy wolf, andre ethier, takashi saito, and greg maddux.

another team set i am working on, but not really, is the 1953 topps team set.  i added rube walker

to my collection, but there are still many high ticket cards to be had before i am complete with that one.  someday, perhaps.

i began this post with one of the infielders for whom this blog is named in a strange uniform and ended it with a 1953 topps card of a brooklyn dodger named rube who later became a pitching coach, including for the mets during gil hodges' managerial reign and beyond.  as such, walker appeared on a couple of topps cards in 1973 and 1974 as a coach.  i wish the same luxury was afforded russell in 2000.

before i get to archives...

i understand that 2015 topps archives is live. i also understand that they are using the 1957 topps design for one of the four subsets in the base set.  that's nice, although i do wish that 1978 would get some love sometime before heritage catches up in 2027.  speaking of heritage, the last time we saw the 1957 topps design was in 2006 with the topps heritage set.  this is the dodger team card from that set

it features a photo taken inside dodger stadium - a stadium that didn't exist in 1957.  here are a few more dodgers from that set - cesar izturis

hong-chih kuo

derek lowe

and bill mueller

i rather like the mueller card. it seems like an old-timey pose.  i understand that don sutton is featured in the 1957 topps design grouping in the archives set this year, and i hope that his card is also old-timey in flavor. 

here are some other random cards from my scanned folder.

2006 fleer andre ethier

2006 upper deck jayson werth

2006 topps jim tracy (through the mail autograph success!)

pretty sure tracy is standing in the same spot izturis was for the heritage card up above - notice the palm tree…

2004 topps jim tracy (through the mail autograph success!)

2005 upper deck roy campanella wingfield collection

and 2005 upper deck pee wee reese wingfield collection 

those last two are nice looking cards.  i don't think either campy or pee wee are in archives this year - it's koufax, duke, and jackie as far as brooklyn-era dodgers go.  i'll try to find some of them in a blaster sometime this weekend - stay tuned...

does raul mondesi regret his tattoo, and other random musings

while it is true that raul mondesi had a cannon for an arm, i wonder if the cannon tattoo visible on his 1998 upper deck card

was fully thought out.  from one angle it looks like a cannon, although the fuse is still lit even though the cannon has discharged, and from another angle one might mistake it for some sort of rocket. or something else, i suppose.

the back of that card is pretty interesting, too, as we have pylons and a car in the background.

i'm also curious about mondesi's 1996 fleer emotion xl card, although it's no fault of his that the emotion fleer slapped on there is 'pounding'

i don't feel pounding.  or tardy, for that matter.  what was fleer thinking?

along the same lines of lack of thought, here are a few other cards that i've scanned without a real purpose. although i suppose you could say that i scanned them for inclusion in a random cards from my scanned folder post, so there was a purpose. whatever.

1987 topps orel hershiser

1990 donruss mickey hatcher

1992 score rookie and traded carlos hernandez

1997 topps stadium club pedro astacio

2007 topps heritage derek lowe

2009 upper deck o-pee-chee scott elbert black parallel

and 2012 bowman chrome prospects jt wise

as in wise enough to not consider 'pounding' to be an emotion?

ain't 2007 the sweetest spot

upper deck debuted sweet spot in 2001, and my collecting mind was blown by the inclusion of signed pieces of baseballs included in some packs.  in fact, it was later versions of the sweet spot releases that included the first thick cardboard blanks because it had previously been too easy to find the packs that included the autos.  at least that is what i was told by a clerk at one of the local card shops in the early 2000's.  anyway, the format of the autos was a bit clunky from that first year through 2005 - they were framed into the card by a non-descript border with a small player photo somewhere on the card.  in 2006, upper deck added a generic stadium shot as the background, but in 2007, they did it right - they went to team specific stadium shots.  here's a don sutton auto card from 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic

it's the wood version, numbered to 75, and the stadium in the background is none other than dodger stadium.  awesome.  i'm still looking for a reggie smith/steve garvey dual auto from this set, by the way.

there are the fading issues with some of the later releases, including 2007, as either the ball material or the pens used by some of the players were not the right types, but the wood versions that i have seen do not suffer that fate.  i recall a signing i went to where harmon killebrew and i simultaneously chastised a guy who offered the killer a sharpie to sign a ball with.  you would think that upper deck would have made sure that the cards were signed properly, you know, if in fact they had a representative witness the signings.  oh wait.

anyway, 2007 is my favorite sweet spot year, even though steve garvey is included in the classic set as a padre.  there are plenty of dodgers on the checklist, though, including the aforementioned sutton

i guess the only bad thing here is that each base card is serial numbered, as they were in some of the previous sets.

here are some of the other dodgers from the 2007 ud sweet spot classic set

roy campanella

campy suttons.

pee wee reese

both the campy and reese use photos that are now quite familiar to us.

here's don drysdale

in the type of photo that we would not have seen on a card back in his playing days.  i'm glad upper deck didn't try to lighten the shadow under his bill.

maury wills

still looks like he's ticked at topps.

the set also included more 'modern' dodgers, such as their former manager tom lasorda

and a welcome appearance by a pitcher from the team of my youth, burt hooton

it's not too often we see hooton in card sets.

the regular 2007 sweet spot set had some dodgers, too, but the card i want to show is this adam laroche auto card

that includes some plastic-injected molded helmet thingy and a faux wood signing area.  this is not so much my favorite, but it is somewhat unique.

i have a bunch of other sweet spot cards in the scanned folder, so i'll show them even though they are from the 2005 set.  also not so much my favorite.

jd drew

eric gagne

dj houlton numbered to 99

i think that's a parallel as opposed to a shorter printed rookie subset

jeff kent

derek lowe

and one of the very few cards made of one of the biggest busts in dodger history - norihiro nakamura

i think the 66 looks better on puig - he certainly has done more while wearing it.  and, i think the 2007 sweet spot looks better than any of the other versions before or after it, thanks in large part to the pavilion roof and palm tree on the dodger auto cards.

it's like i like it like this

brandon league looks excited.

i was excited, too, to receive a trade package from it's like having my own card shop a while back.  that 2013 topps opening day blue sparkle parallel looks better than it scans.

there were other nice cards in the package, including a 2009 topps steve garvey ring of honor insert

topps actually used a photo of the garv from 1981 for the card that celebrates his lone world series title which came in 1981.  genius.

here is the card that started the trade - a 2013 topps gypsy queen dustin pedroia

turning two! alex rodriguez forced out at second! two of my least favorite players on one card!

here's a 2009 topps heritage derek lowe card.

the sleeve that contained this card had a note that this card was a possible short print.  it was! it is!

1995 score raul mondesi rules insert

it looks like one of mondesi's rules was to smack cory snyder on the forehead after each run he scored.

more mondy! this time courtesy of 1994 fleer flair

this next card is a 2003 fleer ultra insert of hideo nomo

nomo appears on a couple of these 'double up' inserts.  unfortunately, this is the one with kaz sasaki on the other side, not the ichiro one.

one more japanese import to finish off the post - 2003 fleer focus jersey edition kazuhisa ishii card

it says that the card is mlb 'shirtified'.  perhaps the worst play on words for an insert set ever.

thanks daniel!