sunday morning target dodgers - featuring giants, astros, and yankees, too

let's get right to this week's 15 cards from a sheet in the 1990 target dodgers giveaway set.

bob bailor

bailor was part of the return the dodgers received when they sent sid fernandez to the mets prior to the 1984 season.  he spent two years in los angeles, hitting .261 in 139 games as a utility player.  his final appearance in the big leagues came in the 1985 nlcs against the cardinals.

billy bean

bean (who is a different billy bean(e) than the a's general manager) played in 51 games as a dodger in 1989. he hit only .197 and spent the next two seasons in albuquerque.  he was picked up by the angels, but didn't return to the majors until 1993 when he was with the padres.  he retired from baseball in 1995, and a few years after that acknowledged that he is gay.  bean was recently selected by commissioner bud selig to lead major league baseball's efforts towards inclusion, providing guidance and training to help combat prejudice, homophobia, and sexism in baseball.

al campanis

campanis appeared in 7 games for the 1943 brooklyn dodgers, getting 2 hits in 20 at bats.  the photo used for his card, however, comes from his time as the team's general manager, a position he held from 1969 into 1987 when he was essentially forced to resign following an appearance on 'nightline' in which he stated that african americans "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager" when asked why there were so few minority managers in the big leagues 40 years after jackie robinson broke the color barrier as a player.  as the dodgers' gm, campanis oversaw the teams that won four pennants and a world series, and even traded his own son to kansas city early in his tenure.

hank deberry

deberry was a catcher for the robins from 1922 through 1930, having been acquired from the new orleans pelicans in the same deal that brought dazzy vance to the robins.  he never appeared in more than 85 games in a season, but he became vance's personal catcher.  as such, he caught vance's no-hitter in 1925, and helped vance lead the league in strikeouts for seven straight seasons.  overall, deberry hit .267 in 608 games for the robins and later moved on to coaching, joining the new york giants in 1934 (hence the uniform he is wearing in the photo used on his card above).  he was a manager in the giants' organization in 1938, and then scouted for the giants until his passing in 1951.

alan foster

in his first 7 big league games (which included 5 starts and spanned the 1967 and 1968 seasons), foster was 1-2 for the dodgers despite an era of 1.95, a whip of 0.804, and a strikeout to walk ratio of 5.  over the next two seasons, foster was 13-22 in 57 games with a 4.30 era and a whip of 1.424, and his ratio was a mere 1.29.  he was traded to the indians in the duke sims deal prior to the 1971 season, and may be best remembered as the pitcher who served up the first home run to be hit out of dodger stadium (willie stargell accomplished the feat against foster in 1969).

merwin jacobson

jacobson was an outfielder who had a couple of short stints in the majors with the giants and the cubs in 1915 and 1916, respectively before resurfacing with the robins in 1926. he played in 110 games that season, hitting .247, but went hitless in 11 games (7 plate appearances) for brooklyn in 1927.  jacobson did his best work in between his major league seasons, playing mostly for baltimore of the international league from 1917 to 1925.  he hit over .300 every season between 1919 and 1925, including a .404 clip in 1920.  he is a member of the international league hall of fame.

bob lillis

lillis was signed by the brooklyn dodgers as a 21-year old in 1951, but he didn't make it to the big leagues until the age of 28 when he suited up for the 1958 los angeles dodgers.  as a shortstop, lillis saw  limited playing time, but hit .391 in the 20 games in which he did play that first year.  he continued to see a little bit of playing time in 1959 and 1960 (he did not appear in the 1959 world series), and after just 19 appearances in 1961, lillis was traded to the cardinals for daryl spencer.  after that season ended, he was drafted by the colt .45's in the expansion draft and finished his career in houston.  he retired as a player in 1967 and became an astro coach, a role he returned to in the early 1970's following a few years as a scout.  in the early 1980's lillis managed the club for a few seasons before joining roger craig's coaching staff in san francisco.

jim lyttle

lyttle had been released by the expos in july of 1976 after three-plus seasons in montreal that followed time with the yankees and white sox.  the dodgers were in need of an outfielder since reggie smith was injured in early august, and so they picked lyttle up to fill the void.  he wound up appearing in 23 games as a dodger over the remainder of the 1976 season, replacing both smith and later dusty baker in the outfield.  he hit .221 with no home runs and wound up finding great success in the japan league beginning in 1977.

mike marshall

there are only six pitchers who have every pitched in 90 games or more in a single season, and mike marshall (along with kent tekulve) has done it 3 times.  marshall, however, is the only pitcher to have pitched in over 100 games, having thrown in 106 contests during the 1974 season.  he won the national league cy young award that year, and helped the dodgers reach the world series for the first time since 1966 as well.  marshall broke his own record of 92 games, set the previous season when he was with the expos.  he is a doctor of kinesiology, and today provides training to pitchers in the hopes of reducing strain and injury through what are considered to be untraditional pitching motions.

joe mulvey

in 1895, mulvey appeared in 13 games for the brooklyn grooms, hitting .306 in the process.  that season marked the end of a 12-year big league career, spent mostly in philadelphia.

ron perranoski

perranoski was a dodger double dipper, appearing in a total of 457 games as a dodger.  his best season was 1963 when he was 16-3 with a 1.67 era and 21 "saves" while pitching exclusively in relief.  he finished fourth in the league mvp voting that year.

rick rhoden

rhoden was a member of the team of my youth, and was only 25 when the dodgers traded him to the pirates for jerry reuss.  rhoden had a record of 42-24 as a dodger, with a 3.40 era when he was traded following the 1978 world series.  he went on to pitch pretty well for the pirates and later the yankees, but never did make it back to the postseason.  besides being a decent starting pitcher, rhoden could hit - he had a career average of .238 with 9 home runs and 3 silver slugger awards.  he remains to this day the only pitcher to get a start as a designated hitter in a game.  oh, by the way, i am pretty sure that those are steve garvey's legs getting a cameo on the card.

vince sherlock

sherlock's big league career consisted of 9 games played for the 1935 brooklyn dodgers.  in those games, he was 12 for 26 with a walk and 6 rbi, meaning that he boasts a .462 lifetime batting average, and a career on base percentage of .481.  among players with at least 16 plate appearances in their career, sherlock ranks third in batting average behind cliff dapper (another former dodger), and troy mattes, a pitcher for the expos in 2001.

george shuba

shotgun shuba played for the brooklyn dodgers from 1948 through 1955, although he spent the entire 1951 season in the minors.  he may be best remembered for shaking jackie robinson's hand in 1946 when they were teammates at montreal and jackie hit a home run in his first game as a royal.  although he played in the minors for a couple more seasons, shuba's big league career ended with the dodgers' world series victory in 1955.  shuba passed away just three weeks ago at the age of 89.

kemp wicker

wicker was 1-2 with a "save" in 16 games pitched for the 1941 brooklyn dodgers.  he had previously been with the yankees where he was a part of the 1936 and 1937 world championship teams that defeated the new york giants in the world series. after the 1941 season, the dodgers traded wicker to the cardinals, but he did not make it out of their minor league system.

well, that's another sheet of cards accounted for.  more to come next week.

some beauties of a bowman

not too long ago, i posted about dodger double dipper clyde king.  i used a 1952 bowman card of his in the post - a card that i had purchased but not yet received.  i figured i might as well show the card again once it was in my possession, and i will, but first let's see this 1952 bowman cal abrams card that accompanied king on his journey.

abrams' card is superior to king's

but any 1950's bowman card is a fantastic add to my collection.  here are some other ones that i have picked up over the past few months.

1951 bowman carl furillo

and a 1951 bowman charlie dressen

i picked up the dressen at the most recent card show i attended.  i like how the card is cropped.  it looks like dressen is poking at the boundary of his two-dimensional cage.  kind of a-ha-ish.

here's a 1954 bowman george shuba

according to baseball reference, george 'shotgun' shuba was earning $13k in 1954.  i wonder if that's why he made his s look like a dollar sign.

i prefer his 1954 bowman card to his 1955 bowman card, but i bought one anyway at the same show i found the dressen

it's somewhat distressed, but that's ok.  1955 was a magical year for the dodgers, and i am very close to completing this team set.  1955 was shuba's last year in the majors, so he went out on top - making his final big league appearance in game 4 of the world series.

chico fernandez's rookie card is in much better shape

fernandez didn't debut for the dodgers until 1956, and his dodger career included only 34 apperances. he was traded to the phillies in 1957.

walt moryn

was traded after the 1955 season to the cubs, but still didn't appear in the 1955 fall classic.

charlie neal

like fernandez, made his debut in 1956. he stayed with the dodgers until he was traded to the expansion mets in december of 1961.  he also missed the 1955 world series, but he did stay with the dodgers long enough to play in the 1959 world series.

ken lehman

didn't pitch for the dodgers in 1955 (he spent the year in the minors), and the orioles purchased his contract in 1957.  he debuted in 1952, however, and got to pitch two innings in that year's world series against the yankees.

i was somewhat dismissive of early bowman during my formative collecting years.  now i recognize that these cards are pretty f'n cool.

my pared down 1953 topps sampler

i've removed all the non-dodgers from my 1953 topps sampler set.  here is what i am left with.

that's 12 of the 21 dodgers in the set.  i just need some guys named robinson, reese, campanella, etc.

for those of you with eagle eyes, you've noticed that there are 12 dodgers instead of 11 that were included in the sampler set post earlier today.  that's because in between the time i scanned the cards and got around to posting, i picked up a charlie dressen card.

sorry, that's chuck dressen.  i also mentioned earlier today that my approach to the sampler sets was to not worry about position differentiation, just team, color combos, and subsets.  that meant that i didn't have a manager card in the 1952 set (dressen is a high number), and until i picked up this card, i didn't have one in the 1953 set either.

emerald city dodger gems

larry over at emerald city diamond gems and the 1979 topps blog recently sent me some dodger cards.  here's the proof, starting with a 1979 tcma stars of the 50's george shuba

i don't have too many cards of shuba.  he is probably best known for shaking jackie robinson's hand at home plate after robinson homered for montreal, the dodgers' farm team in 1946.  he also was nicknamed 'shotgun' which meant the dodgers of the early 50's had a shotgun and the reading rifle in their lineup.

here's a 1981 fleer card of mickey hatcher

even when he's not doing something goofy on the front of one of his cards hatcher looks goofy.  nice to see dodger stadium and the dugout seats behind number 44.  next up is number 45, terry whitfield (who is also standing in dodger stadium), on his 1985 fleer card

the dodgers had brought whitfield back from japan for the 1984 season.  i was less than enthused, only because he had previously played for both the yankees and the giants.  yuck.

let's cleanse the palette with a 1986 topps card of orel hershiser

it's the tried and true vero beach shot.  one thing i don't miss now that the dodgers have moved spring training to arizona.

here's one of the dodgers' entries in the inagural upper deck star rookies subset from 1989

i think they had three - ramon martinez, juan bell, and william brennan.  brennan was the least successful of the three, appearing in a handful of games for the dodgers in 1988 and the cubs in 1993.  too bad, because i have a bunch of his cards.  he wore number 35 for the dodgers which i will always associate with bobby welch.  in fact, welch was barely gone to oakland before brennan was given the number.  that was crazy to me.

speaking of numbers, one day mike sharperson (seen here on his 1992 leaf card)'s number 27 will be retired by the dodgers

that's because it is now worn by matt kemp.  oh, hello alfredo griffin. i almost didn't see you in the background.  and what is that cub ballboy doing?

finally, there was a 2004 upper deck sp legendary cuts significant swatch insert featuring none other than steve garvey

sure, the fabric is from his days in san diego, but it's the garv with fantastic blue forearms.

thanks larry - i'll get your cards out this week.