ok, i lied. here are a few more double play cards

just clearing the queue before the tourney starts, although we've seen most of these before.  just not with the autos!

i really like this 1973 topps card.  i hope it does well.  that's dick green lying in the dirt.  he was nice enough to sign the card for me, further cementing it as one of my favorite dp cards

even though tony perez was safe at first.

here's mickey morandini's 1997 topps card which he signed for me

dodger stadium and mitch webster goodness!

here's red sox/dodger hybrid bill mueller's 2006 topps card

mueller didn't get a chance to turn many dp's when he arrived in la since he spent most of his time at 3rd before he got hurt.
here's a card of him actually wearing a dodger uniform - his 2006 upper deck card

finally, no auto, but a 1986 topps jerry royster card that looks like it could have been part of an early to mid 1970's set

ok.  no more double play cards until we kick off the tournament. i'm serious.

no more double plays!

i am almost done with double play cards - at least in terms of weeding out the pretenders from the contenders for the upcoming 'greatest double play card of all time' tournament.  i still need to finish the seeding.  my goal is to get this going before 2012 cards start pouring out.  anyway here are a few more that i am considering.

1991 o-pee-chee marty barrett

landscape with a soiled bottom.  not bad.

1995 score gold rush rafael belliard

decent air.

1996 pinnacle sportflix alex rodriguez

yes kids, he used to play shortstop.  very well, in fact.

1997 upper deck had a bunch.  here's mark lewis

spring training pivot

mark loretta

two future dodgers! one had a big hit and one a big fizzle

chris snopek

with a bonus shot on the back

john valentin

chili looks to be a long way away from the base.

randy velarde

big mac comin' at you!  on the back too!

walt weiss

i think there will have to be an honorable mention award in the tourney named after walt weiss.  he has a bunch of nice dp cards.  kurt stillwell too, maybe.

2010 topps ozzie smith sp

graceful.

1997 pinnacle delino deshields

not graceful

1999 fleer tradition eric young

a turn so nice, the cubs player lowers his head in respect.

ok, that's enough.  look for the tourney later this month.

the bullpen aesthetic

corrugated metal is all the rage these days in decorating. at least at chipotle.  not blue corrugated metal, though.  or, in the case of the bullpens at dodger stadium, blue corrugated plastic.  check out what the dodger stadium bullpens used to look like, courtesy of orel hershiser's 1994 upper deck card

and john wetteland's 1990 topps card

how utilitarian.  mike williams' 1993 topps card gives us a good view of the big blue corrugated plastic wall.

these days, there is plant growth covering the back of the bullpens so we can't see the plastic anymore.  see?  look behind clayton kershaw on this 2011 topps insert.

actually, this card is a good before/after shot as you can see the back wall of the left field (dodger) bullpen behind koufax, and the visitor bullpen is behind kershaw.  here's another view, courtesy of kershaw's topps 60 insert from last year

nice work topps!

still, i am not sure when this happened, as the bullpens don't make it on to baseball cards anymore (except for those kershaw inserts this year), and the last time i was at the ravine (2006), i didn't bother to notice. 

there was a big stink made prior to this season when the twins removed the fir trees from behind the centerfield fence at target field.  billed as a nod to the northern forests of the state, apparently they bothered some of the hitters, so now there's just that big black wall.  sometimes, there's nothing wrong with utilitarian.

[i edited this post after speigel reminded me that the bullpen walls were hard plastic.  and, i found those kershaw cards in my scan folder.  makes for a better post]

joe torre curries favor with a dodger fan

i am a steve garvey fan, but for now, i find joe torre's attempt to own the dodgers a tad more appealing.  that is because i can be bought.  sure garvey has returned my ttm requests, but his partner in the dodger ownership endeavor, orel hershiser, has left me 0 for 2.  well, as of christmas eve, i am 1 for 2 with joe torre.

i sent him a couple of cards c/o the dodgers way back in 2009 when he was still managing the club.  reader and dodger auto hound had told me that torre was a pretty good signer some days (in person) but he wasn't too sure about ttm.  sure enough, i have not seen those cards since.

then last season, with torre essentially replacing bob watson in the mlb offices, i sent a couple more cards, this time to new york.  i was hoping torre would follow watson's lead and sign the cards and maybe even include his business card.  about 6 months later, i received them in the mail.

here's his 2009 topps card

and his 1978 topps card

bookends to his managerial career, actually.  that's pretty cool.

it's also cool because it means that i now have an autographed card from every dodger manager from walter alston to don mattingly.  i'll have to get a post together sometime.  in the meantime, i'll wait for the bulldog to sway my non-existent vote.

thanks joe!

scraping the bottom of the box

box bottom cards are sweet.  they're like those soup bowls for kids that have a cartoon on the bottom so if you eat all your soup, you get a smiling monkey staring back at you.  except, of course, you know the cards are there before you even rip into the box if you just flip it over.

of course, a box bottom card has its disadvantages as  it may get scraped and scratched and otherwise defaced, like this 1989 topps don sutton card.

still, the sutton card is desirable and significant to dodger collectors, as it is the only 1989 card sutton got from topps in 1989.  yes, he had a 'final tribute' in 1989 score, but because he was released by the eventual world champs in august of 1988, topps bumped him from the checklist.

it's similar to the 2008 'year in review' insert card that topps gave to david wells, even though he didn't get a card in the flagship set due to his retirement.

i may be the only person who lamented the lack of a 2008 topps david wells card.

back to the box bottoms.  i think 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee was the last set to have box bottom cards.  well, back in the day, o-pee-chee followed topps' lead, and as a result they gave sutton some box bottom love as well.

now that's good box bottom.  those canadians take care of their boxes, eh?

the reason sutton got one of these cards, reserved in those days for players reaching certain milestones, is that he made the 750th start of his big league career, second to only cy young. 

he wound up with 756 starts, and is now third on the list with nolan ryan taking over the number 2 spot.  joining sutton on the bottom of these boxes was his skipper, tommy lasorda

lasorda was so honored thanks to the 1000th managerial win of his career

tommy got a box bottom in 1990, too, as he managed his 2000th game.  although it looks like they were scraping the bottom of the box, er - barrel, for copy on this card.  what does his pitching for the a's in 1956 have to do with winning games as a manager?  maybe they were going to combine his wins as a pitcher with those he achieved while managing and then remembered he didn't win any games as a big league pitcher.  oh well, at least topps deemed sutton and lasorda worthy of the box bottoms and for that i am grateful.

this other time, at dodger stadium...

...the braves came to town in august of 1996.  thanks, upper deck, for doing it right in your 1997 set.  here's the crime dog in dodger stadium

and his teammate marquis grissom, also in chavez ravine

two future dodgers in their future home park!  mcgriff scored a run and was thrown out at home, so if he is indeed rounding third in the photo on his card, it would have come from one of those moments.  grissom is getting a 'bead' on a flyball off the bat of either chad curtis or juan castro, based on the boxscore at baseball reference.
the backs of the cards are also pretty cool

there's tom prince!  i think this brings the total of cards prince appears on as a dodger to two.  the game the previous day went 18 innings, and mike piazza caught 14 of them.  prince relieved him and got the start the next day.

grissom's back is also full of dodger stadium goodness

although there are no lurking dodgers.  man, this is what documentary could have been...

a card so nice, he signed it twice

today is the day i kick off the 'timeless teams' blog.  don't forget to follow and/or hype the site on your blog by 1/8/12 to earn an entry/entries into a drawing for a steve yeager auto from the set.  now that the shameless plug is complete, i'll show you another of my cards from the 'common' autograph parallel set.

it's don sutton, a member of the 1977 dodgers featured in the set

i like the blue sharpie contrasting with the black and white image and complementing the blue bottom border.  sutton was 14-8 for the dodgers in 1977, and was the starting and winning pitcher in the all-star game.

we also get treated to dodger stadium on the front of the card, as well as the back

there's something else cool about the back.  for whatever reason, sutton decided to sign it as well.  two autos for the price of one! awesome!  i'm not sure if sutton did this for other cards as well, but would love to find out.

and don't you worry, richard p. mcwilliam.  i am enjoying my autographed card!