follow the leader

for a while back around 1979 and 1980, steve garvey and ron cey were running just about neck and neck in the bid to become the los angeles dodgers' all-time leader in home runs. cey led garvey by four home runs (163 to 159) after the 1979 season, both having passed the previous leader (willie davis) and his mark of 154 home runs during that campaign.  cey got there about a month before garvey, and the first baseman never could catch up to him.  when both players left after the 1982 season (cey by trade, garvey by free agency), the penguin sat atop the leader board with 228 roundtrippers to garvey's second place total of 211.  here's cey's o-pee-chee card from 1977, the year he hit a career high 30 home runs.

cey held on to his title for just about 18 years until eric karros hit his 229th career home run on june 13, 2000.  here is karros' topps card from that year

karros went on to hit 270 home runs as a member of the los angeles dodgers, putting him not only atop the la leader board, but landing him at third place in the all-time franchise history.  he trails only duke snider (389 total as a dodger, 73 in la) and gil hodges (361, 63), and sits above roy campanella (242 all as a brooklyn dodger) with cey rounding out the top 5.  the rest of the franchise leader board sits as follows - garvey in 6th place, followed by carl furillo (192, 18), mike piazza (177), pedro guerrero (171), raul mondesi (163), and shawn green (162) all ahead of davis.  matt kemp (151) is next on the list, which is good for 9th place in la dodger history, and 13th in franchise history.

so what becomes of the la dodger career home run leader in the era of free agency?  starting with cey, he gets dealt to the cubs and gets a card showing him in transition - his 1983 o-pee-chee card.

and, in the case of eric karros, he gets the same thing - although his transition card is a 2003 leaf issue

they each also have full blown cubs cards.  here is cey's 1987 fleer

and this is karros' card from 2003 upper deck sp authentic

cey wound up spending four years in chicago, and hit 84 home runs as a cub, including his lone career inside the park job.  karros was in chicago for just one season, and hit 12 homers, a total that included one of my favorite karros home runs.  do you remember it, too?

on june 7, 2003, the yankees were visiting wrigley field and roger clemens was on the mound looking for career win number 300.  the game was televised, and the cubs had hee seop choi at first base and kerry wood on the mound.  in the fourth inning with the score still 0-0, jason giambi hit an infield pop up that resulted in choi making the catch while colliding with wood and then hitting his head on the ground.  choi left the game on a stretcher, and karros replaced him in the field.  the yankees took the lead the following inning on a solo home run by hideki matsui, and clemens was cruising.  in the 7th inning, however, clemens allowed a one out single to moises alou followed by a walk to sammy sosa.  joe torre replaced clemens with juan acevedo, and karros greeted him with a 3-run home run on acevedo's first pitch to ruin any chance clemens had at the milestone victory.  yes, clemens got his 300th win soon thereafter, but karros made him wait and i for one was thankful.

from chicago, both cey and karros returned to california, although they went to oakland rather than los angeles.  here's cey's 1987 topps traded card

and karros' 2004 topps card

each player finished their careers in oakland, and so hit their final career home runs in the green and gold.  cey hit four home runs as a member of the a's to bring his career total to 316, while karros managed only two homers in oakland to finish his career with 284 long balls.

so, with karros following in his predecessor's footsteps so closely, what does this mean?  matt kemp should break into the dodger franchise top 10 in 2013, and has a good chance to pass pedro and piazza to finish the year fourth on the los angeles leader board with karros' mark certainly attainable.  does that mean he will wind up in cubs and a's apparel towards the end of the decade?  i hope not, but the precedent has been set!

the long arm of the welch

not much to say here, i just was noticing how freakin' long bob welch's pitching arm looks on his 1988 topps card

the better to strike mr. october out with, i guess.

carry on.

coaches man, coaches

one of the fun things about the keebler, mother's cookies, and police department issues of the 1980's and '90's (and 1960 topps plus a couple of early 1980 donruss releases) is the inclusion of coaches in the sets.  of all the folks in uniform, the coaches seem to get the least amount of respect - right behind the third string catcher and the long relief guy.

not here, not today.  here are some cards of coaches that i treasure, starting with a 1989 mother's rangers card.

why a rangers card?  well, there's dave lopes in the bottom right, just a season removed from his playing career.  he joined the rangers as a coach starting in 1988 after retiring following the 1987 season.  he stayed in texas through 1991, and then coached in baltimore from 1992 through 1994.  then he was off to san diego where he coached until he became the manager of the brewers in 2000.  after the brew crew fired him during the 2002 season, lopes returned to the padres for the 2003 season.  he stayed there until 2006 when he coached for the nationals, and then in 2007 he moved to philadelphia where he coached until he returned to los angeles for the 2011 season.  whew.  if anybody has any lopes cards from his other coaching stops after texas, you know i would be interested in them.

here's the dodgers' coaching staff in 1986, courtesy of the dodgers police set

there's ron perranoski, monty basgall, manny mota, joe amalfitano, don mcmahon, mark cresse, and ben hines.

in 1986, bill russell was still active, so he got his own card in the set

but, when 1987 rolled around, russell was on the coaches card in the dodgers police set from that year

this time, tommy lasorda makes an appearance, so it's perranoski, lasorda, amalfitano, mcmahon, mota, russell, and cresse.  mcmahon passed away during the 1987 season after suffering a heart attack while pitching batting practice at dodger stadium.

aside from the loss of mcmahon, it's pretty much the same crew that appears on the 1989 dodgers police coaches card, with two exceptions

hines is back, perranoski, lasorda, amalfitano, joe ferguson returns to the dodgers, cresse, russell, and mota. those same coaches appear on the 1989 mother's dodgers coaches card, too.

as well as the 1991 dodgers police card.

today, this card would look a lot different.  manny mota is the only one left, and he would be joined by mark mcgwire, rick honeycutt, ken howell, tim wallach, dave lopes, trey hillman, and chuck crim.  that wouldn't be a bad card to have.

there's no need to go anywhere else

1971 marked the first time that the photo used on the dodgers team card showed dodger stadium in the background.  here's the 1971 o-pee-chee version of the card, with the team sitting in the first few rows of one of the pavilions.

prior to that, the photo used either came from spring training, or the background was eliminated. in the  1972 set, they were back at spring training, but for the 1973 set, the team was clearly down on the field in chavez ravine, where they have stayed since then.

for 1976, they used the right field corner as their backdrop

as they did in 1977

and 1978, for that matter.  the 1979 card, however, shows them moving slightly towards center field

to capture some of the right field pavilion and even get a couple of palm trees in the photo.

they used the same set up for 1981

which was the last year for team cards for a very long time.

in 2000, fleer brought them back in their tradition set.  

here we have the dodgers still using the right field pavilion and corner as the backdrop, but for the 2000 team photo used in 2001 topps,

they moved to the left field pavilion.

they were back to the right field side for the 2002 topps set

and the 2003 topps set

and the 2004 topps set as well.

for 2006, they not only trotted out their third different team logo panel, but they moved the set up so that their backs are to home plate

they actually made that move first for the photo used in the 2005 set, but i didn't have a scan handy.  you can see the background better on the 2007 topps heritage team card

which uses the same photo that's on the 2007 topps card

which is the last of these types of team cards we have seen, if i'm not mistaken.

i can appreciate the fact that some teams have tried to dress up the drab background that their stadium provides for these photos, like the giants who brought in a cable car (1978 topps) to liven things up inside candlestick.  some teams have gone outside their stadium such as the phillies (who literally went outside of veterans stadium in 1978 topps).  taking things to an extreme, the padres have been to old town san diego (1979), the zoo (1980), and mission bay (1981), and the cubs used floating heads for a few years despite having the ivy as an obvious choice for a backdrop.  the dodgers, however, have stayed in their stadium, and really - why go anywhere else?

i'm looking forward to seeing the renovations on some 2013 series 2 cards!

johngy's beat-down on the nefarious 9

hey! you might have noticed some changes to the nefarious 9 over there on the right side of the blog.  those are my most wanted cards (within reason), and johngy recently sent me a couple that had been there for a while.

he also sent a bunch of cards from 2000 which was pretty cool.  here are a few of eric karros' cards issued by pacific that year.  first we have crown collection

next is just plain pacific

and this is paramount

not much variation in the photo selection there.

here's another karros card from crown collection - this one has the team checklist on the back

i do believe fabio is 'suttoning' there!

on to the nefarious 9 needs.  first up was a 1985 fleer steve sax card

not sure why i needed this but i did.  overlapping team sets and player collections wreak havoc on want lists.

the other most wanted card that johngy sent was this 1993 o-pee-chee premier jody reed card

yay.

back to the 2000's - that was the year that the shawn green proliferation began, and it started while he was still in blue jays attire.  here's his 2000 pacific crown collection card

his 2000 pacific paramount card

and his 2000 upper deck ovation card

2000 also meant kevin brown cards, so, like green, here are his pacific crown collection

paramount

and upper deck ovation cards.

i've mentioned before that i really like all the 2000 dodger cards because they often show the heroes patch that each player wore.  brown is wearing the koufax patch that was kept out of wide circulation.

darren dreifort, shown here on his 2000 fleer tradition card,

wore the drysdale patch, but it's really hard to make out on the card, unfortunately.

these next few are better - 2000 pacific crown collection gary sheffield (jackie robinson)

2000 pacific crown collection devon white (jackie robinson)

and 2000 upper deck adrian beltre (ron cey)

thanks john, and be sure to check out johngy's beat!

get in shape with steve garvey's total conditioning program

this is it! the 12th and final installment of the 1979 post raisin bran steve garvey's baseball tips!  i've been doing a weekly countdown to spring training, and now that teams are reporting and working out, it's appropriate that the last of the 'cards' deals with conditioning.

i'm not sure if they do the tire runs in baseball.  they do a lot of stretching, though.  here's the garv himself on his 1987 topps card

although brett butler is a bit more limber, as seen on the back of his 1995 upper deck collector's choice se card

sometimes, it's easier to stretch in pairs, as jt snow and chili davis demonstrate on snow's 1993 upper deck card

once you're done stretching, you might do some running, like hal morris on his 1997 upper deck card

he's got the same idea as kenny lofton

while charles nagy hits the stairmaster

and don't forget the sliding drills! even pitchers like jeff suppan need to learn how to slide properly.

even though it doesn't look much like spring here in minny, i know that it's spring in florida and arizona, in part thanks to steve garvey and his baseball tips.