garvey cey russell lopes

22 January 2014

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.

21 January 2014

the 2013 topps ted lilly rainbow is complete

the 2013 topps ted lilly rainbow is a first for me (i'm still looking for a 2012 topps update adam kennedy printing plate), but only because i don't count the silk version to be part of the rainbow. i have the other parallels though. let's recap.

base

mini

black /62

camoflauge /99

emerald

gold /2013

orange /230 (from factory set)

pink /50

silver slate /10

silver slate blue sparkle

target red

toys r us purple

walmart blue

and here are the last two i needed

sapphire /25 (inserted in 2013 topps update)

and a printing plate, in my case cyan

numbered of course to 1/1

i've also made a pretty healthy run at a 2013 topps update nick punto rainbow, but i am not as diligent about that as i was about lilly. i am a big fan of lilly's card thanks to the nice dodger stadium background. now that the bullpens are no longer covered in foliage, i can appreciate this card (and all of its variations) even more.

20 January 2014

the phillies' 'b' memorial patch

two of the three buck brothers who purchased the phillies back in 1981 died during the 2010 offseason. alexander 'whip' buck passed away in october 2010, while jim buck died in march of 2011. as far as i can tell, the third brother - william - is still alive today. they were the heirs to what is now known as the glaxosmithkline pharmaceutical company, and used a small amount of their fortunes to buy the phillies in 1981.

for the 2011 season, the phillies wore a circular patch with the letter 'b' inside to remember the two brothers. the patch is visible on a whole mess of 2012 cards, including this 2012 topps heritage charlie manuel card

roy halladay is wearing it on this 2012 topps league leader card

clayton kershaw is also wearing a memorial patch - his is for duke snider.

here's a nice 2012 topps target red parallel of jose contreras with the patch

and a regular 2012 topps card of joe savery

i thought about using ryan howard's 2012 topps chrome card as the example in the memorial binder

but shane victorino's card from the same set is better

i'm not a victorino fan, so i kept looking. here's a 2012 topps gypsy queen jimmy rollins card

and a couple of hunter pence cards - 2012 topps opening day

and 2012 topps archives

i probably like pence less than victorino, so i'll go with jimmy rollins' 2012 topps opening day card

as the representative card in the collection.

with all the talk about the new dodgers' ownership and the finances that the guggenheim group has, the buck brothers were also venture capitalists and have apparently set the phillies up with a vast amount of resources to remain competitive for a long time.

the robin roberts memorial patch

on may 6, 2010, hall of fame pitcher robin roberts passed away due to natural causes. he was 83. the phillies, his primary team during his 19 year career, subsequently wore a memorial patch with his number 36 on their right sleeves. here's joe blanton's 2011 topps card as an example

and here is chase utley's 2011 topps 60 insert with the patch visible as well.

the card in my memorials binder, however, is this 2011 topps chrome carlos ruiz card

roberts was a member of the 'whiz kids' - the 1950 phillies team that captured the national league pennant but lost to the yankees in the world series. that was the only postseason appearance of roberts' career (which also included time with the orioles, astros, and cubs; plus a 'zero year' appearance with the yankees) although he was the most successful pitcher in the national league during the first part of the 1950's. he won 20 or more games in each season from 1950 through 1955, plus 19 more in 1956 while playing for some fairly bad teams. he finished his career with 286 wins while leading the league in wins four years in a row and twice in strikeouts. roberts just missed the pitching triple crown in 1953 by finishing second in era to warren spahn.

roberts' contract was purchased by the yankees following the 1961 season, and the phillies retired his uniform number in 1962, even though roberts was still active until the end of the 1966 season and even attempted a comeback with the team in 1967. actually, it appears that the team may have waited a bit longer to retire the number (did they do as the dodgers and wait for cooperstown to call?), as baseball reference shows a player wearing 36 for the phillies in 1972, four years before roberts was enshrined in the hall of fame.

19 January 2014

when in extreme doubt, turn two again

sometime last year, i got in the habit of scheduling two (or more) posts a day on weekends. not every weekend, but most of them, plus on a weekday here and there. i feel like i have a lot of cards i want to show and/or write about, so i plan to maintain a greater that a post a day pace this year. i didn't have much to say for the first post that ran today, so instead showed some heretofore unseen on this blog double play cards. why not show some more for the second post of the day.

2000 topps stadium club derek jeter