sunday morning target dodgers - i don't know any of these guys

it's crazy that i can look at baseball-reference and find out about each and every one of these players, none of which i had heard of before preparing this post.  in fact, i thought about just making stuff up for these 14 men from a sheet of the 1990 target dodgers set (the 15th card gets its own post later today), but that would be a disservice.  so, off to baseball-reference i go.

erve beck

beck was a 20-year old rookie who played in 8 games for the brooklyn superbas in 1899.  he was 4 for 24 in those games and next appeared in the major leagues in 1901 with the cleveland indians of the upstart american league.  that season, beck's 6 home runs counted for half of the indians' total of 12.

bill collins

collins, shown here in a 1911 boston rustlers (later known as the braves) road uniform, played for the superbas in 1913.  he hit .189 in 32 games for brooklyn and moved on to the buffalo buffeds of the federal league for the 1914 season.

dan daub

daub pitched in the major leagues for six seasons, spending the final five of those with brooklyn.  from 1893-1897, daub pitched for the grooms/bridegrooms, compiling a record of 44-50.  daub later went on to coach the baseball team at ohio wesleyan university, where one of his players was branch rickey.

pat deisel

deisel appeared in a total of 3 games during his big league career.  two of those were with the reds in 1903, and the other one came with the brooklyn superbas in 1902.  in his lone appearance for brooklyn, deisel came to bat 5 times.  he struck out once, walked once, was hit by a pitch, and had two base hits.  in the following season, he walked in his only plate appearance, giving deisel a career on-base percentage of .833.

bert haas

haas made his big league debut in 1937 as a brooklyn dodger.  he played in 16 games that year, hitting .400 (10 for 25) while striking out only once.  the following year, he only appeared in one game, and it appears that he was only announced at that - he didn't take the field or make a plate appearance.  he didn't appear as a dodger again, as the team traded him to the cardinals during the 1940 season in the trade that netted them joe medwick.  haas does not appear to be any relation to the bill haas who appeared on a 1963 topps rookie card as a dodger, or moose haas for that matter.

pat hurley

not sure where 'pat' comes from - baseball-reference only lists this member of the 1907 superbas as jerry hurley.  he played in one game for the franchise, going 0 for 2 with a walk and 2 strikeouts.  that's two of the three true outcomes!

joe kustus

kustus' big league career consists of just about 3 months of service with the 1909 brooklyn superbas.  he appeared in 53 games, hitting .145 with a home run and 11 rbi.

frank lamanske

while kustus' big league career lasted about three months, lamanske's lasted only about a week.  he pitched in two games for the 1935 dodgers - one on april 27 and the other on may 1. in his debut, the dodgers were facing the boston braves who had a certain former yankee hall of fame slugger in their lineup.  what's even cooler is that, if the data on baseball-reference is correct, lamanske struck babe ruth out that day for his first and only career k.  imagine having that tidbit to throw around at dinner parties!

dolf luque

luque was a cuban-born player who won 194 games in the major leagues during a 20-year career.  he pitched for the brooklyn robins in 1930 and 1931, winning 14 and 7 games those years, respectively.  luque, who had began his professional career in the negro leagues, returned to cuba following his major league playing days and managed tommy lasorda at one point.

pryor mcelveen

mcelveen, nicknamed 'humpty', played everywhere but pitcher during his three seasons with the superbas/dodgers from 1909-1911.  he hit better than .200 in just one of those seasons, however, sandwiching a .225 average in 1910 between .198 and .194 clips in his other seasons.

john miller

miller came to the dodgers at the start of the 1967 season from the yankees as one of the players in exchange for john kennedy.  he had only two hits in his 6 games with the yankees in 1966, but one of those was a home run that he hit in his first big league at bat.  in fact, miller was 2 for 3 after his first three at bats in the big leagues, but went 0 for his next 20 and never appeared in another game for the yankees.  after joining the dodgers, miller wasn't called up until 1969 when he played in 26 games as a dodger.  in what would be the last at bat of his career, miller hit a pinch-hit home run.  i have to believe that he is the only player to homer in his first and last big league at bats without hitting one in between.

glen moulder

moulder pitched in one game for the brooklyn franchise.  it was his big league debut in 1946 when he relieved curt davis (in what was davis' last big league appearance) and pitched the final two innings of a 10-4 loss to the new york giants.  moulder allowed a walk and two hits in his two innings of work, with one of those hits a solo home run by buddy blattner. moulder was selected by the browns in the rule v draft after the season, and spent 1947 in saint louis.  he finished his big league career with the white sox in 1948, but returned to the dodger organization in 1949 and continued a minor league career for several more seasons.

tony smith

smith played on the 1910 and 1911 brooklyn teams, hitting well below .200 in each season.  with the superbas in 1910, he hit .181 in 106 games, and then hit just .150 in 13 games in 1911 for the dodgers.  he and pryor mcelveen from above were teammates, and both were featured in the 1911 t205 set.  someday i'll get one of those cards for the collection.

bull wagner

wagner missed out on being teammates with mcelveen and smith, and the t205 set, as he joined the superbas in 1913.  he appeared in 18 games that year, earning a record of 4-2.  he was 0-1 in 6 games the following season, and that was all she wrote for his big league career.

and, that's all she wrote for this installment of sunday morning target dodgers.  i'll be sure to find some more recognizable folks for next week's post.

bo knows tatooine

i recently completed a trade with bo from baseball cards come to life.  i sent him some set needs, and he sent me some tatooine cards.  i don't necessarily seek these types of cards in trades, but bo sent me some good ones.

one of the many fantastic staged cards that topps put out in the early 1990's is this 1991 topps benito santiago card

sorry, i guess he was benny in 1991.

the padres were frequent visitors to the desert planet, apparently.  here's a very 1973 topps-ish 1992 upper deck card of paul faries

 as well as a 1993 leaf tony gwynn

and let me take a moment to recognize the passing of mr. padre.  i've mentioned a few times that while i was living in orange county, i would often drive to san diego to see the dodgers play.  one of the series that i attended included the last three games of the 1995 season, including (obviously) the season finale.  the dodgers had clinched a playoff berth the night before (it was the first time i had been in attendance when they clinched - that was really cool), and so the teams were just playing out the string.  chan ho park made his first big league start, striking out 5 in 3 innings of work.  the game was tied 1-1 heading into the 7th when mike busch hit a 3-run homer to put the dodgers ahead 4-1.  in the bottom of the frame, gwynn led off with a double and was removed from the game for a pinch runner.  it was a nice move by bruce bochy, as it allowed gwynn to get an ovation as he left the field.  and what an ovation he did receive.  everybody stood and applauded, and i could feel the deep appreciation that the padre fans had for number 19.  he acknowledged the crowd, and it seemed that the feeling was mutual.  i am glad i got to see gwynn play a few times and get a few hits, but that ovation as gwynn walked off the field is my lasting memory of him.

back to the post at hand.

the cubs played some games on tatooine, too.  here's a 1993 upper deck shawon dunston card

and the back of sammy sosa's card from the same set

the cubbies must have been playing the mets outside of mos eisley, because here's eddie murray's 1993 upper deck card

with a couple of southsiders

other examples of tatooine cards from bo include a 1990 upper deck lance parrish card

a 1993 topps stadium club tim hulett card

plus some cincinnati folks - 1993 upper deck barry larkin

and a 1995 upper deck collector's choice john roper

when it came to the ropers, i was more of a mr. ferley fan.

here's the back of a 1994 upper deck randy tomlin card

tomlin can run, but he can't hide from the imperial stormtroopers on his tail

finally, here are a couple of cards from 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition - carlos baerga

and will clark

clark looks like he just bulls-eyed a womp rat in beggar's canyon.

thanks for the cards bo!

a more than just so-so trade

back in a game i was watching in the late 1990's, vin scully commented while the dodgers were playing the cubs that the white sox must have thought a certain player to be only so-so, when in fact, it turned out that he was sosa!  a corny joke, but vin gets a lot of leeway from me.  anyway, i recently received a card of that so-so player in the mail from p-town tom at waiting 'til next year.

it comes from 2002 topps 206, and is a series 2 team 206 insert.  i'm working on the base and insert set, which is why i was sent the card.  it is much appreciated.  tom included another card - this 1975 (some say 1976) sspc card of dodger hitting instructor mickey vernon

vernon was a two-time batting champion for the washington senators, and happened to be the favorite ballplayer of president dwight david eisenhower.  after retiring as a player, he coached for a few teams, with the dodgers being one of them.

i wasn't expecting the vernon card, so it was a nice surprise.  it makes me wish even more that topps would produce cards of coaches again, and that donruss had included some of the dodger coaches in their early 1980 sets that had a few other teams' coaches in them.

i also received my return pwe from topher at crackin' wax.  for a one cent donation, i was able to choose some cards from his 'take my cards' page.  i wound up with a couple of dodgers from 1978 1987 2014 donruss.

adrian gonzalez

and zack greinke

i grabbed a couple other cards for trade bait/trade fodder, and i'll be checking back to see what other cards topher has for me to take.

jose canseco final tributes

i am not ashamed to say that i was, and still am to a degree, a jose canseco fan.  as any good card collector in 1986, i tried for as many of his rookie cards as i could, and i followed his home run and stolen base exploits with quite a bit of interest.  you may recall that i had adopted the a's as my american league team with the arrival of rickey henderson and billy ball in 1980, quickly and shamelessly abandoning the excitement over the angels and don baylor that i had felt in 1979.  so, i still had a soft spot for oakland in the mid-80's, and was glad to see canseco making them relevant again.

even as i joined the 'ste-roids' chant from the right field pavilion at dodger stadium during game 1 of the 1988 world series, i marveled at the grand slam canseco had hit in the first inning.  it is still one of the top 3 hardest hit balls i have ever seen in person (willie mccovey and willie stargell hit the other two, with albert belle and carlos delgado not far behind).  anyway, i was always willing to give canseco the benefit of the doubt even as there became no doubt.  i was annoyed when the yankees claimed him on waivers in 2000 just to block another team from picking him up as i knew it would be difficult for canseco to sign on with another team in 2001.  as luck would have it, the angels signed him just before spring training, but then released him in march (although topps still put out cards of him in 2001 in the angels' uni).  i thought that that may have been it, but to his credit, canseco went to the independent league and played minor league ball until the white sox came calling at mid-season.

thanks to canseco's perseverance and the fact that frank thomas was lost for the season, we were treated to some non-yankee (and angel) final tributes in 2002.  i've got a lot of them.

2002 donruss

with full career stats on the back

2002 donruss fan club

perhaps the 'bulkiest' photo of canseco on any card, and also with complete career stats on the back

2002 fleer maximum

the back of which gives a closer look at the travels of canseco towards the end of his career

he came oh-so-close to another 30/30 season while with the blue jays in 1998.  i believe he also hit the longest home run in skydome history that year as well.

2002 fleer platinum

more full career stats

did anybody ever look at those graphs on the back of 1987 (and 2002 fleer platinum) cards?  i didn't.  if i had more initiative, i would dig up canseco's 1987 fleer card and compare the graphs between this card and that one.  i just looked his card up on comc, and now recall that the graphs on the back of '87 fleer cards were different than those above.  never mind.

2002 fleer tradition

again with the full career stats, with room to spare at the bottom

202 fleer triple crown

another final tribute with the full career stats, although fleer doesn't care to give individual rows of stats to each team played for in a single season.  advantage donruss and topps.

speaking of which, here's canseco's 2002 topps 206 card

no stats on the back, but a note that canseco became the first man to hit 400 home runs and steal 200 bases in a career

2002 upper deck authentics

here, even though there is just one row of stats on the back, we can see his career totals

and notice that he stole 2 bases on the season to finish with exactly 200 steals.  he was caught one time.

2002 upper deck vintage

this was the most blatant to-date rip off of topps that i recall; upper deck's 2001 decade 1970's set kind of looked like 1975 topps, and their 2001 vintage release looked a lot like 1963 topps.  here, they dropped the text to the bottom of the card and made the backs yellow to look like the late series o-pee-chee cards did in 1971

they weren't ripping off topps, it was o-pee-chee that they were using.  the only problem was that upper deck didn't acquire the rights to o-pee-chee until 2006 if i recall correctly.

perhaps my favorite two final tributes for mr. 40/40 came from topps.  canseco, as he had done in 2001, signed a deal prior to 2002's spring training, this time with the expos.  topps, as it had done in 2001, issued cards featuring canseco his his new uniform.  never mind that he was released again during spring training, we get these final tributes from 2002 topps

full career stats, with league leader designations.  i thank you, topps.

and 2002 topps chrome

with the same info on the back

i also appreciate topps (and fleer platinum) for putting strikeouts on the backs of their cards.  canseco retired with 1942 k's, which at the time was good for second on the all-time list behind only canseco's 1987 a's teammate reggie jackson.  jackson had 101 more homers than canseco, however.

canseco eventually returned to the white sox organization in 2002, appearing in 18 games for their triple-a  affiliate and slugging 5 home runs, but didn't get back to the big leagues.  he has since played in the minors in a few different seasons (2006, 2010-2013), and even had a short (one-day) stint in dodger camp prior to the 2004 season.  it's too bad topps didn't put out a card that year like they did in '01 and '02...