it's [currently] sunny in philadelphia

i had hoped to post this card as a lead-in to a dodgers/brewers series, but the brew crew didn't get it done. oh well, it's a 2008 upper deck ballpark quad swatch featuring prince fielder, ben sheets, matt kemp and james loney. enjoy it anyway.



now i know you aren't here for a playoff preview, so i won't go into any detail, but let's hope that manny knocks a foul ball back in the booth and takes out tim mccarver a la roy hobbs and robert duvall's character in the natural. other than that, i hope bowa doesn't get too much thrown at him tonight, and i hope davey gets a decent response from the dodger fans in game 3.

recent additions

i picked up some 2008 singles at the local shop the other day, hard to beat 12/$1.

here's hoping lowe can continue his postseason success tomorrow against the phillies...

matt kemp is my baseball salvation.

glad to have you back, raffy.

glad to have you on the dl, andruw. i almost didn't buy this card because i hate to support colletti's worst signing (so far), but i cheer for the name on the front of the jersey, so...

glad to have you on the bench, jeff. just be sure to channel your inner gibson when the time comes.

sorry you can't be a part of this, brad.

thanks for the memories, mark.

let's turn two, part deux

here are some more double play turns, memorialized on cardboard...

2008 upper deck omar vizquel - oh my omar!1989 upper deck jody reed - as we all know, jody reed's stupidity is why pedro was traded for delino...

2006 topps bill mueller - guess the airbrushers didn't want to bother with this one.

2001 upper deck jay canizaro - those bay area stadiums love their chevron ads!

2002 upper deck warren morris

2004 playoff honors rafael furcal

1995 topps cyberstats walt weiss - triple the fun!

2002 topps total orlando cabrera - turning two at dodger stadium

where's nomar?

i don’t mean literally – i know he is on the bench (so far) for the dodgers’ post season schedule. i mean, where are his topps cards? when the dodgers acquired nomar, i was stoked. probably more excited than i was the night i heard the dodgers had acquired kirk gibson. back then i still had the taste of dave goltz and don stanhouse, and was a bit leery of dodger free agent signings.

but nomar was my favorite non-dodger player. i couldn’t wait to see him in the uniform, and on the cards. 2006 topps was out, and he was shown as a cub. that’s ok – there’s always the update set. sure enough, there he was, on an all-star card swinging away at dodger stadium. 

topps opening day also showed him as a dodger,

as did topps chrome – both sets using his regular issue card photo, with the uniform airbrushed into the dodger home whites. he also appeared in allen & ginter, co-signers, heritage, pretty much every issue topps made. after his fantastic start to the 2006 season, and some huge hits to take the dodgers to the post season, i was excited to see if topps would a picture from his walk-off homer in the 4 home run +1 game. would it be at the plate?

scoring the run?

being hoisted on his teammates shoulders?

after all the injuries and doubts, nomar was back!

then, in 2007, something strange happened. no more nomar. no mention of him anywhere. upper deck had him, but the only topps I could find was a topps finest “rookie finest moment” card showing him with the red sox.

2008 offered more of the same. no topps nomar. i even bought the special edition dodgers 55 card team set issue, which promised cards of the entire 25 man roster. sure enough, there’s joe beimel and everyone else, but no nomar. even the coaches have cards in that set.

now, I assume that, for whatever reason, nomar chose not to sign with topps. just like alex rodriguez during his first few years, or barry bonds did for a couple years. but why? i don’t get it. all i know is that for people like me who collect the topps dodger team sets, there has been a very big hole the last couple of years. here's hoping nomar is back with topps next year.

up the middle

bill russell and davey lopes played together, along with garvey and cey, for nine seasons. russell, an outfielder turned shortstop, was perhaps the least appreciated of the four, while second baseman lopes mixed speed and power in a way not typically seen in that era. russell was a dodger for his entire playing career, retiring after the 1986 season, while lopes was the first to leave the infield as he was traded to the oakland a's for lance hudson prior to the 1982 season. in fact, the last time the infield was together was as the 1981 world champions. here, bill and davey are together again on the 2005 upper deck classics "classic counterpars" insert, numbered to 1999.

after the trade, lopes was replaced by steve sax. this was easier to take than the trade of cey the following year, as third base became a revolving door between his time and the arrival of adrian beltre (madlock, cabell, hatcher, pedro!, wallach, zeile, etc.). over at first, garvey left to free agency, opening the door for greg brock, who was quickly followed by mike marshall and franklin stubbs, and then eddie murray until eric karros put down roots for a while. bill russell slowly gave way to the likes of dave anderson, followed by alfredo griffin, jose offerman and a host of others.

stability counts for something, right? i know things were different back then, but it was relatively easy to trace the dodgers infield lineage from garvey back to hodges, lopes to robinson, russell to reese, and cey to just whom i am not sure - third base was a black hole for the dodgers before the penguin came along.

anyway, both russell and lopes went on to manage in the big leagues, with russell taking over for the dodgers after tommy lasorda was forced to retire and lopes managing the brewers from 2000 to 2002. russell continued to coach in the majors and manage in the minors, while lopes has coached for several teams, most recently the phillies. we'll see davey in a few days, hopefully, when the phillies face the dodgers in the nlcs. hopefully, it's more like 1977 or 1978 all over again, and less like 1983!

the penguin

the second piece of the infield of my youth. while steve garvey was my hero, the poster on my wall was of ron cey. sometimes overshadowed by garvey on the dodgers and mike schmidt among national league third basemen, he was pretty consistent at the plate during his time in la. he even had a couple strong years with the cubs, losing to garvey's padres in the 1984 nlcs.

this card is from the 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams set, and it commemorates the third baseman for the 1980 dodgers. with 89 wins, they needed to sweep the first place astros in a 3 game series the final weekend of the season to force a one game playoff. after winning the first two games, it was ron cey who hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 8th of game 162 to give the dodgers the lead, despite injuring his ankle with a foul ball. hall of famer don sutton actually came in and got the last out to record the save!

alas, the next day did not go so well, for the penguin or the dodgers, as cey had to sit out due to his injuries and the astros beat the dodgers 7-1. i remember asking my 5th grade teacher if we could watch the game at school, and for some reason, he agreed. i think we turned it off after terry puhl went crazy on the bases and art howe drove in the 6th and 7th runs for houston. so, the dodgers finished in second place as the astros went on to play the phillies in the nlcs.

things would turn around for the dodgers in 1981, though. fernandomania, rick monday, and a world championship with the penguin sharing in the world series mvp honors. i'll talk about that another time.

let's turn two

when i played baseball, i spent most of my time at short or second. mostly second as i got older and my arm got weaker. it makes sense, then, that my favorite play was turning two. i really loved it as a shortstop - breaking towards second to field a ground ball up the middle, gliding over second base and throwing to first as my momentum took me out of the path of the runner. playing second base was different - running to cover the bag, waiting for the throw, and then heaving the ball while somehow avoiding the slide. i got taken out a few times, of course, but that wasn't enough to sour me on the cosmic ballet that is the double play.

so, i collect cards that show the turn at second base. sometimes the fielder is standing his ground, sometimes he is airborne, and sometimes he gets taken out. all's fair with the hard, clean slide into second.

here's a good sampling of the three: rey ordonez standing tall in the face of john cangelosi on his 1999 topps card,

rafael furcal jumping over ordonez on his 2004 upper deck card,

and mike scioscia barreling into tom foley's knees on foley's 1989 upper deck issue, at dodger stadium no less!

finally, it wouldn't be prudent to ignore the fact that the dodgers beat the cubs in game 1 tonight, so, courtesy of 2002 fleer, here's then dodger and former cub mark grudzielanek trying to avoid former dodger and cub todd hundley at chavez ravine.

it's the trifecta! good times!