sportscaster goodness - the triple play. sort of.

here's another 1977-79 sportscaster card i haven't shown before.  it celebrates the ultimate rally killer - the triple play.  of course, it does so by showing a double play turn at second base.

i know that this is not a play within a triple play thanks to the back.

we are told that rick burleson (featured on the front) "figured in red sox triple play", but with a review of baseball's triple plays from the 1970's we learn that the triple play in which burleson was involved consisted of him catching a line drive, stepping on second to put out a wayward runner, and throwing to first to triple up another guy who strayed too far.  that event took place against the california angels - not the kansas city royals (hello, amos otis).  

since the card is 30-some years old, some of the text is out of date.  there have now been 15 unassisted triple plays in major league history, with the most recent occurring on august 23, 2009.  on that day, eric bruntlett of the phillies retired three mets on a single play, becoming the second person to record a game ending unassisted triple play.

sportscaster goodness - keeping score with vin scully in the dodger stadium dugout seats

vin scully started his 63rd year behind the microphone for the dodgers yesterday.  although he is more commonly referred to as an announcer, he is a sportscaster and in his honor i will be posting some fantastic 1977-79 sportscaster cards over the next few days or so.  the first one is a generically themed baseball card with a tie to scully himself, although i am sure that was unintentional.  i am thankful that the good folks in italy decided to illustrate their 'keeping score' card with a fantastic shot of dodger stadium.

the photo was taken from the old 'dugout seats'  that ran in a semi-circle from dugout to dugout at true field level before frank mccourt came along and replaced them in 2005 or so.  yours truly never had the opportunity or the good fortune to sit in these seats, unfortunately.  i did, however, keep score at dodger stadium countless times, using a scorecard similar to the one the smartly dressed lady is using.

i never used a pen (kudos to the lady for her confidence in scoring), and the last inning would sometimes get forgotten as the game ended and we began our trek to the parking lot, but i don't think there was a game i attended without keeping score until i was in college.

there are lots of other things that i appreciate about the picture.  certainly, the view of dodger stadium from that level is fantastic.  the fact that i can tell the dodgers are hosting the padres (thanks to those great brown and yellow uniforms) is great.  and, the fact that there is a lurking john hale on deck just makes the card that much better.  i wish i could read her scorecard better and see if hale is pinch-hitting for someone or if it were one of his rare starts.  there's really no way to know which game this is from (he appeared in 7 games against the padres at dodger stadium in 1977 alone, and surprisingly, 5 of them were starts and at least two were day games!

i also like the fact that the kid is holding the same small wax cup of pepsi that i used to clamor for at the stadium, although i regret that no one is eating a dodger dog in the photo.

lastly, i love love love that the lady is holding in her left hand her transistor radio.  those of you who never attended a game at dodger stadium in the late-1970's and early 1980's (and before that, too although i have no personal experience) do not realize just how prevalent the transistor radio was among the fans in the stands.  everybody was listening to vin scully.  he tells a couple of stories where he used this fact to lighten the mood, such as encouraging the fans to wish an umpire 'happy birthday' at a given moment.

[as luck would have it, dylan hernandez of the la times wrote a column the other day which touched on both the dugout seats and scully playfully taking advantage of his in-stadium radio audience.]

i am pretty happy to have this card.  i can imagine this lady taking pause from her scorecard as john hale waits to bat against dan spillner or some such friar, and vin scully is waxing poetic about some tow-headed kid in the stands who dropped their ice cream.

thank you, vin scully, for making it so easy to enjoy dodger baseball.

he doesn't own the dodgers, but he did double dip

[this is the thirty-sixth installment in the double dippers posts.  here are the previous posts - brett butler, omar daal, eric young, nick willhite, chris gwynn, mickey hatcher, dave anderson, don zimmer, rafael landestoy, dave hansen, jose vizcaino, hideo nomo, greg maddux, mike maddux, jon garland, chan ho park, vicente romo, gene mauch, denny lewallyn, von joshua, joe moeller, dioner navarro, rudy seanez, bart shirley, randy wolf, ismael valdes, bobby castillo, mike devereaux, pete richert, jay johnstone, jesse orosco, lee lacy, giovanni carrara, jeff weaver, and ted sizemore.]

the bulldog willed the dodgers to a world series title in 1988, but even he was not immune to the realities of the game, and after the 1994 season, hershiser became a free agent and signed with the indians.

before that, however, we were given this very nice 1991 score card

to remember him by.  hershiser was 134-102 during his first 12 seasons with the dodgers, posting an even 3.00 era.  he was 4-0 in the postseason, having pitched in the nlcs in both 1985 and 1988, as well as the 1988 fall classic.  he had a cy young award, a gold glove, a silver slugger award, and three all-star berths.  unfortunately, he was under .500 since succumbing to injury in 1990, and the dodgers did not re-sign him.

in cleveland, hershiser certainly benefitted from the potent indians' lineup, winning 45 games in his three seasons there despite an era of over 4.00.  he continued to pitch well in the postseason, going 4-1 in 1995.  the first postseason loss of his career came in game 1 of the world series, but he rebounded to pitch a strong 8 innings in game 5 to beat the braves and greg maddux and stave off elimination.  he returned to the postseason in 1996, and the world series in 1997, where he suffered two losses to the marlins.

after the 1997 season, hershiser did a bad thing and signed with the san francisco giants.  he went 11-10 with a 4.41 era and was once again a free agent heading into 1999.  i don't recall this, but baseball reference indicates that hershiser signed a deal during spring training of '99 with the indians, but was released shortly before the start of the season.  that same day, he was signed by the mets.  there aren't too many cards of hershiser as a met, but i found this 2000 pacific card:

to document his time in flushing.  bulldog was once again a game over .500 as he posted a record of 13-12 for the metropolitans.  his era was 4.58, but he was still able to pick up a couple of big milestones.  first, he won his 200th career game - a july win against the expos.  then, in his final start of the season, he struck out 4 pirates, including abraham nunez who became hershiser's 2000th career strikeout victim.  he made his final postseason appearance with the mets in 1999, making a total of three relief appearances in the nlds and nlcs.

once the postseason ended, hershiser was again a free agent, and this time, he returned to the dodgers.  here's his 2000 topps card:

in his second start of his second tour of duty, hershiser was on the mound at dodger stadium for the home opener.  he pitched well - allowing just 1 run in 6 innings.  he earned the victory, which turned out to be the final tally of his career.  after 4 relief appearances and 4 more starts, hershiser was released by the dodgers in july of 2000.  

after trying his hand at coaching for a few seasons, he became an analyst for espn.  he recently helped form a team to try to purchase the dodgers, but fell short to the guggenheim group by who knows how many millions of dollars.  don't worry, though, i'm sure he will continue with his espn gig and maybe even his professional poker career.

here's to you bulldog!  a dodger double dipper!

od'ing on opening day

back when opening day was monday, i often played hooky and either went to chavez ravine or watched a few games on the tube.  wednesday's are bad for me work-wise, so i won't be able to sneak off to target field (i don't even know if the twinkies open at home or on the road).  still, i'll sneak a peek at the smartphone throughout the day, i am sure.  actually, i guess not.  there's only one game today?  cripes.

anyway, as the title of this post suggests, let's feast on some 2012 topps opening day cards.  here's our first look at the series 2 clayton kershaw card

the topps dodger factory team set is the same, so i am guessing it's a safe bet that we'll be seeing that image again in a couple of months.  here's kershaw's other card - the opening day stars lenticular spectacular

matt kemp has one of those, too

it's awesome to have two superstars on the dodgers again.  lots and lots of cards.  like this kemp fantasy squad card

ok - true story.  i was in a fantasy baseball league with one of the frequent commenters on jon weisman's 'dodger thoughts' (i, myself used to comment a fair amount on that site).  it was a keeper league, and i was fortunate enough to snag matt kemp when he was added to the game in 2006 or whenever.  last year, i decided that it was too much for me to keep up with that league and the others that i was in, so i dropped out.  did i mention that one of my other keepers was ryan braun?  i am guessing between the two of them i would have done very well.  oh well, at least i have yet another matt kemp od card - this one has blue borders!

and even more kemp goodness, with the baby blues

it's sad that i don't recognize too many of these guys.  ethier and jansen, and is that aaron miles on the far left?

finally a card that's not kemVp material - james loney

but wait, look in the background! it's matt kemp lurking!

ted lilly's card is kemp-less

as is chad billingsley's

i like the bills card.  you can see the flora covered back wall of the bullpen that i wrote about a while ago.  nice dodger stadium goodness.

here's dee gordon's card

they took the rookie cup from his other card and slapped it on this one which features the chipper jones double play breakup attempt.  i like it.

speaking of double plays, i also picked up this ian kinsler elite skills card

it's all about turning two, with former dodger and current world champion rafael furcal sliding in.

is that enough od for you?  it is for me.  i wish there were more games already.

a host of hostess

do you trust yourself? or do you find yourself questioning whether or not you really did update those want lists?  i, of course, have my want lists linked to my blog (although not all years are represented, and i know that any dodger wants listed past the 1980's are hopelessly out of date).  i've been concentrating the last couple of years on that 50's, 60's and most importantly to me, the 1970's.  

i knew i needed a couple of oddballs, and have added some of them to the nefarious 9.  imagine my excitement when i saw a healthy stack of hostess cards at one of the tables at the card show last friday.  it didn't take long for me to find target #1 (or #4 on the nefarious 9), a 1975 hostess bill buckner.

what a great card.  dodger stadium is represented nicely, and buckner's got his awesome mustache  and eyebrows in midseason form.  i am so happy to have found this card.  there were plenty of other dodgers in the stack as well, like this 1975 hostess bill russell,

which i was pretty sure i owned, but bought just for fun.  and for trading, i suppose.  same with this jimmy wynn

one cannot have enough jimmy wynn as a dodger cards.  i knew i had this one already, but it might be an upgrade for me.  plus it was almost free, so why not?

but then we got into some cards that i was fairly sure i still needed.  like a 1976 hostess steve yeager

so what if my want lists said that i did not need it - it did not look familiar to me, so i bought it.  i also bought a 1977 hostess steve garvey.

i may need this one, actually - either for my garvey collection or my dodger collection.  not sure yet.  it was on the want list - i just don't know if i needed one or two.

i did not need this 1977 davey lopes card.

more trade bait.  same goes for this 1977 rick monday card

which is one of his first as a dodger.  bill buckner's 1977 hostess card is also an airbrushed abomination, but i didn't bother with that one since he's a cub.  however, i am remorseful that i didn't pick it up as i look back.  

here's another steve yeager, this one is from 1978.

again, i could have sworn that my lists were wrong and i needed this one.  nope.  already had it.  i knew, however, that i did need a 1978 hostess reggie smith (#7 on the nefarious 9 list).  so, i picked one up.

i bought this one on ebay last week.  i could have had one at the show for about 20% of what i paid.  in fact, reggie was on the top of the stack.  that's karma slapping me in the face.

the last hostess card i picked up wasn't on any of my lists.  i was just struck by the look of the card, even though it's airbrushed.

there should have been more lyman bostock cards.

i told the guy that he had the "mostest hostess" i had ever seen, and regretted saying something that dumb even as i was saying it.  i should have trusted my initial instinct and just paid the man silently.  i also should have trusted my want lists.

four for 10

i took a quick look through a couple of auto/relic discount boxes at the card show on friday.  i found a certified cesar izturis auto (who knew?) but couldn't find two other items to make the 3 for $10 worth my while.  i suppose i could have purchased the auto on its own, but...meh.

later on, i came across a box with autos and relics priced at 4 for $10 and had slightly better luck.  i found this ivan dejesus jr. jersey card from 2012 topps

and had to have it since it looks like it's from a game where the dodgers wore those baby blue brooklyn uniforms.  first impression?  awesome.

speaking of awesome, i found a hong-chih kuo relic.  who knew such things existed?  this one is from 2008 upper deck ballpark collection

and features kenji johjima of the mariners.  kuo is taiwanese and johjima is japanese, but there must be a common thread, right richard p. mcwilliams?  anyway, i saw the other day that the mariners released kuo which is too bad because he had some lights out times for the dodgers.  i suppose i better go ahead and showcase the ttm success i had with him sometime last year as the chances of him landing with some other team is probably pretty slim.

kuo signed his 2010 topps update base card

 and his 2010 topps update all-star card

for me, along with one of his 2011 topps cards.

thank h-ck!  now back to the relic box.  i found a shiny vladdy from 2010 topps tribute

i feel for the guy who bought a pack for $40 or whatever and had to sell the relics for essentially $2.50.  vladdy go boom on that guy's balance sheet.  still, my appreciation of this wanes, and although i was a big fan of vladdy's over the last 10 years or so, this card is available if anyone wishes to trade for it.

the fourth card i snagged from the box was a 2003 bowman auto from pirates' closer joel hanrahan

his certified auto looks a lot like the one on my 2002 topps traded card that i sent to hanrahan a couple of seasons ago,

so that makes me feel good.  just like finding cards in bargain bins.  even the shiny ones.

carroll cares

after waiting for two years for someone to make a card of jamey carroll in a dodgers' uniform, topps finally came through with a carroll card in their 2011 update set.  

shortly thereafter, carroll left los angeles and signed with the minnesota twins.

i sent a copy of carroll's lone dodger card to him c/o the twins' spring training home, and waited a few weeks before it showed up in my mailbox the other day.

it looks great.  it's only my second return of the spring - the first was jerry sands.  hopefully the other few players i sent to are waiting for camp to break to hit the mailbox.  anyway, carroll is slotted to be the twinkies' everyday shortstop as they sent last year's bust to the minors.  i'm looking forward to seeing his scrappiness on display on fox sports north starting next week.

thanks jamey for signing and returning my card!