a tale of two packs

the other day i had a few extra minutes in the right part of town, so i headed over to one of the local card shops.  it has probably been a couple of years since i have been in a card shop, and this was the first time i had been in this particular one.   it was not very well organized, but had a bunch of large count boxes just sitting out in the open where anyone could dig through them - vintage and otherwise.  there was an older guy looking through some newer hockey releases, and the worker lady was behind the counter working on a computer learning program of some sort.  i spent most of my few minutes digging through what was essentially a 3 for $10 relic box and made out with about $30 worth of dodger relics.

i have to admit, however, that my main motivation to head to the shop was to try to pick up a pack or two of 2012 topps archives.  sadly, they had none.  but, having anticipated opening some packs for the first time in a looooooong time, i picked up some stuff that was pretty foreign to me.  one pack of 2012 topps gypsy queen, and one pack of 2012 topps heritage.  here's what i got.

first, the gypsy queen.

not pictured - a mini josh beckett.  that's not too bad of a pack if you are a fan of the american league east. i dislike prince fielder in a tigers' jersey when the card talks about a homer he hit as a member of the brewers.  also, ra dickey's sanitarys are looking a bit thin.  which they are - they're sanitarys after all.  i didn't realize big leaguers still wore them.  or socks in general.  thanks george hendrick.

here's the heritage pack

hey, there's ra dickey again.  usually when i see palm trees on a baseball card, i think of dodger stadium, but in dickey's case (and worley's, too) it looks like spring training.  this pack works well for nl and al east fans.  i got a four-in-one rookie stars card, but sadly not one of the many that feature the dodgers' own tim federowicz.  thank goodness for chad billingsley, the last card in the pack, otherwise i would have been shut out of dodgers.

i don't know if any of these are short prints or what not, but they are all available.  except for bills.

now i remember why i stopped buying packs.  at least for a day or two, because i just bought a blaster of archives yesterday.  look for a very disappointed gcrl post this weekend.

i see you dick tracewski!

i'm trying to get back to a more regular routine as far as posting over at timeless teams goes.  it was tough writing about the orioles of the late 60's and early 70's multiple times.  now, however, we are getting ready to see some of the teams that i am more familiar with, and that, along with my self-motivated self, should result in more frequent posting.  say once a week?

yesterday i posted the cards featuring the 1972 detroit tigers.  those cards included this one of jim northrup with a lurker in the background.

i was hoping that the lurker would help me determine whether the northrup photo was from a certain year (it was taken no earlier than 1972 because of the uniform he is wearing).  anyway, the lurker turned out to be former tigers third base coach dick tracewski.  and, he was no help as he started coaching in detroit in 1972 and stayed there for 24 years.

tracewski split his 8-year playing career pretty evenly between the dodgers and tigers.  he played in 303 games for the dodgers from 1962 through 1965, and 311 games for detroit from 1966 through 1969.  he appeared in three world series (1963, 1965, and 1968) and won rings in each of them.

he has two cards that feature him as a dodger - 1964 and 1965 - and he was kind enough to sign one

of each through the mail for me a few months ago

although i don't own a copy of his 1966 card, i appreciate that his last card as a dodger and his first card as a tiger are so similar.  i also appreciate that tracewski's 1964 card has a couple of lurkers of its own - say hello to coach pete reiser (number 27)!

thanks dick!

oh - by the way.  there will be a contest regarding the timeless teams blog here in a couple of weeks.  just an fyi.

now part of a complete breakfast

a while back, i picked up a 1970 kellogg's bill singer card.  i had been watching ebay for a while, and i was able to get it for a good price, most likely due to the fact that it was just graded as an 8.

i think that people who look for graded cards are looking for higher grades, and a lot of people who don't want graded cards don't bother with these even though they are fairly easy to extricate.  so, people like me  sometimes can get a decent deal.  of course, i could have waited and got an ungraded version for $3 or so as there have been a few on ebay in recent months.  oh well.

singer joins previous pickups willie crawford

tom haller

and don sutton

in my collection.  i am hoping by the end of the summer to have completed all of the dodger kellogg's team sets.  let me know if you can help with the few that i still need:

1977 kellogg's 11 doug rau
1977 kellogg's 47 charlie hough
1978 kellogg's 34 reggie smith
1978 kellogg's 36 tommy john

now i'm off to snap, crackle, and pop that psa case...

that's a lot of people

a few days ago, nick at the dime boxes blog wrote an interesting post about cards with the most people on them.  he has several great examples, and it got me to thinking.  i immediately recalled this card, a 1997 upper deck ismael valdes card

featuring the blistered wonder posing for camera day in dodger stadium.  the first time i went to camera day, i didn't understand. i had been to 'helmet day' where i received a dodger batting helmet, and i had been to some other promotions where i took home a poncho/raincoat and other dodger knick knacks.  so, i could not believe that the o'malleys were going to be handing out cameras to all fans in attendance.

of course, that was not the case as my dad quickly explained.  he told me we would be down on the field and would be able to take pictures of the players.  no, not while they are playing.  anyway, it was the first time i was on the field at dodger stadium, and i have a picture of me somewhere standing up against the outfield wall near the dodger bullpen.  good times.

fast forward almost 20 years from that time, and we get valdes safely beyond the orange fence and the reach of the legion of fans hanging out in left field. not as many people as that 2008 upper deck manny ramirez card or the babe ruth card, but certainly the most dodger fans.

the evolution of the ace, part 2

here we are with the second installment of the non-scientific evolutionary chain of the dodgers' ace.  we left off part one with gomer, and we start part two with don sutton.

don sutton (1971-1973, 1976)

don sutton, much to my chagrin, is the only hall of famer to be part of the team of my youth.  from 1971-1973, sutton averaged 18 wins a year.  he won 19 in 1973, and finished in 5th place in the cy young award voting in both 1972 and 1973.  he finished in the top five in strikeouts each of the three years, and his 9 shutouts and sub-1.00 whip led the league in 1972.  in 1976, sutton reclaimed the ace spot from andy messersmith (see below), by winning 20 games (21, actually) for the only time in his career.  sutton also finished 3rd in the cy young voting, and 22nd in the league mvp vote that year.

sutton actually finished in the top 5 of the cy young voting in 1974 and 1975 as well, but both times he was behind (or tied with) teammate andy messersmith (1974-1975)

messersmith finished 2nd in the vote following the 1974 season (behind teammate mike marshall) and then tied with sutton at 5th in 1975.  his 1974 season included 20 wins and a 1.10 whip (both of which led the league) as well as 221 strikeouts (good for 2nd in the national league).  in 1975, messersmith earned 19 wins and posted a 2.29 era.  he also led the league in starts, complete games, shutouts, innings pitched and hits/9 innings.  he also appeared twice in relief - earning a save in one of those appearances.

tommy john (1977)

tommy john was just two seasons removed from his eponymous surgery when he went 20-7 with a 2.78 era in 1977.  he also threw 11 complete games and 3 shutouts and finished 2nd in the cy young balloting.

burt hooton (1978-1979)

like john before him, hooton finished 2nd in the cy young voting after the 1978 season.  he had gone 19-10 with a 2.71 era in 32 starts, and also had 10 complete games with three of them being shutouts.  in 1979, the dodgers were not a first place team, but happy was still the ace - posting an era of 2.97 but being rewarded with a 11-10 record.  i gave the nod to hooton in 1979 over rookie of the year rick sutcliffe (17-10, 3.46) because hooton surpassed sutcliffe in pretty much every category other than wins.  i don't want to overvalue wins as a measurement of ace, even though my definition is obviously subjective. sorry sutt!  all of the other dodger starters (except for spot starter charlie hough) had losing records and substantially higher eras than hooton did in 1979, including the dodger ace of 1980.

jerry reuss (1980)

reuss joined the list of dodger pitchers to finish second in the cy young voting when he went 18-6 with 3 saves and a 2.51 era in 1980.  he also had 10 complete games, 6 of which were shutouts (the most in the league), and a no-hitter against the giants.  in candlestick, no less.

fernando valenzuela (1981-1982, 1986)

fernandomania touched down in 1981 as another lefty claimed the mantle of ace.  fernando made the opening day start only after it was determined that reuss could not, and went on to rattle off 5 straight complete games, 4 of which were shutouts, in his first 5 starts.  he went 9 innings in his next three starts, too, although it took 10 innings for the dodgers to win his 6th start, although he got the win as he did in all 7 of his other initial 8 starts.  after that, fernando was just 5-7 but finished the strike-shortened campaign at 13-7 with a 2.48 era, and was atop the league leader board in starts, complete games, shutouts, innings pitched and strikeouts.  he also took home some hardware as the league's rookie of the year and cy young award winner.  el toro was a 19 game winner in 1982, and then won 21 games for the blue in 1986 with a league leading 20 complete games and a personal best 242 strikeouts, good enough for second place in the cy young award voting. in between 1982 and 1986, however, fernando was outshone by a couple of other dodger starters.
 
bob welch (1983)

welch went 15-12 in 1983 (fernando was 15-10) and his 2.65 era was the best among dodger starters.  in addition, his 1.16 whip was just slightly higher than that of alejandro pena among the dodgers in the rotation.  maybe i am including welch here just so i can show his nice 1983 fleer card with dodger stadium and ron cey lurking in the background.

alejandro pena (1984)

pena was 12-6 with a league leading 2.48 era for the dodgers in 1984.  he made 28 starts and completed 8 of them, 4 by shutout.  oddly, it was the final season of pena's career in which he was used exclusively as a starter.

orel hershiser was the team's ace in 1985, but i'll cover him in the next post since he also held that title by my estimation later in the decade.

the evolution of the ace

this latest endeavor into the dodgers' positional evolution is tough.  that's because 'ace' is not really a position but rather a perception.  the dodgers have had a number of great pitchers, and even more decent pitchers who put up amazing stats for a year or two. to determine who the 'ace' was each year meant that i would subjectively interpret cold stats many years after the seasons had ended.  and i didn't always get it right, that's for sure.  maybe i should have just done an evolution of opening day starters - that would have been way easier.  anyway, here we go with the first installment of 'evolution of the ace'.  ready the tomatoes...

i start by noting that the dodgers have often had ace #1 and ace #1a in their rotations, and so there will be some back-and-forth for some of these pitchers.  this will result in a less than linear evolution.  you'll see what i mean right out of the gate with don newcombe.

don newcombe (1949-1951, 1955-1956)

newk won 56 games over his first 3 years in the major leagues (1949-1951), leading the team in wins each season.  he spent the next two years in the military, and returned for the 1954 season.  he didn't reclaim the top spot in the rotation until 1955, however, when he won 20 games for the second time in his career.  his best season, however, was 1956, when he went 27-7 and won the very first cy young award while also winning the league's mvp award.

carl erskine (1952-1954)

oisk (shown above on his super cool 1952 bowman card) filled in for newcombe from 1952-1954.  he won 52 games over those three years, including 20 in 1953. Erskine's run as the ace of the staff included his performance in the 1952 world series (where he retired 19 straight yankees in one stretch) and the 1953 fall classic in which he pitched a complete game in game three while striking out a then-record 14 batters.

don drysdale (1957, 1959-1960, 1962, 1968)

big d was 17-9 in 1957, then won 17 and 15 games in 1959 and 1960, respectively.  he topped out at 25 wins in 1962 and then had his incredible run of 58 and 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in 1968.  he posted a career best 2.15 era that season, but wound up with a record of just 14-12.  his 8 shutouts didn't lead the league, either, although he did lead the league in that category with 4 in 1959.

johnny podres (1958)

the dodgers' first season in los angeles was a tough one.  they were 12 games under .500 and didn't really have a standout pitching performance.  i gave the nod to johnny podres because he led the starters in complete games with 10 and in era at 3.72 but was rewarded with a 13-15 record.  by comparison, sandy koufax was 11-11, but his era was 4.48.

sandy koufax (1961, 1963-1966)

there is no doubt that koufax was the ace from 1963 through 1966.  he was the best pitcher in the game during that stretch - he won the pitching triple crown in three of those four years, and led the league in era in the other.  he won three straight cy young awards, plus an mvp trophy during that stretch.  and, in 1961, he led the league in strikeouts and won 18 games.

claude osteen (1967, 1969-1970)

with koufax retiring after the 1966 postseason, another lefty emerged to lead the rotation.  osteen won 17 games (while also losing 17) in 1967 and then won 20 in 1969.  he made 41 starts that year, and completed 16 of them.  in 1970, he won 16 games to lead the squad.

yes, the term ace is pretty squishy, but i think this is a pretty good representation of how the leader of the dodgers' rotation evolved into the 1970's.  we'll continue the evolutionary chain next time...

misty chocolate covered memories

this would be awesome.  i count the cool-a-coo among my fondest dodger stadium memories - right up there with listening to vin scully on my dad's transistor radio, learning how to keep score, eating dodger dogs, seeing myself up on diamond vision, watching the likes of willie stargell and willie mccovey absolutely destroy baseballs during batting practice, and, of course, worshiping at the mantle of the infield of steve garvey, ron cey, billy russell, and davey lopes.

here's a 1978 sspc steve garvey card from the period,

just so i can keep my status as a card blogger intact.

i haven't been back to chavez ravine since 2006, but would definitely figure out a way to get there and have a cool-a-coo for old times' sake.

make it happen magic!