rodney cline carew and the final tributes that came too soon

even though i was a dodger fan growing up, i still enjoyed watching the angels when the opportunity arose.  i went to the big a a few times, and the halos would be broadcast on ktla (the dodgers were on kttv) fairly often.  i was pulled in by don baylor's 1979 season, but i stayed because of rod carew.  i enjoyed watching him hit, and his was always one of the stances that i emulated during wiffle ball games in the neighborhood.  

i recall watching carew get his 3000th career hit in 1985, with his helmet coming loose as he placed the ball safely into left field.  his feat was commemorated on a 1986 fleer superstar special card

the last bit of text on the back echoes how i felt about carew.

'...no telling just how long he will continue'.  the guy could still hit, although his average had fallen over the last couple of years.  it turned out that he would not play after the 1985 season.  the angels did not re-sign him, opting to go with youngster wally joyner at first base instead, and they still had reggie jackson on the roster to serve as the dh.  carew was bitter about the way things ended, as i recall, but did eventually return to the team as a coach in the early 1990's.

carew was offered a contract by the giants at some point during the 1986 season, but he opted to retire.  so, his 1986 cards became final tributes.

here's his topps card

 with the complete stats on the back

his .328 average was good for 32nd all-time when he retired, and was the highest career average for a player since stan musial retired in 1963.  since 1986, only tony gwynn and wade boggs have retired with a higher average than carew, and boggs bested him by only 0.0001.

here's his regular fleer card

 and the back has his complete professional stats

carew led the league in batting 6 of the 7 seasons from 1972 through 1979.

here's his 1986 donruss card, which features the stance i would mimic

 i like donruss backs because they give us the full name.

rodney cline carew is what angels' broadcaster don drysdale would call him.  or was it dick enberg?  i don't recall.  anyway, that's what we kids in the neighborhood called him, too.

with wally world and the angels' success in 1986, it was hard to argue with gene autry's decision to not bring carew back, but i know i was disappointed that he wouldn't get a shot to move further up the career hits leaderboard.  while he was the 16th player to reach the milestone, he finished the season 13th on the list, as donruss notes.  he was about 230 hits behind willie mays, who was in 10th place at the time, but only 100 or so out of 12th place.  as it stands now, carew is 23rd with alex rodriguez 152 hits behind him.

here's to you rodney cline carew - that was a heck of a career that you had!

even andruw jones looks better in dodger stadium

i hadn't noticed this until a few months ago, but in 2008, upper deck took andruw jones out of spring training and put him in chavez ravine.  they even moved the third base bag.  take a look at his 2008 upper deck first edition card side by side with his 2008 upper deck masterpieces card

pretty soon it will be revealed that all games are actually played in front of the giant green screen at universal studios hollywood.

the masterpieces background includes the low railing that wraps (or used to wrap) into fair territory until it hit the bullpens.  it is also visible on chris speier's 1988 topps card

denny martinez's 1991 topps card

and jeff treadway's 1992 topps card

i am 99% sure that this 1998 steve kline card from fleer ultra also features dodger stadium in the background

thanks to the roof and light stanchion, plus the blue in the dugout.

curt schilling's card from the same set is definitely sporting a dodger stadium shot

it could well be from opening day 1997 when schilling shut the dodgers down.  that was the last opening day i attended prior to my move to the midwest.

the phillies also had some players captured in dodger stadium in the 2011 bowman set, like roy oswalt

jimmy rollins

with a lurking rod barajas, and jayson werth

who was airbrushed into a nationals uniform.  pretty sure these photos came from the september 1, 2010 game (a 12:10 local start) in which oswalt started, rollins scored 3 times (including on a home run off of clayton kershaw), and werth hit a dribbler down the first base line.  barajas, who had recently joined the dodgers, caught the whole game.

no airbrushing was needed for the 1999 fleer ultra set.   that set had some gorgeous photography and features some great dodger stadium scenes.  here's charles johnson on his way from the dugout to the plate

and gary sheffield standing in almost the same spot, with the 'three ladies' palm trees behind the bullpen mostly visible

it's hard not to look good when you have that for a background.

random is as monkey do

i'll take potpourri for $200, alex.  here is an odd assortment of cards that have been haunting my scanned folder for a while.  first up, we have the 1985 american league all-star team from 1986 topps rack packs.

these guys, including wade boggs, rickey henderson, george brett and cal ripken jr are sitting in right field at the metrodome in minneapolis.  behind them are the fold-up seats that are used during viking games.  i also spy bert blyleven, carlton fisk, dave winfield, jim rice and roger clemens, among others, with tom kelly sitting in the bat boy position front and center.

here is the national league counterpart.

not quite as organized as the american league all-stars.  not sure why there is a gap next to dick williams, either.  look at all those padres, too - including steve garvey way off at the end of the bench in front of nolan ryan.  a good assortment of players here, too, such as tony gwynn, ozzie smith, fernando valenzuela, pedro guerrero, and pete rose.

here's where the monkey do part comes into play.  i didn't know that these cards existed until i saw one of them on another blog a while back.  and i call myself a garvey semi-supercollector!  this happens pretty often actually - i see a card on another blog and i go out and get it.  many times it's a double play card or a card featuring dodger stadium in the background, but sometimes it's a plain old dodger card.  like this 1989 swell baseball greats jose morales card.

i would guess that i owned this card within 10 days of seeing it on a blog for the first time.  it's great.  morales has only a handful of dodger cards (he was on the team from 1982 through 1984) so this was a nice surprise.

i was also surprised to find a couple of white sox cards that i wanted, thanks to a ebay search i ran a couple of months ago.  i was looking for 'bell dodgers' and up popped a card of albert belle.  two cards, actually.  this one is from 1997 donruss limited

and this one is from 1997 pinnacle select

the search was set up to find cards from the 1960 - 1962 bell brand dodger releases, but joey there made the grade because he was paired up on each of those cards with this guy - karim garcia

that's the pinnacle back, and here is the limited front

garcia was quite the darling of the hobby in the mid-90's, or at least of the card manufacturers.  he came to the plate just 67 times as a dodger, but probably has three times that many cards showing him in dodger blue.  i suppose topps and the other card makers thought that he might be the sixth consecutive dodger rookie of the year and that's why they went wild with his cards.

of course, the search did turn up it's intended prey - a low cost vintage goodie.  here's duke snider's 1961 bell brand card

see how that works?  we're back to the random part of the post.  and it doesn't get more random than last year's topps heritage dodger short prints - at least the ones that are not aaron miles.

here's dee gordon and his rookie trophy.

will gordon ever get back to the majors for good?  or is he the second coming of chad fonville?  how about jerry hairston jr

who wears steve garvey's number and has even played some first base over the last couple of seasons.  he's been playing third since coming back from the dl, which means less time for luis cruz, juan uribe, and the rest of the ragtag fleet of hot corner residents.

well, that's enough for now - off to read some of your blogs.  maybe i'll see some more cards to add to my collection!

a team in mourning

in 1957, the washington senators wore black armbands in honor of wootton e. young, the team's vice president who passed away in may of that year.  the armbands are on display on the team's 1958 topps card

the senators began the 1957 season with chuck dressen as their manager, but cookie lavagetto took over early on.  in addition to the players who made the team photo, the sen's roster included whitey herzog, joe black, and harmon killebrew.  and as for throneberry, that's faye, not marv.

so far, this is the oldest card i have in terms of memorials, but i have a bead on a 1956 topps card that pays tribute to a fallen teammate.  stay tuned.

more double play cards from the dollar store

as promised this morning, here are some more cards that i received from doug of sportscards from the dollar store.  

1992 donruss triple play royce clayton

featuring craig biggio.  between those two guys there are a ton of double play cards.

1992 pinnacle lou whitaker

when i first started collecting dp cards, i was more concerned with second basemen making the turn, since that was the position i played most of the time in high school and beyond.  but then i started to play more shortstop after moving to minneapolis and remembered that the best turn is the groundball to the shortstop's left that he can take to the bag himself.  so, i don't discriminate.  still, i might enjoy seeing lou, steve sax, biggio and other 2b's making the turn a little bit more.  like jose lind on his 1993 donruss card.  no, not the front which has the o-pee-chee like traded text

but the back

not sure what sort of pin lind is wearing on his cap there.  any ideas?

here's another second baseman who also is wearing a pin on his hat - joey cora on a 1995 donruss card

i think cora's pin(s) had to do with his home country of puerto rico.

here's a 2012 topps yuniesky betancourt card

betancourt is playing more first base these days as a brewer.  at least that's where he was the other night when i saw him play at target field.

also from 2012 topps, here is aaron hill

and dustin pedroia

the last two cards are from 2012 topps chrome - troy tulowitzki

and jordany valdespin

it's nice to see that topps used a different photo of valdespin than the one they used for his update card.  this one shows the 'kid 8' memorial patch very well.  it might even make the memorial binder, but i'll leave that to a separate post.

thanks again doug!

double play cards from the dollar store

here are some cards that came my way via the blog sportscards from the dollar store.  doug took part in my 1983 fleer sticker group break, and offered to send some cards my way to offset the higher shipping costs to the great white north.  that he did.  here's a 2010 upper deck 'all world' insert of canadian catcher russell martin

that was the lone card in the package that did not feature a double play, if i recall correctly.  ready for some dp's?  here we go...

1990 upper deck ryne sandberg

1991 fleer ultra bill ripken

with a special appearance by harold reynolds

1991 score al newman

1992 classic i pat kelly

i am too lazy to look, but i think this is the same play that is on his 1992 donruss triple play awesome action card.  ok, i was motivated to look.  it's not, but it is eerily similar...

1992 classic i roberto alomar

with chuck knoblauch sliding in, which is kind of cool because here is knobby's 1992 classic i card

i had not seen any cards from this set before.  they feature questions on the back like other classic cards, but also have a stadium shot.  here's the back of knoblauch's card featuring the minneapolis skyline and the hhh metrodome.

there are a few newer buildings these days, and the metrodome's roof is new with a bunch of purple text on it since it is only home to the vikings now.  and that's just for one more season.

more dp cards from the dollar store coming up later.  thanks for the cards doug - you should be getting your stickers (along with a few other cards soon)!

third time's a hill-egas

for the second time in recent weeks, the third ttm try turned out to be the lone success.  first, will 'the thrill' clark returned the third 1987 topps card i had sent to him over the last 4 years.  then, just the other day, shawn hillegas signed and returned a card after i made three attempts for his autograph during the same time span.

truth be told, this 1988 topps card

was included in each of the three requests i sent, so it could be from any of them.  this last time, however, it was the only card i sent - unencumbered by a 1988 donruss card.  let's face it, who wants to get a 1988 donruss card in the mail.  and, in the interest of further disclosures, the first time i sent cards to the former dodger pitcher, they were marked rts as i must have had an old address.

hillegas was traded to the white sox during the 1988 season for ricky horton, and is probably best known in card collecting circles for having his photo on a brian holton card in the 1989 upper deck set.

thanks for signing my card shawn!