through the mail success with a no-hitter battery

just over two weeks ago was the 43rd anniversary of bill singer's no-hitter.  it was the first no-hitter by a los angeles dodger not named sandy koufax, and it was the first of three no-hitters to be caught by jeff torborg.  singer beat the phillies 5-0 on july 20, 1970, allowing one batter to reach via a hit-by-pitch and another via an error by singer himself.

singer and torborg are reunited in this post, as i show some through the mail autograph successes.  singer signed a copy of his 1970 card for me through a private signing - either hall of fame sports or chris potter, i don't recall which.

torborg also signed his 1970 topps card, but he did so the old fashioned ttm way, free of charge.

torborg also signed his 1971 topps card

and 1968 topps card as well.

no danny ozark in the background in '68, unfortunately.

thanks for signing my cards!

topps did better in 2012. i think.

i really enjoyed seeing these active league leader cards in 2012 topps.  one of the main reasons was we got to see the expos in a flagship set again, thanks to the awesomeness of vladimir guerrero.  here he is sandwiched between albert pujols and todd helton on the batting average leader card for the nl.

vladdy and helton were just a few ticks behind pujols at the time.  

but now pujols is in the al so his nl career average is still .328, while vladdy is (unofficially) retired, and helton's average sits at around .318.  meanwhile, because topps used the criteria of any active player with the proper amount of playing time (in the case of batting average it was 3000 plate appearances) in the respective league, we get bonus vladdy thanks to his years of service with the angels, rangers, and orioles.  technically, guerrero was not on a roster when this card came out, but that's ok by me.

i also really like this card because all three players - ichiro, joe mauer, and guerrero, are wearing memorial patches.  the mariners were mourning their announcer dave niehaus, the twins had lost harmon killebrew, and the o's recognized the passing of mike flanagan.  it's a great card in that respect.  back to the numbers, vladdy just edged derek jeter from appearing on yet another card, apparently.

now, you might recall that back in 1984, topps first introduced the active leader cards in various categories.  in that set, they had one card for each league in 9 different categories, which was more extensive than the cards in the 2012 release.  the cards in 1984 included batting average, hits, home runs, rbi, wins, era, strikeouts, saves, and stolen bases.  here's the front of the card for the american league active leaders in stolen bases.

hey, look - a couple of veterans on the yankees.  i miss the mid-80's to early-90's when the yankees just couldn't put together a winning roster.  anyway, bert campaneris leads the way with 649 career steals with the a's, rangers, angels, and yankees.  dave lopes comes in second with 468.  but wait, most of those came with the dodgers.  take a look at the back.

so, topps lets us know that lopes (and moreno, among others) played in both leagues.  so, should rickey henderson actually be second on this list?  yes, he should.  in fact, if topps had done this right, lopes wouldn't have appeared on this card at all.  instead, he would have been in a dodger uniform on the national league's version of the card, behind joe morgan.

the same goes for the american league victories card

and the american league strikeouts card

among others.

i am not complaining about don sutton getting some face time, but had topps done in 1984 what they did in 2012, he would have been third on the national league strikeout list and in a dodger uniform, instead of brewers' duds.

so, i like the 2012 approach better.  hopefully topps brings this subset back in a few years when there has been another generation of turnover.

black armbands for thurman munson

last friday (august 2nd) was the 34th anniversary of the plane crash that took the life of yankees captain thurman munson.  for the remainder of the 1979 season, and the entirety of the 1980 season, the yankees wore black armbands in munson's memory.

the 1980 topps tommy john card is the only one i could find that shows the 1979 version of the memorial.

1981, however, gave more options to choose from.  bo, from baseball cards come to life, sent me this 1981 donruss bucky dent card

which would certainly fit the bill for the second year of the armband, but i decided to go instead with one of reggie jackson's cards from 1981 donruss.

reggie is in the home pinstripes, and is most likely sitting near home plate.  besides, it doesn't get more 'yankee' than reggie jackson.

aside from the jim gilliam memorial patch that the dodgers wore in the 1978 world series, this was the first memorial that i was acutely aware of.  and, more than any other, the black armband on the yankee pinstripes is quite striking.  no more meaningful, but it is visually powerful.  a good way for the yankees to remember their captain.

the best part of 1981 donruss

1981 donruss.  while i was pleased to have more cards to obtain back in 1981, i didn't quite know what to think of it.  strange card stock and powdery gum.  plus, all those photos from wrigley field.  bill russell

and bob welch

could have been standing next to each other ('classic combo' style) when their photos were taken.  similar photos, similar poses, similar backgrounds were abound in 1981 donruss.  in fact, you might recall the memory game post in which i made fun of the repetitive nature of many of the photos used in the set.

some folks, like jay johnstone,

were featured in the home whites at dodger stadium, so that was nice.  steve garvey was among the players who received two cards in the set, which i appreciated.
 
for me, though, the best part about 1981 donruss were the o-pee-chee like cards near the end of the set. cards like the bob owchinko

which used a cleveland photo with a pirates affiliation, even though owchinko wound up with the a's.  he was part of the offseason deal that sent bert blyleven from pittsburgh to cleveland, but wound up being traded to oakland right before the start of the season.

side note - i toyed with the idea of doing a 1981 donruss blog, largely because of the cards like this.  i decided to pass.  i haven't been able to manage the timeless teams blog for the last few months, so i don't see a 605-card set blog being a good idea.

the giants had a couple of players in cub uniforms - jesus figueroa

and jerry martin

were traded to san fran in december of 1980.

larry milbourne

who played the infield and shortstop, apparently, was dealt from seattle to new york in november of 1980.

donruss updated bruce sutter's team affiliation for the set after the december trade sent the future hall of famer to the cardinals

but the two guys the cubs got in exchange for him, leon durham and ken reitz, were both left as cardinals in the set.

dave edwards, one of three edwards brothers to play in the majors, went from the twins to the padres 

his brother mike was featured in the set, but marshall edwards didn't debut until april of 1981, so he was shut out of the 1981 donruss checklist.

jim essian chose the white sox in free agency

as did ron leflore

as with o-pee-chee cards, i like how the old and new team colors kind of clash on the essian card.  not as much clashing on the leflore card, which is unfortunate.

the cubs lost another player from their 1981 donruss team set, thanks to mike vail being traded to the reds

and donruss not putting hector cruz (the guy the cubs got back in the deal) in the set, even though he was featured in both the topps and fleer sets.

the last of these cards in the set belongs to fred stanley, who went from the yankees to the a's

in a trade for mike morgan.  stanley wound up facing his old mates in the 1981 postseason, but was on the losing end.  the second best thing about his card is that it shows the black armband that yankee players wore in honor of their teammate thurman munson, who died in a plane crash during the 1979 season.  i'll have a post about that tomorrow.

oh, one more thing.  the timeless teams blog returns to life tomorrow, too.

garv-aholic

everybody's favorite calgarian blogger, captain canuck, recently braved the elements to snowshoe (or did he have to row?) over to the post office and send me some pretty nice dodger cards to feed my addiction.

i will show them now so that his journey of kindness may not have been in vain.

2008 topps triple threads steve garvey

as much as i like seeing garvey on new releases as a dodger, the best part of this card might be the lurking jimmy wynn in the background!

it wouldn't be a proper package from the great white north without some o-pee-chee.  unfortunately, this is a 2009 upper deck opc card of jonathan broxton

instead of a true canadian cardboard sample.  no matter, there were other things in the package to keep my mind off of that situation.  like this 2008 upper deck baseball heroes nomar garciaparra charcoal parallel

nomah!

there were also a couple of 2008 upper deck sp authentic rookie exclusive cards, too.  i don't recall if these were inserts or part of a special set or what.  i think i knew at one time.  anyway, here's ramon troncoso

he can be seen in white sox gear these days.  the other card from that set that i received was of cory wade

wade is currently pitching in the rays' system at aaa.

another dodger with ties to the rays is don zimmer, whose 2005 topps pristine card is safely encased

thanks captain!

i was a craigslist genius

remember those great posts over at bad wax about the people advertising on craigslist who wanted thousands of dollars for some 91 donruss cards?  good times.  earlier this year, i was able to parlay some junk wax stuff into this - a 1956 topps sandy koufax card.

i was visiting my parents and needed to clear out my old closet.  i had left mostly complete sets behind, and it certainly wasn't worth shipping a 1989 topps set, or any of these other sets, back to myself.

i did bring a couple of sets back with me, plus some loose cards that i had forgotten about, and i also scavenged some cards from my 1981 fleer set, 1991 upper deck set, and a couple others before posting the above photo on craigslist. in addition to those partial sets, there was a 1989 topps set, 1990 topps set, 1991 topps set, 1990 donruss set, 1994 topps set, 1992 topps set, 1993 topps set, a score set from 1991 i think, and a few others too.  i asked for $50 with same day pick up for the lot.

 

i received two bites.  the first guy wanted the cards.  the second guy wanted to know if $50 was for the whole lot.  i met up with the first guy in a nearby grocery store parking lot.  he got out of his truck and walked towards me holding a beckett. 

 

turns out he was mostly concerned with the derek jeter cards in the 92 and 93 topps sets.  we opened the sets, but the cards were out of order (thanks topps).  i assured him that i had not taken cards out of those sets (except for the throw-in gold parallels topps put in the factory sets back then) and he handed over $50.

 

so where does sanford koufax fit in, you ask?  i have mentioned before that my dad collected cards for a couple of years as a way to spend time with me.  while i went for post-1970 dodger topps team sets and steve garvey, he went for stars and earlier dodgers.  now he was looking to sell his collection.  i offered him $50 for the koufax (he had a complete run of sandy's cards, but this was the only one i needed).  i also said i would take the fam out to dinner.  sold.

 

he also threw in a 1954 topps card that i needed, clem labine  

i left behind a full run of nolan ryan cards (didn't even ask how much for the 68 rookie), tom seaver, mike schmidt, george brett, carlton fisk, etc. 

 

i did, however, get him to add one more card to my collection, a signed 1963 topps jim gilliam

that is super sweet!  i now have cards signed by all the dodger retired numbers except for jackie and campy.

some may wonder why i had to pay at all for the cards. well, they aren't mine and i have never assumed that they would just be given to me. i am sure that my dad would have given them to me if i had asked for them, but i didn't.  i was pleased to find out, however, that the prospective buyer of his collection fell through, so the rest of the cards are still there.

so that's how i turned a few junk sets into a 1956 topps koufax (and more).  for the record, i borrowed $5 from my dad later in the trip, so the cards just cost me $45 plus a dinner.

relics from deadlines past

seven years ago yesterday, the dodgers traded joel guzman to the devil rays for julio lugo.  i have only this 2005 bowman heritage relic card to remember him by.

guzman was part of those jacksonville sun and las vegas 51s teams that featured the future - russell martin, james loney, chad billingsley, joel hanrahan, delwyn young, andy laroche, etc.  for me, guzman was the guy that, out of all of those others, was going to make it.  as a 20-year old in 2005, guzman hit 16/75/.287 in aa, and was hitting 11/55/.297 in 2006 at aaa las vegas when he was dealt away.  i believe guzman's stock dropped due in part to the emergence of matt kemp.  anyway, julio lugo played in 49 games for the dodgers, hit .219, and then left to become the primary shortstop on the team that won the world series in 2007.

guzman, meanwhile, had a short stay with tampa bay and then bounced around the minors.  he is currently playing in mexico, according to baseball reference.

more recently (three years ago to be precise), ned traded away blake dewitt at the deadline.  here's a 2008 topps heritage relic card

dewitt went to the cubs in exchange for ted lilly and ryan theriot.  lilly stuck around (although he was recently dfa'd), but theriot bolted after the 2010 season ended.  like lugo, he went on to play for the world series champions the following year.  then he did lugo one better and played for the champs in 2012 as well!

a small and handpicked sample, i know, but drew butera might find himself an in demand free agent this winter...