an even more blatant rip-off post

than this one.

it's the all-jim team. note: my first name is not jim, but it's what i go by (my middle name is james).

we'll start with the bench. it doesn't get much better than a guy who shares your name.
no, that's not billy bob thornton. jimmie hall was third in the al rookie of the year voting in 1963. he hit 33 home runs for the twins that year - then a rookie record.

now on to the position players.

c jim sundberg - a solid catcher, won 6 consecutive gold gloves and a world series ring with the 1985 kansas city royals.

1b jimmie foxx

hall of famer, 3-time mvp, 534 home runs. he even pitched in 9 games in his final season, winning one with an era of 1.59!

2b jim gilliam

the 1953 rookie of the year, a 2-time all star, 4-time world series champion, and is the only non hall of famer to have his number retired by the dodgers. plus, he rarely struck out.

ss jim fregosi - could handle manager duties as well, i guess. he was a 6-time all star, won a gold glove at short in 1967 and was traded for nolan ryan.

3b jim lefebvre

another manager candidate. the 1965 rookie of the year and 1966 allstar was my dad's favorite player. nuff said.

of jim rice

hall of famer. he finished with 6 top 5 mvp seasons, winning the award once. the 8 time allstar was apparently a greatly feared hitter, as that's what many of his hall of fame proponents seemed to say.

of jim edmonds - has won 10 gold gloves and likes to dive for balls. so much so that some have said he plays deep to maximize diving opportunities.

of jimmy wynn

the toy cannon had 291 career home runs and 225 career stolen bases. he was a 3-time allstar and made a case for being the 1974 nl mvp

dh jim thome

has 541 home runs and is a 5-time allstar. plus, he's only about 3 months older than me!

and the pitchers:

sp jim palmer hall of famer, 3 cy youngs, 4-time world series champion, 268 wins, 2.86 era. and an underwear model back in the day.

sp jim bunning - hall of famer, 7-time allstar, 2855 strikeouts. pitched briefly for the dodgers in 1969 and is now a senator.

sp jim 'catfish' hunter

this team has some great nicknames. hall of famer, 8-time allstar, 5-time world series champion (including 3 at the expense of the dodgers), 4 top 5 cy young seasons winning the award once.

sp jim lonborg

1967 cy young winner, started 3 games for boston in the 1967 world series. unfortunately for them, he liked to ski. retired and became a dentist.

sp jim kaat

kitty. another nice nickname. 283 wins, 1 world series championship and one of the best fielding pitchers ever - 16 consecutive gold gloves.

rp jim brewer

132 career saves (125 with the dodgers from 1964 to 1975).

rp jim konstanty

1950 nl mvp as a reliever! won 16 games and saved 22 for the phillies, all in relief. nice glasses.

rp jim gott

91 career saves including 34 in 1988 with pittsburgh. spent 5 years with the dodgers before returning to the pirates.

rp jim morris - they made a disney movie about this guy! he's got to be in. he also was a member of the dodgers organization for a short time. i thought i had a card with him in the dodger uniform but couldn't find it.

there are plenty of other jims out there who would have contributed to this team, and i salute them all. jims of the world, unite!

cards from the cheap seats

although i was shut out in dan's recent group break, he had already sent me many many great cards that more than make up for it. it has taken me far too long to document his generosity (i think i have received 2 or 3 packages from him since i last posted about one of our trades). sorry, dan. here goes.

first, dan sent me a bunch of 1978 topps to help with my upgrade project. i am going to post more about that set soon.

in addition, dan sent some bowman cards. i very rarely will buy packs of bowman product, so this is great. here are a few for our mutual entertainment:

2008 bowman draft picks and prospects (I think) clayton kershaw

no pressure.

2007 bowman matt kempthe card back says he ‘oozes with raw power potential’. i think that means ‘tremendous upside’.

2007 bowman randy wolfback for another spin with the dodgers this year. reportedly he bought a house formerly owned by slash.

2007 bowman chad billingsleyit’s the gold version. i wonder if chad speaks jive, like barbara billingsley did. apparently he is a believer in nolan ryan’s philosophy of extra throwing to develop arm strength. i wonder if that includes throwing a football around, too. there are some who believe that there are only so many innings in your arm, no matter how often you throw. here’s hoping chad has another 20 years of innings in his.

2007 bowman draft picks and prospects tj nallnall spent 2007 in the red sox and nationals’ organizations after 8 years in the dodgers’ minor league system, and it looks like that was his last year. now, here’s one of the reasons i don’t buy much bowman. this card is similar to the base cards above, but it is numbered bp91. i guess that means bowman prospect 91. it has silver triangles on the bottom front. otherwise it would look just like

2007 bowman draft picks and prospects austin gallagherthis one is numbered bdpp21 which i would guess means bowman draft picks and prospects 21. aren’t these two cards from the same set? someone educate me, please. gallagher played last year at the high a level, mostly at third base. i don’t know enough about him to know if he is a future contender for the rotating spot that is the dodgers’ hot corner or not. we’ll see.

2007 bowman draft picks and prospects tony abreunow, this one looks like the others above, except it is green and is numbered bdp29. i give up. according to the back of the card, tony was ‘discovered’ by luis polonia. they put discovered in quotation marks, which leads me to believe that polonia must have mistaken abreu for a young girl. anyway, tony is another middle infielder, along with chin-lung hu and blake dewitt that is probably bummed that orlando hudson was acquired.

there were also some shiny cards.

2008 topps chrome blake dewitt.speaking of dewitt, he will likely play the role of superutility man this season unless someone is injured. as much as i would like to see more of dewitt, i am hoping he doesn’t see any real regular action as a starter this year.

2001 topps chrome dodgers team carda nice card with the left field pavilion in the background. trust me, it's there. the 2001 dodgers were a fun group. kevin brown. gary sheffield being gary sheffield. darren dreifort injured for the entire second half. eric gagne, the starter. one of night owl’s alltime greg(g)s, gregg olson finishing his career. paul loduca coming out of nowhere to hit 25 home runs. as the church lady would have said: hmmmmm. good times all around.

dan, thanks for all the great cards. i hope you enjoyed the tribe and omar stuff that went your way.

they are the alpha and the omega...

for the dodgers anyway, alphabetically speaking.

just like rod has his padrographs from abner to zimmer, we have don aase and don zimmer. he belonged to the dodgers first, rod.true, there were two guys with the last name of zimmerman that played for the organization way way back, but i am too lazy to break out my 1990 target set and see if they were included.

aase is, in fact, fourth on the all-time major league alphabetical list. he falls behind david aardsma and hank and tommie aaron. for some reason, i picture him as a met which is weird because he spent most of his career, including my baseball fandom formative years, in the american league with the angels and orioles. he played just one season for the mets, and that was 1989!

1990 turned out to be his final season, so the 1991 fleer card above is a true final tribute. and not a bad way to go out - pitching in sunny dodger stadium!

zimmer, on the other hand, was just getting started in baseball in 1956. he broke into the big leagues with the dodgers in 1954, and played with them through the 1959 season before being traded to the cubs. he would play for the mets, reds, dodgers again, and the senators before finishing his playing career in japan in 1966.

he has been a manager or coach in the big leagues since 1971, winning over 900 games as a manager. unfortunately, zimmer suffered a minor stroke late last year, but he is back in uniform for the rays this spring. that's great, because baseball would seem strange without him around after all these years.

there's a play at the plate on sandy amoros' 1956 topps card

gee. the title says it all, really. the catcher looks like yogi berra, too. of course, amoros and berra are linked by one of baseball history's greatest defensive plays, but it didn't come at the plate.

it happened in the 1955 world series. let's pick up the action from walteromalley.com (a great resource for dodger history): 'in the game 7 finale, johnny podres was to face left-hander (tommy) byrne. podres, who had said, “just get me one run today. that’s all i’ll need. just one” was true to his word. however, the dodgers got him two runs, both off gil hodges’ bat. alston decided to insert sandy amoros as the left fielder to shore up the defense in the sixth inning. in what was maybe his wisest move of the season, alston watched the yankees get runners on first and second with berra at the plate. to alston’s amazement, berra sliced one down the left-field line and amoros, who was a left-hand thrower, raced full speed over to the line and reached out his glove to barely flag the drive, assuredly preventing a double. amoros got the ball back to pee wee reese at shortstop who threw to gil hodges at first to complete a double play.'

the dodgers went on to win their first and only championship in brooklyn. the following year, it was back to business as usual, as the dodgers lost to the yankees in the 1956 fall classic.

it's too bad the one-handed catch in the left field corner wasn't the in-game play the artist used for this card.

owlways something good

from the night owl. i don't know who owes who at this point, and that is one of the things that i love about trading cards with you guys. here are a few of the great cards i received recently from greg:

1980 topps ted martinez doing a great oscar gamble if oscar gamble were a chipmunk impression. i have to imagine it would have kinda sucked to be a backup middle infielder for the dodgers in the late 80s in terms of playing time, although martinez did appear in 81 games for the blue in 1979.

1990 fleer rick dempsey.

dempsey had a horrible year at the plate for the dodgers in 1989. almost as bad as his 1987 season with the tribe. it's a good thing he played well in 1988 backing up scioscia.

2009 upper deck matt kemp promo coupon thingy.

manufactured stuff sucks, usually. even matt kemp manufactured stuff. but i still wanted this card. all of these things i got were of ken griffey jr which is fine but it's still not matt kemp, the bison, my baseball salvation.

2002 upper deck vladimir guerrero

i miss the expos. vladdy, looking ever skyward...

telling someone up there to quiet down, apparently.

and i think that's torii hunter lurking in the background. it makes for a nice card, but i am not a fan of the chest pumping, finger pointing stuff. too bondsian. if you're going to showboat, do the rickey shoulder flick or the dave henderson pirouette.

finally, 2008 topps allen & ginter pat neshek.

everyone's favorite blogging, side-arming setup guy. i am getting so close to completing this set i can almost taste it. almost.

thanks greg. i have another package going out to you today. and this time, i paid attention to your want list.

poor collation results in 2009 topps needs

i have purchased 2 blasters, a cereal box, and several packs of this stuff from the local target, plus a hta jumbo pack from a local hobby shop. while i have a good start to the set, i probably have about 200 doubles. some cards i have 3 or 4 of.

i did pick up my dodger team set, plus the three dodger short prints (including jackie), from ebay so at least i have that going for me.at any rate, here's my need list for 2009 topps baseball series one. help a blogger out, won't you?

a 2009 goose joak original in the o-pee-chee spirit

i am a big fan of o-pee-chee cards. more specifically, of the variations they created when a player switched teams in the off season. i have posted about them here and here and here and even one here.

so, while putting together some more 2009 goose joak originals, i decided to forego the images coming from spring training and do some o-pee-chee tribute for a veteran spring training invitee.

i give you the 2009 goose joak original doug mientkiewicz.it's more of a 70's/80's o-pee-chee tributethan a 90's one.i don't know why they stopped changing the card design to reflect the player's new team in the '90's.

anyway, i am actually a big mientkiewicz fan, having watched him during his time here in minnesota. he was a big fan favorite, despite the fact that he publicly called out manager tom kelly, and has remained so even after his departure to the red sox and beyond.

doug has been a one and done player since leaving the twins, spending half of 2004 with the red sox, 2005 with the mets, 2006 with the royals, 2007 with the yankees, and 2008 with the pirates.

here's hoping he wins a spot (as long as he deserves it) backing up loney and blake.