past and future dodgers from stats on the back

i recently took advantage of stats on the back's great giveaway, coming away with some nice vintage stuff of some past and future dodgers.  here are a few of the cards i received:

1968 topps al downing

at this point, al was a future dodger.  he had to go through oakland and milwaukee to get there, but he made it.  just in time for his best season, too.

1969 topps jimmie hall

not a dodger at all, but a former twin who faced the dodgers in the 1965 world series.  good guy, too.

1971 topps jerry reuss

another future dodger.  he would be an astro and an all star in pittsburgh before joining the dodgers where he no-hit the giants.  and won a world championship.

1972 topps fred norman

fred was a past dodger in 1972.  he was a dodger for just a short time in 1970 and eventually wound up in cincinnati where he would win a couple of rings.

1974 topps dodgers checklist

featuring ronald cey, bill russell, and david e lopes.  no steve garvey, though.  thomas john and william joseph buckner make an appearance, though.

1975 topps tommy davis

tommy had been everywhere, man, since he left the dodgers in the late '60's.  there were the mets, white sox, pilots, astros, a's, cubs, back to the a's, back to the cubs, then the orioles which would be followed by the angels and finally the royals.

there was also some junk wax - 1988 donruss, to be exact - in my package.  here's a nice dodger stadium shot of greg mathews

featuring 'the people behind the fence', and an orel hershiser card

thanks mark!

revisiting enzo

thanks to mrmopar from 1978, the year it all began, i now have an image of the immortal enzo hernandez in a dodger uniform.  thus, we have another version of the 1978 topps burger king/update card that should have been!

thanks curt!

one more for the road...

...opc style.

in the words of his annoying homer of an announcer, 'he gone'.

it's a matt young week crossover event - through the mail successes!

matt young week is in full swing over at oh my o-pee-chee!  young had variations in every set from 1987 through 1992, except for 1989, and i'm highlighting them all right now.  over on this site, i figured i would show the cards that matt has signed through the mail for me over the last year or so.

we'll start, appropriately enough, with young's 1987 o-pee-chee card

young was acquired from the mariners in exchange for lefty dennis powell.

1987 topps traded

he pitched just one year for the dodgers, winning 5 games while losing 8 and saving 11 others.

1987 fleer update

his first game wasn't very good as he came in with a 2-run lead in the 8th inning against the astros on 4/7/87.  granted, he came in with 2 on and nobody out, but he promptly walked the first batter he faced to load the bases and then allowed the tying runs to score on wild pitches.  he would allow a couple more runs and be saddled with the loss.

1988 score

young's final appearance as a dodger resulted in his 8th loss of the season.  he came on in relief of tim crews in the top of the 8th inning against the braves on 9/17/88 and allowed an infield single followed by a force out at home follwed by another single.  2 of the 3 inherited runners scored, and brad havens relieved young.  havens didn't fare much better, allowing his inherited runner to score, so young was charged with 2 earned runs in one-third of an inning.

1988 topps

in between those games, however, he had moments where his potential flashed and all was right in his world, like on 5/23/87 when he entered a game against the mets with 1 on and 1 out in the 8th with the dodgers leading by 2.  he allowed a single to keith hernandez, but got kevin mcreynolds and darryl strawberry to fly out to end the inning, and then he struck out the side (gary carter, howard johnson, and dave magadan) in the 9th for the save.

thanks matt, and hope you enjoy your week!

manny happy departures

manny's gone, or so i understand. 

2008 was great, 2009 was confusing and 2010 was forgettable.  everybody said it would be like this, and they were right. still, back to back nlcs for the first time since i started following this team, so the potential nearly achieved was fun to watch.

i have had these two cards scanned for quite some time, i guess waiting for manny to do something worth writing about.  no more waiting.

adios manny!  thanks for being motivated in 2008.

infamous lurkers!

topps had printed cards in their 1974 set (rightfully so) based upon the presumption that hank aaron would surpass babe ruth that season (he had ended the 1973 season with 713).  sure enough, hammerin' hank hit number 715 against the dodgers on april 8, 1974.  when the 1975 set came around, topps chose to use a posed photo of the hammer to grace his highlight card.  then when celebrating the 20th anniversary of his record breaking home run in 1994, they used some actual photos from the historic game.

the photo in the background of the card shows the swing and the ball in flight, and it also shows a couple of dodgers - al downing, who served up the pitch, and joe ferguson, the dodgers' catcher.  not pictured are the rest of the dodgers on the field that night - steve garvey, davey lopes, bill russell and ron cey, plus willie crawford, jim wynn and bill buckner in the outfield.  buckner was in left, and can be seen climbing the fence in pursuit of the ball in the video of the home run.  all in all, it's not a bad moment, or card, to be associated with.

here's to you, infamous dodger lurkers!

more out of place guys

wlecome to the third installment of the 'evolution of the dodgers' out of place guy'.  the first installment covered about 20 years, from skowron to stanhouse, and the second got us about 16 more seasons, from belanger to bonilla.  i realize now that i should have included don sutton and eddie murray and their second tours of duty with the dodgers in 1988 and 1997 to the last list.  really, how many people remember that they ended their careers in la?  that is truly out of place.

anyway, due to the higher frequency of free agency and trades and one year contracts and all of that stuff, this post won't even get us to the present day.  we'll start in 1999 with the 1997 world series hero, craig counsell

i believe that this 2000 pacific crown collection card is the only one of counsell as a dodger.  that's how out of place he was.  even the card companies don't want to recognize his tenure in la.  the dodgers acquired counsell halfway through the 1999 season from the marlins, giving up a minor leaguer.  in 50 games with the dodgers, he hit .259 with just 6 extra base hits (all doubles) for an ops of .626.  the dodgers released him during spring training 2000, and the diamondbacks picked him up.

did you remember that kevin elster ended his career with the dodgers in 2000?  that makes this 2001 topps card a final tribute.

elster's old manager, davey johnson, was leading the dodgers and convinced elster to come out of retirement (he missed the second half of the 1998 season and all of 1999 after being released by texas), presumably because he was scared of an entire season of alex cora at short.  in his 5th game back, elster helped to open the giants' new stadium (pac bell park, i believe it was known as back then) with 3 home runs to lead the dodgers to victory.  another candidate for out of place guy from the 2000 dodgers was geronimo berroa, but that is too obscure of a player even for me to address.

in 2001, james baldwin was a dodger and was only sort of out of place, and in 2002 marquis grissom came aboard.  i would have added grissom to the list, but he actually played in la for two seasons.  you can't be out of place if you hang around that long.

2003 brought a bevy of out of place guys, starting with the crime dog, fred mcgriff

mcgriff joined the dodgers as a free agent with 478 home runs.  having hit 30 in 2002 with the cubs, i sure thought he would get to 500 with the dodgers.  he didn't.  instead, he hit 13 dingers in just 86 games leaving him 9 short of the milestone.  the dodgers released him after the season and he went home to tampa to play for the devil rays in 2004.  unfortunately, he hit only 2 homers there and is forever sitting on 493.

joining mcgriff on the 2003 dodgers team was jeromy burnitz

the dodgers got burnitz in a deal that cost them a minor leaguer and two diazes.  it was the second time the mets had traded burnitz away.  for the dodgers, he performed worse than he had performed for any team in any season in his career.  he hit just .204 with an ops of .643.  he went to colorado for the 2004 season and i am sure he would have won the comeback player of the year award if chris carpenter hadn't been so good after missing all of 2003 and/or if burnitz hadn't (allegedly) been on steroids.

rounding out the triumverate of 2003 dodger out of place guys, we have rickey henderson.

rickey is a throwback out of place guy, like frank robinson or hoyt wilhelm.  a hall of famer who hit tinseltown for a short time at the end of the line, or in frobby's case - close to it.  rickey was 44 when the dodgers signed him to a contract in july of 2003.  he wound up hitting just .208 in 30 games with 2 homers and 5 rbi.  he scored 7 runs and stole 3 bases without getting caught.  his final career home run was, what else, a lead off home run - the 81st of his career.

2004 brought steve finley to town for 58 games.

he managed to win his 5th gold glove (he made just one error with the dodgers and just 3 overall in 2004) but is better known for his walk off grand slam against the giants on the next to last day of the season that gave the dodgers the nl west crown.  finley signed with the angels as a free agent for the 2005 season.

in 2005, the dodgers had a lot of no-names who weren't so much out of place as they were just not very good players.  norihiro nakamura?  jason grabowski?  come on.  i would love to say jd drew was out of place, but he stuck around (barely) for more than one season. 

then, in 2006, kenny lofton became a dodger.

lofton had one of the best years ever by an out of place guy.  he hit .301 with 79 runs scored and 32 steals as the dodgers' primary center fielder.  his 2007 season was pretty good, too, but he was back in the american league then as the dodgers didn't re-sign him.