request fulfilled - a 1989 topps mario soto card that should have been!

back when i featured the 1989 score mario soto card, i gave false hope to jason at the writer's journey that another card of the reds' ace as a dodger existed.  alas, soto is not included in the 1990 target dodger set, as he did not appear in a big league game as member of the big blue wrecking crew.  then, on my recent post calling for requests, jason asked for a dodger soto card using a different photo than the one score used.

well, i took a shot and came up with this - the 1989 topps mario soto card that should have been:

the dodgers signed soto right after the reds released him in june of 1988 because of worries about fernando and don sutton.  soto never was able to get back on track, although the dodgers signed him for 1989 just in case.  luckily, tim belcher and tim leary pitched so well in '88 to compensate for the loss of 'nando and sutton's release without needing another retread like soto.

hope you enjoy this mario soto card that should have been jason!

what becomes a rookie card most?

topps famously dismissed maury wills as a prospect when they were signing players to their card contracts, and wills didn't forget.  that's why he happily signed with fleer and continued to spurn topps even after he won the national league mvp award in 1962.

here's his rookie card, the 1963 fleer issue:

he also had a card in the post cereal set that year:

for the 1975 set, topps created a 1962 topps maury wills card for their mvp subset, and that image was later used in the 1982 kmart set as well as the 1987 topps set as a 'turn back the clock' card.

wills debuted in 1959 and didn't get his first topps card until 1967 when he was a pittsburgh pirate!  i'll have to correct that someday with some cards that should have been (i wish topps had included some in their 'lost cards' inserts in the 2011 release), but before i do that, i do want to point out that wills was featured as a dodger on one card prior to 1970.  it's this 1960 topps world series card

while the focus is on luis aparicio, that's maury set to receive the throw.  some folks argue that it's charlie neal, but i am fairly convinced it is wills based on the uniform numbers.  wills wore 30 while neal was number 43.  i interpret the card to show a number more like a '0' than a '3' on the front of the jersey, although i admit that there is room for a different opinion.  however, topps themselves consider this to be maury wills based on the fact that they had him sign copies of it in their 2001 topps archives release.  still it's no substitute for a proper maury wills card.

so, what do you consider to be maury wills' rookie card?

the 1978 topps dodgers in 1969

the 1978 topps dodgers stood pat in 1969 - no new members were featured on cards, although some made their debuts. 

vic davalillo

as you recall, was traded to the angels during the 1968 season.  he's a hatless indian in the photo topps used, but at least the uniform color scheme is more angel-like today than it was back then.  anyway, davalillo split his 1969 season between two teams as well, as he was traded to the cardinals after batting just .155 in 33 games for the halos.  he did better in st. louis, hitting .265 in 63 games.  he had 2 home runs on the season, both as a cardinal, including his lone career grand slam which happened to be an 8th inning, game tying, pinch hit blast against the mets.  including that appearance, davalillo was used as a pinch hitter 50 times, and had 10 hits and 6 walks.  the grand slam accounted for his lone pinch hit extra base hit and rbis.

jerry grote [automobile in the background alert!]

1969 was an amazin' year for grote and the mets.  although he appeared in only 113 games, grote set career highs in runs scored (38), home runs (6) and rbi (40).  in the nlcs against the braves, grote drove in the mets' first run with a single in the second inning of game 1.  in game 3 of the world series, he had an rbi double off of jim palmer while calling a shutout by gary gentry and nolan ryan. grote hit another key double in the series, this one leading off the bottom of the 10th in game 4.  rod gaspar pinch ran for him and later scored the winning run on pete richert's throwing error.  the next day, grote became the first of the 1978 topps dodgers to win a world series ring.

tommy john

looks like he is attempting the ol' hidden ball trick on his card.  john had a sub-par year for the pale hose in 1969.  he went 9-11 with a 3.25 era.  he made 33 starts and pitched a then-career high 232.1 innings.  he won his first three decisions, including a tidy 4-hit shutout of the a's in the second game of the season.   he missed most of august, presumably due to injury, but finished strong in september as he won 3 of his last 5 starts, including his second shutout of the season.

here's how he fared against his future teammates - he didn't face vic davalillo, rick monday was 2 for 12 with a double and 3 k's, and reggie smith was 2 for 6 with a walk.

rick monday

was again patrolling center field for the a's in 1969.  he played in 122 games and hit .271 with 12 home runs.  based on his fielding stats, it would seem that base runners had stopped trying to test his arm (he had only 3 assists after posting 14 in 1967 and 11 in 1968), but he made 10 errors - 3rd worst in the league.

manny mota

was the second pick in the 1968 expansion draft, going to the first non-us team in the league, the montreal expos.  topps shows him still in his pirates' garb, obviously.  mota's stay in quebec was short lived, however, as the dodgers acquired him in a mid-june trade.  mota had started just 21 of the 31 games in which he appeared as an expo, and he had played all 3 outfield positions.  the dodgers installed him as their primary left fielder, although he did make some appearances in center and right, and he started 70 of the 85 games in which he played.  he was hitting .315 at the time of the trade and hit .323 after, for a full season average of .321.  as a pinch hitter in 1969, mota was just 2 for 16 (both singles) with 6 k's, 2 walks and a sacrifice fly.

reggie smith

had a big year for the bosox in 1969.  he hit .309 in 143 games as their center fielder.  he hit 25 home runs and drove in 93 runs, finishing 22nd in the league mvp voting and earning a spot on the american league all star team.  in the midsummer classic, smith entered the game in the 4th inning as a pinch runner for frank howard.  he scored on a bill freehan single.  in his first at bat, smith struck out against the dodgers' bill singer, and in his second time up, he popped up against houston's larry dierker.  smith hit two home runs in a game twice in 1969, and also had two streaks in which he hit 4 home runs in 3 days.

don sutton

won 17 games for the dodgers in 1969.  unfortunately, he also lost 18.  in 41 starts, sutton threw 293.1 innings, struck out a career high 217 batters, and had an era of 3.47.  he also had 11 complete games and 4 shutouts, including a one hitter against the giants (darn you, jim davenport and your 8th innng double!).  as for sutton's performance against his future teammates, he didn't face vic davalillo, but he held jerry grote to two singles in 7 at bats and manny mota to 1 in 4.

so, those were the 1978 topps dodgers in 1968.

here's the tally so far:

7/27 players featured by topps in 1969

total appearances:

davalillo 7 (1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969)
grote 6 (1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969)
john 6 (1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969)
lasorda 1 (1954)
monday 3 (1967, 1968, 1969)
mota 7 (1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969)
smith 3 (1967, 1968, 1969)
sutton 4 (1966, 1967, 1968, 1969)

teams represented so far:

11 (dodgers, indians, colt .45's, pirates, white sox, astros, mets, a's, red sox, angels, expos)

and now for something completely similar

when i first stumbled upon the loose 1976 greyhound heroes on the basepaths davey lopes portrait card, i was pretty excited.  then, i found the complete booklet which was nice.  i recently found the complete 1975 booklet and am completely underwhelmed.  here is a scan of the lopes portrait from the 1975 issue:

and here's the sliding panel:

they are the same as the 1976 layout and images, except for the light blue color (1976 used a sort of burgundy).  here's the front of the pamphlet

still pretty much the same.

at least the players who finished one-two were different in 1975 (in the american league, anyway).  we have mick the quick who led the league with 70 in 1975 as an angel, but had been traded to the yankees by the time this was published, and claudell washington of the a's.

still davey and lil' joe on the nl side, just like in the 1976 issue.  one thing i didn't point out when i wrote about the 1976 release, that's joe morgan sliding on the panel below the american league players.  i guess they couldn't find a photo of rivers sliding.  what's really strange is that they changed morgan's jersey number from '8' to '3'.  rivers wore number 3 for the angels as a rookie, but was number 17 in 1975.  strange days, indeed - most peculiar, mama.  here's the backs:

so, i suppose the reason that there is no 1977 greyhound heroes on the basepaths booklet is that they couldn't recycle any of the photos.  the american league leaders in 1977 were freddie patek and mitchell page, and in the national league it was frank taveras and cesar cedeno at the top of the stolen base leaderboard.  that's ok, at least i'm not missing out on a davey lopes card that should have been!

it's a worthless future dodger convention on this 'play at the plate' card

or, at least that's what i thought when i first glanced at this 1998 upper deck todd hundley card with a guest appearance by luis gonzalez.

at a second glance, it's not a worthless future dodger convention.  hundley actually had a productive 2000 season for the dodgers with an ops of .954 (even though he was bad behind the plate), and that's not luis gonzalez - it's geremi gonzalez.  luis left the cubs after the 1996 season.  so, with all of that information, plus the horizontal orientation and decent photo, it's not a half bad card at all.

luis was still a worthless dodger, though.

a sandy through the mail success! but not that sandy...

last season i sent a 2006 upper deck card to sandy alomar jr, former dodger catcher (he lost his job to russell martin) and current indians first base coach.  i am pretty sure the '06 ud card is the only card to feature alomar as a dodger, so thank you richard p. mcwilliams.  anyway, this is what alomar sent back

sandy's first name is 'santos' just like his dad (he's a 'junior' for a reason).  if i tilt my head and squint, i can kind of see 'santos' or maybe 'sandee', but not 'sandy'.  btw, it's nice of eric gagne to lean forward and make an appearance as a background lurker.

thanks sandy. or santos.  it's much appreciated.

the 1978 topps jeff leonard card that should have been

jeff leonard was the player to be named lated in the deal that brought joe ferguson back to the dodgers in july of 1978.  he spent the entire 1978 season in the minors, despite a promising debut in 1977, but those few games as a member of the 1977 dodgers earns leonard a 1978 topps burger king dodger/update card that should have been:

that's pretty bad ass, if you ask me.  here's the back

leonard was blocked in the outfield by dusty baker and reggie smith, and even rick monday to some extent.  though leonard did play some center during his career, he was much more a corner outfielder.  still, couldn't he have replaced monday in center instead of bill north, derrel thomas or rudy law?

in houston, leonard went on to finish 2nd (to dodger rick sutcliffe) in the 1979 nl rookie of the year voting and really hit his stride in san francisco in 1983.  that was also the year after reggie smith left the dodger outfield, opening a spot that was filled by mike marshall instead of leonard.  it's hard to argue with al campanis and the finishes the dodgers had in the '80's, so i'll stop there.  besides, i don't know if i would have liked to have seen 'one flap down' in chavez ravine.

leonard was also featured, sullenly of course, in the dodgers' 1978 yearbook.  here's the b&w card to keep pace with wash, landestoy and sut.

why the long face?  it's too bad the dodgers' 1977 yearbook featured such strangely resolutioned images, because leonard is actually smiling in that publication

i guess that's not quite as bad ass.

here's to you, jeff leonard, and your 1978 topps burger king dodgers/update card that should have been!