unfolding the infield. almost.

i'm jumping the gun a bit here, as i haven't yet posted about the 1978 topps dodgers as they were portrayed in 1983, but i recently picked up a set of 1983 topps foldouts, and the members of that team made a pretty good showing.  unfortunately, bill russell didn't make the cut.  again.

for those of you who aren't familiar, the foldouts were issued in five different booklets covering active leaders in five different categories - batting average, home runs, stolen bases, wins and saves.  these booklets were made of 9 double sided panels that folded up into a booklet, similar to souvenir postcard booklets you see at touristy type drug stores.  that analogy makes sense, as the 'cards' are postcard sized.  there are 17 players featured in each booklet (the 18th panel being the cover).

anyway, here's how three-fourths of the infield, and a few other members of the 1978 topps dodgers looked in that set.

steve garvey made the cut in the batting average booklet, thanks to a .301 mark through the 1982 season.

bill madlock and his .316 average through 1982 is on the back.  rod carew was at the front of the booklet with a .331 career mark at that point.

garvey failed to make the cut for the home run booklet (he had 211 at the time), but ron cey and his 228 career round trippers just barely made the list

i should note that i believe both the garvey and the cey cards to be airbrushed.  garvey's hat looks pretty good, but his undershirt and collar are pretty suspect, as are cey's hat and striped collar.  this makes sense, as both popeye and the penguin were dodgers in 1982.  for the record, reggie jackson was at the top of the active home run list with 464 at the end of the 1982 season.

in the stolen bases booklet, there was a nice davey lopes card

although i doubt he is stealing home.  lopes was trailing ron leflore (who was actually no longer active), cesar cedeno, bert campaneris, and joe morgan in this category.  he finished his career ahead of leflore and cedeno, but couldn't catch campy or morgan.  the booklet contains cards of morgan (663 stolen bases), cedeno (503), leflore (456), lopes (446), omar moreno (412), rod carew (338), amos otis (336), rickey henderson (319), larry bowa (296), willie wilson (287), don baylor (259), julio cruz (257), mickey rivers (253), dave concepcion (249), jose cruz (242), garry maddox (234) and al bumbry (231).

moving on to the saves booklet, we have terry forster

like cey and garvey, forster finished up his dodger career in 1982, so i think this image is airbrushed, too.  the stripes on the collar look especially suspect.  forster's 103 saves put him behind then active and all-time leader rollie fingers who had 301 saves at the time.  forster also fell behind bruce sutter, rich gossage, and a few others.  he was ahead of elias sosa, though.

sosa's image is definitely airbrushed, wouldn't you say?  he was with the tigers in 1982, and moved to san diego for the 1983 season. 1983 turned out to be his last in the majors, and he earned a single save that year.  his 83 career saves puts him ahead of don aase but behind joe sambito on the all-time list.  here's the complete list of the 'relief aces' booklet:  fingers (301), sutter (194), gossage (184), tug mcgraw (180), gene garber (149), kent tekulve (127), bill campbell (110), forster (103), tom burgmeier (96), gary lavelle (95), dan quisenberry (91), jim kern (88), randy moffitt (86), ron reed (83), sosa (82), ed farmer (75) and greg minton (74).

let's go back to the home run booklet to celebrate rick monday and his appearance there

mo ranked ahead of darrell evans and the penguin on the list.  he was eventually passed by both, as he hit only a few more dingers in his career.  for the record, the home run booklet looked like this: reggie (464), carl yastrzemski (442), johnny bench (377), tony perez (363), mike schmidt (349), dave kingman (329), graig nettles (313), rusty staub (287), greg luzinski (262), george foster (261), john mayberry (255), bobby murcer (251), joe morgan (246), jim rice (237), monday (234), evans (232) and cey (228).

on to the starting pitchers.  first up, we have tommy john and his 237 career wins as of 1982.

another airbrush!  john was with the yankees for most of 1982 so that explains things.  john wouldn't quite get to 300 wins for his career, as he won only 51 games over the last 7 seasons of his career.  his former teammate, don sutton, did push past 300 victories, however.

and, unlike john, sutton was featured in the set with an actual non-airbrushed photo, even though he spent only part of the 1982 season in milwaukee

sutton finished with 324 wins which put him ahead of all but one of his peers in the booklet.  before we get to that, here's a non-1978 topps dodger who was included in the set:  jerry reuss

reuss is featured by way of his then 161 career win total.  he would eventually earn 220 wins for his career.  unfortunately, reuss's card has the slits in it for inserting the flap to close the booklet.  here's the full list of pitchers in the pack:  gaylord perry (307 wins), steve carlton (285), jim kaat (283), ferguson jenkins (278), tom seaver (264), jim palmer (263), sutton (258), phil niekro (257), john (237), nolan ryan (205), vida blue (191), jerry koosman (191), mike torrez (174), bert blyleven (169), joe niekro (162), reuss (161) and paul splittorff (152).  the only one sutton wouldn't catch was steve carlton, who finished with 329 wins.  nolan ryan did come up and tie sutton at 324.

finally, another non-1978 topps dodger, pedro guerrero.

petey and his .305 average made it into the booklet fairly easily.  he wound up at an even .300 for his career, better than garvey.  here's the full checklist for the batting average set:  carew (.331 batting average), george brett (.316), madlock (.316), lonnie smith (.314), willie wilson (.312), pete rose (.308), dave parker (.308), cecil cooper (.308), jim rice (.305), al oliver (.305), guerrero (.305), ken griffey (.304), fred lynn (.301), garvey(.301), bake mcbride (.300), keith hernandez (.299) and dane iorg (.297).