los angeles dodger commemorative patches through the years

i've been meaning to do this for quite some time, however it was a review of brian's want list at highly subjective and completely arbitrary that proved to be the push i needed to get it done. you see, brian collects cards showing commemorative - not memorial - patches.

the dodgers have worn a few commemorative patches recently, but not nearly as many as some teams for whom there seems to be something worth celebrating pretty much every year.  i'm limiting these posts to the los angeles dodger team, which means there won't be any discussion of the new york world's fair patch worn by the brooklyn dodgers in 1939.

well, aside from that 1961 fleer card, there won't be any discussion.  this list also does not include single game patches, such as the jackie robinson day patch that has been worn on april 15 in some recent seasons.

the task is fairly easy, because the dodgers didn't wear any patches, especially team specific patches for quite some time after moving to the west coast.  here's a year by year rundown.

1958 - none

1959 - none

1960 - none

1961 - none

1962 - none

1963 - none

1964 - none

1965 - none

1966 - none

1967 - none

1968 - none

1969 - major league baseball 100th anniversary (1971 dell's today team stamp maury wills)

1970 - none

1971 - none

1972 - none

1973 - none

1974 - none

1975 - none

1976 - national league centennial (1977 topps manny mota)

1977 - none

1978 - none

1979 - none

1980 - dodger stadium all-star game patch (1982 topps reggie smith)

1981 - city of los angeles bicentennial (1982 fleer bob welch)

1982 - none

1983 - los angeles dodgers 25th anniversary (1984 fleer derrel thomas)

1984 - dodger stadium olympic venue (1985 donruss orel hershiser)

1985 - none

1986 - none

1987 - dodger stadium 25th anniversary (1988 score steve sax)

1988 - none (vero beach 40th anniversary patch during spring training - 1988 donruss baseball's best alfredo griffin)

1989 - none

1990 - dodger national league franchise 100th anniversary (1991 topps debut '90 luis lopez)

1991 - none

1992 - dodger stadium 30th anniversary (1993 donruss triple play brett butler)

1993 - none (don drysdale/roy campanella and tim crews memorial patches)

1994 - major league baseball 125th anniversary patch (1995 fleer henry rodriguez)

1995 - none

1996 - dodger stadium 35th season (1997 upper deck tommy lasorda)

1997 - jackie robinson 50th anniversary patch (1998 topps finest brett butler)

1998 - los angeles dodgers 40th anniversary (1999 fleer brilliants eric karros)

1999 - dodger heroes (1999 keebler dodgers tripp cromer)

2000 - none

2001 - none

2002 - dodger stadium 40th anniversary (2003 topps total david ross)

2003 - none

2004 - none

2005 - none

2006 - none

2007 - none

2008 - los angeles dodgers 50th anniversary (2009 upper deck matt kemp)

2009 - none

2010 - 1955 world championship 55th anniversary (2010 topps update reed johnson)

2011 - none (duke snider memorial patch)

2012 - dodger stadium 50th anniversary (2013 topps josh beckett)

2013 - none

2014 - none

2015 - none

there were several missed opportunities that could have been celebrated - inaugural season on the west coast (1958), defending world champions (1960), opening of dodger stadium (1962), defending world champions (1964), defending world champions (1966), defending world champions (1982), defending world champions (1989), etc. as you can see, there were lots of chances to have worn defending world champions patches in the past, and i'm hoping next year they'll be in a position to wear one (or not) again.

so it begins - the (mostly) regular issue steve garvey binders

i've got essentially four full binders of steve garvey cards and assorted items (not to mention my garvey posters, prints, first baseman's glove, louisville slugger bat, and signed balls).  two of them feature oddball items (which i've shown over the past few months) and the other two feature (for the most part) standard sized cards.  over the course of the next unknown amount of time, i'm going to show you the contents of those two binders.

here we go - page 1:

this first sheet features:

1. 1971 dell today's team stamp
2. 1971 o-pee-chee
3. 1971 topps
4. 1971 topps dodger team
5. 1972 topps dodger team
6. 1972 topps
7. 1973 o-pee-chee
8. 1973 topps dodger team
9. 1973 topps

here are the backs, just remember that they are reversed since i just flipped the sheet over to scan it

a couple of notes about this sheet - i obviously decided to include team cards (topps only) as the garv is in the front row of the 1971 card, the third row of the 1972 card, and the middle row of the 1973 card.  also, the dell today's team stamp is also sometimes referred to as the 'mlb official stamp'.  the only garvey release i am missing from this period is the 1972 topps venezuelan stamp. good luck to me.

here's the second sheet:

featuring:

1. 1974 o-pee-chee
2. 1974 topps
3. 1974 topps dodger team
4. 1975 hostess
5. 1975 kellogg's
6. 1975 o-pee-chee
7. 1975 o-pee-chee 1974 mvp's
8. 1975 o-pee-chee 1974 nlcs
9. 1975 topps

and the backs:

in case you're wondering, garvey's in the middle row of the team card.  here i'm missing only the 1975 hostess twinkie card (it has a black bar on the back, which the regular hostess card - as seen above - does not).

this is the third sheet of the binder:

featuring:

1. 1975 topps 1974 mvp's
2. 1975 topps dodger team
3. 1975 topps 1974 nlcs
4. 1975 topps mini
5. 1975 topps mini 1974 mvp's
6. 1975 topps mini 1974 nlcs
7. 1976 hostess
8. 1976 kellogg's
9. 1976 o-pee-chee

these are the backs

garvey's still in the middle row on the team card.  you might notice a couple of things here.  first, i am missing the 1976 hostess twinkie card (again with a black bar on the back), and the 1975 sspc card is not where it should be. instead, i have a 1976 o-pee-chee card there.  that's because i used to catalog the sspc card as a 1976 release (which is how it's listed on the official beckett garvey checklist).  since starting this blog, however, i have come to refer to that set as the 1975 sspc set based on the copyright date on the back of the cards.

so, there you have the first three sheets of cards in my basic steve garvey card collection.  there will be more.  lots more.  stay tuned.

more of yesterday's 1971 los angeles dodgers

here's the rest of the dell's todays 1971 los angeles dodgers album.  the second of two stamp sheets

we have jim brewer, mike strahler (on what might be his lone solo dodger issue other than the 1990 target set), billy grabarkewitz, and bill russell.  the grabarkewitz photo is the same one used on his 1970 topps card, complete with lurking danny ozark. 

in the second row, it's pete mikkelson, duke sims, tom haller, and rich allen. or dick allen, if you prefer.  this is a pretty cool row.  unlike strahler, mikkelson was completely ignored by topps during his tenure as a dodger despite pitching in 155 games over four years for them.  duke sims got a dodger card in the 1972 topps set, but was in transition when the 1971 set was issued.  he was acquired in a december, 1970 trade with the indians so it's nice that he was able to get down to chavez ravine and put on a dodger uni in time for this release.  unlike al downing on the first stamp sheet of this album.  it's always good to see tom haller actually wearing a dodger uniform and there simply aren't enough items with rich allen in dodger blue.

the last row is a bastion of early 70's dodger goodness with claude osteen, don sutton, bill buckner and steve garvey.

here's the back to the stamps

rich allen is listed as an outfielder who also plays first base - so the dodgers played him mostly at third.  it's not all good news, as mikkelson is noted as having a history of control problems.  and, there's not a lot to say about strahler, so let's bring up kidney surgery.  quite the tidbit there.
there's a bit of a problem with the stat sheet

bill russell was not "nim" in 1969.  he debuted in april of that year and had 48 hits and a .226 average.  other than that the numbers look alright.
next page is an ad for all of the albums

the logos are color-corrected, unlike the envelope we saw earlier today.

here's the inside of the back cover.

these are more along the lines of 'dodger all-time stars' rather than la dodger all-time stars, but that's kind of picky.  i wonder what this page looked like for the expos, padres, brewers and royals.
back cover time

pretty cool to see scheduled double headers.  those were the days.  the days with todays 1971 los angeles dodgers.

yesterday's 1971 los angeles dodgers

i have had the steve garvey stamp from the dell's 'todays 1971 los angeles dodgers' album for many years, but i just recently picked up a copy of the complete booklet.  let's explore, shall we?

here's the cover

i believe the cover is the same for each team, with the exception of the title, of course.  that's clearly not dodger stadium.

here's the inside cover

that's pretty much the team history in a nutshell, i guess.

page 1 - let's get to the stamps

that's bill sudakis, manny mota, jeff torborg and willie crawford up top, with joe moeller, jose pena, al downing, and willie davis in the second row.  and the third row has wes parker, bill singer, maury wills and jim lefebvre.  nice to see al downing in the brewers gear.  i wonder if andy kosco is wearing dodger blue in the brewers' album.  the sheet says that these are the official team photos, but that's not necessarily true, although i suppose that could be downing's official brewers photo.  some of these photos were also used in the dodgers' 1971 ticketron issue.

here's the back of the stamps

some good info there,  although nothing too deep.

the next page gives us some stats

nice to see fielding percentage get some love.  wes parker at .996!  screw you keith hernandez!

and now for something completely different.  here are some historical events of the national league

i am guessing that there is an american league version of this in al team's albums.  hopefully there are references to teepees, the black barrier and to milwauke as the backwoods.

at the center of the album, there was an envelope you could use to order all the other albums.

with which you would get this album of all-time great stars.  i have never seen this album up for sale.  i wonder how many people sent took dell up on this offer.

here's the other side of the envelope

some sweet logos there, even if the color is off on some of them.  i had never seen that version of the white sox, brewers or phillies logos.  the senatorss' logo was pretty bad, but i'm not sure what else they could have done.

back to the rest of the album shortly.

the evolution of the right fielder

so far, i have covered the evolution of the dodgers through their managers, catchers, closers, center fielders, and left fielders.  i have even gone through the chain of out of place guys.  here's the first installment of the last of the outfield positions - right field.

carl furillo (1949-1958)

don't you just love 1952 bowman?  i do.  i have about a half dozen dodger cards from that set and they are awesome.  furillo was pretty good himself in right field for the dodgers during their final decade in brooklyn. he was nicknamed 'the reading rifle' in deference to his throwing arm, and he led the league in outfield assists twice - first in 1950 with 18 and then in 1951 with 24.  he also led the league in batting with a .344 average in 1953.  furillo, or the idea of a player like furillo, is one of the reasons i liked the dodgers so much growing up.  he was a guy who played one position for one team, and played it well, for nearly a decade.  unfortunately, even the dodgers ran their team like a business and dumped furillo fairly unceremoniously when injuries limited his effectiveness.

duke snider (1959)

the silver fox slid over to right from center for the 1959 season. actually, the dodgers went with a right field committee of snider, furillo, ron fairly and others, but the duke got the bulk of the playing time.  it was his last big season, too.  he hit 23 home runs, drove in 88 and had an average of .308 in 126 games.  in the postseason, as the dodgers won their second world championship, he hit his final world series home run, giving him 11 for his career which at the time was second only to babe ruth (mickey mantle also had 11 heading into the 1960's).

frank howard (1960-1964)

hondo had enjoyed a cup of coffee with the big club in both 1958 and 1959, but stuck around for good in 1960.  he took over in right field en route to being named the national league's rookie of the year with 23 homers, 77 rbi and a .268 batting average.  in 1961, playing time in right was split amongst howard, fairly, tommy davis, and a cast of others like gordie windhorn.  still, howard got the majority of the playing time, and he remained the primary right fielder for the dodgers until he was traded to the senators after the 1964 season.

ron fairly (1965-1968)

with howard gone and wes parker in the mix, fairly moved from first to right. in fairly's first year as the primary right fielder, the dodgers won their 4th world series title in 11 years, and fairly was a big part of it.  in the fall classic against the twins, fairly scored 7 times and hit .375 with 2 home runs and 6 rbi. he didn't fare quite as well in the 1966 world series, as he was stymied by the baltimore pitching staff just like the rest of the team.  when fairly was traded to the expos a couple of months into the 1969 season, the dodgers moved andy kosco over from left field to replace him.

andy kosco (1969-1970)

kosco hit 19 home runs in 1969 to lead the team.  however, he was batting .274 when he made the switch to right, and by the end of june, about 20 games later, he was hitting right around .250.  in 1970, he continued to struggle, hitting just .228 as the dodgers gave him just slightly more starts in right than either willie crawford or bill russell.  in february of 1971, the dodgers sent kosco to the brewers for al downing, and opened up right field for a kid named bill buckner.

bill buckner (1971)

buckner's eyebrows are fairly tame on his 1971 dell today's team stamp.  billy buck spent just over half of the season out in right for the dodgers, and he hit .277 in 108 total games played.  buckner hit his first career home run and later in the season hit his first career grand slam.  he continued to patrol the outfield in the following years, but gave up his majority stake in right when the dodgers acquired frank robinson in december of 1971.

frank robinson (1972)

there aren't too many cards of frank robinson in a dodger uniform from the period (actually, there is only his 1972 topps high number card) so i'm using a 1972 team issued postcard.  anyway, frobby spent one year in la and it was the worst season of his career to that point.  he played in a then-career low 103 games (starting 86 times in right) and hit only 6 doubles.  he did have 19 home runs, but his batting average was just .251 and he sported a career worst ops of .795, eclipsed only in his final year when he was a player-manager at the age of 40.  this was the guy who had finished third in the al mvp balloting in two of the previous three seasons, and finished 10th in the voting the other year.  it would have been understandable had robinson been in his last year, like the aging rickey henderson that spent his final playing days as a dodger, but after the dodgers traded him to the angels, robinson rebounded with a huge offensive year.  at least the dodgers got andy messersmith out of the deal.

willie crawford (1973-1975)

willie crawford took over in right having spent significant time there already in the previous seasons.  the hometown star hit .295 in each of his first two seasons as the team's primary right fielder.  in 1974, he helped the dodgers return to the postseason and the world series for the first time since 1966.  in the fall classic against the a's, crawford hit .333 with a home run, but the dodgers lost in 5 games.  after the 1975 season, the dodgers decided to give joe ferguson a shot as the full-time right fielder since they had given the catching job to steve yeager, and crawford was deemed expendable.  he was dealt to the cardinals for former dodger rookie of the year ted sizemore, straight up.

reggie smith (1976-1980)

part way through the 1976 season, the dodgers decided to trade joe ferguson to the cardinals for reggie smith. he hit .280 with 10 home runs after the trade, and really made an impact the next two years.  in 1977, reggie was one of the four dodgers to hit 30 home runs in a season, putting his 32 long balls up with steve garvey, ron cey, and dusty baker.  he also hit .307 and led the league with a .427 obp.  it's no coincidence that the dodgers went to the world series that year and in 1978 with smith again providing serious offensive pop.  he missed some significant time in 1979, but still spent more time in right than any of the von joshua-gary thomasson-pedro guerrero and others cavalcade of replacements.  he reclaimed his spot in the lineup for the 1980 season and was hitting .323 when his season was essentially ended by injury at the end of july.  it took a while for smith to get back, but he was able to be on the dodgers' postseason roster in 1981 and was rewarded with the only world series championship of his career.

smith's replacement in right was series co-mvp, pedro guerrero.  he'll lead off the evolution in part 2.

a random sampling of what i collect

let's take a sunday stroll through the categorical fields of my collection, shall we?

i collect, first and foremost, steve garvey and dodger cards. like this 1971 dell today's team stamp. ok, so it's not really a card per se, but you get the idea.

i also collect dodger (and other players of interest) autographs, especially through the mail successes. here's a 1973 topps steve garvey with wes parker lurking, which makes it another type of card i enjoy.

i wish wes parker would sign through the mail - it would be nice to get him to sign this one, too.

i also collect post-2000 twins, primarily joe mauer. excuse me, that's mvp joe mauer.

cards featuring dodger stadium are also part of the collection, like this 1993 fleer luis salazar

just another day hanging out at the cage in chavez ravine.

here's a double play turn on augie ojeda's 2002 fleer cardand a classic play at the plate from 1973 topps you can guess from the text that george hendrick (scourge of the stirrup) is safe at home.

finally, there are the final tributes, whether they are announced as such or not.

true, this 1995 upper deck ryne sandberg final tribute is premature as he would return to play for a few more seasons, but you get the idea.

if you or anyone you know has cards that look like the ones above, please take a look at my want lists, and let's trade!