who is rick monday's career torchbearer?

in his final big league at bat, the dodgers' rick monday, the center fielder on the team of my youth, faced the reds' jeff russell 6/20/84 as pinch-hitter and struck out.  this is monday's card from the 1984 dodgers police set

mo finished his career with 1619 hits and one huge postseason home run.

jeff russell, shown here on his 1995 fleer update card,

pitched in his last game on 9/27/96 as a member of the texas rangers. the last batter he faced was the angels' randy velarde who drew a walk.

here's randy velarde on his 2002 topps total card

which is appropriate because velarde played in his final game on 9/29/02 for the oakland a's and grounded into a 5-4-3 double play in his last at bat.  the pitcher that induced the dp was cj nitkowski of the texas rangers.

on june 7, 2005, nitkowski (i could only find a 2001 topps card of cj)

pitched in the big leagues for the final time.  he was with the washington nationals then, and in a game against the a's, he gave up a single to eric chavez and then walked scott hatteberg before being lifted for a reliever.

now with the reds (as evidenced by this 2008 topps year in review insert that i lifted from ebay), hatteberg

was used as a pinch-hitter on may 25, 2008 against the padres.  he faced off against bryan corey and fouled out to the catcher in what turned out to be his last big league appearance.

corey, who had relieved greg maddux to face hatteberg, made his last big league appearance just a couple of months later.  he doesn't seem to have many cards, so i'm showing a 2006 topps '52 card of him in a bosox uniform.

anyway, in the padres' game on august 9, 2008, corey was summoned from the bullpen to start the 9th inning against the rockies' 3-4-5 hitters.  with an 8-2 lead, corey allowed a single to matt holliday and then another to brad hawpe, and he was removed in favor of cla meredith.

brad hawpe, shown as a padre on his 2011 topps card,

eventually made his way to the angels' roster in 2013 where he played his last game in anaheim against the twins on july 22, 2013.  playing first base, hawpe's final big league at bat ended in a ground out while facing sam deduno - a former teammate of hawpe on the 2010 rockies.

deduno

pitched for most of 2014 with the twins (that's his 2014 topps card above), but was picked up on waivers late in the season by the astros.  i'll assume that he'll continue to carry rick monday's torch in 2015 for the 'stros.  if not, curtis granderson becomes monday's torchbearer which would be ok - from one center fielder to another.

orel fixation

it's now been over 25 years since orel hershiser dominated the national league over the last few weeks of the 1988 season.  this is the newest hershiser card to join my collection, and it's one that i have coveted for quite a while.

more on that later.  i have a bunch of bulldog's cards that i've had scanned for quite some time that need to be shown.  like this 1984 dodgers police card

i think for a while, that card was marketed as a pre-rookie.  i know i was happy to have the card and the rest of the sga set in my collection.

here's a 1992 panini sticker

and a 2000 upper deck card

that upper deck card is one of my favorites of hershiser.  it marked his return to dodger blue after stops in cleveland, san francisco, and new york.

i have a few cards from his time away from los angeles, like this 1996 fleer postseason glory card

a trio of orel photos!  here's the back

which explains his postseason prowess.  he won championship series mvp awards in both the nl and al, but his luck started to run out in the 1995 world series when he suffered his first postseason loss in game 1.  he did return to win game 5, however.

i have a few hershiser relic cards, including this 2004 leaf limited card with his jersey shown in a '55' cutout

what i had wanted for a while was an oncard hershiser auto, however.  my dad had given me a signed copy of hershiser's book 'out of the blue' many years ago, but i didn't have a card.  the closest i had come for a long time was the facsimile auto on this 1995 upper deck collector's choice gold signature parallel

real hershiser autos seem to hold a premium in the secondary market.  i did find a card with a low ($10 or so) bin on ebay about a year ago, and jumped on it even though it was a sticker auto.  it's from 2001 donruss signature series.

then i finally found that 2004 topps all-time fan favorites auto with a low opening bid, and i was eventually able to get it for less than the bin prices i had seen before.

it's fantastic.  just like his 1988 season was.

oversized and indeterminate

i recently picked up a steve garvey oddball that i had been avoiding.  it's a jd mccarthy postcard from the 1970's.  

it's oversized, as a postcard should be, but what makes it more frustrating is that no one seems to know what year it was issued. as mrmopar pointed out, unless you get these things when they are first issued, good luck figuring out the year. i have vacillated between whether or not to collect non-standard sized garvey issues like this one for years.  i finally pulled the trigger on this one because the price was right - $4.99 shipped - and it came with four other cards, a couple of which i actually 'needed'.

from the flat black and white, we go to shiny refracting color and this 2000 topps finest shawn green oversized gems card

this is a blown-up version of a short printed regular sized card in the 2000 finest set (still need that one, by the way).  in between those two extremes of the lot were a 1984 dodgers police steve yeager card

 and a 1985 donruss all-stars fernando valenzuela card

now i just need the pedro guerrero card from this set

the last card that came in the lot was this 1983 donruss action all-stars fernando

which was complete with a signature of indeterminate origin.  at least i know that the card is from 1983, though.

dodger double plays make cool cards

yes, it's true.  there are some killer dodger double play cards out there.  but don't worry, i'll be fair when i get around to seeding cards for the 'greatest double play card of all-time' tournament coming soon or relatively soon or maybe by the end of the year.

here are some fantastic (and maybe one or two pedestrian) dodger double play cards for your enjoyment.

how about a 1956 topps jim gilliam card to start things off.

this card loses some points since the dp turn is not the primary image on the card, but come on - it's a 1956 double play card!

fast forward about 40 years and we get this 1994 sportflics rookies and traded garey ingram card

i was not a ryan klesko fan back in the day.  even less so once he joined the padres.  so, it's nice to see him out two ways on that sportflics card.

howzabout a 1983 dodgers police derrel thomas card

super-utility thomas is crushing some giant's skull with his shin.  excellent.

not to be outdone, steve sax has turned two (or tried, at least) on his 1984 dodgers police card

brian downing looks like he did a steamroller slide into second, which saxy obviously avoided.  the bad part about this card is that it is probably too late in the turn to make the top 64.  play-in maybe?

this card is in the top 64, easy.  1996 topps stadium club chad fonville.

brian mcrae is hoping the fonz doesn't land on top of him.  i am sure he didn't - fonville could do no wrong in 1995.

alex cora and his 2005 upper deck first pitch card

it's ok, but it's no chad fonville.  i was shocked to learn that cora was still playing last year, by the way.

i'm not sure if i'll consider this card for the tourney or not - a 2010 topps update vintage legends pee wee reese card, in the style of 2003 topps

it's not a base issue and i am pretty sure it's a staged dp turn although jackie does a convincing backing up manuever.  the cons may outweigh the pros on that one.

this next one, however, may get a very high seeding.  it's pee wee's 2011 topps marquee card

pretty pretty.  love the socks on the cub (?) sliding in.  very nice card.

i'm off to do some seeding.  let me know if there are any double play cards that you think deserve consideration.  i won't have any trouble coming up with over 100 cards that i know of, but don't want to omit a nice dp turn caught on cardboard.

coaches, man. coaches.

well, the players who appeared for the dodgers in 1977 and/or 1978 that were left out of the 1978 topps set have all been accounted for.  what's left?  how about the coaches.  i used a picture from the 1978 photo album, and although it includes tom lasorda (whose eyes are closed i am pretty certain), it will have to do.  here is the 1978 topps burger king dodgers/update card that should have been for the 1977/78 dodger coaching staff:

to lasorda's right we have preston gomez and to his left is jim gilliam - the longest tenured coach and second african-american coach in the majors.  kneeling in front are red adams, monty basgall, and mark cresse.  i did a back, too

i modeled the back after the rookie cards from the 1978 set

i prefer this type of coaches card to the floating head cards from the 60's and 70's, and it is along the same lines as the coaches cards from the dodgers police sets.  for example, here's the 1983 dodgers police coaches card, with basgall and cresse still on staff

the photo was recycled for the 1984 set, too.

let's give these guys their due.  preston gomez was lasorda's third base coach, replacing lasorda at that position for the dodgers.  gomez had previously been a coach for the dodgers in the late 60's before he left to manage the padres and then the astros.  he left the dodgers one more time to manage the cubs in 1980 before settling down in the angels organization, where he stayed until he passed away in 2009.

jim gilliam was the first base coach, and also filled the role of hitting coach.  a career dodger, gilliam's coaching career began in 1965, but he was added to the active roster in may of that year.  in 1966, he again filled the role of player-coach before becoming a full-time coach the following season.  gilliam suffered a stroke in mid-september 1978, and passed away in early october as the dodgers clinched the nl championship.  jim lefebvre was brought in to replace gilliam while the team wore '19' patches on their uniforms during the fall classic.

red adams was the pitching coach, and was revered by tommy john, don sutton and even the reclusive dr. mike marshall.  he filled that role from 1969 through 1980, serving both walt alston and lasorda.  adams is the one lasorda asks to 'give me a sign when i get out there' as he heads out to remove doug rau from the mound in his famous world series tirade.

monty basgall was another holdover from alston's staff.  he was originally signed as a player by the dodgers, but they traded him to the pirates before he reached the majors.  he re-joined the dodgers' organization as a scout in 1959 and was promoted to coach in 1973.  he is perhaps best known (and appreciated) for his work with the dodgers' long-running infield of garvey cey russell and lopes which included two converted outfielders and a third baseman who was moved to first base.  basgall remained on the coaching staff through the 1986 season, and was replaced by russell in 1987.

mark cresse is the only coach on the staff to not have any major league experience.  he spent 3 seasons in the cardinals' minor league system before joining the dodgers as their bullpen coach.  he stayed with the dodgers through 1998 and is currently running a baseball school in southern california.

here's to you, 1977/78 dodger coaches, and your card that should have been!