random is as monkey do

i'll take potpourri for $200, alex.  here is an odd assortment of cards that have been haunting my scanned folder for a while.  first up, we have the 1985 american league all-star team from 1986 topps rack packs.

these guys, including wade boggs, rickey henderson, george brett and cal ripken jr are sitting in right field at the metrodome in minneapolis.  behind them are the fold-up seats that are used during viking games.  i also spy bert blyleven, carlton fisk, dave winfield, jim rice and roger clemens, among others, with tom kelly sitting in the bat boy position front and center.

here is the national league counterpart.

not quite as organized as the american league all-stars.  not sure why there is a gap next to dick williams, either.  look at all those padres, too - including steve garvey way off at the end of the bench in front of nolan ryan.  a good assortment of players here, too, such as tony gwynn, ozzie smith, fernando valenzuela, pedro guerrero, and pete rose.

here's where the monkey do part comes into play.  i didn't know that these cards existed until i saw one of them on another blog a while back.  and i call myself a garvey semi-supercollector!  this happens pretty often actually - i see a card on another blog and i go out and get it.  many times it's a double play card or a card featuring dodger stadium in the background, but sometimes it's a plain old dodger card.  like this 1989 swell baseball greats jose morales card.

i would guess that i owned this card within 10 days of seeing it on a blog for the first time.  it's great.  morales has only a handful of dodger cards (he was on the team from 1982 through 1984) so this was a nice surprise.

i was also surprised to find a couple of white sox cards that i wanted, thanks to a ebay search i ran a couple of months ago.  i was looking for 'bell dodgers' and up popped a card of albert belle.  two cards, actually.  this one is from 1997 donruss limited

and this one is from 1997 pinnacle select

the search was set up to find cards from the 1960 - 1962 bell brand dodger releases, but joey there made the grade because he was paired up on each of those cards with this guy - karim garcia

that's the pinnacle back, and here is the limited front

garcia was quite the darling of the hobby in the mid-90's, or at least of the card manufacturers.  he came to the plate just 67 times as a dodger, but probably has three times that many cards showing him in dodger blue.  i suppose topps and the other card makers thought that he might be the sixth consecutive dodger rookie of the year and that's why they went wild with his cards.

of course, the search did turn up it's intended prey - a low cost vintage goodie.  here's duke snider's 1961 bell brand card

see how that works?  we're back to the random part of the post.  and it doesn't get more random than last year's topps heritage dodger short prints - at least the ones that are not aaron miles.

here's dee gordon and his rookie trophy.

will gordon ever get back to the majors for good?  or is he the second coming of chad fonville?  how about jerry hairston jr

who wears steve garvey's number and has even played some first base over the last couple of seasons.  he's been playing third since coming back from the dl, which means less time for luis cruz, juan uribe, and the rest of the ragtag fleet of hot corner residents.

well, that's enough for now - off to read some of your blogs.  maybe i'll see some more cards to add to my collection!

seeing double

topps is not alone when it comes to recycling photos.  i recently received some cards in the mail from nick at dime boxes that included a healthy dose of dodgers from the pacific legends cards from the late 1980's.  like carl erskine

and carl erskine

at first i thought i had received doubles, but that was just because of the photo.  clearly the design is different, and pacific (not that pacific) used lowercase letters in 1990.  that's the 1988 pacific card up top, by the way.  the backs made it easier to differentiate.

in addition to oisk, there was campy

and tommy davis

clem labine

and don...newcomb?

newk also showed up (with his name correctly spelled) on a 1989 swell card

i don't have too many of the 1989 swell cards - in fact, this might be the only one.  i do have a few of the 1991 swell cards, but didn't have manny mota until the package arrived from nick

it's always nice to get a new card featuring one of the players on the team of my youth.  there were also some more recent cards, like this 2004 bowman jereme milons card

milons is still playing ball in the frontier league these days.  he moved on to the diamondbacks' organization shortly after this card was released, never getting above high-a ball with the dodgers.

finally, another player from the team of my youth - knuckleballer charlie hough

this is a 2004 topps all-time fan favorites card, and it looks great.  the photo is from earlier in the 70's, but would have fit in with the 1974 set nicely.

thanks nick.  you've got me excited to wade through some dime boxes at the next show!