pee wee's patch

harold henry "pee wee" reese passed away on august 14, 1999 at the age of 81.  the dodgers quickly added a memorial patch to their uniforms, to be worn for the remainder of the season.  the patch, seen below

included the nickname "pee wee" and his retired jersey number, 1.

because it was relatively late in the season, examples of the patch on 2000 cards are fairly limited.  here's a 2000 upper deck mvp eric gagne card that shows the patch

it was placed on the left sleeve, above the dodger heroes patch worn by each player.  pee wee was included in the hero patch series, but i do not have a card of mark grudzielanek (who wore the reese hero patch) showing both patches.

this 2000 upper deck victory jeff shaw card

gives us another look at the memorial patch, including a close-up in the inset photo.

the patch is also visible on adrian beltre's 2000 fleer focus card

and the only other card i have that shows the patch is this 2000 pacific dodgers diamond leaders card

there's grudzielanek, but it's eric karros who is displaying the patch.  if only this getty images photo of chan ho park had found its way onto a card...

for the record, i have both the gagne and the diamond leaders card in my memorials binder.  i couldn't choose between the two, so they are both in there.

here are a couple of cards of pee wee himself, a 1992 ziploc card, 

and a 2003 mlb showdown 

i believe that this card is a promo, based on the foil stamp and the 'p51' numbering.  there's another version in the regular showdown set that lack the foil and is numbered 119.  kudos, by the way, to ziploc for using the older dodger logo on reese's card, although they coupled that brooklyn dodger logo with a photo of reese wearing a los angeles dodger cap.  sigh.

reese was the captain of the dodger teams of the 1950's, but he made his debut in 1940.  the following season, he became the dodgers' regular shortstop, and he helped the club win the pennant for the first time since 1920.  that marked the first of seven world series in which reese would play over the course of his career.  the dodgers faced the yankees in all of them, and won only the 1955 contest.

reese moved west with the dodgers in 1958, and was the starting shortstop for the los angeles dodgers' first game.  he played in only 58 more games that year, however, in what would be his last big league season.  reese was a 10-time all-star with 8 top ten mvp finishes over his 16-year career that spanned 19 years (3 seasons were lost to military service during world war ii).  he finished with 2170 hits and 1210 walks for an on-base percentage of .366.  although he later lamented the number of bases on balls he took ("if i had my career to play over, one thing i'd do differently is swing more. those 1200 walks i got…nobody remembers them."), his 1210 walks were within the top 15 career leaders at the time of his retirement and greatly contributed to his having scored as many runs as he did (1338) during his career. in 1984, reese was inducted into the hall of fame, and the dodgers retired his jersey as they do for their hall of fame players.

a number memorial for the yankee clipper

joe dimaggio, teammate to lou gehrig and mickey mantle, died at the age of 84 on march 8, 1999.  he had played 13 years in the majors for the yankees (with 3 of his prime years spent in the military during world war ii), earning 3 mvp awards and 9 world series rings.

in response to his passing, the yankees added dimaggio's retired number 5 to their left sleeves for the 1999 season.  there are plenty of examples of this memorial, including the following cards:

2000 fleer tradition derek jeter alcs

2000 fleer ultra tino martinez

2000 topps stadium club ricky ledee

2000 topps chili davis

2000 topps bernie williams

2000 topps david cone

2000 topps derek jeter

2000 fleer gamers bernie williams

and this 2000 upper deck victory darryl strawberry

i'll take off on a tangent here.  in addition to giving us a close-up look at the number memorial thanks to the inset photo, this card also serves as a final tribute to strawberry's career

those are strawberry's final career stats - a far cry from where most people thought they would be when he retired based on his potential and his first few seasons with the mets.  strawberry played in about 150  fewer games than dimaggio, but he struck out almost 1000 more times than did joltin' joe.

here are the two cards i have in my collection for dimaggio's memorial - a 2000 upper deck mvp alfosno soriano scout's choice insert card that shows the white number memorial the yankees wore on their spring training jerseys

and derek jeter's 2000 fleer ultra card that shows the memorial on the yankee pinstripes

dimaggio was considered to be the 'classiest' yankee, and was perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak in 1941 and his short marriage to marilyn monroe. for the last 30 years of his life, he was also known (officially) as 'the greatest living ballplayer'.  here is dimaggio's obituary from the new york times which obviously expands on his life and impact far better than i could here.

indeed, 'joltin joe has left and gone away.'  so, (i know it's not the actual lyric from the simon & garfunkel song 'mrs. robinson', but…) here's to you, joe dimaggio.

the twins' calvin griffith memorial patch

calvin r. griffith, the lifelong baseball man who inherited the washington senators from his uncle clark in 1955, passed away in october of 1999.  for the 2000 season, the minnesota twins (the team formerly known as the washington senators) wore his initials on their left jerseys in griffith's memory.  you can see the patch on this 2001 topps jacque jones card

as well as his 2000 upper deck mvp card

doug mientkiewicz (possibly the twins' next manager) is wearing the patch as he tries to break up an adam kennedy double play turn on kennedy's 2001 fleer ultra card

and joe may sports the patch on his 2002 topps heritage card

there's the patch again on torii hunter's 2003 upper deck big league breakdown card

but it's hunter's 2002 fleer platinum card that represents this memorial in the binder

griffith moved the senators to the twin cities in time for the 1961 season, and he remained the team's owner until 1984 when he sold the franchise to carl pohlad.  griffith's tenure saw many great players come through the twins' system, and the team won the 1965 american league pennant to go along with a couple of other division championships, but his legacy was tarnished by racist comments made near the end of the 1978 season.  as a result of those comments, rod carew sought and received a trade, and the twins continued to languish in the american league west for the remainder of griffith's ownership tenure.

the brew crew and the ironworkers local 8 patch

in july of 1999, during the construction of miller park (the brewers' new stadium), there was an accident involving a crane.  while lifting a piece of the stadium's retractable roof, the crane collapsed, hitting another crane where three workers were in an aerial basket.  those workers, william degrave, jerome starr, and jeffrey wischer, were killed, and a few others were injured.

to recognize the fallen workers, the brewers wore patches with the ironworkers union local 8 logo on their jerseys for the remainder of the 1999 season.  you can kind of see it on kevin barker's 2000 upper deck mvp card.  it's there on the left chest.

here's a better look at the patch, courtesy of a game used jersey from the 1999 season

the card that i originally used for this particular memorial is the 2000 pacific brewers diamond leaders card, with both jeff cirillo and jeromy burnitz wearing the patch

but now i have this 2000 pacific prism geoff jenkins holographic gold parallel 

instead.

it was determined at trial that the contractor, mitsubishi, along with their co-defendant lampson international, were responsible for the accident due to their putting schedule ahead of worker safety.  there was pressure to finish the stadium on time, and the contractor chose to proceed with the work that day despite strong winds that would normally dictate that this sort of crane operation would not be performed.  apparently a number of workers objected to the conditions, but the work was not stopped.

the brewers also wore patches during the 1999 season commemorating what was to be the final season of county stadium (those are the patches on their right sleeves).  however, due to the accident, miller park was not able to be completed in time for the 2000 season, and the brew crew spent one more year at their old park.

this and the columbine high school patch that the rockies wore during the same season were the first memorial patches that i can recall worn for a non-baseball person or entity.

it's like having my own gary sheffield dealer

i recently completed a trade with daniel over at it's like having my own card shop in which he sent me a bunch of late 90's/early 00's dodger cards.  that means a healthy dose of gary sheffield.  take a look:

1998 donruss signature edition

1998 topps gold label

i miss the outfield murals

1998 leaf rookies & stars

2000 pacific vanguard

i've been halfway thinking about doing some sort of post that tries to capture the craziness of pacific in 2000.  this card looks like sheff is flying through space as part of the pinkish lantern corps.

2000 upper deck spx

2000 upper deck mvp

that's a goodly amount of sheffield cards, and i don't think i showed them all.  i've said it before, i was just getting comfortable with sheffield as a dodger when he started to pull his shenanigans.  still, the guy put together one of the best offensive stretches in dodger history.  and, if he ever finds his way into the hall of fame, he might go in as a dodger.  he spent four years in la (eclipsed only by his six years in florida) and got more hits and hit more home runs as a dodger than anywhere else he played.  if that happens, what do the dodgers do?  do they retire his number?  and if so, which number - 5 or 10?  i can't see that happening, but it would be a first if he were to be enshrined in a dodger hat and they didn't retire the number.

they don't have to worry about all that with this next guy - shawn green on his 2000 upper deck mvp card

he didn't make the cut this year for reappearing on the hall of fame ballot, so he's one and done.  here is his 2000 fleer gamers card

and his 2003 fleer ultra gold medallion card

on which he makes like roberto clemente by losing his helmet.  speaking of which, anybody else out there see 'chasing 3000'?  i watched it a couple of weeks ago, and it was cool to see some old footage of clemente.  not so cool to see some recent footage of ray liotta.  shoeless joe is not aging too well.

here's a 1998 ud spx chan ho park card

and a 1999 upper deck black diamond adrian beltre card

just to prove that there were dodger cards from this timeframe that weren't either sheffield or green.  sometimes it seemed like the only players i was seeing in packs were those two and kevin brown, but there were others.  i can't imagine having been an astros fan and only getting cards of the killer b's over and over and over.

thanks daniel!

where's the willie davis tribute?

while the dodgers' play so far this season has been disappointing, it's early yet.  in fact, i am more disappointed that they are not wearing any sort of patch or armband in honor of willie davis.  while they haven't been as visible as the yankees when it comes to honoring their dead, it wouldn't be without precedent.

i remember the dodgers wearing a patch with jim gilliam's number 19 during the 1978 world series (seen here on a davey lopes screen grab ), although that didn't carry over to the regular season.

they have also honored former coach don mcmahon in the latter part of the 1987 season, as seen on this 1988 score phil garner card.

mcmahon also worked as a scout for the team, but mainly threw batting practice before games.  he suffered a heart attack while doing so in july of 1987 and died later that day.

in 1993, the dodgers wore an arm patch with tim crews' number 52 on it as seen on this 1994 ud collector's choice brett butler card

tim crews pitched for the dodgers from 1987 through 1992.  in 1993 he signed with the cleveland indians and was with them in spring training when he accidentally drove his boat into a dock, killing himself and fellow tribe pitcher steve olin.  former dodger bob ojeda was seriously injured in the accident.

later in 1993, the dodgers also wore patches for two of their hall of fame players, roy campanella and don drysdale, who died within a week of each other.  raul mondesi's 1994 ud collector's choice card shows the patch with campy's 39 and big d's 53 on his right sleeve while the crews patch remains on the left.

campanella and drysdale both died of heart attacks, with drysdale's occurring in montreal where he was accompanying the dodgers on a road trip as one of their announcers.  i'll never forget when vinny broke the news during the july 4 game after drysdale's family had been notified.

after pee wee reese died in august of 1999, the dodgers wore a black 'pee wee 1' patch on their left sleeves, above the 'dodger heroes' patches they had been wearing all season long. you can see the patch (sort of) on this 2000 ud mvp eric gagne card,

as well as this 2000 upper deck victory jeff shaw card, particularly in the inset photo.

reese, another hall of famer, died of cancer at the age of 81.

but no patch for davis, who died earlier this year of an apparent heart attack.  while not a hall of famer, davis was one of the top los angeles dodgers of all time, and i think he deserves some sort of recognition.  of course, me being halfway across the country, it's hard to know what the organization has done, but they haven't done the obvious and created a patch as far as i can tell.  '55 years since 55' must be more important.  so, i made a 2010 goose joak original for the 3-dog and gave it a black border.

it's the least i could do.

cards from play at the plate!

another delinquent trade post, this one with cards courtesy of play at the plate!

first up is a 2000 upper deck sp authentic shawn green 'sp supremacy' card

one of the few shawn green dodger cards i didn't already have.  just kidding.  while i do have a lot of shawn green cards, this guy had so many during his stint in la that i am sure i have a long ways to go before i have even half of them.

2001 fleer focus joe black rookie of the year insert

i loved this insert set, simply because the dodgers have had so many roys.  joe black is one of the lesser known ones, but not lesser deserving, that's for sure.  he won the award with 15 wins and 15 saves in 1952, plus 3 starts in the world series that year (even though he started only 2 games in the regular season).

speaking of roys, here's mike piazza on a 2000 upper deck mvp 'draw your own card' card.

that's pretty cool having your art used for a baseball card.  this kid seems to have been confused though, because it looks like piazza is in the home whites with the wrigley field brick behind him.

2001 topps finest darren dreifort

a bit of a stretch with the 'finest' moniker, but dreifort did have a decent 2000 season.  i remember his august 8 game where he got the win and hit two home runs.  he is interestingly shown here wearing number 59, while he wore 37 for his entire dodger career.

1999 fleer vintage raul mondesi

mondesi had a good 1999 season for the dodgers, his last in la.  he went 30-30 for the second time and came as close to 100 rbi as he ever would in his career with 99, although his average dipped into the .250s for the first time.

1999 fleer ultra adrian beltre gold medallion edition

beltre was only 19 when he broke into the majors with the dodgers in 1998.  he was getting close to ron cey territory for me as far as fandom before he parlayed his monster 2004 season into an exile of sorts in seattle. 

there were quite a few 1998 ud3 cards, including a couple of charles johnson cards.  here's his 'fx' version

and the 'rainbow' version

i like how the inset picture of cj shows a small part of dodger stadium.  i dislike how he performed in his short tenure with the dodgers which ended with them flipping him to the mets for todd hundley.  mediocrity ensued.

thanks brian!