one more time - avert your eyes!

you've been warned! here's another 2008 tristar signa cuts card that i've added to my collection

that would be a 2001 fleer greats of the game ron cey card that's been butchered and repackaged and is one of 25 similarly butchered cards of the penguin.  it's not a certified auto from the gotg set, either, as those cards were printed with gold borders.

i don't mind these signa cut cards - i have a few now in my collection - but i prefer ones like this that are cut up cards as opposed to photos.  and, the fact that it's not a certified auto that was chopped up is a good thing.  yes, even i have my limits when it comes to cards like these.

2001 starts with a bang - more sheets from the steve garvey binders

sheet 30 of the steve garvey binders contains nine cards from just three different 2001 releases, and only one of the cards is a base card. have a look:

those cards are:

1. 2001 donruss signature series autograph milestone marks autograph
2. 2001 donruss signature series autograph team trademarks autograph
3. 2001 donruss signature series autograph team trademarks autograph (master series signatures)
4. 2001 donruss signature series autograph milestone marks autograph (master series signatures)
5. 2001 fleer greats of the game
6. 2001 fleer greats of the game (printing error)
7. 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph
8. 2001 fleer greats of the game dodger blues relic
9. 2001 fleer legacy hit kings short prints bat relic

you may notice that one of the sticker autos has the '6' inscription on it. i don't know if donruss used a similar sticker for any of the other garvey cards, or if they used a sticker without the inscription on other milestone marks.

as for the printing error card, i actually had the good fortune to pull it from a pack.  what are the odds?  the error is in the fact that the greats of the game foil logo is missing.  well, not really missing, as you'll see in a moment.  one more note before i flip the sheet over - i don't know why the first four cards are in that order - i usually put the parallel cards after the non-parallel cards, but in the case of the donruss autos, we have the serial numbered ones first, as you can see by their backs:

the donruss parallel autos are limited to 175 and 182 copies, respectively, while the greats of the game auto was issued as a 400-count short print, without a serial number.  and, do you see?  there's the greats of the game foil logo - on the back of the card!  other things to note here the first garvey relic cards, one each of jersey and bat.  there was not a cooler insert relic set than the 2001 fleer greats of the game dodger blues set.  it's too bad that 3 (roy campanella, jackie robinson, and duke snider) cards of the 15 cards in the set are short printed and pretty tough to find these days.

sheet 31 is one of my favorites in the entire collection, so stay tuned for the next installment of my trip through the garvey binders!

i received congratulations from bob walk the plank

yes, matthew from bob walk the plank sent me some congrats recently.

those, of course, are the backs of three baseball cards - a 2014 topps mini bill buckner autograph,

a 2001 fleer greats of the game ron cey autograph,

and a 2007 upper deck ultimate collection chad billingsley autograph

that wasn't all.  here's another card back

that's the back of a 2014 topps archives bill russell gold parallel autograph card

the shortstop for the team of my youth! numbered 6/50 (that's garvey's jersey number and one-third of russell's jersey number - got to be a 1/1, right?!?).  this will pair well with the base and silver autos i already owned.

but wait - there was more!  i noted on a recent bob walk the plank post that i regretfully did not own a john candelaria autographed card featuring the candy man in dodger blue, having been rebuffed in previous through the mail attempts.  here's the back of the last card matthew sent

yes, that's a 2004 donruss recollection collection 1992 donruss card, signed by candelaria himself

matthew, did we just become best friends?

thanks for the congratulations and the autos!  i'm working on another package to be heading your way soon!

random notes about random cards

it's time for that sort of post again - a random assortment of cards that have been languishing in my scanned folder for various amounts of time.  excited, aren't you?

random card: 2001 fleer greats of the game carl erskine

random fact: the dodger logo on the card is from the team's los angeles days.  although oisk did pitch for the dodgers following their move to la, both the card's photo and team affiliation refer to him as a brooklyn dodger.  it's better when all of the features of the card match, but i still really like that 2001 greats of the game set.

random card: 2006 upper deck jeff kent

random fact: the player behind kent is jason repko. repko had a card in the 2006 as well, but it was the same number (283) as another player's and seems to be a bit harder to find.

random card: 2011 bowman chris withrow topps 100 insert

random fact: withrow needs to work on his 'suttoning' pose.

random card: 2013 bowman chrome jeremy rathjen mini parallel

random fact: rathjen seems to be looking at the same thing withrow is staring at.

random card: 2014 topps adrian gonzalez spring fever

random fact: gonzalez has mastered his jeremy rathjen pose.

random card: 2014 topps yasiel puig spring fever

random fact: dodger stadium is the only big league stadium with an in-house arborist.  if you've never been, it's worth giving yourself time to enjoy the landscaping, including the abundance of palm trees. that last sentence was a random opinion.

random card: 1982 topps joe ferguson

random fact: this card uses the same photo that topps featured on ferguson's 1981 topps card.

random card: 1985 7-up cubs coaching staff, featuring a member of the 1978 topps dodgers (johnny oates)

random fact: the only start of bill connors' pitching career came against the chicago cubs in 1967.  bet you thought i was going to give you a random oates or zimmer fact, didn't you?

random card: 1990 fleer baseball all-stars canadian steve sax

random fact: the only thing that makes this a canadian card is that it was printed in canada, and i am not sure that there is an american printed version, so it's not even a variation.

graded garveys from the oddball binder

i've got a few four-pocket pages in my steve garvey oddball binder that hold graded cards.  i did, for a very short time in the early 2000's, buy into the idea of graded cards.  i sent a few off to be graded, including some modern cards, before i thought better of it.  i also bought a few graded steve garvey cards during that short stretch.

the first sheet has a garvey 1971 topps rookie, his fantastic 1974 topps card, a 1975 topps mini, and a 1978 topps, which is a masterpiece

i wanted a rookie graded, and got one with a qualifier.  that right there made me realize that this is not something on the up and up.  it's an 8, but it has issues.  then it's not really an 8.  bccg grading is a quicker/cheaper grade which again makes little sense.  the '75 came in a lot - i didn't seek that one out like i did the others there.

the second page has a gem mt 10 1978 topps card, plus a 1980 topps and two 1981 topps cards

the 1978 card in gem mt 10 was a requisite for this garvey collector.

next up are a couple of cards from 1982 donruss, plus a 1983 topps and a gem mt 10 1987 fleer glossy

garvey's last topps card as a dodger provided a bookend to the 1971 rookie.  the fleer glossy was a cheap gem mt 10 grab.

the last page features a 1988 score glossy gem mt 10, and two cards i sent off myself - a 2001 fleer greats of the game card, and a 2002 topps tribute card

like the rookie, the 1974 and 1978 topps, and the 1983 topps cards, having a graded 1988 score card (in this case glossy version) was necessary.  i obviously knew i wasn't going to have a complete run of garvey base cards graded so i wanted to hit the main points.  sending those two modern cards to be graded was a mistake and unnecessary.

still, if anybody has a graded garvey card they don't want/need, i have an open spot in my binder!

thank you jackie robinson

no time like the present to show the few jackie robinson cards that i've had in my scanned folder for a while…

2001 fleer greats of the game

2007 upper deck sweet spot classic

2010 topps national chicle - a short print, i believe

2012 topps a cut above insert

2012 topps career day insert

and, what the heck.  let's see it again.  1952 topps

thank you jackie robinson!

a black armband for john mcgraw

when hall of famer bill terry broke into the new york giants' lineup as a rookie in 1923, his manager was john mcgraw.  that year, mcgraw led the giants to their third consecutive pennant (they would win another in 1924).  terry, meanwhile, supported mcgraw by accumulating hall-worthy stats, including 254 hits and a .401 batting average in 1930.  then, during the 1932 season, terry would replace the retiring mcgraw as the team's manager (terry would serve as player-manager just as mcgraw had early in his managerial career) and later lead them to three more pennants and a world championship.

after mcgraw passed away in early 1934, the team added a black armband to their jerseys in his honor.  terry's 2001 fleer greats of the game gives us a good glimpse at the memorial

at the time of his retirement, mcgraw had won more games than any other manager (he was passed by connie mack in 1934) and had been ejected from more games than any other manager (he was passed by bobby cox just a few years ago).  i knew of mcgraw from a young age mostly because he was blamed for the lack of a world series in 1904 due to his dislike of the american league and ban johnson, its president.  mcgraw was more than that, obviously, and he was named to the hall of fame in 1937.

two very happy returns

do you remember my modest 1978 topps dodger autograph project?  the one i finally completed when i found an ed goodson autographed card online?  well, i was admiring the cards in my binder shortly after that final acquisition and noticed that the garvey in the collection was ballpoint rather than sharpie. i do have a sharpie signed copy that i picked up from kit young about 20 years ago, but i was hoping for one signed ttm.  so, i packaged up 4 cards, a donation to the garv's charity (youth baseball of palm desert) and waited for the bubble mailer to return.

the check was cashed, but the cards did not arrive and i assumed the package had been lost in the mail.  so, a couple months later, i sent a single copy of the 1978 topps card and not too long after that, received a familiar looking pwe.  it contained my card, although it was once again signed in ballpoint.

that's ok, because how often do you get a signed card in the mail from your favorite player of all-time?  well, more often than you might think, as the very next day, my bubble mailer showed up containing these beauties

a 1978 topps card

1999 upper deck retro

(sweet dodger stadium shot)

2001 fleer greats of the game

these cards look fantastic signed, and i am happy that he added his number.  i think i might now have base cards signed by all of the surviving dodgers in this set - garvey, cey, wills, craig, erskine, and parker, plus a duke snider card, too!  oh, crap.  i forgot about tommy lasorda and don sutton.

here's the last of the garveys - a 2012 topps golden moments insert

for the sake of comparison, here is the short printed certified autographed edition of that card that topps put out.

it took me a while to track a copy down, but i did.  still, i prefer the on-card ttm version.

i am left feeling happy and a little relieved.  i never take ttm for granted, but i was really looking forward to this return.

thanks steve!

holy schmidt! that's a nice ttm success!

not a bad way to perk up a monday - finding a ttm return from a hall of famer in the mailbox.  yes, mike schmidt signed and returned my 1978 topps card in about a week!

i had noticed a spate of successes with schmidt recently, so i figured i would try my luck.  i sent the card c/o the national baseball hall of fame in cooperstown, and it came back to me postmarked from philly.  very very nice.  

while schmidt was never my favorite third baseman, i did respect his talent.  besides, his was one of the first baseball cards i ever saw, and the very first baseball glove my dad bought for me was a michael jack schmidt model.  so what if it was as stiff (and thin) as cardboard?  

we all know who my favorite third baseman was, right?  he was a contemporary of schmidt's, and he suited up for the team of my youth.  he also signs stuff through the mail.

i am afraid that i have taken advantage of ron cey's ttm generosity over the last few years, having sent many cards to him many times.  here are a few i have not yet shared on the blog.

three of the penguin's cards from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams

and a 2001 fleer greats of the game

so there, with the '78 topps schmidt, you have three of my favorite sets to get autographed.  i have an '01 fleer gog out to steve garvey as we speak - probably one of the last ttm requests i will ever send out.

here are a few more penguins - a 1987 topps traded card

and a couple of customs that i made to bookend his career - a 1971 topps style card

of which he also signed the back

and a 1988 topps card

both cards that definitely should have been.

thanks mike and ron for signing my cards, and for being a big part of my early fandom!

bunning wasn't on empty

why did the dodgers release jim bunning at the end of the 1969 season?  bunning was 3-1 as a dodger, but the team went 3-6 in the 9 starts he made for them at the end of the 1969 season.  that doesn't look too good, i suppose, but bunning didn't pitch that poorly.  he had a couple of bad starts, but overall had a 3.36 era during his time in los angeles.

he had been acquired in august 1969, shortly after don drysdale made his last appearance, and one would have thought that the dodgers still needed another veteran arm in the rotation to complement claude osteen and don sutton heading into 1970.  instead, bunning was released by the team in october of 1969 and he re-signed with the phillies quickly thereafter.

bunning went 10-15 in 1970, so even with him in the rotation, it would have been unlikely that the dodgers would have challenged the reds that year.  it would have been nice, however, to have forced topps into issuing a card for bunning as a dodger.

at any rate, bunning went on to other things after baseball, and has been known to be a good ttm signer.  he filled my requests by signing his 2001 fleer greats of the game card

and his 1970 topps card

he also signed a copy of his 1970 topps card that should have been

i think that many people don't realize that when bunning retired after the 1971 season, the only pitcher in history to have more strikeouts was walter johnson.  and 33 of his 2855 k's came as a dodger.

thanks for signing my cards senator!