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!

it wasn't supposed to end like this

one of my favorite players of the last 20 years called it quits the other day.  vladimir guerrero, who hadn't played in the majors since 2011, officially retired.  he was 36 when he suited up for the orioles in 2011, and didn't perform too badly, although his power was in decline.  he was the o's dh in 145 games, and he hit .290 with 13 homers and 63 rbi.  still, i was definitely surprised when no team took a chance on him in 2012, and i was then disappointed when the blue jays signed him to a minor league deal but released him rather than promote him to the big club.

so, having played in so many games the previous year, vladdy was a lock to get a card in the 2012 card releases, right?  well, kind of.  here's his 2012 topps card

now that would be a fantastic final tribute card!  plus he's wearing the mike flanagan memorial patch.  unfortunately, it's just a checklist card that denotes the fact that guerrero passed julio franco to become the all-time hits leader among players from the dominican republic.

if only topps hadn't waited until series 2 to put vladdy on the checklist, we might have had a real final tribute card in the set.

thankfully, there is topps heritage.

with vladdy's complete career stats on the back

he finished his career 9 hits behind steve garvey, but 205 home runs in front of the garv.  right now, vladdy is 82nd all-time in hits, 35th in ops, 45th in total bases, 36th in home runs and 52nd in rbi.  that's not a bad career.

once vladdy left the angels, i kind of got off track with my pc.  then, sometime last year, i started picking up his cards again.  here are some 2011 cards - topps

and topps update

man, did i want the rangers to win the world series in 2010.  not only because they were playing the giants, but also because of vladdy. unfortunately, vladdy was just 1 for 14 as the giants won the title.

here's a 2011 bowman

with the gold parallel, too

and a turkey red insert from 2010 topps update

this 2010 topps national chicle card

could go either way as far as vladdy being an angel or a ranger, but there is no doubt about the team affiliation on this 2007 topps a&g relic card

or this 2011 topps 60 relic card

with vladdy officially retired, i am not sure who my favorite non-dodger player is.  there's joe mauer, i suppose, but his stock has fallen a bit with me.  i do know that it is not hunter pence - the guy with perhaps the only swing worse to look at than vladdy's.

here's to you vladimir guerrero.  enjoy retirement and say hello to wilton for us dodger fans.  as usual, we had the wrong brother.

dodgers on cards. for the most part.

i have fallen behind on trade posts.  and, in some cases, in sending return packages.  jaybarkerfan, scott crawford, nick, docholoday, hot corner - i am working on it. am i forgetting anyone? one trade that has been completed recently was with madding at cards on cards.  he sent me a card that i claimed from one of his trade bait posts, as well as some dodgers.  let's have a look.

as always, if he's in the trade package, he leads the post.  here's steve garvey and his 2002 upper deck world series heroes card

the garv is here representing the 1981 world champion dodgers.  garvey's teams were 1-4 in world series play, but he owned a .319 average in those 5 appearances.  in 1981, he hit .417 although 10 of his 11 hits were singles.

kirk gibson had only one hit in the 1988 world series, but it qualified him for the set, too.

gibson could have also represented the 1984 tigers in the set, too.  maybe he did - i should check, but i won't.  i put this set together back when it came out.  i was big on the upper deck legends/hall of famers sets between 1999 and 2003 or so, and this one fit the bill.

one set i didn't try to collect was sweet spot classic.  here's a 2004 upper deck sweet spot classic card of don drysdale

he's almost suttoning.  anyway, these cards were fairly elusive to me when they were released as far as the lcs was concerned.  so i pretty much stayed away, except for when garvey made an appearance on the checklist.  these days, i am hoarding all the dodgers i can find.

here's another dodger now - a 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee chad billingsley black border

someday i will finish my set.  it is somewhat of a frankenset in that some of the cards are black bordered.  i refused to play the game that upper deck was foisting upon me by inserting these in every pack.  mot sure if it makes sense, but oh well.

here's another pigeon, i mean shawn green relic card.

it comes from something known as 2005 upper deck mlb season opener jersey collection.  at least that's what is on the back.  i do appreciate upper deck putting the set names on the backs of their cards.  it makes it easy to identify all of the inserts and what not.  too bad they didn't start doing this sooner.

here's a 2010 topps national chicle card of andre ethier

with a big egg yolk behind him.

switching gears, here is the card that started the trade - a 1993 pacific nolan ryan 27th season card of the strikeout king swinging the bat

wait - let me flip the card.  hold on.

that's better.   here we see ryan taking a hack in dodger stadium, which is why i wanted the card in the first place.  not sure who the dodger catcher is.  it could be steve yeager or mike scioscia or jack fimple or alex trevino or even gilberto reyes.  who knows.  the back of the card mentions that this is a rare color photo of ryan at the plate.  not sure why - he played in the national league as an astro for 9 seasons.

the last card i'll show is a 1971 topps set need.  it's richie scheinblum of the senators.

i've been neglecting my 1971 and 1974 topps set pursuits this year.  i need to get back on top of htose pursuits sometime soon.

thanks for the trade madding!

2 x 3 = 55 x 2 and more

i recently completed a trade with jeff at 2x3 heroes.  here is some of what he sent my way.  

1986 topps orel hershiser

and 2010 topps national chicle russell martin

two guys who wore number 55 for the dodgers.  hence the title of the post.  this next guy wore number 6 during his lone year in dodger blue, much to my chagrin.  it's aaron miles and his 2012 topps heritage card

the first topps heritage cards i saw in 2012 were posted on night owl's blog.  i immediately questioned why topps was showing the non-league leader in the center of the league leader cards.  here's the national league leader board, with third place albert pujols getting what was, in 1963, the leader's spot

and, here's the era leaders card, on which cliff lee gets the glory despite having an era 0.12 runs higher than the actual league leader clayton kershaw

note to topps - in 2013, the leader gets the big picture on topp

so, for kershaw, we should see a big picture on the era leader card and a small photo on the strikeout leader card.  unless topps wants to goof up again and give us a big kershaw pic on the strikeout card.

here are a couple of new-to-me dee gordon cards that jeff sent - 2012 bowman

and 2012 topps wal-mart blue border exclusive thingy

there were also a couple of 'available to you regardless of where you shop' gold bordered cards in the package, too.  here's a 2012 topps kenley jansen

and a 2012 topps joe mauer

thanks for the trade jeff!

pelts of elk and bison and manny, oh my!

i picked up a few dodger autograph and relic lots a while back.  it's great when folks group a bunch of dodger specific stuff together and the price of the whole is less than the sum of the parts.  you know what i mean.  for me, the star of this particular lot was this 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee card featuring andre ethier, james loney, and matt kemp.

this is the 'elk' (ethier, loney, kemp) referred to up in the title.  yes, i was stretching for a catchy post title.  anyway, i like the colors on the card.  i used to have a similar card featuring three non-dodgers, but i traded it away and mildly regretted it ever since.  i have a soft spot for o-pee-chee, don't you know.

speaking of which, here's a 1998 pinnacle plus card of mike piazza that was part of the lot for some reason.  it includes a text line straight out of o-pee-chee's playbook - 'traded to mets 5/22/98'

which, while correct, totally ignores the 8 days he was with the marlins.

back to the relics, here's a 2010 topps allen & ginter matt kemp card

and an andre ethier card from the same set

ethier showed up thrice in the lot thanks to this 2010 upper deck offering

so we've seen the 'elk' and we've seen the bison, that means it must be time for the manny.  this is from 2010 topps national chicle, a set that holds a bit of allure for me.  i have grown to like it a bit more.  not enough to try to complete it or anything like that, but i'm not repulsed by it either.

that is a decent likeness, even if the batting helmet is too clean.  as is the one on this 2009 upper deck goodwin champions card

not sure how that happened, although i suppose it is possible that upper deck cleaned the helmet up a bit.  i like how the storm cards are gathering around manny in 2009 while it is merely cloudy on chad billingsley's card from the same set.

manny served his first suspension in 2009, while chad was doing his usual 190+ innings of work.

finally, for this lot anyway, we have a 2001 bowman relic card from alfredo silverio

who appeared and homered in the 2011 all-star futures game.  he hit .306 in 132 games at aa chattanooga in 2011, but sadly was injured in a car accident in early 2012 forcing him to miss the entire season.  i haven't heard anything lately, but i am hoping he is able to return to the minors this season.

dodger red white and gray?

2005 topps turkey red is almost perfect for today's celebration of america's independence from tyranny with its red

and white

bordered parallels.  sadly, there is only gray

not blue.  enter 2010 national chicle

happy birthday america.