henry cruz and geoff zahn through the mail successes!

few men have sported sunglasses on baseball cards as well as former dodger henry cruz.  he recently signed some cards for me through the mail, and each one of them is a revelation in recreational eye wear.

here's his 1975 sspc card

and here's his 1976 topps rookie card upon which his style of sunglasses has changed.

there are three very recognizable outfielders (chet lemon, ellis valentine, and terry whitfield - a future dodger) from the late 1970's/early 1980's on that card next to cruz, who hit .266 in 53 games with the 1975 dodgers, and then just .182 in 49 games for the club in '76.  he did have a two-home run game as a dodger in 1976, which was nice.  in fact, that game was 39 years ago yesterday!

towards the end of the 1977 season, a season in which the dodgers kept him in the minor leagues, cruz was picked up on waivers by the white sox where he became teammates with chet lemon, and thus we have a 1978 topps card that looks like this

yes, cruz signed one of those for me, too.  those glasses look more like the ones from his sspc card above.

i was hoping to have another signed 1978 topps card to show, but geoff zahn hasn't returned it yet.  i'm hoping that he does, but until then, he did send his 1975 topps card back to me

signed and with a bible verse reference.

cruz and zahn were teammates briefly in 1975 (zahn was traded to the cubs early in the season), with cruz playing left field in both of zahn's games as a dodger that year.  with the way zahn seems to be squinting in the dodger stadium sun, perhaps he could have used a pair of cruz's shades.

thanks to both cruz and zahn for signing my cards!

sunday morning target dodgers - from abrams to zahn

let's go from a to z with this sheet of cards from the 1990 target dodger set.

cal abrams

abrams was a part-time player who debuted as a dodger in 1949.  he peaked in 1951when he hit .280 in 67 games. with a fantastic obp of .419  the following year, the dodgers traded abram to the reds after he had appeared in just 10 games for the blue.  abrams was reportedly buried in his brooklyn dodgers uniform following his death in 1997.

jack billingham

billingham was 3-0 with 8 saves and a 2.14 era as a rookie for the dodgers in 1968, however, he was lost to the team when the expos selected him in the expansion draft prior to the 1969 season.  montreal was forced to flip billingham to the astros before the season began because donn clendenon refused to report to houston after he was traded as part of the package that netted the expos rusty staub.  eventually, billingham made his way to the reds, where he won back-to-back world series titles in 1975 and 1976.

ben cantwell

cantwell's career began in 1927 with the new york giants, although he spent most of the next 10 years with the boston braves during which time he won 20 games once and also lost 25 games in a single season.  in 1937, he returned to the giants, but was claimed by the dodgers after one bad start.  with brooklyn, cantwell had no record as he appeared in 13 games, all as a reliever.

vic davalillo

davalillo was one of the professional pinch-hitters employed by the dodgers when i began my fandom.  he and manny mota filled that role on the dodgers (davalillo from 1977-1980), and it was davalillo's pinch-hit bunt that got things going with 2 outs in the 9th on black friday in philadelphia during the 1977 nlcs.

johnny gooch

gooch spent time with the robins during the 1928 and 1929 seasons. he was acquired by the robins via a trade with the pirates during the '28 season, and was traded away to the reds early in the '29 campaign.  as a robin, gooch played in 43 games and hit .314.

babe herman

the robins'/dodgers' babe.  one of them, anyway.  herman was a franchise double dipper who had his best years as a robin, hitting .381 in 1929 and a franchise record .393 in 1930, but finishing second in the batting average race both years.

john hummel

hummel, who played with the superbas/dodgers/robins from 1905 through 1915, was best known as being one of the first utility players in the major leagues.  he played everywhere but pitcher, catcher, and third base, and did spend a couple of seasons as brooklyn's primary second baseman.

max macon

macon joined the dodger system in 1939 following his first taste of big league ball in 1938 with the cardinals for whom he pitched and played the outfield.  he didn't appear as a dodger until 1940, and even then he played in just two games, both as a pitcher only (he was 1 for 1 at the plate, by the way).  macon returned to the majors as a dodger in 1942, and was used as a pitcher and pinch-hitter.  he pitched in 14 games and had an era of 1.93 while he pinch-hit 12 times and was 5 for 11 in that role.  macon pitched (and hit) for the dodgers again in 1943 before being selected by the braves in the rule v draft following the season's conclusion.

fritz ostermueller

ostermueller spent the first part of the 1943 season with the browns, but was traded to the dodgers in july.  he was 1-1 in 7 games for the dodgers over the remainder of the season, and was 2-1 in 10 games for the dodgers in 1944 when he was dealt to the pirates at the end of may.

paul popovich

popovich was traded to the dodgers by the cubs for lou johnson following the 1967 season.  he spent 1968 with the dodgers, playing in 134 games and batting .232.  the dodgers traded popovich to the expos a couple of months into the 1969 season in the deal that brought manny mota and maury wills to the dodgers (back to the dodgers in wills' case).  the expos flipped popovich to the cubs that same day, so popovich was around to witness the infamous collapse of leo durocher's cubbies.

dave sells

sells joins rick waits and davey lopes as players whose names make full sentences.  sells spent the majority of his career with the angels, pitching in 85 of his 90 big league games for the halos.  the other five were spent as a dodger during the last part of the 1975 season following a trade that sent jim brewer to the angels.  sells was 0-2 for walter alston's team in those five games, and he spent the following season in triple-a albuquerque.

bill skowron

skowron spent just one season with the dodgers - 1963 - and he helped his new team defeat his former club in the world series.  skowron hit .385 in the 1963 fall classic for the dodgers against the yankees, with whom skowron had won four rings, including the previous two seasons.  following the series, skowron was picked up by the senators who later traded him to the white sox.

rick sutcliffe

sutcliffe, who made his big league debut in 1976, was the first dodger to win the rookie of the year award since ted sizemore (1969) when he claimed it in 1979 (the longest stretch the dodger organization had ever gone without one of their players winning the award).  even so, sutcliffe seemed to be in tommy lasorda's dog house, and he was used mainly as a reliever the following two seasons.  sutcliffe trashed lasorda's office after being left off of the 1981 postseason roster, and was traded to the indians soon thereafter.

jimmy wasdell

wasdell was a member of the dodgers in 1940 and 1941.  he hit .289 in 171 games for the dodgers over those two seasons, and he saw some action in the 1941 world series as well.

geoff zahn

zahn was a member of the dodgers' famous 1968 draft class.  he made it to the bigs in 1973, going 1-0 in his six appearances that season.  in 1974, zahn pitched in 21 games for the nl champs, but did not appear in the postseason.  he started the 1975 season with the dodgers, but was traded to the cubs in the burt hooton deal early on.  i approve of that deal.

see you back next week with another sheet from the 1990 target dodgers set...

filling in the blanks with some 1975 topps cards that should have been

well, there weren't too many missed opportunities when it came to the dodgers' infield and topps in 1975.  steve garvey got his due on an mvp card and the nlcs recap card, and ron cey, bill russell and davey lopes didn't do much to deserve any cards other than their base cards.  there weren't any other subsets that screamed 'gcrl' either.  but, thanks to steelehere's suggestion, i do have a 1975 topps card that should have been - a steve garvey 'highlights' card necessitated by his write-in candidacy and mvp performance in the all-star game.

here's the back

it is modeled after the hank aaron highlight card

although i chose not to use the all-star 'star', since garvey got that on his base card.  here's the back of the aaron card just to be complete about it.

i thought it turned out pretty nicely.

while i was at it, i thought of another card possibility.  in the world series subset, all but one of the cards celebrate the a's (which makes sense, as they won the world series 4 games to 1).  ron cey lurks on one of them, and the lone 'dodger' card of the group features joe ferguson and walt alston most prominently.  that's all well and good, but how about highlighting the biggest play from game 1, even if the dodgers wound up losing the game?  here's a card with steve yeager holding the ball triumphantly after tagging out sal bando courtesy of joe ferguson's throw from right field.

we even get bill russell and davey lopes in the background!  much better than the reggie jackson image that topps featured for their game 1 recap.

here are a few more cards that should have been, including a couple of burt hooton 'traded' cards that i made for the facebook page '1975 topps traded'.

he is 'happy' to be in dodger blue, apparently.  here's an 'action' shot i took from a dodger postcard

altering the back was easy, since there was no team affiliation listed on the backs of the 75's.  here's his regular topps back

i just added a 't' like they did in 1974.

the dodgers sent geoff zahn to the cubs in the deal, so here's his card that should have been

here's his real 1975 topps card, with a picture taken just outside the dodger dugout

i used zahn's 1976 topps card for the image

the other player in the deal was eddie solomon, and i made a card for him, too.

that is a combination of his 1978 topps card and zahn's 1976 card (the cubs uni).  i should have scanned the 1978 card at a higher resolution, apparently.
for the record, here is solomon's actual 1975 topps card

and, just to get it out of my 'scanned' folder, here is a 1975 topps gaylord perry card i made as well.

if you're on facebook, stop by the 1975 topps traded page and say hello.  tell them gcrl sent you.