request fulfilled! a 1966 topps card that should have been...

i was under the impression that blogger was going to reinstate the posts they deleted.  buggers. 

here's a 1966 topps card that should have been, according to devon of the 1982 topps blog.  he responded to my new year's day post and requested a card featuring hall of famers don sutton, don drysdale, and sandy koufax from the only year they all pitched for the dodgers, 1966.

i used the team card as the base, so that's where the yellow background comes from. then i realized that the combo cards didn't feature the monocolor backgrounds and i added some scattered clouds.

in 1966, with these three guys in the starting rotation, the dodgers went back to the world series to defend their crown.  koufax won the pitching triple crown with a 27-9 record, 1.73 era and 317 strikeouts in his final major league season.  drysdale went 13-16, 3.42, and 177 k's.  sutton, in his rookie year, went 12-12 with a 2.99 era and 209 strikeouts.  combined, these three accounted for all but 46 starts and 43 wins.  claude osteen was really the second best pitcher on the staff, as he was 17-14 with a 2.85 era.  he also made 38 starts (joe moeller had the other 8).

unfortunately, the dodgers ran into a slightly better pitching team in the baltimore orioles during the fall classic. while dodger pitchers gave up 13 runs in 4 games, the orioles used only 4 pitchers and gave up just two runs in the four game series.

here's to you, future hall of famers and your 1966 card that should have been.

topps' dirty balls

i'm finally getting around to showing off my 2011 topps dodger short prints.  predictably, topps used roy campanella

 and jackie robinson

as the dodgers' representatives in series one.  no pee wee this time, but there's always series two and the update series as well. 

i know night owl did a post not too long ago about wanting to see other dodgers in sets.  i agree.  don newcombe, don drysdale, sandy koufax, maury wills, steve garvey, fernando, orel hershiser, kirk gibson - heck, even don sutton would be a welcome change of pace.

i do appreciate topps going with the dirty balls on these vintage player short prints - it's a nice touch.  i'd just rather see someone else's face once in a while.

time waits for no man, and jim hickman didn't wait for topps

jim hickman turned 74 today.  happy birthday, jim.  he spent one singular season with the dodgers as a result of being part of the november 1966 trade that sent tommy davis to the mets.  hickman was rewarded with a sad sort of card in 1967, featuring a hatless photo of him as a met with the indentation of his cap still visible on his forehead. 

the card says he's a dodger, and i guess that's what counts for us team collectors.  and, as a good team collector turned into ttm enthusiast, i sent one of these cards off to mr. hickman for his autograph.  i am happy to report that he complied with my request.

hickman's stay in los angeles went so poorly (it was easily the worst season of his career) that topps didn't include him in their 1968 set.  he had hit .163 in 65 games with no homers and only 10 rbi.  he even served up career home run number 553 to willie mays in a mop-up pitching performance.  the opportunity for a proper card of hickman, in a dodger uniform and listed as a dodger, was lost forever when the dodgers traded hickman in april of 1968 to the cubs.  in chicago, he raised his batting average to .223 and hit 5 home runs with 23 rbi in 75 games during the 1968 season.  those numbers were worthy of a topps card in 1969, but topps still had not caught up to hickman, using a photo of him from his days as a dodger.

obviously, hickman signed this one for me too.  if only there were a way to combine this with the 1967 card, it would be halfway decent.  topps finally caught up to hickman in 1970, featuring him as a cub with a photo of him in a cub uniform.  that was the season he hit .315 with 32 homers and 115 rbi and made the all-star team.  it was his base hit that resulted in pete rose demolishing ray fosse to score the winning run.

i didn't have an extra copy of his 1970 card, but i did have a 1971 card lying around and he signed it as well.

hickman stayed with the cubs until the spring of 1974 when they traded him to saint louis.  topps pulled a 1968 and didn't bother to feature him in their '74 set as a cub, cardinal or otherwise.

here's to you jim hickman!  happy birthday and thanks for signing my cards!

the variety and the monotony of my jay howell through the mail successes!

jay howell, whose 1988 o-pee-chee variation is on display today over at oh my o-pee-chee! had 5 good seasons in the dodgers' bullpen, spanning from the year that had been so improbable, 1988, through the worst year in la dodger history, 1992.  as such, he has a lot of over produced cards showing him as a dodger.  i put some of those doubles to use in ttm requests, and mr. howell obliged.

since he's a reliever, there's not a lot of opportunity for variety regarding the photos of howell used for his cards.  aside from posed shots or what looks to be a post-game congratulatory moment as shown on his 1988 card, i guess topps could have used a photo of him in the stretch position, or backing up home plate when an inherited runner scored, or maybe walking off the field after being found to have pine tar in his glove.

anyway, here's his 1989 topps card

featuring a shot of him in mid-delivery at home in dodger stadium.  it's a pretty run of the mill reliever photo, with the right field bullpen in view.

here's his 1990 topps card

featuring what i assume is a spring training photo due to all the greenery beyond the fence.  howell is shown this time near the start of his delivery.

on his 1991 topps card

howell has completed his delivery and awaits the result.  like 1990, it looks to be a spring training shot.

his 1991 upper deck card

goes back to the mid-delivery in dodger stadium, but with a slightly different angle from the 1989 topps.  the colors on this card really pop, and you can see the vast difference between the quality of upper deck's images and those of topps.

topps went horizontal on howell's 1992 card

but they stayed with a mid-delivery pose.

so did fleer in 1992

 which is quite similar to what topps did on his 1993 card

during his 5 years in la, howell appeared in 236 games and had exactly 5 at bats, so i understand why there are no cards showing him at the plate.  still, i wonder if topps tracked (or tracks) the monotony of photos they use for any given player from year to year.  after all, variety is the spice of life.  even when there's just one company with an mlb license.

thanks for signing all these similar looking cards jay!

this is the only mother's cookies card i have scanned as mother's day rolls in

shame on me for not being prepared for mother's day with an overload of mother's cookies card in what is perhaps the most obvious type of post for a baseball card blog to feature on the second sunday in may. i am nothing if not obvious, so let's go with it anyway.

it's a 1996 mother's cookies dodgers card, signed by former dodger shortstop greg gagne

i've had good success with gagne and ttm, and i hit him up one more time because he has a bunch of nice double play turns on his cards.  and he was a dodger.  here's his 1998 topps card  

featuring a photo from sandy eggo.  upper deck's 1998 card for gagne also featured a shot from jack murphy stadium, but it was much better

here's his 1992 topps card

featuring a sweet double play turn from the reigning world champion

his 1994 upper deck card

also has a nice double play shot, but he was nowhere near a reigning world champion when this picture was taken of him playing short for the lowly royals.

thanks for signing (again) greg, your mother raised you right. happy mother's day to all the mothers out there.

a streak of 30 ends and now i suffer

andre ethier's hitting streak came to an end today.  30 games.  not 30 consecutive games, but 30 straight in which he played.  i am one of those people who thinks there is a difference.  still, i celebrated each game with andre, 

not just because i wanted him to do well, but because it helped distract me from the mess that the business side of the club is in.  now, with the streak over, the losses piling up, their 'closer' injured, loney slumping, the team losing, and knowing that their two best catchers are playing in cleveland and new york, i have little to be optimistic about.  unless bud kicks mccourt to the curb.  is that what i am reduced to now?  not cheering for a win, but for a coup de tat?  yes.  and i'm not alone.

thanks for providing something to cheer about, andre.  any chance you can do it again?

i just love 1978 topps baseball cards so much i could puke my brains out!

a friend of mine's kid said that a while back.  actually, he was said 'toys' and not '1978 topps baseball cards', so i guess it is my sentiment that is reflected in the title of this post.  i have mentioned many times on this blog that 1978 was the first year i collected (although 1977 topps was the first pack i opened) and the 1978 garvey is my favorite card ever.  what's more, i love getting a 1978 topps card signed.

when i started doing ttm a couple of years ago, i focused on the 1978 dodgers, but also sought other dodgers who were in the 1978 set on other teams like jerry reuss and jeff torborg and derrel thomas and a host of others as well as former and current dodgers in general.  then i started sending requests to pretty much any player from the 1978 set.  to date, i would guess i have about 175 cards signed from the 1978 set.

here are some non-dodger successes, including some hall of famers like jim rice

who signed for free even though i sent $10. gaylord perry, on the other hand

does not sign for free, so that card cost me his $25 fee.  it's a classic 1970's card, complete with chain link fence.

there are also some great names from the mid-70's, including one that burned out quickly, royals pitcher steve busby

busby won 22 games in 1974 and another 18 in 1975 and pitched a couple of no-no's.  he missed the entire 1977 season, so getting a card in the '78 set was a testament to his previous success.  unfortunately, he pitched in only 40 more games in his career.

then there is busby's teammate 'the hassler', andy hassler

and the 'spaceman' bill lee

not to mention a wide-lapeled steve renko

and a doubly-sure jerry augustine

the 1978 set seemed to have a bunch of catchers in it.  maybe i feel that way because the dodgers team set included three - steve yeager, johnny oates and jerry grote.  that's two more than we get in today's sets. 

anyway, here's another hall of famer, gary carter

carter doesn't sign for free either, and i chose to pay for his 1978 card instead of his 1992 issue that shows him as a dodger.  i'll save that one for another day.  maybe.

here's rick cerone, minus the afro.

i am jealous of the variety of poses and shots used in the set for teams like the blue jays, expos, giants, rangers and other teams as the dodger team is pretty much exclusively portrait shots or posed spring training photos.

speaking of the rangers, here's jim sundberg, another catcher

i like the pitcher in the foreground (i'll pretend it's bert blyleven) and the guy in the stands with the horizontally striped shirt.  it complements sundberg's chest protector.

another catcher, ed herrmann

he won't be the last astros catcher we see here today.

bob montgomery is another backup backstop in the set

i'll break up the catcher monotony and get to a college teammate of bob welch, bob owchinko

owchinko did not get a cool photo like the giants' ed halicki

seriously, why did candlestick get so much play in the 1978 set?  even goose gossage's card features a photo from the giants' crappy stadium.

here's another one - infielder rob andrews.

another stadium that saw a lot of use in the set is yankee stadium.  like on the augustine and montgomery cards above, as well as bump wills' card

i just realized that i neglected to send copies of his 1979 variations to be signed.

here's one of those expos cards that i am jealous of, del unser

followed by wayne garrett who has a more dodger-like card

although he has the 1976 olympics patch.  use old photos much topps?

here's another expo with an old photo, hall of fame manager dick williams

unfortunately, the old photo is of him from his athletics days, not his days as a boy of summer.  i am waiting on a 1953 topps auto from the man who coined the term 'mawdicker' as an alternative to the mf word that was sure to get him ejected from games.  hopefully that one will show up in my mailbox soon.

now on to the announcer part of the post - mike krukow

and his home run challenged partner duane kuiper

they are the giants' broadcast team, in case you didn't know.  i am not much of a fan, although i think krukow is from the central coast so he's got that going for him.

here's the other astros catcher i was referring to earlier - alan ashby

although he wasn't an astro until later in his career.  i sent him a 1984 donruss to keep the '78 topps card company, and he signed that one as well.

see?  now he's an astro.

finally, we have chris speier.

the duke snider fan signed his 1978 card (with a lurking stan bahnsen) and also signed his 1983 topps card (with a lurking derrel thomas)

it all comes back to the dodgers.

i am stockpiling more 1978 topps autographed goodness even as i type this.  i am surprised i am able to keep by brains down.