biggio gets his due

his double play due, that is.  like walt weiss and kurt stillwell, craig biggio has a bunch of cards showing him making the double play turn at second base.  here are a few.

i put these two cards, 1997 topps and 1997 new pinnacle, together, thinking that maybe they were from the same play in which biggio jumps over the bulky giant, barry bonds.

i don't think they are the same play, since both guys are wearing shorter sleeves on the topps card.

here's the back of biggio's 1997 upper deck card, with mark parent sliding in at wrigley

being in the nl central, there were a lot of cubs/astros matchups at wrigley.  in fact, the only non-dodger game i have been two at wrigley featured those two juggernauts.

here's biggio's 1998 donruss card with another cub sliding in

1998 donruss must be underrated, because i like this card yet i don't think i have posted any other '98 donruss cards.  i'll have to see if the rest of the set (or at least the dodgers) are as nice as this card.

biggio also turned double plays in san diego, as shown on his 1998 upper deck card - front

and back.  duck, wally joyner!

fast forward a couple of years, and here is another turn, this one at riverfront.  2002 fleer maximum and 2002 upper deck authentics (in which upper deck used its own 'vintage' design instead of stealing one of topps').  pretty sure this is the same play

although i am too lazy to prove it.

some of these may make it into the 'greatest double play card of all-time' tournament, coming soon...

free paul konerko

no, i don't mean to say that he should be released from the south side or anything like that, i mean that i got this card - a 1998 upper deck blue chip prospect insert

for free.  sort of.  it was a bonus card from sportlots.  it used to be that the points you accrued with every order and every feedback given could be redeemed for cash to be used on future orders.  now you have to choose from some pretty bad cards.  wilson betemit rookie, anyone?

the konerko card i got isn't too bad, although it took a good chunk of my points.  i had never seen any of these cards before.  some of the other players in the insert set include alex rodriguez, derek jeter, vladdy, todd helton, and miguel tejada.  plus some middle of the road guys like aaron boone and livan hernandez.  and then there is also todd dunwoody. that would not be a bonus.

anyway, it turns out i could have bought the card for $4 online.  from sportlots.

here's to you, my $4 bonus card.

more dirty balls

just a quick hit today. a while back i showed off my jackie robinson and roy campanella short prints from 2011 topps.  since then, i've acquired the rest of the dodgers, such as sandy koufax

pee wee reese

and duke snider

from series 2, all with the dirty balls.  for pee wee and the duke, topps abandoned the familiar 'b' logo and went with a script.  then topps stuck another koufax into the update series

but used a new ball.  and, they rotated the seams.

wouldn't it be nice to see a gil hodges in 2012 topps?

gil hodges didn't get the call

sadly, boy of summer gil hodges was not elected to the hall of fame yesterday.  congratulations to ron santo, of course, but hodges was the one i was really pulling for.  hopefully the dodgers will still, at some point, retire number 14 in his honor.

i assume that the person on the phone with hodges in the photo i used to create a 1970 topps card that should have been was president nixon after the amazing mets won the 1969 world series. 

it's too bad hodges didn't get the call from the hall prior to his passing in 1972, and even worse that his family has yet to receive the call in the time that has passed since.  yes, i am biased and not necessarily rational, so i think he belongs.

of course, hodges had an actual card that really was as part of the 1970 topps set

but it was rather uninspired.  hodges began his managerial career with the senators (here's his 1965 topps card)

after the mets traded him to washington in may of 1963.  hodges was an original met in 1962 and then played in 11 games for the 1963 team prior to the trade.  there is a 1964 topps card showing hodges as the senators' manager, but it's a high number which i do not own.  instead, i whipped up a couple of 1964 topps cards that should have been to celebrate hodges' career as a player - final tribute sorts of things. a close-up

or the more obvous spring training shot

i am not 100% sure whether those photos are from his playing days as a met or not, but based on the photo used for topps' 1968 hodges card

i'll go with yes. he looks ancient in that photo, and that was from before he even managed a single game for new york.

here's to you, gil hodges, a hall of famer in my book.

keep it fimple

before there was mike piazza, there was another mustached catcher wearing number 31 for the dodgers.  remember jack fimple?

the dodgers had acquired fimple in the december, 1981 rick sutcliffe trade with the indians, and he made his big league debut in 1983 when steve yeager went down with an injury.  he played in a few more games for the blue in 1984, but stayed in the minors for all of 1985.  when he returned to the big club in 1986, ed vande berg had claimed number 31, and fimple went to bobby castillo's old number - 37.

fimple ended his career with a short stint in an angels' uniform in 1987.  i don't remember a whole lot about fimple, although i absolutely love that 1984 donruss card of his.  i do think i recall that he hit a home run for the dodgers late in the 1983 season with a broken finger.  well, he used a bat, but his finger was broken at the time.  a quick check of baseball reference shows that he did hit both of his career home runs in 1983, both against the reds at riverfront.  sadly, there is no stat column for broken digits to confirm my memory.  oh well, at least i have fimple's card to look at. 

let's get retired in here

topps lineage didn't do much for me.  i prefer my retired dodgers in sets of their own, i suppose.  like topps' aptly named 2003 release, topps retired.  i believe there are rules today against sets like that, but back then i could revel in my retired dodgers, including steve garvey as 'not a padre'.  i am certain i have the garvey from the set, and likely a couple of the parallels, but i am not sure that i have the maury wills or the tom lasorda.  i do have the other dodgers, including ron cey

that's an early photo of the penguin in vero beach used for the primary shot on the card.  the inset is from a few years later with his mustache in full force.

here's don sutton

whose photos are both early in the career images.  it's odd to see sutton without his hat on a baseball card, but i suppose topps had pretty much every player doff the cap just in case they were traded back then.  i can't imagine al campanis giving up on sutton in the late 60s or early 70s.
here's johnny podres

as he exits a penitentiary, apparently.  i would guess the big photo is from the late 50s, while the inset is from circa 1965.
i also picked up the podres auto a few months ago

players like podres look funny in chrome.  i don't think it was meant to be for players of his era.

and then there is don newcombe

i love that he was included in the set, but sad to see him as a redleg.  apparently, topps only had the one photo of him from his time in cincy.  still, it's nice to see newk in a modern set, and i am sure there were some reds collectors who were pleased to not get another tony perez card.  actually, perez was a red in this set, too.  but you get the idea.

a century for smokey

100 years ago today, walter emmons alston burst onto the scene.  smokey, as he came to be known at some point, went on to manage the dodgers for 23 years, winning 7 pennants and 4 world series.  before that, he made exactly one plate appearance in the big leagues, and it came as a saint louis cardinal in 1936.  alas, he struck out, and was soon sent back to the minors. 

alston's overall record as a manager was 2040-1613, and he was inducted into the hall of fame in 1983.  sadly, alston passed away the following year.

here's a 1968 topps dodger team card that i picked up somewhere along the way, with what is purported to be alston's signature. 

the funny thing about that is that the 1967 team (the team shown on the card) was the worst performing team alston managed.  they finished in 8th place in the national league that year, with a .451 winning percentage. not that the actual 1968 team was much better, as it also finished in 8th with 76 wins, a 3-game improvement over the previous year.

here's to you, smokey! happy birthday, wherever you may be.