guess what's back?

today marks the long postponed return of the timeless teams blog.  i am embarrassed that i am two years into the thing and i still haven't finished posting the base set.

here are some non-base cards from my collection to mark the occasion.

this is a gold parallel of steve yeager

gold parallels, as you might recall, are numbered to 5 copies

now here's a dual autograph of steve garvey and davey lopes

this one is numbered to 150

the rest of the autos (except for the 1/1's) are unnumbered and have different print runs.

here's al downing's card

the certified autos have the certification statement on the back in place of the stats and text that appears on the unsigned versions

here's pedro guerrero

certified!

and mickey hatcher, too.

also certified

and we're back to steve yeager, basking in the glow of his co-mvp status in the 1981 world series

all the dodger cards have the same dodger stadium scene on the back

same goes for other teams - the stadium scene for each individual franchise doesn't change.  i believe these same images were used in the 2004 upper deck flagship set.

i haven't yet got to the 1988 dodger team on the blog, so we haven't seen the base version of this john shelby card yet

how many sets have certified john shelby autos in them anyway?

the post that re-kicks things off in a few hours focuses on the 1986 california angels.  this former dodger is featured

he pitched in the big a (seen below) during the 1986 season,

but could have (should have!) been featured in the set with the 1980 or 1981 dodgers, too.  be sure to stop by later today.  there are still a handful of teams that i need to post, but i hope to be done with them by opening day.

who knows...

…whether or not this is real.

it sits in my 1960's binder next to a couple similar 1963 topps rookie cards and plays the part of a ken mcmullen rookie quite well.  after i bought it, i compared it to my other 63's and it didn't seem any different in cardstock or weight or coloring.  it also lacks the tell-tale signs of known fakes, but i really don't know for sure.

it's a shame that a card that should be a highlight of my collection sits under such a cloud of suspicion.

an angel minor leaguer memorial

bruce heinbechner was a minor league pitcher working his way up the california angels' depth chart.  he had spent the 1973 season in aaa - his second full season at that level - and had won 10 games while throwing two shutouts.  sometime after the 1973 season ended, a trade was worked out between the angels and the cubs in which heinbechner and andy hassler would have gone to chicago in exchange for ron santo, but santo used his '10 and 5' authority to nix the deal.  so, heinbechner remained with the angels and reported to spring training the following year.

it was during spring training that heinbechner was killed in a car accident in palm springs.  he apparently crossed into oncoming traffic and hit another card head-on as he was returning to the team's hotel.

while he hadn't yet made the 40-man roster, his future had seemed bright.  in his memory, heinbechner's angel teammates wore a rectangle of black fabric on their left sleeve for the remainder of spring training.  there are lots of examples of this memorial in the 1975 topps and o-pee-chee sets.  here is an o-pee-chee winston llenas card

and here is a topps dick lange card

both are good examples of the memorial.  the black fabric is also visible on nolan ryan's card in the sets, but i didn't have an extra.  so, i was going to use former dodger bobby valentine's topps card as the representative example in my collection.

but i decided that i preferred mickey rivers' o-pee-chee card instead.

heinbechner was the second of three angel players to die in car accidents in the 1970's - chico ruiz and mike milery were the others - but he was the only one of the three to receive a memorial on the uniform.

the danny thompson memorial armband

danny thompson was drafted by the reds, yankees, and senators before finally signing after being taken by the twins in the first round of the 1968 june draft.  by 1972, he had earned the starting shortstop job for the twinkies.  here's his 1975 o-pee-chee card

following that season, in which he hit .276 in 144 games and even garnered some mvp votes, thompson was diagnosed with leukemia.  doctors estimated that thompson had 5 more years of being able to play baseball before the disease affected him.  he returned to the twins in 1973 and was later traded to the rangers during the 1976 season in the bert blyleven deal.

he finished the season with the rangers, hitting .214 in 64 games.  a couple of months after the season ended, thompson passed away at the mayo clinic in rochester, minnesota due to complications from his disease.  he was only 29 years old.

the following season, the rangers wore a black armband with thompson's number 4 on their left sleeves.  you can see it on adrian devine's 1978 topps card

but the card in my memorials collection is mike hargrove's 1978 o-pee-chee issue

the twins did not wear a memorial for thompson, but his former teammate harmon killebrew organized a fundraising golf tournament in his memory that still operates today - the danny thompson memorial golf tournament (now known as the killebrew-thompson memorial golf tournament) which has raised millions of dollars for cancer research since its inception.

what's that about mike bordick's butt?

this post was supposed to run last sunday, as a companion to the roberto alomar double play dump.  sadly, i failed to hit 'publish'.

i mentioned earlier that i had some more roberto alomar double play cards to show.  it turns out, there was only one left in the scanned folder - this 1993 colla all-star game issue, which features alomar turning two against the a's in oakland.

that looks like ruben sierra to me, but what is most interesting here is the huge sign hanging above the outfield wall.  it's obviously a reference to a's infielder mike bordick, but what does it say?  bordick's butterscotch?  bordick's button collection?  i don't know.  

what i do know is that, being a middle infielder, there are plenty of bordick double play cards, like this one from 1997 score, although it features him as an oriole.

bordick even shows up on the wrong end of the double play turn sometimes, like the back of chuck knoblauch's 1993 score select card

another thing that i know is that, living here in twins territory, i have access to a cornucopia of knoblauch cards in every dime box at every show or lcs i visit.  such is the case here where i am about to display a bunch of knobby double play cards mostly culled from cheap boxes at various local locales.

1992 score

1993 upper deck fun pack (back in oakland)

1994 pinnacle

1994 score

the score card may or may not be a continuation of the play on the pinnacle card - i would like to believe that it is - as it sure looks like a '5' on the back of the jersey of the sliding player.

1994 upper deck sp

and 1994 upper deck sp die cut

more oakland action on 1995 score

and 1995 score gold rush parallel

here's a 1997 donruss

a 1997 fleer sports illustrated

and a 1997 topps stadium club

i'll end this double play dump post with a 1998 pacific invincible gems of the diamond knoblauch card

it's too bad that there aren't any metrodome cards of knoblauch here.  had there been, perhaps we would have seen a sign for 'knoblauch's knothole gang' partially blocked in a confusing manner.

see how well that segue from alomar to bordick to knoblauch worked?

swing and a win

i posted earlier today about a trade that i made with bert at swing and a pop up.  i was also fortunate enough to win a contest that netted me a value box of 2013 topps update from the man.  i chose the walmart version, hoping for some blue-bordered dodger goodness, and i got some.

it's nick punto turning two at dodger stadium

this would be my favorite card from update this year if it weren't for puig's presence in the set.  no puigs in this box, however.

but, there was another blue-bordered double play turn thanks to ryan roberts of the rays

plus a didi gregorious turn

although not of the blue-bordered variety.

now for the inserts.  my 1971 topps mini was troy tulowitzki

and the chasing history insert was miguel cabrera

the emerald parallel was bryce harper

here's the making their mark insert - the cardinals' carlos martinez

and the postseason heroes card was none other than mariano rivera

bonus insert!  a camo parallel of jim henderson of the brewers.

this is the first non-dodger camo parallel i have owned, and the first one i have pulled from a pack.

bert also sent a few dodgers along for the ride, like this 1996 bowman onan masaoka

i believe masaoka was the fourth hawaiian born pitcher to play for the dodgers.  the others were carlos diaz, sid fernandez, and of course charlie hough.  it's too bad he couldn't stick in the majors long enough to establish loogy status.

last but not least, here's a 2007 topps card of jason schmidt celebrating his transformation from hated rival to cheered starter

schmidt won his dodger debut, but the team lost the other 5 games in which he pitched in 2007.  he worked hard to get back to the team, but made only a few more starts in 2009 before hanging 'em up.

bert - thanks again for the contest and the extra cards!