my 1956 topps sampler set

continuing on with my sampler set posts.  these posts are for posterity, as i am dismantling the samplers and keeping only the dodgers.  for those who might be wondering, the sampler sets are something i put together in lieu of actually completing the full topps sets of the 1950's and 1960's.  the samplers include at least one card from each team, each subset, and each color/background variation.

in 1956, there were still only 16 teams, but there were a couple of new subsets to chase.  first, topps included cards for the american league and national league presidents (i, of course, purchased a copy of the national league president's card - warren giles, upper left). second, topps added team cards to the mix.  i have a couple - i first bought the reds because i couldn't afford the dodger card.  i later bought the brooklyn team card from the vintage bargain bin dealer at a local card show for a song.  it's beat up, but it's mine.

without further ado, here is my 1956 topps sampler set, as it was

lots of dodgers there.  a complete team set, in fact.  you can see that my jackie robinson card is trimmed, and my walt alston card is missing a corner, but oh well.

here are the backs of the first page - some bright, some gray.

you will note that i did not include checklists in the sampler.  that's simply because the checklists were not part of the 340 card set.  in future years, starting with 1961, the checklists were part of the base set and so were included in the samplers.

an initials memorial for the orioles' owner

edward bennett williams, the owner of the baltimore orioles since 1980, died from cancer in august of 1988.  for the remainder of the season, the orioles wore his initials on their left sleeve as a memorial.  the 'ebw' memorial can be seen in part on oswald peraza's 1989 topps big card

and on full display on this 1989 fleer bob milacki prospects card

the card in the binder, however, is this 1989 upper deck pete stanicek card

as the team's owner, williams was responsible for signing a long term lease with baltimore shortly before he died which secured the funding for a new stadium.  that stadium, of course, became oriole park at camden yards.  not a bad legacy to leave behind, although williams' is probably better remembered as an attorney and washington dc insider i would imagine.

an initials memorial for the rangers' owner

eddie chiles, the owner of the texas rangers for most of the 1980's, was remembered by the team after he died in august of 1993.  for the remainder of the season, the rangers wore his initials, hec (his full name was harrell edmonds chiles) on their right sleeve.  you can see about half of the memorial on kenny rogers' 1994 topps card.

even with all of the cards manufactured in 1994, this is the only example of the patch that i could find.  i guess the rangers weren't photographed much late in the 1993 season.

chiles purchased the team in 1980 and sold it in 1989 to the group that included george w. bush.  he had made his fortune with an oil services firm, the western company of north america, and was responsible for bringing nolan ryan to the rangers shortly before selling the team.

broadway aleck smith double dipped

here we have a 19th century brooklyn double dipper - broadway aleck smith

[this is the fiftyeighth installment in the double dippers posts.  here are the previous posts - brett butler, omar daal, eric young, nick willhite, chris gwynn, mickey hatcher, dave anderson, don zimmer, rafael landestoy, dave hansen, jose vizcaino, hideo nomo, greg maddux, mike maddux, jon garland, chan ho park, vicente romo, gene mauch, denny lewallyn, von joshua, joe moeller, dioner navarro, rudy seanez, bart shirley, randy wolf, ismael valdes, bobby castillo, mike devereaux, pete richert, jay johnstone, jesse orosco, lee lacy, giovanni carrara, jeff weaver, ted sizemore,  orel hershiser, tom goodwin, joe ferguson, eddie murray, matt luke, ken mcmullen, tim wallach, jerry grote, don sutton, ralph branca, todd hundley, elmer dessens, guillermo mota, joe beckwith, jamie hoffmann, babe herman, joe medwick, juan castro, ron perranoski, clyde king, paul waner, hughie jennings, and ron negray.]

smith's 1990 target card from the dodger giveaway set is not the best, but it's all i've got of the catcher who spent the 1897 (he hit .300 as a rookie that year), 1898, and part of the 1899 season with brooklyn before moving on to the baltimore orioles.  he returned to the franchise in 1900, but appeared in only a handful of games.  i will go ahead and guess that smith's nickname came from him being a new yorker.  or, perhaps he was the joe namath of his day.  who knows - that was a long time ago.

sunday morning target dodgers

here's a full sheet's worth of cards from the 1990 target dodger giveaway set.  these 15 guys were all on the same sheet.  thanks as always to baseball reference for providing information regarding these players, most of whom i was unfamiliar with.  that's my favorite part about this set - looking into the past at players whom i knew little about, and there are some pretty sad tales to be told regarding some of these players.

hugh casey

quick - what is hugh casey best known for?

yes, casey was the pitcher who struck out the yankees' tommy henrich to apparently end game 4 of the 1941 world series and secure a dodger victory evening the series at two games apiece, except that mickey owens was unable to catch the pitch.  as such, the inning was extended with the yankees scoring 4 times to take the lead and eventually win the game.  i always heard of this play referred to as mickey owens' dropped third strike, but i haven't seen the video for a long time so i don't recall just how bad of a pitch it was.

other than that world series in which he suffered two of the losses, casey had a nice career for the dodgers.  he earned two wins agains the yankees in the 1947 world series, and overall was 70-41 for the dodgers from 1939 through 1948 (he missed three seasons during that span while serving in the military).  sadly, casey committed suicide in 1951 at the age of 37.

sam crane

crane's brooklyn career consisted of 3 games played with the robins in 1922 - the final 3 games of his career.  he later was convicted of murder and served time in a pennsylvania penitentiary.

lindsey deal

deal's dodger (and major league) career was comprised of 7 plate appearances in 4 games during the 1939 season.  he was 0 for 7 with two strikeouts.  he played only one game in the field, but it was a complete game as the center fielder, and he was perfect in his three fielding chances.

john gaddy

i find gaddy to be an interesting case.  his lone major league experience came with the robins in 1938.  he made two appearances, both as a starting pitcher, and both in the back end of late season double headers.  he was the winning pitcher in both games, one a complete game.  he gave up only one earned run over 13 innings pitched in those games, and i was left to wonder how he could have two wins in two games if he pitched 9 innings in one and 4 in the other. well, the reason he was able to win his first start despite pitching only 4 innings was that the game was shortened to six innings, most likely due to darkness i would imagine, although the first night game at brooklyn had been played earlier that year.  i'm not sure what happened to gaddy after that, but i hope the team gave him a good look in 1939 based on his performance as a big leaguer.

frank gatins

gatins played for the superbas in 1901.  he appeared in 50 games, hitting .228, before he was released in july.

george haddock

gentelman george was born on christmas day, 1866 and later grew a darn fine moustache.  he pitched for the brooklyn grooms in 1892 and 1893, and is the last pitcher in franchise history to win at least 29 games in a season (he was 29-13 in 1892).

 mike hartley

hartley's big league career began as a dodger in 1989, making him one of the last players to qualify for this set.  he returned to the big leagues in 1990, going 6-3 while pitching primarily in relief, although he did throw his lone career shutout that season.  he was 4-1 for the dodgers in 1991 when he was dealt at the trade deadline to the phillies for roger mcdowell.

still bill hill

hill pitched in two games for the superbas in 1899.  one as a starter - he pitched a complete game and so earned the victory - and one as a reliever - he finished the game and would have earned the save if such a statistic existed back then.  i am not sure why, other than the obvious rhyming pleasure, hill was known as 'still bill'.

sam leslie

leslie sandwiched two-plus seasons with the dodgers in the mid-1930's between two stints with the new york giants.  as a dodger, he hit .311 over 384 games played.

sadie mcmahon

john joseph mcmahon joined the bridegrooms in 1897.  he was 0-6 in 9 games, but threw 5 complete games in 7 of his starts.  he is enshrined in the delaware sports museum and hall of fame.

don miles

miles was a member of the 1958 los angeles dodgers - their first season on the west coast.  unfortunately for miles, all 8 of his appearances came on the road.  he had 4 hits in 22 at bats, and that was all she wrote as far as his big league career was concerned.

red sheridan

sheridan's big league career included a total of 5 appearances - 2 in 1918 and 3 in 1920 - all for the robins.

elmer steele

steele pitched for the dodgers during the latter half of the 1911 season. he was without a decision in any of his five dodger appearances.

joe tepsic

tepsic was a world war ii vet who chose to sign with the dodgers instead of the pittsburgh steelers, perhaps due to the fact that he was guaranteed a big league roster spot despite his lack of experience.  as it turned out, tepsic's big league career was limited to the 15 games in which he appeared for the dodgers in 1946.  he was used largely as a pinch runner and pinch hitter, getting only one appearance in the outfield.  he was 0 for 5 at the plate with two runs scored.

i'll have more of these things next week, i am pretty sure.

running with rhubarb

it's been a while since i completed my latest trade with the rhubarb runner at e rayhan rayhahn. someday, i would like to have my want lists as complete and organized as rhubarb runner.  until that day, i will accept any smattering of dodger cards.  anyway, for some carefully culled twins cards, i received a very nice load of dodgers.

2013 topps triple threads sandy koufax

oh, so now we're just including triple threads koufax cards in our trade packages?  no big deal, i guess.  and, where there's koufax, there's likely duke snider

yes, of the 2012 topps gypsy queen variety.  but what about pee wee, you ask?  don't worry, he's here too.

2005 upper deck mvp batter up! insert

the package wasn't all brooklyn glory - here's a 2013 topps hanley ramirez emerald parallel

and a 2013 topps chrome matt kemp die cut insert

kemp was also represented by 2006 bowman draft

and a 2006 bowman draft gold parallel

here's a 2005 upper deck pros & prospects yhency brazoban card

yhency filled in for eric gagne as the team's closer for a while.  that was during the time that i was reading and commenting on jon weisman's 'dodger thoughts' blog.  someone over there coined the phrase 'ghame over' when yhency was pitching.  there were even t-shirts made.  good times.

not so much good times with nori nakamura.  he flamed out pretty quickly, but there are still a few cards of his to be had by dodger collectors.  this one is from 2005 leaf certified.

last, and actually probably least, is a 2005 donruss diamond kings paul loduca dual relic

thanks for the trade david!  i'll be checking your want lists again soon!

patching up my steve garvey collection

i've got a pretty good steve garvey card collection.  my collection also includes some non-card items, but it is by no means a complete collection.  in the past, i've removed some of those non-card items from the collection and shipped them off to padrographs or ebay auctions, so i am not concerned about being a completist.  besides, i know that i do not even have the best steve garvey collection in the blogosphere.  that achievement is reserved for curt at 1978, the year it all began.

over the past 15 years or so, curt and i have battled each other on ebay and traded with each other through our blogs.  most recently, i agreed to send curt my only garvey bronze parallel from 2004 upper deck legends in order for him to complete his garvey bronze set (there are four garvey cards in that particular set, each one coming with a bronze parallel numbered to 50).  the only one i had of the four was the only one he needed.  he offered to trade a duplicate, and i figured i would help a fellow garvey collector out, even though it created a hole in my collection.  one of many holes, so not much of a big deal.

curt added a few other items to his end of the deal, including this lightly soiled 1979 baseball patch

that's a penn emblem patch, to be precise.  i used to have a garvey photo patch i think.  or maybe it was a steve yeager photo patch.  i don't recall.

how about a 1985 topps tiffany garvey record breaker?

not new to the collection, but new to the blog.

and now here's the bronze parallel card i received to replace the outgoing one in my collection - it's the 1974 subset card, featuring a photo that is not from 1974

numbered 37/50 with dodger stadium on the back

i still plan to show my full garvey collection here on the blog later this year.  it won't be complete, but that's ok.  it's exactly what i want it to be.

curt - thanks for the trade and your patience.  i will send your card out this weekend.