half of first 4 with 30

this is not a monday morning math quiz.  instead, it's a post that was supposed to go last friday.  now, it's slightly out of date but i don't care.

i have a 'page-a-day' calendar at work.  it's baseball themed, but not a 'this day in baseball' calendar since that would get pretty boring in december and january.  no, this one is a mish-mash of trivia and factoids and stuff like put the hall of famers with the most gidp in order (cal ripken jr, number 1).  i arrived at work on thursday, removed wednesday's offering, and found this gem

i think we all know the answer, so i won't bother to rotate the page.  out of curiousity, i looked up the other teams. 

the 1998 yankees won 114 games plus the world series (mark langston struck tino martinez out with the bases loaded though) yet they didn't have any 30-home run hitters.  their top 4 were tino with 28, bernie williams with 26, and paul o'neill and darryl strawberry with 24 apiece.

i figured the 1995 mariners had griffey jr, jay buhner, edgar martinez and who else?  i was wrong about 2 or the 3.  jr only hit 17 that year, and edgar had 29.  buhner had 40, tino martinez had 31 and mike blowers had 23.

just like the '98 yanks, the 1975 big red machine didn't have any players over 30 home runs.  johnny bench had 28, george foster hit 23, tony perez had 20 and joe morgan was fourth on the team with 17.

interesting that the calendar made no mention of the second team to accomplish the feat, the 1995 colorado rockies.

you might recall that, as part of my 1978 topps burger king dodgers/update project, i created a record breaker to comemmorate the event.  i recently sent a copy of the card out to ron cey for him to sign.  as always, the penguin was a quick and gracious signer.

then, on thursday no less, i received the card back from a steve garvey signing

i'll have to keep my eye out for reggie smith and dusty baker signings, even though i have had ttm successes with each of those guys since i don't want to chance losing this one.

thanks ron and steve!  i'm looking forward to the day when the calendar asks me who the only player to win the rookie of the year, cy young award and mvp is!

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?