i can get accustomed to this

if you follow "when topps had balls", then you've seen gio's cards celebrating his 1970s all-decade team. i sat up and took notice back when he announced the first baseman on the national league squad

gio's post included a nice writeup about steve garvey, and he shares my opinion of the garv's hall of fame worthiness. so, when gio emailed saying that his complete set of the nl all-decade team was available, i sent my money posthaste.

i was surprised to see a different version of garvey's card

but enjoyed it nonetheless.  here's the back:

i appreciate the fact that the backs are written with a 1980 sensibility.

here's the full squad:

with the bonus card being a pete rose "player of the decade" card

i really liked the all-star banner on the 1980 cards back when i was opening packs. they are my favorite banners (over the 1979 and 1981 cards) but i still prefer the red, white, and blue all-star shields from 1978.  one more thought on the 1980 design - seeing it without the facsimile signature, the 1980 design is even more obviously a tweak of the 1974 look. at least in my opinion.

gio also released his series 14 set for purchase, and i decided to pick it up for my collection. this was a standard set that included a variety of his themes - not quite missing in action, career capper, dedicated rookie, fantasy cards, etc.

i'll show the bonus card first, it's a diamond/miscut dedicated rookie card of willie randolph!

jerry reuss also shows up as a dedicated rookie in the 1970 design

while carlton fisk is featured on a fantasy card from 1971

also using the 1971 design is this japanese special card of sigeo nagashima

i have to admit, even with everything i read during the height of nomomania, i was not familiar with nagashima until i received the card and read gio's post.

the next two cards were a big reason why i decided to purchase the set. first up is a "missing in action" card. literally

dick allen did not have an in action card in the 1972 topps set, and he wasn't shown as a dodger on his base card anyway. this card pairs beautifully with the custom that gavin sent me a while back.

and then there is this "gimme a do-over" 1973 topps frank robinson card

of course, robinson's actual 1973 topps card is fantastic, and really just needs the dodger script across his chest reinstated and his team affiliation changed from the angels, but this one is great, too.

speaking of the angels, here's a dedicated rookie of frank tanana

who was definitely a fan favorite of mine until he was dealt to the red sox, even though the halos got freddie lynn in return. speaking of the red sox, here's a missing in action 1975 topps dick mcauliffe card

complete with the slanted oakland coliseum background!

gio created another "gimme a do-over" with this 1975 topps billy williams card

that keeps him as a cub as opposed to an airbrushed athletic as he was presented by topps.

this next one is a special request "career capper" card for tony c

who finished his career with the red sox in 1975. he managed to hit a couple of home runs in his return to boston, but we are left to wonder what if? when it comes to his career.

similar to the williams card above, gio created a "gimme a do-over" card for my one-time favorite non-dodger don baylor

he was an airbrushed angel in the original topps set and so didn't have a card recognizing his one year stint in oakland. i like this custom very much.

here's another 1977 card, although this one is a "not really missing in action" card of willie wilson

wilson played in a handful of games in 1976 and 1977 but didn't get any cardboard love from topps until 1979. gio has also created a fantastic 1978 card of wilson, but i don't think it's been available in any sets yet.

also missing from the 1978 topps set were a couple of angels - willie mays aikens

and mike cuellar

no joke - aikens is 22 or 23 at the oldest in that photo. i thought at first it was from an alumni event or something but it is from the late 70's when he was the talk of my neighborhood. i still don't understand how he failed to receive any rookie of the year consideration in 1979. the aikens card is a "missing in action" and the cuellar is a "career capper". cuellar appeared in only two games for the angels in 1977, bringing an end to his career.

apologies to bruce robinson, but this 1979 topps a's prospects card

looks a lot better with rickey henderson on it. gio has also made a dedicated rookie card for dwayne murphy and a 1979 solo card for rickey. i would have loved this card as a kid.

finally, gio created a "dedicated rookie" card for another player who appeared on a 1979 prospects card - the dodgers' own pedro guerrero

when the card arrived, i emailed gio saying that i was pretty sure cesar cedeno made his way on to the card instead of guerrero, and gio confirmed it. he noted that the image was mislabeled as guerrero and he went with it as an intended error card. there aren't too many cards showing cedeno as a dodger, so i'll take it. as an aside, i've noticed some photos mislabeled back when i was doing a lot of customs including bobby castillo identified as davey lopes. must be the mustache.

here's the original guerrero card that gio created for his blog

i wouldn't mind getting one of those in hard copy form someday.

the dodger heavy checklist, along with the two 1978 cards, made this set a no-brainer for me. gio also fulfilled my request for an extra garvey from the first set and extra cuellar and aikens cards from the second. the garvey dupe goes to the pc and the two 1978 angels go in my 1978 "master set".

thanks gio!

something about wolves and sheep and clothing

actually, the biblical reference to false prophets is not the right allusion for this post. this is more about masqueraders. you all know how much i treasure the o-pee-chee team variations, and i enjoy finding other similar type cards to add to my dodger collection.

case in point, i discovered while entering my dodger collection on tcdb that i was missing a card from my checklist of dodgers included in the 1986 true value super stars set - bill madlock's card:

once i saw that it was, in fact, a dodger card, i couldn't obtain it quickly enough. he is clearly a pirate, but also a dodger.

similarly, eric davis' 1992 topps kids card

uses the old o-pee-chee "now with" angle. eric the red dodger!

this 1994 donruss triple play delino deshields card

is decidedly more "dodger-y", thanks to the logo being front and center on the card, but it is also overwhelmingly "expo-y".

manuel barrios became a dodger thanks to the mike piazza trade, and donruss was able to get some text on his 1998 donruss card to reflect that status

barrios pitched in one game for the dodgers before he was dfa'd and claimed by the marlins. i seem to recall that interim gm tommy lasorda may have taken some heat for barrios' departure (on a procedural level) but barrios never pitched in the big leagues again, so no harm no foul.

kevin brown is all padre on the front of this 1999 upper deck ovation card

but i assure you that on the back, there is a nice looking dodgers logo. just like the one on the front of this 2007 upper deck first edition juan pierre leading off insert

fun juan pierre trivia - he played in 821 consecutive games (a streak that ended during his dodger tenure) which is in the top ten all-time, except in one of those games he appeared only as a pinch runner so i guess mlb says it doesn't count and instead he has two streaks of 386 and 434 consecutive games played. doesn't make sense to me - he played in the game so it should count.

here's one where upper deck tried to make a card more of a dodger card than it really is

that's a 1998 upper deck collector's choice starquest insert of eddie murray, who was back for his second stint in la. he is wearing an indians or orioles uniform however, although the name and number on the back have been colorized to blue.

i also include cards of "outbound" dodgers in my dodger collection such as this 1998 donruss todd zeile card

which is a perfect companion to the barrios card above.

and then there is this 2005 donrus throwback threads card of hideo nomo

who is officially listed as a tampa bay devil ray.

here's another one - a 2006 fleer flair showcase wave of the future card of cody ross

who is a dodger playing in cincinnati.

i also recently picked up this card from 2009 upper deck a piece of history for the collection

it shows manny ramirez as all dodger, while matt holliday is straddling the line between colorado rockie and oakland athletic.

there are other cards that are quite sneaky and escape my knowledge for decades before i become aware of their dodgerness, like this 1971 dell todays ted sizemore

definitely a dodger on the front

but a cardinal on the back. the dodger album features al downing as a brewer as far as the photo goes, but dick allen is shown in a dodger uniform so i just assumed that sizemore would have been shown wearing the cardinal get up. i was wrong and just happened to stumble upon an image of this item a couple of months ago.

speaking of allen, he was included in the 1971 kellogg's set

while sizemore was not. in this set, allen is still a cardinal until you turn the card over!

that's a dodger card for sure.

if peter piper picked a pack of player pictures...

so with the packets of postcards that were in my giant dodger box, any doubt that i had about the mix and match approach the team took towards selling postcards has been dissolved. i have long been similarly suspicious with the 5x7 black and white photos that the team sold in "player picture packets", and so i finally sat down to do some sleuthing.

my dad bought me one of these packets back in 1978 and i had a few of the photos pinned up one of the walls in my room. 

yes, that's my wall as it was in 1979.  

the photos in question are way to the left - i see ron cey, rick monday, and steve yeager. there's don sutton and steve garvey black and white photos, too, but they are not from one of these packets. there's a matt keough photo as well from a meet and greet that my dad helped organize with a local bank. not pictured are my other posters - i had don sutton, a 1978 american league all-star montage, and a gordie howe poster below garvey and cey. i also had a "signed" darth vader promo photo from when some guy dressed as vader made an appearance at a local department store and a los angeles rams poster of no player in particular.

anyway, my set from back then is long gone, but my dad did pass along one that he had buried in a box from 1973. i know it is from 1973 because it has both andy messersmith and pete richert in it, and they were only teammates in 1973. this is what the garvey photo from that set looks like

here's the packet envelope:

for the record, the dodger players (and manager and coaches) in this packet are:

red adams

walt alston

jim brewer

bill buckner

willie crawford

willie davis

al downing

steve garvey

jim gilliam

tommy john

von joshua

tom lasorda

ken mcmullen

andy messersmith

claude osteen

tom paciorek

doug rau

pete richert

bill russell

don sutton

aside from the pictures that i had back in the late 1970's, this is the only complete packet i have ever seen. that will soon change as you will see...

now, natural intuition tells me that these pictures were not redone every year - there are not 12 different steve garvey pictures, for example - but i figured i would take a deeper dive.  i found that the dodgers had been selling these sorts of pictures for decades - far back in to their brooklyn days, in fact. 

when they moved to los angeles, the familiar packaging was developed, and, in 1959 at least, they actually identified them with a specific year on the envelope. after that, as far as i can tell, the reference to year was gone. this makes sense, similar to how topps left off specific year numbering on their early cards of the 1950's - it extends the shelf life of the product.  

anyway, i wound up purchasing a couple more envelopes over the last few weeks. first up is one from 1974. i know it is from 1974 because it has both greg shanahan and jim wynn in it, and they were only teammates in 1974. the garvey from that one looks like this:

both photos shown so far are from 1969, for whatever that is worth.

here's the envelope:

right away the theory of reusing photos from year to year was confirmed, as pitching coach red adams' photo was the same as the one in the 1973 packet i already owned. same for manager walter alston.  here's the full list of dodgers in this packet:

red adams (same photo as 1973)

walt alston (same photo as 1973)

monty basgall

jim brewer (different photo than 1973)

bill buckner (different photo than 1973)

ron cey

joe ferguson

steve garvey (different photo than 1973)

jim gilliam (same photo as 1973)

von joshua (same photo as 1973)

dave lopes

mike marshall

andy messersmith (same photo as 1973)

manny mota

doug rau (same photo as 1973)

bill russell (same photo as 1973)

greg shanahan

don sutton (same photo as 1973)

jim wynn

geoff zahn

next, i bought a packet that is from 1977. i know it is from 1977 because it has rick monday (the same photo that was on my wall) and ed goodson. those two were only teammates in 1977. the garvey from that set looks like this:

here's the packet envelope:

you can see that the price doubled at some point between 1974 and 1977.

there are a lot of new faces in this packet, but still some from the previous sets i've shown. some of those subjects have new photos and some do not. here's the full list of dodgers in this packet:

dusty baker

ron cey (different photo than 1974; same photo as on my wall)

steve garvey (different photo than 1973 or 1974)

ed goodson

burt hooton

charlie hough

tommy john (same photo as 1973)

lee lacy

tom lasorda (same photo as 1973)

dave lopes (different photo than 1974)

ted martinez

rick monday

manny mota (different photo than 1974)

johnny oates

doug rau (different photo than 1973/1974)

rick rhoden

bill russell (different photo than 1973/1974)

reggie smith

don sutton (different photo than 1973/1974)

that's only 19, which is a bummer. based on what i had on my wall, i would say that steve yeager is the missing player, although since i think it is clear that these were mix and match from previous years, it could be that some other player or coach was in this packet when it was originally purchased.

you might have noticed that garvey is the only one with a different photo in each of these three packets. that is by design, as i was seeking out different garvey poses. speaking of which, i also bought a packet of these pictures from 1982. i know it was from 1982, because mark belanger was among the photos, and he was only a dodger in 1982.

this is what garvey's photo looks like in this packet:

here's belanger's photo

just for kicks. and here's the envelope:

another price increase!

the photo subjects in this set are:

dusty baker (different photo than 1977)

mark belanger

ron cey (different photo than 1974 and 1977)

terry forster

steve garvey (different photo than 1973 and 1974 and 1977)

pedro guerrero

burt hooton (different photo than 1977)

steve howe

ken landreaux

tom lasorda (different photo than 1973/1977)

rick monday (different photo than 1977)

tom niedenfuer

jerry reuss

bill russell (different photo than 1973/1974 and 1977)

mike scioscia

derrel thomas

fernando valenzuela

bob welch 

steve yeager

again, only 19 pictures. i've seen a set online that includes a dave stewart photo, so i would guess he or maybe steve sax would be the missing subject here. in fact, i've seen a set that has both a stewart and sax photo, along with different photos of thomas and yeager. that set didn't have the howe in it. a second set from 1982 with both sax and stewart in it that i've seen also had a different garvey photo from any that i've shown here in this post. i am definitely on the lookout for that one, but not at the crazy price that particular seller is asking.

[edit - i picked up another 1982 set whose player contents were identical to the list above, with the addition of steve sax. the garvey in that packet looked like this:

this is the fifth and final version of garvey player pictures that i have seen. for the record, the photos for dusty baker, terry forster, garvey, steve howe, jerry reuss, bill russell, mike scioscia, derrel thomas, fernando valenzuela, bob welch, and steve yeager were different from the other 1982 packet.]

for good measure, i also picked up a 1971 set that had the same garvey photo as my dad's 1973 set. i know this set was from 1971 since it had dick rich allen 

in it.

allen in dodger duds is the good stuff.

any other thoughts or knowledge about these 5x7 items is appreciated!