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.

non-dodger dodger cards

sometimes, dodger cards are harder to find than others.  specifically, dodger cards that show dodgers but list a different team on them.  online checklists that are built by team affiliation won't always tell the full story.  that's when you must rely on the kindness of strangers, the randomness of dime boxes, and the occasional lucky glimpse in an online card shop.  this post features cards from each of these sources.

1998 fleer tradition rick gorecki

gorecki was selected by the devil rays in the expansion draft following the 1997 season.  he appeared in 4 games for the dodgers in '97, finishing his dodger tenure with a 1-0 record despite a 15.00 era.  he wound up making 3 starts for tampa bay in 1998 and was 1-2 in those starts.  looks like he got injured and that was all she wrote.

1993 donruss jamie mcandrew

mcandrew was the dodgers' first round pick in 1989, but he never threw a pitch for them.  as the donruss card indicates, he was selected by the marlins in the expansion draft prior to the 1993 season.  however, he never pitched for them, either.  the fish traded him to milwaukee just before the season began.  mcandrew wound up appearing for the brewers in both the 1995 and 1997 seasons, but his career, like gorecki's, was cut short by injuries.

2000 fleer tradition raul mondesi

this mondesi card is pretty close to some classic o-pee-chee.  'traded to' text and the new team's logo (in this case the blue jays) brings back some good memories of o-pee-chee variations.  there are a few mondesi cards from 2000 that could fit into this post, actually.

2003 fleer platinum eric karros

karros and albert pujols on tatooine!  that's not the only karros card from 2003 that says cubs with a dodger photo - here's his 2003 leaf card

mark grudzielanek, who was traded with karros to the cubbies, also got the non-dodger dodger card treatment from leaf

last but not least, here's a 2005 upper deck pros and prospects koyie hill card

hill had three at bats as a dodger before they traded him to arizona in 2004.  this card is awesome because it's from 2005, and still features a photo of hill in dodger gear, even though all of his big league appearances in 2004 came as a member of the diamondbacks.

i know there are a lot more of these types of cards, and i will continue to enjoy stumbling across them any way i can.

the collector who wanted a hill and wound up with three of them

when it rains, it pours, as another blogger recently opined.

the number one card on my nefarious 9 list for quite a while was a 2000 upper deck ultimate victory koyie hill card.  that's not a very common card to put on a list and hope that someone out in blog land happens to have a copy for trade, i admit.  the reason it was on the list to begin with is that i hadn't seen many ultimate victory cards around the lcs or card show dime boxes, and was in fact hoping that someone somewhere did have some to spare.

months passed, and i eventually picked up a copy of the card from comc.

rest assured, it is a dodger card.  see the dodger logo on the back?

not more than a couple of weeks later, i received a copy in the mail from kerry at cards on cards.  then, just a couple of weeks ago, a third copy showed up courtesy of dennis from too many verlanders.  so, i now have three of the 2000 upper deck ultimate victory koyie hill cards, each numbered to 2500

that's 0.12% of the print run!

similarly, not too long after i picked up a couple of copies of the 2004 upper deck matt kata card

(one for the double play binder, one for the dodger stadium binder, and one for the lurker binder - hello ron coomer!), i received more copies of the card from the junior junkie and then nick from dime boxes just yesterday.

and that one wasn't even on a want list!

i'll show more of the cards, including other nefarious 9 needs, that i received from kerry, dennis, tj, and nick in future posts.  thanks for thinking of me guys!

card show recap - here's what i bought from the second dealer

here's the deal - i am recapping the goods i picked up at the card show last weekend.  guess how much i spent with each dealer and/or how much i spent overall and win some cards featuring players from a team of your choice.  it's just that simple.  the first post was up this morning.  here are all of the cards that i bought from the second dealer i visited.

this guy was from oklahoma, where the wind comes rushing down the plains.  he came straight from the national, making what he figured would be his lone minnesota appearance. nice guy.  he was selling mostly autographed baseballs, but had a couple of boxes of latter day singles, plus some hits in a case.  i stuck with the singles.

he was nice enough to have them ordered by team, which helped immensely since i was kind of on a time crunch.

2010 topps update brooklyn dodgers short print

duke, jackie and pee wee with a big ol' bat.  i had this card already, but couldn't pass it up.

2013 topps heritage sandy koufax/clayton kershaw then and now

after 2015, we won't see any dodgers on the heritage then and now cards for a long long time.

2005 topps heritage shawn green

can't believe this is the first time i have shown 2005 topps heritage on the blog.  i was so turned off by my bad 2001 topps heritage experience that i really didn't buy much of the stuff until 2010.  so, i need dodgers from those other years.

2004 bowman koyie hill gold

it's not the hill that sits atop my nefarious 9, but it was calling to me, for some reason

1999 bowman chrome adrian beltre international

they don't show up in the scan very well, but the palm trees and water in the background of this card were calling to me as well.

finally, i picked up two cards from 2013 topps spring fever - matt kemp

and adrian gonzalez

i couldn't remember which ones i had from the set.  i knew i had aj ellis, so i just went with kemp and gonzalez.  turns out i had kemp, needed gonzalez.

ok, that does it for dealer 2.  let me know how much you think these 7 cards cost me in the comments!

i was wondering, how often do the dodgers trade within the division?

neither of the two deals the dodgers made at the non-waiver trading deadline (three if you count the juan rivera deal) involved teams within the nl west.  i know that deals with the giants are pretty rare, but decided to see about the other teams in the division.  just how often have ned, depo, the sherriff, dan evans, fred claire, and al wheeled and dealed with their nl west counterparts?

the dodgers have made 5 trades with the arizona diamondbacks, the most recent being the one that brought jon garland to la (the first time) in 2009.  other deals have included jettisoning shawn green, picking up elmer dessens (also the first time), and getting steve finley for, amongst others, koyie hill.

(who signed and returned his 2002 topps traded card for me a couple of years ago from chicago where he was playing for the cubs).

there have also been 5 trades between the dodgers and the rockies.  the last one, from a year ago, brought octavio dotel to la for his short stint. 

other notable deals included tom goodwin for todd hollandsworth, eric young (returning to la), and jody reed bringing his contract savvy-ness to la in 1992.

with the padres, the dodgers have made only 3 trades.  the first, in 1969, netted al mcbean for a couple of players, and the second brought manly-monikered jim bruske north to la. 

the latest deal between the two teams, made in 2008, saw greg maddux rejoin the dodgers after a brief exile in san diego.

the dodgers and giants have made a couple of dozen deals, but only 3 since the teams moved out west.  the dodgers acquired tom haller from the no-cals in 1968 for ron hunt and nate oliver, and then traded candy maldonado for alex trevino in 1985.  the last deal between the two teams was in 2007 when the dodgers got mark sweeney

for travis denker.  i think denker came back to the dodgers last year as a free agent.

the d-backs and rockies haven't been around too long, and the giants are the hated rivals, but i was surprised at how few trades have been made between the dodgers and the pads.  heck, the dodgers have traded 8 times with the 'cross-town' angels. not that i care too much, i can't even name more than one or two padres players these days.

cards here...and here from sign here...and here

i recently completed a trade with peterson over at sign here...and here.  i am very pleased with the great cards he sent my way.  here are just a few:

2004 topps chrome robin ventura black refractor

this card (the topps flagship version) is in my header image.  it's a great card even before it gets all black, chromey and refractorish.  jeromy burnitz lurking and a semi-favorite non-dodger as a dodger robin ventura sliding in.  awesome card.

2006 topps allen & ginter mini danys baez

yes, danys baez was a dodger.  ned had a fascination with devil rays for a while, and he sent edwin jackson, dioner navarro, and my former baseball salvation joel guzman out east for baez, lance carter and not much else.  baez was later traded to the braves for wilson betemit, who was traded a year after that for scott proctor, who they had traded to the yankees to get robin ventura.  the circle of life...

2003 bowman koyie hill auto

hill was with the dodgers for just 3 games in 2003 before being traded to the diamondbacks for steve finley late in the 2004 season.

2007 bowman chris parmelee auto

parmelee is one of the twinkies top offensive prospects.  not sure where he's going to play if they keep their core together - maybe dh?

non-red sox nomah!  a double play turn on his 2005 leaf card

with shawn green sliding in! 

2009 upper deck vladimir guerrero 20th anniversary thingy

vlad was skinny back then.  i think wilton might have been bigger!

thanks chris!  it was a great lot of cards and fun to go through!