frankendodger sheet 54 (cards 478-486) - check(list) out these cards...

here's sheet number 54 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 478-486:

and the back:

these cards are:

478. 1996 upper deck tom lasorda
479. 1998 donruss collections elite wilton guerrero
480. 1961 topps roy campanella
481. 1993 topps ryan luzinski
482. 2012 topps chris capuano
483. 1989 topps mickey hatcher
484. 2009 upper deck manny ramirez
485. 2005 upper deck eric gagne
486. 1989 donruss tim crews

the "no brainer" of the day:

well, i suppose when you rescue a 1961 topps roy campanella card from the vintage bargain bin even though you have one for your team set, it is going to go into the frankenset.

about the cards:

i was pretty happy to see tom lasorda get a card from upper deck in 1996.  it was the first card that they made of the dodger manager, although he had appeared on a few cards such as the 1992 bob ojeda,

1993 sp eric karros,

and 1994 tim wallach.

this card is actually a checklist, and lasorda is featured because he was entering his 20th season as the dodger manager.  what upper deck didn't know was that it would also be his last.

the wilton guerrero card is another one of those from donruss in 1998 where they took their regular cards from their flagship, elite, preferred, and other releases and made them into a new set called 'collections'.  they didn't change the number on the back of the card (guerrero's regular elite card is number 79 in the set), but they did add a new card number further down the back.

it was pretty cool of topps to make cards for mvp winners as part of their 1961 set.  campy only got one card even though he won three mvp awards. it's also too bad that topps only went back to 1950, denying us a jackie robinson card (and ted williams, too) as the 1949 mvp.  topps did the mvp's again (from 1952 through 1974) in 1975, and then again (from 1962 through 1981) in their 1982 k-mart set, but we haven't seen anything like this since.

ryan luzinski, son of greg, was the dodgers' first round pick in 1992, and topps gave us this card in 1993 as a result. a catcher by trade, he progressed to triple-a with the dodgers and later the reds, but never received the call to the big leagues.  the dodger farm system actually did well with catchers in the '90's - piazza, carlos hernandez, henry blanco, ken huckaby, and angel pena were all home grown talents, with pena being signed the same year the dodgers drafted luzinski.

there's not much going on with the 2012 topps chris capuano card, so let's move on to the 1989 topps mickey hatcher card. actually, there's not much going on there either, so let's move on to the 2009 upper deck manny ramirez card.  it, too is a checklist - a team checklist at that, as is the card after it - a 2005 upper deck card featuring eric gagne.  i like team checklists.  of course, because i began collecting in 1978, i prefer my team checklists to have a team photo on the front, with perhaps a nod to the manager.  still, having another card of manny ramirez in a dodger uniform in 2009 was not a bad thing, nor was seeing eric gagne get some recognition in 2005, as he was the longest tenured dodger at that time.

last card is the 1989 donruss tim crews card.  i think this is my favorite card from the vastly overproduced '89 donruss set.  it features crews pitching in dodger stadium, but the angle is slightly different from most photos of pitchers used on cards.  we still see a bit of the visitor's bullpen behind crews, but we also get a healthy dose of the right field pavilion providing a nice pop of color. this is the card i referred to in a previous post when writing about the 1993 score jim gott card that features a similar angle, but with a lesser result.  i think this is just a fantastic looking card.

cards that didn't make the cut:

among the "almost made its" are 1989 score dave anderson

at number 478, 1998 topps chrome mike piazza (with ken griffey jr) at number 479, 2002 topps shawn green at number 480, 1988 topps mariano duncan at number 481, 1992 upper deck john candelaria at number 482, 1961 topps don newcombe (sans ttm autograph)

at number 483, 1977 topps burt hooton at number 484, 2004 fleer tradition dodgers trio prospects (koyie hill, alfredo gonzalez, andrew brown) at number 485, and 2012 topps jerry sands

at number 486.

my favorite card on the page:

the campy is great, and seeing lasorda in upper deck sets was nice, but i actually like the tim crews card best. 1989 donruss - imagine that.

final thoughts:

is there anyone in baseball you would rather sit down and listen to them tell stories than tom lasorda?  i guess i would rather sit down with vin scully now that i think about it, and i am sure every fan of a specific team has someone relative to that team that they would choose, but i bet lasorda would be in many people's top 5 or 10.  he was out in minny a few weeks ago with michael milken (yes, that michael milken) to talk about baseball's support for prostate cancer prevention, and he joined bert blyleven and dick bremer in the twins broadcast booth.  milken did most of the talking, but tommy made a reference to blyleven and managing him on a trip to japan and i was hoping for a good story to follow. no dice as the inning ended and their time was up.  i had asked doug mientkiewicz a few years ago for some tommy stories, and he said that at one point, tommy's antics got the 2000 usa baseball team into a fight at a casino, but there wasn't time for much detail.  i'd like to hear more.

frankendodger sheet 37 (cards 325-333) - now with more unibrow...

here's sheet number 37 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 325-333:

and the back:

these cards are:

325. 1961 topps wally moon
326. 2009 topps manny ramirez
327. 1969 topps willie crawford
328. 1996 upper deck collector's choice raul mondesi
329. 2011 topps update dee gordon
330. 1975 topps mike marshall
331. 2003 fleer tradition kevin brown
332. 2002 upper deck tom goodwin
333. 2003 topps shawn green

the "no brainer" of the day:

even if he is holding on to the ball, the 2011 topps update dee gordon card is fantastic, and it was going to be in this frankenset.

about the cards:

my blogging sense tells me that the wally moon card is the first 1961 topps card to make the frankenset which is surprising.  i had moon at number 5 in the set with his 1960 topps card before ultimately settling on a 1957 topps sal maglie instead.  both cards give us a good look at the trademark wally moon unibrow, but the 1961 card is, in my opinion, better.

the manny ramirez card here is a postseason highlights card that tells the tale of manny's 1.100 slugging percentage and 2 home runs hit against the cubs in the 2008 nlds.  manny also hit 2 home runs and slugged 1.067 against the phillies in the nlcs, but the dodgers came up short in that series.  manny didn't get to play in a world series with the dodgers, but he did appear in four fall classics - two with the indians and two with the red sox - and hit .243 in those series.  willie crawford's 1969 topps card tells us on the back that willie owned a .500 batting average in the world series at the time of the card's release.  of course, willie had appeared in only one world series at that time (1965), and was 1 for 2 in his plate appearances.  crawford did appear in the 1974 world series with the dodgers and hit .333 with a home run to drop his career fall classic average to .375.

like manny ramirez, raul mondesi hails from the domincan republic, although manny went to high school in new york.  mondesi's collector's choice card here mentions another caribbean ballplayer, roberto clemente, and notes that rauuuuuul was the first dodger to go 20/20 (20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the same season) since kirk gibson in 1988.  in 1997, mondesi would become the first dodger to join the 30/30 club.

remember when dee gordon was a shortstop? he came up to the dodgers in 2011 and hit .304 and stole 24 bases in 56 games and we got this great card from topps as part of their update set. it's a nice example of the shortstop avoiding a slide as part of a potential double play turn, even though gordon didn't throw the ball to first.  i still include it in my dp collection, and went after the various parallels of this card in earnest.

dr. mike marshall's 1975 topps card was an important one to me as i was completing my dodger team sets in the early 1980's.  it was his first card as a dodger in the sense that he was wearing a dodger uniform (unlike his 1974 topps traded card), and it listed his stats on the back with his all important 106 games pitched in 1974. marshall was featured on two other cards in the 1975 topps set - a record breaker and a league leader - but this card was the one i was most intent on acquiring as soon as i learned that a dodger held the record for most games pitched by a reliever in a single season.

vintage card designs were abundant in 2003 with topps heritage, upper deck vintage, and fleer tradition.  at least fleer used one of their designs (1963 fleer) instead of pulling an upper deck and ripping off the 1965 topps design.  anyway, this particular kevin brown card features a peek at the dodger stadium outfield wall with the 40th anniversary of dodger stadium murals.  i loved the murals.

tom goodwin's 2002 upper deck card may be the least interesting card on the page, but at least that is tom goodwin on the card and not adrian beltre.  shawn green's 2003 topps card here is a season highlights card that addresses his week in may of 2002 when he hit 9 home runs over 7 games.  in the midst of that run was a four-homer game in which he had 2 other hits (a single and a double) for 19 total bases - a major league record.  i've written a few times about the fact that i was there for green's four-homer game, so topps should know that it wasn't just brewer fans that were giving green a standing o after he hit his fourth home run.

cards that didn't make the cut:

there were still many options for these spots in the frankenset, and some of the runners-up include 1993 score select pedro astacio at number 325, 1993 donruss pedro martinez at number 326, 1982 donruss davey lopes

at number 327, 1998 pacific crown collection greg gagne at number 328, 1976 topps joe ferguson at number 329, 2013 topps update yasiel puig

at number 330, 2014 topps yasiel puig

at number 331, 1989 score mickey hatcher at number 332, and 1998 topps raul mondesi at number 333.

my favorite card on the page:

i would like the shawn green card more if it were specifically about the 4-home run game, so i'll stick with dee gordon as my favorite card on the page.

final thoughts:

i was also at the dodger/brewer game the night before green's four-homer game.  it was green's rbi triple in the third inning that produced that game's only run.  hideo nomo pitched well, and eric gagne closed things out on a throwback uniform night in which the brewers wore them but the dodgers did not.  i'm guessing that's because their road unis in 2002 were pretty close to what they wore in the early 1960's design wise, as you can tell by comparing the goodwin and moon cards above.