frankendodger sheet 79 (cards 703-711) - an award winning sheet...

here's sheet number 79 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 703-711:

and the back:

these cards are:

703. 1991 score fernando valenzuela
704. 2002 upper deck 40 man jeff reboulet
705. 1996 upper deck collector's choice hideo nomo
706. 1986 topps pedro guerrero
707. 2009 upper deck eric stults
708. 2009 upper deck jason schmidt
709. 2005 topps cesar izturis
710. 1982 topps jerry reuss
711. 1991 donruss carlos hernandez

the "no brainer" of the day:

not a one of these qualify for no brainer status.

about the cards:

fernando valenzuela in 1990 was not the fernando of 1981, to be sure, but he threw a no-hitter against the cardinals in late june to earn this 1991 score card commemorating the feat.  johnny vandermeer was safe, however, as fernando allowed 10 hits in both his start before and after the no-no.

jeff reboulet looks serious about his mustache and baseball on his 2002 upper deck 40 man card. reboulet played for the dodgers in 2001 and 2002, and appeared in over half of the team's games in 2001, but aside from 40 man and topps total, he was ignored by the card companies during his dodger tenure.  even with that mustache.

upper deck let us know that hideo nomo was named the national league's rookie of the year in 1995 with this card from their 1996 set.  i've always wondered whether nomo himself considered it to be appropriate that he was eligible for the award. i had (and have) no problem with major league players coming from other countries and winning the roy as they are eligible per the definition of a major league rookie, but the braves fans in '95 were not to keen about the award going to someone who had been playing in a different country's major leagues prior to coming to america.

pedro guerrero was representing the dodgers in the 1986 topps all-star subset.  the back of the card lets us know that he led the league in on-base percentage (he also led in slugging percentage) as part of his fantastic 1985 season.  my only gripe about this card is that it doesn't match the 1986 topps design as closely as the all-star cards from 1985 matched that year's design.

i was looking for the all-star designation to replace the team name up top, with the rest of the card remaining the same. and, without the topps logo on the front, it looks like a pretty generic, broder-esque card.

now comes the time when i give thanks to 2009 upper deck. back-to-back with eric stults and jason schmidt means one or two less 1990 target cards in the set.  this is another spot where i am hoping that this year's heritage high numbers can make a difference.

cesar izturis won a gold glove in 2004, just as topps was making cards to honor the winners of that award.  we've not had cards for silver sluggers before (although the bats have shown up on a card or two), but there were a few years there in the 2000's that we got gold glover cards.  i'm not complaining - in fact, i would have liked this in the mid-1970's when steve garvey won four in a row.

it seems like we've been seeing a lot of jerry reuss lately, and here he is again with his 1982 topps card.  this card's photo is all about spring training with the grassy knoll in the background.

last card on the sheet is carlos hernandez's 1991 donruss card.  it's from the green border part of the set, which looks worse than the blue border part of the set.  i would like to have seen the designs that donruss passed on when they chose their 1991 design.

cards that didn't make the cut:

2002 upper deck 40 man darren dreifort at number 703, 2009 upper deck mark loretta at number 704, 2009 upper deck cory wade at number 705, 2009 upper deck casey blake at number 706, 1989 upper deck mickey hatcher

at number 709, 1992 donruss steve wilson at number 710, and 1981 topps joe ferguson

at number 711.

my favorite card on the page:

the jeff reboulet stare/mustache combo is tough to beat, but i like the pedro guerrero card the most even though it is really generic and not tied too closely to the 1986 topps set design.

final thoughts:

we are very near the end of these posts, and i haven't really acknowledged the fact that i am standing on the shoulders of other bloggers who popularized the frankenset concept long before i started the frankendodger project. the first frankenset i knew of was ben henry's topps flagship frankenset. dayf had both a allen & ginter and a topps heritage frankenset, and night owl has a night card and, i believe, an a&g mini frankenset as well.  $30 a week habit has the serial number insanity set, and nick at dimeboxes has his dimebox frankenset.  jeff at 2x3 heroes and jon at penny sleeve for your thoughts are both going for topps buyback frankensets, which is great. brian at hsca also has a team-centered frankenset (go twinkies), and i am sure there are others.  thanks to all for the inspiration.

frankendodger sheet 78 (cards 694-702) - manny being a hero...

here's sheet number 78 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 694-702:

and the back:

these cards are:

694. 1978 topps elias sosa
695. 1980 topps reggie smith
696. 1986 topps bill russell
697. 1990 topps mike davis
698. 1988 topps brad havens
699. 2001 topps chad kreuter
700. 2009 upper deck manny ramirez
701. 1990 upper deck jim gott
702. 1992 fleer brett butler

the "no brainer" of the day:

reggie smith's 1980 topps card is one of the first cards i think of when i think of cards from that set.  i first saw this card when i pulled it from a pack in downtown los angeles after a trip to a convenience store following a day of accompanying my dad to some work related meetings.

about the cards:

elias sosa brings us the last card from the 1978 topps set to make the frankenset.  sosa was no longer a dodger in 1978, but his card from that year is a good one.

one more note about the 1980 topps reggie smith card - the facsimile autograph is pretty high up on the image, thanks to the dark background of the dugout behind him. this is another reason that i am not a fan of the autos on base cards.

i thought that topps' decision in 1986 to put the "dean" of the team on the front of the team leader cards was a good one.  of course, i was a dodger fan, and that meant that bill russell was on the front instead of pedro guerrero and orel hershiser, who would have been there had topps followed the model of their 1982, 1983, and 1984 sets.  seeing petey and orel would have been ok, too, don't get me wrong, but bill russell had never had a second card in a set before.  i would like to note that two other members of the team of my youth were featured on these cards - charlie hough

and rick rhoden

which is kind of crazy if you think about what kind of turnover there had to have been in texas and pittsburgh for these two guys to be considered the longest tenured players on the team.

i had mentioned in a post a few years ago that i had a number of duplicates of mike davis' 1990 topps card, so one of them made the frankenset.  i still don't care too much for 1990 topps, although i don't think it is my least favorite topps set ever as i had mentioned in that post, and the davis card with the blue border actually looks pretty good.  if only all the dodger cards had that border...

...dodgers shouldn't have orange borders.

brad havens and his 1988 topps card mark the first appearance in the set for the dodger reliever who had the misfortune of being released by the team during the 1988 season.  there's not a lot to say about his dodger tenure, so i will use havens' last name to ask if anyone else is sick of all of the pun related headlines at mlb.com.  it is ridiculous.  look at this recent one.

babe truth.  like i said, ridiculous. were havens pitching today (and doing something headline worthy) we would be bombarded with things like "havens a blast - dodger pitcher closese the door against the braves" or "safe havens - dodger pitcher beats out bunt attempt to prolong inning".  puns should be left for blog post titles.

next up is chad kreuter's 2001 topps card which features a photo of him on the back without a hat which makes sense after what happened that day in wrigley.

now we come to the final 'hero number' in the frankenset, 700, and manny ramirez with his 2009 upper deck card gets the call.  manny's numbers for the dodgers in 2008 certainly qualify for the hero treatment: .396/.489/.743 with 17 homers and 53 rbi in 53 games for the blue after the trade with the red sox (and pirates). he was even better in the postseason, going .500/.643/1.100 with 2 homers in the nlds against the cubs and .533/.682/1.067 with 2 more homers against the phillies in the nlcs.  i really thought after loney's grand slam in the nlds that the dodgers were going to win it all in 2008.  in fact, it was the excitement following the arrival of manny ramirez that made me want to start a blog, and the explosion of the card-centric blogs at the time sealed the deal for me.  so, blame manny for all of this if you so desire.

jim gott is back with his 1991 upper deck card this time.  gott seemed like a good guy from the photos used on his cards.  he was either pitching or smiling.

for the most part, anyway.

or doing hapkido.  so, just sometimes smiling. still seemed like a good dude.

the last card on the sheet is one of those fleer superstar special subset cards from the back end of their sets. this one is from 1992 and features the dodgers' brett butler and paul molitor of the brewers - aka 'the ignitors'.  molly was once my favorite non-dodger and i am ok with him being an honorary member of the frankenset.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1979 topps burt hooton

at number 694, 2015 topps heritage (high number) alex guerrero at number 695, 1991 donruss darryl strawberry at number 696, 1994 topps dave hansen

at number 697, 2002 upper deck 40 man terry mulholland at number 698, 1987 topps ken landreaux at number 699, 2002 upper deck 40 man steve colyer at number 700, 2009 upper deck danny ardoin

at number 701, and 2009 upper deck orlando hudson at number 702.

my favorite card on the page:

it's tough to choose between a 1978 topps dodger card, a reggie smith dodger card, and a bill russell card, but i'm a fan of the infield at heart, and a card recognizing russell for being a dodger for a long time wins out over the others.

final thoughts:

this set is into the home stretch now that we've hit the 700s.  only three more sheets to go until the end, and there are fewer and fewer sets to choose cards from.  we'll be seeing 2009 upper deck and the 1990 target set again, for sure.

frankendodger sheet 61 (cards 541-549) - do you know the way to tatooine?...

here's sheet number 61 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 541-549:

and the back:

these cards are:

541. 2008 upper deck jason schmidt
542. 2005 topps milton bradley
543. 1996 donruss roberto kelly
544. 1980 topps rick sutcliffe
545. 2015 topps clayton kershaw
546. 1978 topps ted martinez
547. 1975 topps von joshua
548. 1981 topps dave goltz
549. 1986 topps bob welch

the "no brainer" of the day:

rick sutcliffe's rookie card was not to be denied entry into this set.

about the cards:

it seems like there have been a few jason schmidt cards pop up in the set lately.  this one is from 2008 upper deck, which is the year that schmidt missed entirely due to injury.

the next two cards - a 2005 topps milton bradley and a 1996 donruss roberto kelly - fall into my 'tatooine' minicollection as well as this frankenset.  as you probably know, i collect cards that feature photos with nothing but dirt in the background. this goes back to sometime in the late 1970's when my brother and i were in our local card and comic shop. there was a 1971 topps world series highlight card in the display case featuring brooks robinson and the infield dirt. being fans of star wars, we claimed that brooks was looking for droids on tatooine.  and now you know the rest of the story.

i was surprised when i (happily) pulled a rick sutcliffe card out of a pack of 1980 topps and saw that he had pitched in 1976.  i was aware of him being with the dodgers for a bit in 1978 and was well versed in his 1979 season in which he won the rookie of the year award, but i did not know he had made his debut way back in '76 even though i pored over those baseball handbooks endlessly in the late 1970's and early 1980's.  one highlight i recall from sutcliffe's '79 season was his first big league home run - it came in a game against the reds in which the dodgers hit seven home runs, all by different players.  sutcliffe went on to win the national league cy young award in 1984 (and finished 2nd in 1987). he was 4th in the mvp voting in 1984.

clayton kershaw, on the other hand, did not win the rookie of the year award, but did win the mvp in 2014 to go along with his three cy young awards. this 2015 topps card recognizes kershaw for being the league's mvp which is rare for a pitcher but sometimes cannot be denied.

ted martinez joined the dodgers for the 1977 season (and played enough to earn a card in the 1978 topps set) after spending 1976 in the reds' minor league system.  that means that he missed the reds' world series run that year, and even though he was with the dodgers in both '77 and '78, he appeared in neither postseason.  martinez debuted for the mets in 1970, the year following their first world series title, but did appear in the 1973 world series with the mets, and the 1975 alcs with the a's.  that means that during the decade of the 1970's, martinez's teams made the postseason 5 times. he was almost don baylor before don baylor.

i believe that this 1975 topps von joshua card is the only dodger card in the set to feature this color combination.  otherwise, it is similar to many dodger cards that feature spring training photos, and is especially similar to the preceding ted martinez card.  are those the same trees in the background?

looking ahead to the 1981 topps dave goltz card next to it, we see more spring training trees, but these are clearly not the same. these trees to goltz's right look to be coniferous, plus there is a parking lot in front of them (who's driving the yellow bug?).

last card of the page is bob welch's 1986 topps card.  1986 was a lost year for the dodgers, who finished 73-89 and in fifth place (and just 0.5 games ahead of the last place braves) in the nl west.  welch did his part with an era of 3.28 over 33 starts. he had 7 complete games and 3 shutouts, but his record was a dodger career worst (winning percentage wise) 7-13.  the following year (welch's last with the dodgers), he had a similar era (3.22) but was 15-9.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1981 donruss burt hooton at number 541, 2006 topps turkey red mark hendrickson

at number 542, 1994 donruss brett butler at number 543, 2003 topps dave roberts at number 544, 1982 topps reggie smith at number 545, this fantastically odd 1995 upper deck collector's choice roberto kelly card

at number 546, 1959 topps jim baxes

at number 547, 1976 topps manny mota at number 548, and 1971 topps jim brewer at number 549.

my favorite card on the page:

as is often the case, the no brainer is also my favorite card of the page.  rick sutcliffe's 1980 topps card was a key card in my collection that year because he had won the rookie of the year the previous season, and this was his first card. thirty-six years later, it's still a favorite.  although i still can't tell whether that is terry forster or someone else in the background.

final thoughts:

roberto kelly made the page, but with his 1996 donruss card rather than that '95 collector's choice card.  that's only because the udcc card is one of those redemption set cards and i don't have a dupe.  yes, 1978 topps and ted martinez would be kicked out of the set if i had another one of those kelly cards.  i don't understand it - upper deck had an image of kelly in dodger gear (real or photoshopped), used it, but still went with an expos photo, too. it is very weird and i like it.

frankendodger sheet 57 (cards 505-513) - dodger stadium makes the checklist...

here's sheet number 57 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 505-513:

and the back:

these cards are:

505. 1974 topps bill buckner
506. 1986 topps bill russell
507. 1989 score brian holton
508. 1978 topps johnny oates
509. 1987 topps enos cabell
510. 1980 topps ron cey
511. 1981 donruss steve howe
512. 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee dodger stadium/dodgers checklist
513. 1992 upper deck mike morgan

the "no brainer" of the day:

there are only a few cards of dodger stadium in mainstream sets, and i knew i wanted this so-called o-pee-chee card of it in the set.

about the cards:

billy buck leads things off with his 1974 topps card. note that he is listed as a first baseman on the card.  that didn't last long, as steve garvey established himself as the team's first baseman, with buckner moving out to left field.

another bill - this time russell - fills the next spot in the set.  russell is relaxing in the dugout on his 1986 topps card, which makes sense as the dean of the dodgers started only 43 games in what would be his final season.  that total did include, however, his first (and only) career start at third base.

i like brian holton's 1989 score card because it features a glimpse of the old field level scoreboard in dodger stadium in the background. i am thankful that score's production schedule didn't afford them time to pull or modify holton's card following the december 1988 trade that sent him to the orioles.

johnny oates makes his debut in the set, which is understandable since he has only a few (three, i think) dodger cards to his name.  because he has this 1978 topps card showing him as a dodger, however, he may as well have been a dodger for life as far as i am concerned because i think of him as a dodger first.  in fact, oates joined tommy john as being members of the 1977 and 1978 dodgers who lost to the yankees in the world series only to join the yankees and lose to the dodgers in 1981.

are you aware the the enos cabell card here is only the second 1987 topps card in the frankenset so far? here we are in the 500's, and there has only been one other - tom lasorda's card at number 493 - and i am considering switching that card out with a 1985 topps orel hershiser rookie.  that doesn't have anything to do with enos, who was one of the long number of third basemen that al campanis and fred claire and dan evans brought into town between ron cey and adrian beltre.

speaking of cey, here he is on his 1980 topps card.  cey, like von joshua, dusty baker, and steve garvey, was featured in the batting cage on his card from topps in this set. that kind of repetition makes for somewhat boring pages in my topps dodger team set binder.  still, having this card on the same sheet as buckner's 1974 topps card shows how similar the designs are to one another.

and, speaking of similar designs, here is a 1981 donruss card positioned just below a 1978 topps card.  steve howe got cards from all three companies in 1981 after being left off of the dodger future stars card by topps in 1980 which was a great disappointment to many young fans in southern california.  later, it was howe himself who became a great disappointment to many young fans in southern california.

dodger stadium is on display on this 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee card, and it's a beautiful thing.  the stadium got a new address this year, when elysian park avenue was renamed vin scully avenue. it is the third oldest major league baseball stadium, and i hope it stays that way for a long time to come.

last card on the page is mike morgan's 1992 upper deck card with the increasingly rare (and soon to be extinct?) pitcher on the basepaths photo. i have resigned myself to the fact that the dh is coming to the national league sooner rather than later.

cards that didn't make the cut:

various levels of consideration were given to 1994 fleer pedro astacio at number 505, 1961 topps willie davis at number 506, 1993 topps tom lasorda (with hal mcrae) at number 507, 1959 topps art fowler

 at number 508, 1988 fleer tim belcher

at number 509, 1982 topps fernando valenzuela

at number 510, 1995 score tom candiotti at number 511, 1981 topps gary thomasson at number 512, and 1989 topps jesse orosco at number 513.

my favorite card on the page:

we have two members of the infield on this page, along with a 1978 topps dodger and a card of dodger stadium, but i think my favorite card here is the 1981 donruss steve howe.  1981 was the first time i saw a steve howe card (and his donruss card was the first one that i pulled from a pack), and adding the 1980 nl rookie of the year to my collection was a big deal.  so, this card wins on sentimental value.

final thoughts:

why hasn't topps ever put stadium cards in the flagship set? it's not a subset that would work every year, but not even once?  i suppose it has to do with giving up 30 spots on the checklist, but there could have been one year back in the day where we were given a stadium photo rather than a team photo on the team checklist.  still, i do have a few dodger stadium cards, including ones from the topps dodger factory team sets a few years ago.

frankendodger sheet 56 (cards 496-504) - brad penny, medium?...

here's sheet number 56 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 496-504:

and the back:

these cards are:

496. 1986 topps jay johnstone
497. 2008 topps heritage brad penny
498. 1975 topps al downing
499. 1988 donruss tracy woodson
500. 1994 upper deck mike piazza
501. 1992 fleer ultra tom candiotti
502. 1991 donruss eddie murray
503. 1993 pacific jody reed
504. 1977 topps dodgers team/tom lasorda

the "no brainer" of the day:

when looking at options for the hero number of 500, the 1994 upper deck piazza card stood out as the best (most reasonable) option - balancing duplicate availability with someone worthy of the number. that's as close to a no brainer as any of these cards are going to get.

about the cards:

jay johnstone was done as a big league ballplayer when his 1986 topps card was released. the previous season, johnstone had hit just .133 is 17 games in his second tenure with the dodgers, although he did make the postseason roster and had his final big league at bat in the nlcs against the cardinals.

brad penny earned an all-star card in 2008 topps heritage even though he wasn't the national league's starting pitcher in the 2007 all-star game.  that would have been jake peavy, who also won the 2007 nl cy young award (penny finished 3rd behind peavy and brandon webb).  penny had started the 2006 all-star game for the national league, becoming the first dodger pitcher to do so since hideo nomo in 1995.

it wasn't often that we got a posed photo inside dodger stadium back in the '70s or '80s, so i really like cards like this 1975 topps al downing.  it's also the reason i really like several dodger cards in the 1989 topps set.  downing's head is blocking our view of the three sisters palm trees, however.

tracy woodson and 1988 donruss make their first (only?) appearance in the frankenset.  both are pretty forgettable, although woodson has a world series championship ring and i do not.  in fact, his rbi groundout in the 7th inning of game 4 of the 1988 world series proved to be the game-winner, as the dodgers won that swing game 4-3.

mike piazza is preparing for a play at the plate on his 1994 upper deck card, which fills our fifth big hero number of the set.  piazza will be inducted into the hall of fame this coming weekend.  as night owl mentioned, it would have been nice for piazza to go into the hall with a team neutral cap, although i would prefer a backwards facing helmet!

there's not much to talk about regarding tom candiotti's 1992 fleer ultra card that hasn't already been said about other cards with similar images - dodger stadium, etc.  however, i will thank fleer for using a photo of tom with a knuckleball grip.  on second thought, perhaps it would be more interesting to see him with a different grip.

have you ever considered how much 1991 donruss resembles 1986 donruss? i hadn't until now, as i have not given much thought to 1991 donruss ever.  still, eddie murray's card here with the border design and the slanted bottom edge of the photo made me think of the max headroom set.

what do you think?

i took three years of spanish in high school, but i don't pretend to be able to understand the language. i used to find it curious that pacific, on jody reed's 1993 card and others, translated 'second' to 'segunda', but not 'base' to 'beis'.  after all, 'baseball' is 'beisbol' in spanish.  apparently that is all i know, because 'base' is 'base' in spanish.  apologies, pacific, for questioning your translation consistencies.

last card of the page is the 1977 topps dodgers team card that also features tom lasorda for the first time as their manager. it serves as the team checklist, too.  i am fairly wishy-washy about how i refer to this card. sometimes it's the team card, sometimes it's lasorda's card.  i would probably defer to it as the team card if i had to make a choice. for the purposes of this set, however, i am going to label it as a team card and a lasorda card.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1996 fleer ultra greg gagne at number 496, 1997 fleer mike piazza at number 497, 2005 topps jd drew

at number 498, 1987 donruss dennis powell at number 499, 1962 topps duke snider

at number 500, 1997 score mike piazza at number 501, 1963 topps daryl spencer at number 502, 1967 topps dodgers team at number 503, and 2001 topps bruce aven at number 504.

my favorite card on the page:

this is kind of a rough page, but i'll go with al downing's 1975 topps card as my favorite.  once again, it's tough to beat daytime at dodger stadium.

final thoughts:

brad penny had a couple of pretty good season for the dodgers after coming over from the marlins in the paul loduca trade.  he was an all-star two seasons in a row, and his 16 wins were enough to lead the league in 2006.  i wonder, however, did he have another talent outside of baseball?  i wonder this because of what is written on the back of his card above: "brad has gotten many pitching tips from the late hall of famer warren spahn".  knowing that both penny and spahn were from oklahoma, it is easy to understand how the two would have had conversations prior to spahn's passing in 2003, but had i not known of their oklahoma roots, i may have thought penny was channeling spahn's spirit for some pointers based on the text.

frankendodger sheet 52 (cards 460-468) - coaches man, coaches...

here's sheet number 52 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 460-468:

and the back:

these cards are:

460. 1972 topps al downing
461. 1995 upper deck roberto kelly
462. 1983 donruss dusty baker
463. 1960 topps dodger coaches (bobby bragan, pete reiser, joe becker, greg mulleavy)
464. 1978 topps jerry grote
465. 1979 topps reggie smith
466. 1994 pinnacle cory snyder
467. 1991 topps dennis cook
468. 1986 topps mike scioscia

the "no brainer" of the day:

the coaches. no doubt about that one.

about the cards:

the 1972 topps al downing card is his first dodger card - at least, the first to show him in a dodger uniform. he also shows up on a league leader card in the 1972 set.  i was thankful to see this card and recognize it as a legitimate dodger uni, not an airbrush or hatless job. maybe being a 20-game winner gets you some respect from the card makers.

i believe the 1995 upper deck roberto kelly card that comes next in the frankenset is a 'trade' redemption card.  i don't quite recall how it worked - whether there was one redemption for all 45 cards, or several redemption cards for a few apiece, but i do recall getting at least some of the cards that way, including roberto.  speaking of trades, kelly was looking to be the next big thing in center field for the yankees until he was unseated by bernie williams.  so, the yanks sent him to the reds in exchange for paul o'neill.  other trades followed - kelly was dealt to the braves for deion sanders and then to the expos for marquis grissom. the dodgers picked him up from montreal in the henry rodriguez deal.

next up is dusty baker's 1983 donruss card.  following the bat and ball design of 1982, donruss came up with a similar bat and glove design in '83. i figured that 1984 would bring a bat and hat design, but donruss went rogue and gave us the postmark design - still my favorite donruss design of them all.  i guess they knew when to cut bait with a design theme.  i wonder if upper deck intended their trip around the bases to take four years, from 1989 through 1992, but went from second to home in 1991 so they could move on to a completely different design in '92.

and now we have the star of the page. thank you topps for making coaches cards in 1960.  it took them 13 years to do it again (and they did it in back-to-back years in 1973 and 1974), and we haven't seen them since in the flagship set.  these fine gentlemen are bobby bragan (third base coach), pete reiser (batting coach), joe becker (pitching coach), and greg mulleavy (first base coach). bragan and reiser were teammates on the dodgers in the 1940's (bragan famously wanted out of brooklyn in 1947 when jackie robinson made the team, but had his mind changed after watching robinson play and interacting with him as the season progressed).  becker was one of those catchers turned pitching coaches, and mulleavy was a near-career minor leaguer who served as a coach, scout, and minor league manager for the dodgers.

after missing out on a card in the 1977 set due to his intent to retire, jerry grote was back in 1978 - complete with an airbrushed dodger hat. he had joined the dodgers during the 1977 season after deciding to keep playing and returning to the mets to start the year. i remember grote best for being on deck in game 4 of the 1978 nlcs when bill russell won the pennant with an rbi single driving in ron cey. grote was there to greet the penguin, and i used a photo from that moment to create a card

that should have been a part of the 1979 topps set.

one card that was in the 1979 topps set was this one of reggie smith. i was pleased to see it back then as it was one of the first dodger cards i saw that year that featured an in-game photo.  it lost its appeal quickly, however, as topps used pretty much the same photo for smith in 1980

and on his 'in action' card

in 1982.  all three images may even be from the same at bat - i am pretty sure that's the case for the 1980 and 1982 cards, anyway.

cory snyder is wearing the oakley-type shades on his 1994 pinnacle card that got phil nevin into trouble with some of his teammates. i guess some astro veterans took offense to the number one pick in the draft wearing those sunglasses as a rookie, even though he had worn them in college.  nevin had been drafted by the dodgers in the 1989 draft, but did not sign.  if he had, maybe he and cory snyder would have bonded over their choice in sunglasses.

dennis cook arrives on his 1991 topps card, which is not as interesting as his 1991 upper deck card.

cook gave up just one earned run in 17.2 innings pitched in '91, and that earned him a trade to the indians.  it just so happens that it was gary carter, and not mike scioscia, who was behind the plate the day cook allowed his only run of the season (actually mike hartley allowed terry pendleton, whom cook had walked, to score).  scioscia's 1986 topps card wraps up this page in the frankenset.  that particular card marked the fifth year in a row in which scioscia was depicted on his topps flagship card in the tools of ignorance. topps would give him a break in 1987 and 1988 with photos of him at the plate, before returning to the catcher gear photo in 1989.

cards that didn't make the cut:

the list of also-rans for this page include 2014 topps matt kemp at number 460, 1967 topps bob miller at number 461, 1975 topps world series game 2 (joe ferguson)

at number 462, 2004 topps guillermo mota at number 463, 1997 fleer ultra darren dreifort at number 464, 1981 topps bill russell

at number 465, 1994 upper deck collector's choice tim wallach at number 466, 1995 topps stadium club delino deshields at number 467, and 1959 topps duke snider baseball thrills

at number 468.

my favorite card on the page:

when the coaches are present on cardboard, nothing else comes close.  should topps ever make this a more regular thing, the novelty will wear off and cards like this will become less special.  however, even if that time comes, the 1960 topps coaches card will still be my favorite on the page.

final thoughts:

hopefully this post shows up with the cards centered. i noticed yesterday that for some reason, all of my posts on this blog had all of the images aligned to the left even though they were all originally posted with them centered. i didn't change anything in the way i post or upload card images, and i don't speak html, so i have no idea what happened.  if it's not showing up the way i hoped, i could use some help in figuring things out.