frankendodger sheet 74 (cards 658-666) - let's find out which upper deck number of the beast makes the set...

here's sheet number 74 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 658-666:

and the back:

[update! - i replaced card number 663 as the 1990 target dodgers were meant to be place holders. so, here's sheet number 74; front and back]

these cards are:

658. 1994 upper deck collector's choice todd hollandsworth
659. 1990 target jerry reuss
660. 1976 topps dave lopes
661. 2013 topps hyun-jin ryu
662. 1998 donruss collections preferred wilton guerrero
663. 1990 target paul richards2020 topps heritage high numbers alex wood
664. 1987 topps mike marshall
665. 1990 topps sandy koufax
666. 1989 upper deck kirk gibson

the "no brainer" of the day:

i knew that number 666 was going to be an upper deck card, and of the seven i had to choose from, the gibby was a no brainer.

about the cards:

upper deck was already over raul mondesi when they launched their collector's choice brand in 1994. while mondesi would go on to win the rookie of the year award that season, he had just a regular card in the set, and todd hollandsworth got this rookie class subset card instead.  holly would win the rookie of the year award two years later, but by then upper deck was all about karim garcia and wilton guerrero as far as dodger rookies were concerned.

it's time for another card from the 1990 target set to fill a hole. this time, it's friend of the blogging community jerry reuss.  i remember reading about reuss playing in a men's amateur baseball league following his retirement, but he was not allowed to pitch.  i played in a men's league for a few years and faced a few former minor league pitchers, and i can definitely understand amateurs not wanting to face a former big leaguer - the minor leaguers were tough enough.  i should point out that there was a card that i could have put here, but it is not the best (it's a plain fleer checklist), and knowing that reuss's target card was number 659, i chose reuss even though it puts two cards from target on this sheet.

this next card is, i believe, the final card of one of the infielders in this set. it's davey lopes's 1976 topps card.  there are no italics on the back of the card, but if there were, the stolen base totals for 1975 and 1976 would be italicized to denote the fact that lopes led the league in both of those seasons.  he finished third a couple of times later on, but never regained the top spot.  for his career, lopes ranks 26th all-time in steals and it looks to be a while before anyone bumps him to 27th.

hyun-jin ryu brings one of his multitude of 2013 topps cards to the set at number 661. this is the base version - i think there are three or four different photos for this card. it's nonsense, but i believe i have them all. i didn't pay much, but they should be even cheaper now with ryu having been injured for so long. i no longer actively chase photo variations, but may wind up getting a couple of the '42' variations in 2016 topps series 2.

1998 donruss collections returns with a preferred wilton guerrero card.  once again, these are just retooled cards from regular donruss issues, with all releases put into one set.  you have to look closely for the actual card number - it's not the number in the top corner, it's down below.

where i had an option at 659, there was no other alternative at 663 than a target card.  this one doesn't even feature a guy in a dodger uniform, as paul richards is shown in what i believe to be a white sox uniform (richards was their manager in the early 1950's and then again in 1976).  in fact, richards appeared in only three games for the 1932 brooklyn dodgers going 0 for 8 at the plate. he played for three other teams in the majors, with the last being the tigers in 1946. happy to have alex wood show up at 663 so that i could remove paul richards and his non-dodger uniform from the set. i was also happy to see wood return to the dodgers and help them win the 2020 fall classic. wood's photo here shows a bit of the 2020 all-star game patch that the dodgers wore during spring training prior to the pandemic.

mike marshall's 1987 topps card reminds me that his offensive production took a big step backwards in 1986.  he had hit 28 homers, driven in 95 runs, and posted a .293 average in 1985 - not on par with his minor league numbers, but still headed in the right direction.  in 1986, however, his average dropped by 60 points, and he played in 30 fewer games.  he rebounded a bit in 1987, getting his average back up to .294, but he never did get his slugging percentage back up to where it had been in 1985.  he had a reputation for not playing hurt, but for me, all that was forgotten with the 1988 world series and marshall's 3-run homer in game 2 to turn a 2-0 lead into 5-0 in the third inning.

it was a nice thing when topps started using old cards for the turn back the clock subsets in the late 1980's, and in 1990 we were treated to sandy koufax's 1965 card. at the time, i figured it was probably the only way that i would have that card in my collection, but i am happy to say that i was wrong.

still need one for the '65 set, though.

last card on the sheet is one of kirk gibson's 1989 upper deck cards. this one features him on his way to first base after hitting his walk-off home run in game 1 of the 1988 world series.  young gcrl is out there in the right field pavilion losing his mind and trying to take some pictures.  astute upper deck collectors noticed over the next few years that it was always a dodger at number 666 in the upper deck sets, and it was no coincidence as revealed in the 'card sharks' book. the guy who set the checklist for upper deck was a giants fan.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1974 topps lee lacy at number 658, 1988 fleer checklist at number 659, 1992 topps stadium club eric davis at number 660, 1983 topps bill russell

at number 661, 1989 upper deck kirk gibson at number 662, 1990 donruss alejandro pena at number 664, 1986 topps alejandro pena at number 665, and several upper deck flagship cards from 1990 through 1993,

and then again in 2002 and 2006

at number 666.

my favorite card on the page:

it's either the lopes or the gibson, and i have to go with world series heroics over the second baseman of the team of my youth.

final thoughts:

two of these cards are the last cards in their respective set - the 1976 topps lopes and the 2013 topps hyun-jin ryu - which drives home the point that there are not very many sets left to choose cards from. i didn't realize in 1978 that it was the first year for the 726 card set size. had i really started collecting in 1977 (i was given my first pack of cards that year), this frankenset would have ended with davey lopes up there.  as it is, we get a few more pages.

frankendodger sheet 71 (cards 631-639) - i guess it's personal...

here's sheet number 71 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 631-639:

and the back:

these cards are:

631. 1975 topps lee lacy
632. 2001 topps devon white
633. 1983 topps vicente romo
634. 1991 upper deck kirk gibson
635. 1989 score ramon martinez
636. 2001 topps chrome dodgers team
637. 1994 upper deck collector's choice mike piazza
638. 2015 topps jimmy rollins
639. 1973 o-pee-chee willie crawford

the "no brainer" of the day:

i really don't think there is a card on this sheet that i could make a case for being a no brainer.  sorry.

about the cards:

to me, the best thing about about 1975 topps is that there are many dodger cards that feature dodger stadium as a backdrop. the lee lacy card is one of those cards.  as you can see, lacy wore number 34, and his is one of the few numbers with which i do not associate a member of the 1978 topps dodgers. to me, 34 is fernando.  if you care, number 5 is jim lefebvre, not johnny oates, and number 3 is steve sax, not glenn burke.

devon white's 2001 topps card is here because i already had kirk gibson's 1991 upper deck card on the sheet, and the best alternative at 632 was a different '91 upper deck card. i'm trying to avoid the same set on a page as much as possible, but it happens a few times in the last few sheets.

vicente romo's 1983 topps card marked romo's return to baseball card sets after being absent since the 1975 topps set.  romo had been pitching in the mexican league since then - at least until the dodgers brought him back to the big leagues in 1982.  romo had been a dodger earlier in his career, a story i told as part of my 'double dipper' series.  a while back, night owl had a post (can't find it right now) about players whose names we mispronounced as kids. my offering was ben oglivie (i always pronounced it oh-gli-vee instead of oh-gull-vee), but romo would have been another - i was always reading his name as vincente instead of vicente.

kirk gibson's 1991 upper deck card shows off the receding hairline gibson was hiding under his hat and helmet during the latter part of his playing days.  it also features a nice cloud of dust and an umpire ready to make a call.  aside from gibby's home runs (one in particular), i think my favorite play of his as a dodger was the time he scored from second on a wild pitch to win a game. dude hustled.

the next card is one of ramon martinez's less heralded rookie cards - his 1989 score card.  his topps and upper deck cards were a bigger deal, but only the score card has him doing an "i'm a little teapot" routine.

the higher the card numbers get, the more team cards and the like we will see.  this one comes courtesy of 2001 topps chrome, which was a full-sized set 15 years ago.  i bought some chrome at target the other day, and came away with three dodgers. two were of kenta maeda

who is the cover boy for chrome this year, and the other is of persona non-grata yasiel puig.

based on some of the stories that have been alluded to about puig and his teammates, i don't think he'll be back with the big club anytime soon.

next, we get up close and personal with hall of famer mike piazza, thanks to 1994 upper deck collector's choice. there's no real insight here, just some information taken from an issue of "baseball weekly", but at least there's no mention of tommy lasorda. what a tired story that became.

back over at the garveyceyrusselllopes blog, i had a series about out of place players - players that didn't really belong on the dodgers.  think frank robinson, boog powell, and jim thome.  jimmy rollins is one of those guys.  rollins' 2015 topps card is his second card in the frankendodger set, however, which is more than some more 'legit' dodgers.

last card on the sheet is a 1973 o-pee-chee card of willie crawford.  the back of the card has english text saying, in part, that crawford "was murder against lefthanders", hitting for a .377 average against them in 1971.  the french translation is a bit nicer, saying that "il obtint une moyene" - he obtained an average of .377.

the card also translates a second line of english text regarding the pirates, but that english text only appears on the topps card,

and it refers to the pirates as the bucs.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1990 topps john wetteland

at number 631, 1991 upper deck jim neidlinger

at number 632, 1984 fleer steve sax at number 633, 1984 topps mike marshall at number 634, 1982 fleer fernando valenzuela (west meets east) at number 635, 1982 fleer fernando valenzuela at number 636, 1988 score mike devereaux at number 637, 2008 topps juan pierre at number 638, and 1971 topps tom haller

at number 639.

my favorite card on the page:

it's down to the lacy vs. the gibson, and i'll go with lacy in dodger stadium.

final thoughts:

there are only 10 more pages in the frankenset to show, and the card selection is getting thinner.  we've seen the final cards from the 50's and 60's, but the 70's through the 10's are still represented in the final ten sheets.  just know that there's not going to be quite as much set diversity the higher we go.

frankendodger sheet 59 (cards 523-531) - diamondvision!...

here's sheet number 59 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 523-531:

and the back:

these cards are:

523. 1985 topps candy maldonado
524. 1994 upper deck collector's choice delino deshields
525. 1988 donruss jeff hamilton
526. 1993 topps mike sharperson
527. 1991 score pat perry
528. 1993 topps stadium club eric karros
529. 1994 fleer steve wilson
530. 2001 topps carlos perez
531. 2008 topps hiroki kuroda

the "no brainer" of the day:

i don't think i can stretch any of these cards into being any sort of a no brainer. sorry.

about the cards:

candy maldonado was one of the dodger prospects that i was really excited about in the early 1980's, along with mike marshall, greg brock, and even ted power.  unfortunately, maldonado didn't do as well at the big league level as i had hoped, and this 1985 topps card came from his last season as a dodger.  he did carve out a decent career, however, making it to the world series in 1989 with the giants and winning a ring with the 1992 blue jays.

delino deshields joined the dodgers in 1994 after he was traded by the expos for pedro martinez. by all accounts, deshields was shaken by the trade, and i could understand why given the talent on the expos at that time.  his time with the dodgers is often looked at with the benefit of hindsight, but i maintain that i was not upset by the trade. deshields was 25 with four full seasons behind him, including an all-star selection, when the dodgers traded for him. my hope was that he would stem the tide of stop-gap second basemen that the dodgers had employed following the departure of steve sax, and i really thought that deshields was the guy. if not for injuries and the incredible success of pedro (which had to be a burden on him), who knows what might have happened as deshields did have a couple of good seasons after leaving los angeles.

jeff hamilton's 1988 donruss card gives us a peek of the left field pavilion and the diamondvision screen that was installed in dodger stadium in 1980.  it was the first of its kind, and while the video element of the screen debuted at the all-star game, the dodgers tested still images on the screen throughout the first part of the season. i know this because a young gcrl was featured on the screen wearing a dodger helmet and steve garvey jersey during a game.  unfortunately, my dad couldn't get to his camera in time to capture the moment.

they also serve, those who sit and wait.  vin scully is good for that phrase once or twice a season, and it certainly applied to mike sharperson. i think his 1993 topps card is a good representation of the utlity player/pinch-hitter which was sharperson's role for most of his career.  when he did play regularly in 1992, he made the all-star team as the representative of the worst los angeles dodger team in history.

pat perry's 1991 score card features the blue border which works so well for dodger cards, but the cropping of the photo falls just short of the excellence displayed on tim crews' 1989 donruss card. we do get more palm tree trunk, however.

it was a cloudy day in vero beach when the photo for eric karros' 1993 topps stadium club card was taken. sometimes cloudy skies lend themselves to good lighting and dramatic photos. this was not one of those times.

steve wilson is wearing the same sort of pullover on his 1994 fleer card that sharperson has on his '93 topps card. wilson joined the dodgers during the 1991 season and pitched really well in his 11 games that followed - he did not give up a run, nor did he allow any of the 16 runners he inherited to score.  the dodgers kept him around for two more seasons which were his last in the bigs, meaning that this card is a final tribute.

you are probably well aware of how much i liked the murals that the dodgers put on their outfield wall during the late 1990's and early 2000's, and even more so how much i like when those murals show up on baseball cards.  the angels also put murals up in 2000, and this 2001 topps carlos perez card shows a bit of them in the background, along with the disney-fied fake rocks beyond the fence.  i'm not sure what the purpose of the murals were - it's not the team's hall of fame because bob boone is up there - but i think that the players in the background include nolan ryan and boone based on what appears on garret anderson's 2001 topps card.

today's final card is a 2008 topps hiroki kuroda. 2008 topps is not one of my favorite designs, but topps did issue a 55-card set of dodgers that year (a set that included coaches!), so i'll give it a pass.

cards that didn't make the cut:

some cards that came close to making the set include 1975 topps tom paciorek at number 523, 1991 upper deck orel hershiser

at number 524, 1988 fleer mike sharperson at number 525, 1979 topps dodger team/tom lasorda

at number 526, 1980 topps doug rau at number 527, 1993 pinnacle roger mcdowell at number 528, 1988 fleer bob welch at number 529, 1981 topps steve garvey (!)

at number 530, and 1994 upper deck todd hollandsworth at number 531.

my favorite card on the page:

it's not dodger stadium, but i do like the 2001 carlos perez card mostly because of the background.

final thoughts:

i neglected to mention that delino deshields is wearing a mask on his 1994 collector's choice card, following an accident in the batting cage during spring training that left him with a broken cheekbone.  i believe giancarlo stanton is the most recent big leaguer to wear some sort of facial protection, although i am pretty sure that jason heyward wears a helmet extension to cover his jaw, too.  i recall dave parker and ellis valentine wearing football style masks at the plate in the late 1970's, but i don't think any of them wore anything in the field like deshields is doing.

frankendodger sheet 22 (cards 190-198) - again with the garvey...

here's sheet number 22 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 190-198:

and the back:

these cards are:

190. 1978 o-pee-chee steve garvey
191. 1981 topps rick sutcliffe
192. 2015 topps joc pederson
193. 1991 fleer don aase
194. 1992 topps eric karros
195. 1959 topps rip repulski
196. 1994 upper deck collector's choice roger mcdowell
197. 2002 upper deck mvp shawn green
198. 2009 upper deck nomar garciaparra

the "no brainer" of the day:

considering that the 1978 o-pee-chee card is and always has been in the header image over at garveyceyrusselllopes, it's a safe bet that it was the no brainer on this sheet.

about the cards:

i am actually writing this post in the friendly city of toronto.  being here makes me want to seek out some old o-pee-chee cards. i was 7 and on a family vacation to the prairie provinces when i first bought packs of o-pee-chee cards and found that garvey card that leads off the sheet.  good times.

rick sutcliffe brought the rookie of the year award back to los angeles in 1979.  he actually made his big league debut in 1976, but didn't stick with the dodgers until he went 17-10 in '79. of course, he struggled in 1980 and became firmly entrenched in tommy lasorda's doghouse pretty quickly.  he was left off of the 1981 postseason roster, and if i recall correctly, he trashed lasorda's office as a result.  the dodgers traded sutcliffe to the indians prior to the 1982 season, and he promptly led the american league in era.  he wound up with the cubs in 1984, and won the cy young award.

joc pederson was an early favorite to bring the rookie of the year award back to los angeles in 2015, but his second half was terrible.  i was starting to put this set together in august of 2015, and that is why he has two cards in the first 200 spots. had i waited until october, he may only have had one.

don aase is repping the bold 1991 fleer set. aase is, alphabetically the first dodger.  and the first oriole, and the first angel, but not the first met or red sox, as david aardsma also played for those two teams.

eric karros did (!) bring the rookie of the year award back to los angeles after a nine year drought.  his 1992 topps card is the second card in this set from his rookie year (1992 donruss was the other).  it's not my favorite card from the 1992 topps set - we will see that one later.

rip repulski's card is great for a couple of reasons. first, it's blue and not yellow like so many of the dodgers' 1959 topps cards. second, the look on his face makes it seem that he is pretty pleased to see karros' card next to him.  seeing repulski here makes me realize i should have gone for a brady bunch page with all of the cards featuring players looking around at each other.  again, shame on me for not doing so.

the bottom row features roger mcdowell doing what roger mcdowell does on his baseball cards, a typical mvp style card of shawn green (mvp and spx sets in the late 90's/early 00's were pretty much a waste of space in my opinion), and nomar's 2009 upper deck card.  i passed on the first edition version of this card a few sheets back, but his double play turning goodness was not to be denied a second time.

cards that didn't make the cut:

as usual, there were some pretty good cards that didn't make the sheet. they include 1962 topps wally moon (both versions)

and 1979 topps ron cey at number 190, 2003 upper deck, 2003 upper deck first pitch,

and 2004 upper deck kasuhisa ishii

(basically the same card) at number 191, 2002 donruss originals pee wee reese at number 192, 2001 upper deck mark grudzielanek at number 193, 1997 bowman adrian beltre at number 194, 1992 upper deck juan samuel (well lookie there!), at number 195, 1984 o-pee-chee steve howe at number 196, 1986 topps enos cabell at number 197, and 1972 topps charlie hough/bob o'brien/mike strahler

at number 198.

my favorite card on the page:

this is another case where the no brainer is also my favorite card. duh.

final thoughts:

with the end of the restriction on set and player use, i will pretty much always go with a garvey, cey, russell, or lopes card when given the chance.  same goes for 1978 topps/o-pee-chee.  just so you know.