frankendodger sheet 60 (cards 532-540) - in with the new...

here's sheet number 60 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 532-540:

and the back:

these cards are:

532. 1983 topps dave stewart
533. 1984 topps ken landreaux
534. 1993 bowman roger cedeno
535. 1970 topps andy kosco
536. 2016 topps alex wood
537. 1992 topps stadium club bob ojeda
538. 1994 bowman raul mondesi
539. 1978 topps vic davalillo
540. 2009 topps russell martin

the "no brainer" of the day:

the '78 vic davalillo card qualifies, but i added the wood card as soon as i pulled it from a series 2 pack a few weeks ago. it bumped a 1983 donruss tom niedenfuer in case you were wondering.  in with the new, out with the '83 donruss.  i guess it was a card i niedenfuer frankensets.

about the cards:

right off the bat we get to see the topps design progression from 1983 to 1984 thanks to dave stewart and ken landreaux.  the commonality of the smaller picture on the front - from porthole to picture in picture - is obvious, but i would have liked the '84 to play off of the 1964 design just as the '83 cards are somewhat related to the 1963 design.  i bought way more of 1983 topps than 1984 topps which had some to do with the designs, but also had to do with how much i liked 1984 donruss.

1993 bowman put roger cedeno in the bushes. the only fully green background i want to see on a baseball card is either the wrigley field ivy or the green monster in fenway. don't put players in the jungle.

the photo used for andy kosco's 1970 topps card was likely taken around the same time as billy grabarkewitz's and jeff torborg's, but without danny ozark in the background.

alex wood got a nice card in 2016 topps series 2. i am not the biggest fan of the card design, but the dodger bullpen in the background provides a nice contrast to the home whites. it's too bad he hasn't been able to stay healthy - it was just announced that he needs surgery and will be out for a couple of months.

bob ojeda's 1992 topps stadium club card is decent enough, and i like that topps put each player's rookie card on the back. it doesn't mean, as far as my collection goes, that this is a red sox card, however.

1994 bowman - two consecutive years of bowman represented here on the page - is pretty different from the previous year's design. i didn't know much about mondesi going into the 1994 season, but he had a decent consecutive game hitting streak in may of that year that got me interested, and he went on to win the rookie of the year in the strike-shortened season.

i would guess that the photo used for vic davalillo's 1978 topps card came from the same time as the photos for his 1974 topps card,

or maybe spring training of 1974.  the a's released davalillo in may of that year, and he was playing in the mexican league until the dodgers signed him during the 1977 campaign.  his 1979 topps card (and his 1981 fleer card!) shows him clean shaven, which is how i remember him as a dodger.

last card on the page is russell martin's 2009 topps card which shows him taking the brunt of a play at the plate. it's been well documented that martin has some great cards, and this is one of them.  however, it's not his best play at the plate card - that would be the 2008 stadium club card included in the link above.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1992 upper deck jose offerman at number 532, 1968 topps wes parker at number 533, 1991 donruss gary thomasson

at number 534, 1994 donruss cory snyder at number 535, 1983 donruss niedenfuer (the card at least makes this part of the post)

at number 536, 1963 topps ken mcmullen (as if i had a double)

at number 537, 1991 topps stadium club john candelaria

at number 538, 1995 donruss tim wallach at number 539, and 2008 upper deck andruw jones at number 540.

my favorite card on the page:

alex wood's card wins over russell martin's card. perhaps it's because martin has better cards, although that's not entirely fair. well, guess what. life isn't fair.

final thoughts:

i'm still not sure about my ken mcmullen rookie. i have to assume it's a reprint until i have it authenticated, even though it looks great when i compare it to other 1963 topps cards. i tested the guy i bought it from, and i am pretty sure that he believed it to be genuine. if it is, it wouldn't be worth the $130,000 that someone threw down on ebay this week, but it would be worth more than i paid for it.

frankendodger sheet 39 (cards 343-351) - with my favorite card...

here's sheet number 39 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 343-351:

and the back:

these cards are:

343. 1985 topps bill russell
344. 1991 leaf alfredo griffin
345. 2007 upper deck nomar garciaparra
346. 1967 topps jim hickman
347. 1978 topps terry forster
348. 1996 topps stadium club ismael valdes
349. 1986 o-pee-chee ken howell
350. 1978 topps steve garvey
351. 2016 topps chase utley

the "no brainer" of the day:

that would be the 1978 topps steve garvey card. duh.

about the cards:

i am still not a fan of the 1985 topps design, but there is nothing to be done about it.  bill russell gets listed as a shortstop by topps, and that's fair; however, he was playing less and less time there and more in the outfield.  in '85, russell played almost as much outfield as he did short, and somewhat surprisingly, topps listed him as "ss-of" on his 1986 card.  credit where credit is due.

i don't think i bought any packs of 1990 or 1991 or even 1992 leaf in real time. i did buy a lot of '93 leaf, though.  anyway, this alfredo griffin card most likely didn't enter my collection until the mid-2000's or later. griffin is/was one in a long line of shortstops to try to fill russell's cleats.  he was able to join russell as a world champion dodger shortstop, which is a fairly exclusive club.

nomar garciaparra, somewhat surprisingly, did not play shortstop for the dodgers at all until his third and final season with the club.  his 2006 season was better than could have reasonably been expected, which made the next two tougher to take.  i remember watching some of his last at bats with the dodgers during the 2008 playoffs and cringing a bit.  still, i wish there were more nomar as a dodger cards, and i am happy that upper deck made two cards per player in their 2007 set.

jim hickman was only with the dodgers in 1967 as a result of a trade with the mets that occurred on november 22, 1966, so i am thankful that topps had hickman in a later series and was able to show him as a dodger. he had much greater success later in his career with the cubs (his 1970 season was pretty darn good - 32 homers, 115 rbi, .305 average), but perhaps the highlight of his career occurred while wearing dodger blue.  hickman, an outfielder by trade, played a bit in the infield as well, but was called upon to pitch the last 2 innings of a game against the giants in june of 1967.  he faced just 7 batters and allowed 2 hits (one batter singled but was thrown out at second going for a double).  one of those hits was a home run by willie mays.  i think that would be a pretty good story for the grandchildren.

like hickman, terry forster was acquired by the dodgers on november 22.  that was in 1977, however, and was also early enough in the card production process for forster's photo to be airbrushed and have his team affiliation switched from the pirates to the dodgers despite the lack of multiple card series.  i am guessing that the checklist was already set, however, as i see it as an anomaly for topps to put two cards featuring players from the same team so close together in the set back then.  my point being that forster's card was supposed to be a pirate card.  as far as i can tell, the cutoff point for team changes was december 3, 1977.  that was the day that ron schueler signed with the white sox - the team that he is affiliated with in the 1978 topps set - and two days before bobby bonds was traded by the angels (with whom bonds is affiliated in the set) to the white sox.  thank goodness for o-pee-chee!

it would have been nice of topps to crop the photo on ismael valdes' 1996 stadium club card just a little bit differently so that it would appear that he was striding over the stadium club logo as if it were lava.  ken howell's 1986 o-pee-chee card is pretty much a non-event. it looks like the photographer is standing between howell and wherever it is howell would rather be.

for my money, the 1978 topps steve garvey card is the greatest card ever made.  not objectively, but subjectively anyway.  i think it is the perfect baseball card. to pull this card from a pack in 1978 while living in dodger territory was just about the best thing i could hope for as a seven year old collector.

finally, chase utley represents 2016 topps in the set. i was surprised utley was re-signed by the dodgers for 2016, but he's played fairly well.  sooner or later, however, the dodgers will need to get second base figured out for the long term. this was the first 2016 card to be added to the set, and was later joined by the walter o'malley card from panini seen earlier on. i think i will probably add another. we'll see.

cards that didn't make the cut:

a couple of these cards had no chance to make the set, but they were still options:  1994 topps finest pedro astacio at number 343, 1961 topps sandy koufax at number 344, 1977 topps reggie smith

at number 345, 1993 o-pee-chee mike sharperson at number 346, 1979 topps doug rau

at number 347, 1962 topps larry burright

at number 348, 2000 upper deck victory eric gagne at number 349, 2015 topps yasiel puig at number 350, and 1979 o-pee-chee bill north at number 351.

my favorite card on the page:

that would be the 1978 topps steve garvey card, which is also my favorite card of all time.

final thoughts:

i am not completely comfortable with two 1978 topps cards on the same page, but that is what i chose when putting this thing together.  i want terry forster in the set; the 1978 topps dodgers pretty much get preference over other cards in the set; and there was no way that garvey's card wasn't making it.  i blame topps for putting two dodgers so close together on the checklist - even if one of the cards was certainly a pirate card when the checklist was being developed.