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 41 (cards 361-369) - with bill and ted and a not so excellent cartoon...

here's sheet number 41 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 361-369:

and the back:

these cards are:

361. 2000 fleer tradition todd hollandsworth
362. 1994 leaf todd worrell
363. 1992 topps john candelaria
364. 1966 topps nate oliver
365. 1967 topps john roseboro
366. 1977 topps ted sizemore
367. 1997 upper deck collector's choice chan ho park
368. 1973 topps bill buckner
369. 1970 topps alan foster

the "no brainer" of the day:

there is not really an obvious choice here, but the closest thing to a no brainer on this page would be the 1977 topps sizemore card, i think.  it's the only card we have of the 1969 rookie of the year from his second time around with the dodgers.

about the cards:

fleer kind of ripped off the 1954 topps design with their 2000 tradition release, and then they used the 1956 topps design the following year before realizing that they had some designs of their own they could use.  i'm not a big fan of this particular hollandsworth card - i think the green is too bright - but i had a double of it and it fit in the set.

the 1994 leaf card is todd worrell's first entry in the set. two todds in a row, and two rookies of the year in a row, too.  worrell was, to me, the first modern closer that the dodgers employed, and he was the one who broke jim brewer's team saves record (since surpassed by jeff shaw, eric gagne, and now kenley jansen).  just like the front of hollandsworth's card gives us mini holly and giant holly, the back of worrell's card gives us a giant worrell in dodger stadium.  i appreciate the use of chavez ravine as the background for the back of the card, but i don't need it to be obscured by a third picture of worrell.

the back of john candelaria's 1992 topps card should also have a picture of dodger stadium on it, but for the fact that the candy man has too many rows of stats.  this is partially due to the fact that topps gives a separate row to each team for which candelaria pitched each year, so there are a few seasons with a couple of rows.  i prefer this approach to stats on the back as opposed to combining stats for different teams, probably because this is the way topps did it (and still does).

with their 1966 topps and 1967 topps cards, respectively, nate oliver and john roseboro give us a look at the evoluton of topps design from one year to the next.  there aren't too many instances in this set where we go chronologically in order from one year to the next. for the record, i prefer the 1967 design to the 1966 design.

i mentioned above that the 1977 topps ted sizemore card is the only one produced showing him as a dodger following the trade between the dodgers and cardinals in march of 1976 that sent willie crawford to st. louis.  that trade occurred too late, i guess, for sizemore's sspc card to be changed or for a topps traded card to be made.  by the time this card was issued, however, sizemore was playing for the phillies.  he was on the field for the phils in game 3 of the 1977 nlcs (aka 'black friday'), and it was his 9th inning fielding error on greg luzinski's throw (the ball skipped away from sizemore) that allowed manny mota to go to third where he scored on davey lopes' infield single.  it's too bad, but i'm glad the dodgers won.

chan ho park shows off some spring training bullpen stuff on his 1996 upper deck collector's choice card.  it's the kind of photo that a fan might take while walking around dodgertown in the mid 1990's, and i like that.  i also like the dodger stadium background in the photo on the back.  no giant chan ho, either.

bill buckner is also at spring training on his 1973 topps card, but he's not posing for a fan.  billy buck is wearing a first baseman's glove as he was wes parker's heir apparent, but we all know now that he eventually moved to the outfield to make way for steve garvey.  the only bad thing about this card is the cartoon on the back:

buckner was born in the north bay - vallejo, to be exact - and attended high school in napa, so his fandom for the giants makes sense. still, i imagine the original owner of this card being disturbed by this fact and taking a red marker to the cartoon to express their disgust.

the last card on the page is alan foster's 1970 topps card.  the cartoon on the back of foster's card notes that he received a $100,000 bonus to sign with the dodgers in 1965. that's a better cartoon.

cards that didn't make the cut:

for whatever reason, some of the cards that i passed on for this page include 2001 upper deck vintage dodgers rookies (mike judd, hiram bocachica, and luke prokopec) at number 361, 1982 donruss terry forster at number 362, 1961 topps john roseboro at number 363, 1959 topps danny mcdevitt

at number 364, 1999 topps raul mondesi

at number 365, 1985 fleer dave anderson at number 366, 2014 topps brian wilson

at number 367, 1974 topps manny mota at number 368, and 1994 pinnacle brett butler at number 369.

my favorite card on the page:

chan ho park's 1996 collector's choice card is my favorite here.  something about the background and the design of the card.

final thoughts:

we are halfway through the set already.  this seems like a good spot to thank people for following along so far, and for reading, commenting, and continuing to trade cards with me.  it is much appreciated!

frankendodger sheet 3 (cards 19-27) - don, sandy, and the duke...

here's sheet number 3 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 19-27:

 and the back:

these cards are:

19. 2006 topps allen & ginter's nomar garciaparra
20. 2002 upper deck sp legendary cuts duke snider
21. 1986 fleer limited pedro guerrero
22. 1960 fleer joe medwick
23. 2013 bowman platinum clayton kershaw
24. 2016 panini diamond kings walter o'malley
25. 1958 topps don drysdale
26. 2007 upper deck masterpieces sandy koufax
27. 1977 topps bill buckner

the "no brainer" of the day:

as soon as i received a second 1960 fleer joe medwick card in the mail from a trader, i knew that it would be in the frankenset.  however, the no brainer of the day has to be the card at number 24.  i was all set with a 1989 topps woolworth's kirk gibson card at 24 until i saw the checklist for this year's panini diamond kings release.  i have long wanted a card of former dodger owner walter o'malley, and so he bumped gibby to the second page and jody reed out of the first 20 pages (at least).  without o'malley, i might be an angel fan.

about the cards:

you can't have big d debut in the set without sandy right next to him, so i was happy to see those two hall of famers fall out back-to-back.  as luck would have it, i had a double of drysdale's 1958 card to clinch the deal.

adding o'malley to the sheet puts the hall of famer count among these nine card subjects at 4, with a fifth quite likely at his current pace.  i am a bit embarrassed to say that i have not seen kershaw pitch in person yet, but i plan to rectify that this year or next at the latest.

finally, the 1977 topps bill buckner card is significant to me because i began watching baseball in 1977 when billy buck was on the cubs. the first card of his that i saw was his 1978 topps card, and so found out he had been a dodger by reading the stats on the back.  seeing his 1977 topps card for the first time was somewhat of a 'what might have been' moment for me as a kid.

you'll note that the orientation of the backs are all over the place.  it's not that big of a deal for the cards that feature a portrait photo on the front, but that landscape koufax causes problems.  i subscribe to the 1978 topps orientation for horizontal cards, and so the koufax goes in the binder that way.  unfortunately, upper deck thinks differently, and we wind up with upside down text on the back of the sheet.  oh well.

cards that didn't make the cut:

most of the cards that are on this page were sure things, so there wasn't much hemming and hawing about which cards to choose.  i would say that the eligible cards that came closest to upsetting the final roster were a 1986 topps woolworth's bill madlock card at number 19, tom goodwin's 1992 upper deck card at number 20, charlie hough's 1978 topps card at 22, the aforementioned gibson card at 24 (of course), and jackie robinson's 2000 upper deck legends card at 27.

my favorite card on the page:

as happy as i was to see the o'malley card, my favorite here is a toss up between the nomar and the koufax.  from a pure card standpoint, i'll go with sandy (really, that card is pretty much perfect), as my affection for the nomar card has more to do with the fact that it was one of his first to show him in dodger blue.

final thoughts:

i really like this page.