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 40 (cards 352-360) - bookended by a pair of 31 hall of famers...

i've updated this page since the original post ran.

here's sheet number 40 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 352-360:

and the back:

here's what the page originally looked like:

these cards are:

352. 2001 topps archives hoyt wilhelm
353. 1992 classic best ken huckaby 1994 pinnacle ramon martinez
354. 2005 donruss diamond kings kazuhisa ishii
355. 1994 upper deck orel hershiser
356. 1989 score jesse orosco
357. 2012 topps aaron harang
358. 1962 topps tommy davis
359. 2003 topps chrome dave roberts
360. 1996 upper deck mike piazza

the "no brainer" of the day:

hoyt wilhelm has just one card from his playing days as a dodger, and it's his 1972 topps card.  this reprint of that card issued as part of the 2001 topps archives set was a no brainer to make the set.

about the cards:

another thing about the wilhelm card, his 1972 topps card was numbered 777 (as you can see in the above scan) which puts it outside the parameters of this set.  so, i was happy that the archives reprint numbered it at 352.  i won't blow up the back of the card to show you the number as i did with the 1952 jackie robinson reprint from the same set - you'll just have to trust me.  wilhelm made his debut in 1952 against the dodgers, facing pee wee reese, billy cox, roy campanella, jackie robinson, and duke snider in his initial inning of work, and finished his hall of fame career as a dodger 20 years later. in between, he appeared in a record 1,070 games as a pitcher. as implied by the title of this post, wilhelm wore number 31 during his stint as a dodger.

ken huckaby was a dodger catching prospect who was in the dodger organization through the 1997 season. he didn't make his big league debut until 2001, nine years after this 1992 classic best minor league card was issued.  he never suited up for the dodgers, but i like this card and the holman stadium seats in the background.  really, the only criteria for a card being eligible for this set is that its number is less than 727 and it be considered a dodger card.  huckaby's card meets both.

ken huckaby's 1992 classic best card has given way to ramon martinez's 1994 pinnacle card. aside from being a major league card of a player that actually played for the dodgers, it features a fairly unique photo of martinez studying a slide. it also makes the top two rows of the sheet an exclusively pitcher's zone.

kaz ishii was no longer with the dodgers when this 2005 diamond kings card came out, having been traded to the mets for jason phillips straight up.  ishii went 13-8 in 2004, his third season with the dodgers, but his era had jumped almost a full run to 4.71, and his k/9 ratio had gone from just under 9 to just over 5.  it was time to cut bait.

while ishii was banished to flushing meadows, the 1994 upper deck set banished players to the phantom zone with the skewed photo on the side bar.  bowman used a similar technique in their 1995 set, but upper deck does it better.  i liked this set a lot and it was the first upper deck set that i set out to complete.  it was also the smallest upper deck set to date.  anyway, i really like the hershiser card here because it features the old corrugated fiberglass walls of the dodger stadium bullpens that my brother and i used to stand above and watch the likes of don sutton, burt hooton, and (far too often) doug rau warm up before games.  i mean that it seemed like rau was the starting pitcher for a lot of the games we attended, not that he was used too often.

speaking of being used often, jesse orosco who appears here on a 1989 score card currently holds the record for most games pitched at 1,252.  he wasn't the one who broke wilhelm's record (that was dennis eckersley who pitched in 1,071 games), but he sure did pass it. the closest active pitcher is francisco rodriguez, who has appeared in 887 games.  aaron harang appeared in only 387 games during his career which may or may not have ended last season, and only 6 of those appearances were in relief.  we were given this 2012 topps card during his 10-10 season with the dodgers in 2011 (his only season with the dodgers).  in his second start for the club, harang set a dodger record by striking out 9 consecutive batters. he k'd 13 total that night, and dodger pitchers tied a team record for a ninie inning game by striking out their opponent 18 times.  of course, they almost lost the game.

tommy davis's 1962 topps card is one of my favorite dodgers from the set, due in large part to the way his pose fits the image space.  speaking of which, he's got the same pose as gino cimoli had on his 1958 topps card, but topps let davis keep his bat.  as an aside, i am ashamed to mention how long it took me to really look at the 1962 design and see that it was supposed to reflect a rectangular photo posted on a piece of wood (fence?). i had not noticed the curl as part of the image until the late 1990's.

the page's penultimate card features the current dodger manager not looking at his base coach while running on a 2003 topps chrome card.  that's ok because it looks like the play is in front of him, and we all know that dave roberts was ok on the basepaths.  the final card features one of this year's hall of fame inductees taking a cut on his 1996 upper deck card.  again, as the title of the post implies, mike piazza wore the same number as hoyt wilhelm, 31.  this is not the first time that two hall of famers wore the same number for the dodgers (both frank robinson and greg maddux wore number 36, for example), but the number still won't be retired by the club until joc pederson gets voted in to the hall.  hey, it could happen.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1983 topps mike scioscia at number 352, 1992 classic best ken huckaby

at number 353, 1996 upper deck ramon martinez at number 354, 2007 upper deck chad billingsley at number 355, 1991 upper deck jose offerman at number 356, 1991 score jim poole

at number 357, 1997 fleer roger cedeno at number 358, 2005 topps chrome jd drew at number 359, and 2005 upper deck jayson werth

at number 360.

my favorite card on the page:

the 1994 upper deck hershiser card wins for this page, thanks to the blue bullpen background and despite the phantom zone card design.

final thoughts:

looking at this sheet now, i am pretty sure that huckaby is not long for the set.  as i mentioned above, pretty much the only requisite to be eligible for this set is to be on a card that is considered a dodger card, and while the huckaby card fits that description as far as i am concerned, there will likely be a change. not that i am opposed to minor league sets - they are part of my dodger collection, after all - but that pinnacle martinez card is a pretty good one.

yep, so good that i've made the switch from huckaby to martinez.

frankendodger sheet 31 (cards 271-279) - it's the base on balls that makes it so bad...

here's sheet number 31 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 271-279:

and the back:

these cards are:

271. 2003 bowman leigh neuage
272. 1997 donruss todd zeile
273. 2004 topps heritage jeromy burnitz
274. 1995 pinnacle ramon martinez
275. 1984 donruss jose morales
276. 2010 upper deck doug mientkiewicz
277. 1989 topps mike davis
278. 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams kirk gibson
279. 1991 topps jose gonzalez (billy bean)

the "no brainer" of the day:

there is only one card of doug mientkiewicz as a dodger, and, since i used to have a pc of the guy, his 2010 upper deck card was a certainty for this set.

about the cards:

the bowman neuage card brings up thoughts of what might have been had neuage not passed away in 2003. i posted the chrome version of his card on my flagship blog, and shortly thereafter received an email from neuage's father relaying the news and providing a link to his online memorial.

todd zeile has two cards in the 1997 donruss set, and when i chose his card to fill this slot i realized that i only had one copy. i ordered another from sportlots, but chose the wrong one.  hate when that happens.  i finally got it right with my next order.  jeromy burnitz's 2004 topps heritage card is not his best card from 2004 (we'll see that one later on) but it fits in the set so there it is.

i may be in the minority, but i prefer the pinnacle cards like this 1995 ramon martinez over the black bordered sets they put out in the early 1990's.  i also prefer 1984 donruss to all other donruss sets of the 80's and 90's.  that jose morales card is great.  i assume that gary carter is crouching behind the plate, and the card features a shot we don't see too often on baseball cards.  also, it's great that donruss listed morales as a catcher, but he never went behind the plate during his dodger tenure which began in 1982.

doug mientkiewicz was probably my favorite player on the twins in the early 2000's, and i was happy that he was able to take his gold glove to boston and win a ring in 2004, adding to the gold medal he won in 2000 thanks to his home run heroics.  i was also glad to see him with the dodgers in 2009. i met him once at a card show and talked to him for a few minutes.  he had a few tommy stories to tell (lasorda was the manager of the 2000 olympic team) and mentioned that disney had been kicking around the idea of a movie about that team.  it would be interesting to see who they would have cast as lasorda.

and now we get to the happy circumstance that puts a 1989 topps mike davis card in front of a 2004 upper deck legends kirk gibson card.  one can't help but think of davis batting in the bottom of the 9th inning of game 1 of the 1988 world series with two outs and drawing the walk that made gibby's impossible home run possible.  after the radio silence and vin scully's improbable/impossible quote, joe garagiola noted that it was davis's walk that turned the home run into a game winner.  davis also homered later in the series, and what had been a frustrating season for him turned out to be one that is still celebrated by dodger fans.

finally, we have the 1991 topps  jose gonzalez card that actually features a photo of billy bean.  outside of the 1990 target set, there is no other card that i know of that shows bean as a dodger.  it's too bad that he doesn't get the name credit.  these days, bean is mlb's ambassador of inclusion which is great except that it is unfortunate that such a position is needed at all.

cards that didn't make the cut:

there were quite a few cards that could have been on this sheet, including a number of topps flagship cards like 2002 topps chan ho park at number 271, 1977 topps lee lacy

at number 272, 1983 topps mark belanger

at number 273, 1984 topps rick monday at number 274, 2011 topps clayton kershaw at number 275, 1967 topps bruce brubaker at number 276, 1988 topps alejandro pena at number 277, 1960 topps stan williams at number 278, and 1991 topps jose gonzalez (that really is jose gonzalez)

at number 279.

my favorite card on the page:

despite a few good ones here, i'll perhaps surprise folks and pick the morales card over dougie, gibby, and billy/jose.

final thoughts:

it is unlikely that we will hear vin scully call the world series this season, at least for national radio as he did in 1988 among other years.  he has already turned down an invitation to broadcast (or even be part of) the all-star game, and it doesn't seem likely that the dodgers will win the pennant given the fact that they don't win very much unless kershaw is on the mound. hopefully, they pull it together and "win for vin".

frankendodger sheet 12 (cards 100-108) - the hero number gets updated to avoid an exemption from the earlier rule...

i've updated this page since the original post ran.

here's sheet number 12 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 100-108:

and the back:

here's what the page originally looked like:

these cards are:

100. 2013 topps opening day matt kemp 1990 bowman hubie brooks
101. 2013 topps heritage don mattingly
102. 2008 upper deck derek lowe
103. 2003 upper deck mvp kazuhisa ishii
104. 1995 leaf ramón martinez
105. 1963 topps ron fairly
106. 1962 post willie davis
107. 1996 upper deck sp chan ho park
108. 1980 o-pee-chee dave goltz

the "no brainer" of the day:

i love me some o-pee-chee variations, and i really wanted that dave goltz card in the set.

about the cards:

so, it's matt kemp who makes the first repeat appearance in the frankenset at the hero number of 100.

as i mentioned in the "final thoughts" of this original post, i was a bit miffed that i had not used the hubie brooks bowman card at number 100 in order to maintain the diversity of the set.  so, i made the switch from kemp to brooks.  brooks is not really a hero number kind of guy, but i'll have other opportunities to line up big numbers with big players.

i wanted to have at least one card of every manager from alston on up, so the mattingly card fits in nicely here (over alston, actually).

lowe and ishii are convenient fillers, but i can't believe it's taken 12 pages to get to ramon martinez.  i learned about ron fairly early in my baseball following days due to the fact that he used to wear garvey's number, and he was an announcer for the angels on ktla (pretty sure) after he retired.  i like his colorful 1963 topps card, and it looks great in the set as its first representative.

for the second day in a row, there's a davis on the page.  willie shows up on his 1962 post card - the first blank back in the set i believe (it's tough to keep track).  willie doesn't seem to get a lot of hype, even though he is among the career leaders in so many los angeles dodger categories.  i suspect it has to do with the struggles he had following his retirement and his lack of continuous involvement with the team like some other former players.

chan ho park and dave goltz finish off the page.  chan ho never won more than 18 games in a season, while dave was a 21-game winner in 1977.  i know that wins are not the best measure of a pitcher, especially to compare across generations, but i would think that both pitchers disappointed dodger fans to some degree - park never really lived up to his potential, and goltz never got back to his best days.  still, i was pretty excited when goltz signed with the dodgers and caused that fantastic o-pee-chee card to be created.

cards that didn't make the cut:

part of the reason for kemp originally showing up again was the fact that most of the other options at #100 included koufax or snider or nomo or piazza - guys that have already been included in the set.  however, i could have used (and have still can, i suppose) a 1990 bowman hubie brooks card to maintain the diversity of the set.  if anyone cares to send me one, i might consider it.

other cards passed over include walter alston's 1964 topps card at #101,

chin-feng chen's 2001 topps heritage card, also at #101, 1995 topps stadium club paul konerko at #102, 1968 topps don sutton at #103, 1978 topps lee lacy at #104 (in fact, i could have used either a 1978 topps card (lacy), a 1979 topps card (johnny oates), a 1980 topps card (manny mota), or a 1981 topps card (terry forster) at #104 - supporting my theory about checklist perpetuation?), a 1960 topps larry sherry at #105, a 2000 topps stadium club devon white at #106,

a 1988 pacific zoilo versalles at #107, and a 2004 playoff absolute memorabilia rickey henderson at #108.

my favorite card on the page:

it's the goltz card.

final thoughts:

i am a little bit bothered by that hubie brooks omission.  i think i meant to use a different card from 1990 bowman elsewhere in the set (the dodgers are numbered sequentially in that set), but wound up not doing so, and then forgot that it was then available at #100.  this post may get updated at some point...

and so it has.

frankendodger sheet 11 (cards 91-99) - it's not that fimple...

here's sheet number 11 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 91-99:

and the back:

these cards are:

91. 2012 topps archives ted lilly
92. 1993 upper deck sp eric davis
93. 2008 upper deck baseball heroes chin-lung hu
94. 2002 topps ten paul loduca
95. 2013 panini golden age tommy davis
96. 1990 classic jose gonzalez
97. 1998 fleer tradition dennis reyes
98. 1999 skybox premium devon white
99. 1984 fleer jack fimple

the "no brainer" of the day:

given the way 1993 upper deck sp is numbered, and knowing that most of the other dodgers in that set were already included in the frankenset, the eric davis card was the no-brainer here.  i like '93 sp because it features a number of photos from dodger stadium, and i definitely wanted to include it in the monster.

about the cards:

it would have been nice to have a 1971 topps card on the same sheet as the lilly, but it didn't work out.  i am a bigger fan of davis's 1993 upper deck card than the one here, but this one is nice, too.  the other one shows up in about 50 pages from now.

chin-lung hu had a ridiculous number of cards.  he was the billy ashley of 2008 as far as dodger collectors were concerned.  well, this dodger collector anyway.  the 2002 topps ten set that paul loduca is representing may have been a result of topps wanting to eliminate league leader cards from the flagship where they belong and instead make them into a whole separate set of cards.  no surprise that there was not a 2003 topps ten set.

i was happy to see tommy davis on the checklist for 2013 panini golden age.  he sure traveled around during his career, but he remains the last dodger to lead the league in batting average.  jose gonzalez shows up in the zubaz set while dennis reyes signals for the peanut vendor on his 1998 fleer tradition card.  i really like that card - i like any card that shows the pavilion roofs and even just the trunks of the three sisters out in left field.

some spring training devon white action on a 1999 skybox premium card, and jack fimple bringing us the 1984 fleer set round out the sheet.  for me, 1984 is the best of the fleer flagship sets, and i don't believe i could be convinced otherwise.

cards that didn't make the cut:

some of the highlights among the cards that could have been on this page include a 1973 topps or o-pee-chee team card or a 2008 topps stadium club jackie robinson card (#91), a 2007 fleer ultra nomar garciaparra

or a 2009 topps tribute mike piazza card (#92), a 1958 topps sandy amoros or 1975 topps davey lopes (#93), a 1979 o-pee-chee ron cey or 1993 upper deck sp eric karros (with a lurking tom lasorda (#94), a 2001 fleer greats of the game pee wee reese or 2005 topps pristine davey lopes (#95), a 1977 o-pee-chee davey lopes or a 1984 fleer dusty baker (#96), a 1961 fleer dolph camilli or a 2014 topps stadium club yasiel puig (#97),

a 1993 upper deck tom candiotti or a 1993 upper deck sp mike piazza (#98), or, finally, a 1976 o-pee-chee or topps lee lacy or a 1993 upper deck sp darryl strawberry card.  lots of good cards had i not imposed rules upon myself.

my favorite card on the page:

i am a sucker for dodger stadium shots, and dennis reyes' card has the best dodger stadium background on the sheet.  it's my favorite from today's contestants.

final thoughts:

sets like the aforementioned '93 sp release and fleer make this endeavor more difficult than i would have liked.  putting the teams in sequential number order really handcuffed me in these early pages.  yes, i know that my rule of not repeating a set or player in the first 180 cards of the set (with the two exceptions of cards 100 and 150) was self-imposed, but figuring out which fleer card to use where was tough. here we have jack fimple representing 1984 fleer which works out ok as fimple has only a few other dodger cards.

also, i think this is the first time that two players with the same last name (eric and tommy davis - no relation) show up on a sheet together.  it kind of screws with the post labels.  maybe i should have done full names...