frankendodger sheet 48 (cards 424-432) - what's your name man?...

here's sheet number 48 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 424-432:

and the back:

these cards are:

424. 1996 donruss mike piazza
425. 1983 topps pedro guerrero
426. 1990 topps jeff hamilton
427. 1970 topps fred norman
428. 2003 upper deck fred mcgriff
429. 1961 nu-cards baseball scoops roy campanella
430. 1996 fleer john cummings
431. 2007 topps luis gonzalez
432. 1995 bowman chan ho park

the "no brainer" of the day:

there are no iconic cards on this page, but there are a couple of 'one and done' type cards. i'll go with fred norman's lone dodger card as the one the was a lock for the set.

about the cards:

1996 donruss leads off with their 'black box' design. not one of my favorites. still, this is a mike piazza dodger card, and that's a good thing.  piazza goes into the hall of fame later this month, and i guess i expected to see more piazza cards this year as a result.  there have been some - and even some showing him as a dodger - but i figured there would be more.

i was happy to find this 1983 topps pedro guerrero card in a pack back then because topps had given us two and a third cards of petey using photos of him sitting or standing around.  with everything he was doing on the field, i was looking for an action shot.  plus, there are no worse cards than the 1983 topps cards where both pictures - the main one and the inset - are posed.

to topps' credit, they did a pretty good job avoiding too many cards like the vicente romo above - at least among the dodgers.

i think night owl is the one who referred to the 1990 topps set as the 'lichtenstein' set.  this helped me appreciate the set so much more.  i'm being serious.  jeff hamilton, on the other hand, is still not one of my favorite dodgers, but he did catch the last out of game 4 of the 1988 world series, so i have some appreciation for him.

the first several times i saw fred norman's 1970 topps card, i figured that the interlocking 'la' logo on his had was akin to an iron on patch due to the vertical line running to its left.  it was quite a while before i noticed that the topps artists had left norman in some other team's (i'm guessing it is a spokane indians jersey - norman played for them in 1967 and 1969) jersey (notice the red patchwork just above the 'pitcher' text) and that his had was colored blue with the 'la' logo being cut and pasted from someone else's photo. it's the only card of norman as a dodger other than his 1990 target card

as he was plucked off of waivers by the cardinals during the 1970 season.

kudos to upper deck for making this 2003 fred mcgriff card.  the horizontal layout works nicely with his crouch and the strata of seats in holman stadium. it is my favorite card of mcgriff as a dodger.

it's getting late in the set to be showing an oddball for the first time, but luckily the 1961 nu-cards baseball scoops set was huge.  this is one of a few dodger cards in the set, and it celebrates roy campanella's 1953 season in which he set new records for home runs, rbi, and putouts for catchers and was rewarded with the mvp award for his efforts.

john cummings joined the dodgers during the 1995 season and pitched often enough to show up in the 1996 fleer set.  he had debuted with the mariners in 1993 after making the jump straight from triple-a, and for five innings, he was fantastic.  he had allowed just one hit (a double by cal ripken jr) through and had a 2-0 lead over the orioles in his first big league appearance before allowing five straight hits to start the sixth inning before being pulled. he was used solely as a reliever with the dodgers, and was with the club for about a year before being traded to the tigers.

luis gonzalez joined the dodgers for the 2007 season and was given this card in the topps flagship set. i am happy to report that gonzalez's 2008 topps card showed him as a marlin.  i appreciated gonzalez for getting the series winning hit against the yankees in the 2001 fall classic, but he is on the short list of my least favorite dodgers. it has more to do with him being brought in and blocking matt kemp from getting more playing time early in the season, and then complaining when kemp did play more often later in the year.  with gonzalez gone, i was expecting a full season of an ethier/pierre/kemp outfield, but ned colletti then went out and brought in andruw jones in 2008.

1995 bowman was released on the heels of 1994 upper deck (one of my favorite upper deck sets), and one couldn't help but notice the similarities between the two designs due to the 'phantom zone' inset photo.

as a result, i've had a bit of an aversion to 1995 bowman except for dodger cards like this chan ho park.

cards that didn't make the cut:

honorable mentions go to the cards that fell short, including 1991 topps stadium club gary carter at number 424, 1984 topps steve howe at number 425, 1994 topps finest chan ho park at number 426, 2007 topps randy wolf

at number 427, 1988 topps john shelby at number 428, 2003 upper deck joe thurston

at number 429, 1971 topps wes parker at number 430, 1987 topps dodgers leaders (although not the one i have signed by ron perranoski)

at number 431, and 1989 donruss rick dempsey at number 432.

my favorite card on the page:

it was nice to finally have an action photo on a topps pedro guerrero card, and the mcgriff card is nice, but oddball roy campanella is my favorite card on this page.

final thoughts:

have you seen hamilton? not jeff hamilton - hamilton the musical (the title of this post refers to the opening number where the characters are introduced).  i was lucky enough to see it last year while in new york for a conference. it was fantastic. in a few days, the show's creator lin-manuel miranda (who plays alexander hamilton - the ten-dollar founding father) will leave the production, and i am very interested to see what he does next.  as for me, i've got about 33 more of these posts to go, and i'm not sure what comes after that.

frankendodger sheet 17 (cards 145-153) - now with more southpaws...

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

here's sheet number 17 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 145-153:

and the back:

here's how the page originally looked:

these cards are:

145. 1993 pacific kevin gross
146. 2007 topps heritage delwyn young
147. 2009 bowman blake dewitt
148. 2003 bowman heritage fred mcgriff
149. 2006 topps opening day hong-chih kuo
150. 1976 topps steve garvey 2016 bowman corey seager
151. 1972 topps jim brewer
152. 1991 topps mickey hatcher
153. 1981 o-pee-chee jerry reuss

the "no brainer" of the day:

the card that probably comes closest is the jim brewer card.  i have several 1972 topps jim brewer cards for some reason, so he was an early pick to represent that set as i was piecing this project together.

about the cards:

the pacific card comes from their first foray into the bilingual card market, and is nowhere near as crazy as their designs would get later in the decade.  delwyn (not delmon) young came up to the dodgers around the same time as matt kemp and andre ethier.  his cause wasn't helped by ned picking up the likes of juan pierre, luis gonzalez, and andruw jones to patrol the outfield, and he was always the odd man out. he was dealt to the pirates in 2009.

blake dewitt was another guy who had some time with the dodgers, including a decent rookie season in 2008, but again, ned went out and picked up casey blake. dewitt was dealt to the cubs in 2010.  it wasn't ned, but dan evans who was the gm that brought in fred mcgriff for the 2003 season to replace eric karros who was going to chicago to replace (along with future dodger hee seop choi) mcgriff.  the crime dog had hit 30 homers the year before, but managed only 13 as a dodger.  i was looking forward to some cards of mcgriff in dodger blue, and this bowman heritage card was one of the first that i saw.

three of the last five cards on the sheet belong to lefty pitchers. hong-chih kuo's 2006 opening day card is interesting because he was a non-closer reliever even at that point in his career, and i was surprised that he made the opening day checklist, as that set is smaller than flagship.  the other two leftys are former dodger closer jim brewer on a 1972 topps card, and friend of the blogosphere jerry reuss on his 1981 o-pee-chee card.  brewer was done pitching by the time i started to follow the game, but reuss has provided me with some great memories including his no-hitter against the giants and his great pitching performances in the 1981 postseason against the astros and yankees.  it felt right to use a 1981 card for him.

the other two cards on the sheet are corey seager's 2016 bowman card steve garvey's 1976 topps card (which gets the hero number exemption from my lack of set/player duplication rule) and mickey hatcher's 1991 topps card.  i was pretty happy to see seager's bowman card come out as number 150.  this way, the diversity of the set is maintained, and i get seager in the set.  he looks like he will be the real deal, and i hope that he and joc pederson and julio urias and clayton kershaw and jose deleon have many successful years together with the dodgers.

cards that didn't make the cut:

there were lots of good options at number 145, including 1968 topps don drysdale, 1971 topps bill singer, and 1978 topps rick monday (the card where he's wiping the mustard away from his mouth).

other cards that wound up not making the sheet include 1980 topps and 1986 fleer bob welch cards at number 146, one of roy campanella's cards from 1994 upper deck all-time heroes at number 147, 1985 topps steve yeager or 1993 upper deck carlos hernandez at number 148, 1997 bowman joe lagarde

at number 149, 1963 topps johnny podres at number 150, 1973 topps wes parker and 2014 topps stadium club sandy koufax

at number 151, 1959 topps johnny klippstein at number 152, and 1996 topps tom candiotti at number 153.

my favorite card on the page:

i'll exclude garvey from contention and pick the kevin gross card.  it features an often used photo angle, but i never tire of seeing the visitor's bullpen fence in the background of a card.

final thoughts:

just like with the hero exemption at 100, i have rethought the exemption at 150.  with corey seager's 2016 bowman card at number 150, he has replaced the 1976 garvey there just as the 1990 bowman hubie brooks card has replaced the matt kemp card at 100.  after making those swaps, the frankenset is truly diverse through the first 20 pages.