frankendodger sheet 79 (cards 703-711) - an award winning sheet...

here's sheet number 79 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 703-711:

and the back:

these cards are:

703. 1991 score fernando valenzuela
704. 2002 upper deck 40 man jeff reboulet
705. 1996 upper deck collector's choice hideo nomo
706. 1986 topps pedro guerrero
707. 2009 upper deck eric stults
708. 2009 upper deck jason schmidt
709. 2005 topps cesar izturis
710. 1982 topps jerry reuss
711. 1991 donruss carlos hernandez

the "no brainer" of the day:

not a one of these qualify for no brainer status.

about the cards:

fernando valenzuela in 1990 was not the fernando of 1981, to be sure, but he threw a no-hitter against the cardinals in late june to earn this 1991 score card commemorating the feat.  johnny vandermeer was safe, however, as fernando allowed 10 hits in both his start before and after the no-no.

jeff reboulet looks serious about his mustache and baseball on his 2002 upper deck 40 man card. reboulet played for the dodgers in 2001 and 2002, and appeared in over half of the team's games in 2001, but aside from 40 man and topps total, he was ignored by the card companies during his dodger tenure.  even with that mustache.

upper deck let us know that hideo nomo was named the national league's rookie of the year in 1995 with this card from their 1996 set.  i've always wondered whether nomo himself considered it to be appropriate that he was eligible for the award. i had (and have) no problem with major league players coming from other countries and winning the roy as they are eligible per the definition of a major league rookie, but the braves fans in '95 were not to keen about the award going to someone who had been playing in a different country's major leagues prior to coming to america.

pedro guerrero was representing the dodgers in the 1986 topps all-star subset.  the back of the card lets us know that he led the league in on-base percentage (he also led in slugging percentage) as part of his fantastic 1985 season.  my only gripe about this card is that it doesn't match the 1986 topps design as closely as the all-star cards from 1985 matched that year's design.

i was looking for the all-star designation to replace the team name up top, with the rest of the card remaining the same. and, without the topps logo on the front, it looks like a pretty generic, broder-esque card.

now comes the time when i give thanks to 2009 upper deck. back-to-back with eric stults and jason schmidt means one or two less 1990 target cards in the set.  this is another spot where i am hoping that this year's heritage high numbers can make a difference.

cesar izturis won a gold glove in 2004, just as topps was making cards to honor the winners of that award.  we've not had cards for silver sluggers before (although the bats have shown up on a card or two), but there were a few years there in the 2000's that we got gold glover cards.  i'm not complaining - in fact, i would have liked this in the mid-1970's when steve garvey won four in a row.

it seems like we've been seeing a lot of jerry reuss lately, and here he is again with his 1982 topps card.  this card's photo is all about spring training with the grassy knoll in the background.

last card on the sheet is carlos hernandez's 1991 donruss card.  it's from the green border part of the set, which looks worse than the blue border part of the set.  i would like to have seen the designs that donruss passed on when they chose their 1991 design.

cards that didn't make the cut:

2002 upper deck 40 man darren dreifort at number 703, 2009 upper deck mark loretta at number 704, 2009 upper deck cory wade at number 705, 2009 upper deck casey blake at number 706, 1989 upper deck mickey hatcher

at number 709, 1992 donruss steve wilson at number 710, and 1981 topps joe ferguson

at number 711.

my favorite card on the page:

the jeff reboulet stare/mustache combo is tough to beat, but i like the pedro guerrero card the most even though it is really generic and not tied too closely to the 1986 topps set design.

final thoughts:

we are very near the end of these posts, and i haven't really acknowledged the fact that i am standing on the shoulders of other bloggers who popularized the frankenset concept long before i started the frankendodger project. the first frankenset i knew of was ben henry's topps flagship frankenset. dayf had both a allen & ginter and a topps heritage frankenset, and night owl has a night card and, i believe, an a&g mini frankenset as well.  $30 a week habit has the serial number insanity set, and nick at dimeboxes has his dimebox frankenset.  jeff at 2x3 heroes and jon at penny sleeve for your thoughts are both going for topps buyback frankensets, which is great. brian at hsca also has a team-centered frankenset (go twinkies), and i am sure there are others.  thanks to all for the inspiration.

frankendodger sheet 61 (cards 541-549) - do you know the way to tatooine?...

here's sheet number 61 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 541-549:

and the back:

these cards are:

541. 2008 upper deck jason schmidt
542. 2005 topps milton bradley
543. 1996 donruss roberto kelly
544. 1980 topps rick sutcliffe
545. 2015 topps clayton kershaw
546. 1978 topps ted martinez
547. 1975 topps von joshua
548. 1981 topps dave goltz
549. 1986 topps bob welch

the "no brainer" of the day:

rick sutcliffe's rookie card was not to be denied entry into this set.

about the cards:

it seems like there have been a few jason schmidt cards pop up in the set lately.  this one is from 2008 upper deck, which is the year that schmidt missed entirely due to injury.

the next two cards - a 2005 topps milton bradley and a 1996 donruss roberto kelly - fall into my 'tatooine' minicollection as well as this frankenset.  as you probably know, i collect cards that feature photos with nothing but dirt in the background. this goes back to sometime in the late 1970's when my brother and i were in our local card and comic shop. there was a 1971 topps world series highlight card in the display case featuring brooks robinson and the infield dirt. being fans of star wars, we claimed that brooks was looking for droids on tatooine.  and now you know the rest of the story.

i was surprised when i (happily) pulled a rick sutcliffe card out of a pack of 1980 topps and saw that he had pitched in 1976.  i was aware of him being with the dodgers for a bit in 1978 and was well versed in his 1979 season in which he won the rookie of the year award, but i did not know he had made his debut way back in '76 even though i pored over those baseball handbooks endlessly in the late 1970's and early 1980's.  one highlight i recall from sutcliffe's '79 season was his first big league home run - it came in a game against the reds in which the dodgers hit seven home runs, all by different players.  sutcliffe went on to win the national league cy young award in 1984 (and finished 2nd in 1987). he was 4th in the mvp voting in 1984.

clayton kershaw, on the other hand, did not win the rookie of the year award, but did win the mvp in 2014 to go along with his three cy young awards. this 2015 topps card recognizes kershaw for being the league's mvp which is rare for a pitcher but sometimes cannot be denied.

ted martinez joined the dodgers for the 1977 season (and played enough to earn a card in the 1978 topps set) after spending 1976 in the reds' minor league system.  that means that he missed the reds' world series run that year, and even though he was with the dodgers in both '77 and '78, he appeared in neither postseason.  martinez debuted for the mets in 1970, the year following their first world series title, but did appear in the 1973 world series with the mets, and the 1975 alcs with the a's.  that means that during the decade of the 1970's, martinez's teams made the postseason 5 times. he was almost don baylor before don baylor.

i believe that this 1975 topps von joshua card is the only dodger card in the set to feature this color combination.  otherwise, it is similar to many dodger cards that feature spring training photos, and is especially similar to the preceding ted martinez card.  are those the same trees in the background?

looking ahead to the 1981 topps dave goltz card next to it, we see more spring training trees, but these are clearly not the same. these trees to goltz's right look to be coniferous, plus there is a parking lot in front of them (who's driving the yellow bug?).

last card of the page is bob welch's 1986 topps card.  1986 was a lost year for the dodgers, who finished 73-89 and in fifth place (and just 0.5 games ahead of the last place braves) in the nl west.  welch did his part with an era of 3.28 over 33 starts. he had 7 complete games and 3 shutouts, but his record was a dodger career worst (winning percentage wise) 7-13.  the following year (welch's last with the dodgers), he had a similar era (3.22) but was 15-9.

cards that didn't make the cut:

1981 donruss burt hooton at number 541, 2006 topps turkey red mark hendrickson

at number 542, 1994 donruss brett butler at number 543, 2003 topps dave roberts at number 544, 1982 topps reggie smith at number 545, this fantastically odd 1995 upper deck collector's choice roberto kelly card

at number 546, 1959 topps jim baxes

at number 547, 1976 topps manny mota at number 548, and 1971 topps jim brewer at number 549.

my favorite card on the page:

as is often the case, the no brainer is also my favorite card of the page.  rick sutcliffe's 1980 topps card was a key card in my collection that year because he had won the rookie of the year the previous season, and this was his first card. thirty-six years later, it's still a favorite.  although i still can't tell whether that is terry forster or someone else in the background.

final thoughts:

roberto kelly made the page, but with his 1996 donruss card rather than that '95 collector's choice card.  that's only because the udcc card is one of those redemption set cards and i don't have a dupe.  yes, 1978 topps and ted martinez would be kicked out of the set if i had another one of those kelly cards.  i don't understand it - upper deck had an image of kelly in dodger gear (real or photoshopped), used it, but still went with an expos photo, too. it is very weird and i like it.

frankendodger sheet 43 (cards 379-387) - maury and manny side by side opens my eyes...

here's sheet number 43 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 379-387:

and the back:

these cards are:

379. 1969 topps ken boyer
380. 2007 topps jason schmidt
381. 2006 topps odalis perez
382. 2001 topps kirk gibson
383. 1996 pinnacle wilton guerrero
384. 2014 topps heritage andre ethier
385. 1971 topps maury wills
386. 1977 topps manny mota
387. 1959 topps don drysdale

the "no brainer" of the day:

ken boyer's 1969 topps card is the only one (if you don't count the o-pee-chee version which has the same number so the question is moot) of him from his active career as a dodger. it was going to be in the set.

about the cards:

that boyer card confused me quite a bit when it first found its way into my collection. the back is different from most other 1969 topps cards,

and certainly any other one that i had seen at that point. there is no topps logo or cartoon, and the text box doesn't include his name and height/weight etc, but rather his factoid. it still seems like a bit of an anomaly now, but at least i know that others like it exist, such as mickey mantle's final tribute.

anyway, boyer was a former nl mvp who joined the dodgers for the last two seasons of his career (1968 and 1969). he did not appear in the 1970 topps set, which is unfortunate.

i  bought a lot of 2007 topps, and it was the first set i put together by hand in a few years. i didn't care for it too much, but i put a want list up shortly after starting to blog, and several folks helped out.  i still bought a factory set as i had done since the mid 1990's.  anyway, jason schmidt is repping the set here, and he had some pretty good years with the giants before joining the dodgers for the 2007 season.  unfortunately, he was unable to stay healthy and only pitched in a handful of games for the dodgers in 2007 and 2009 combined (he missed all of 2008 due to injury). when he did pitch, he did much better on the road than in dodger stadium - he was 0-4 with an era of 10.83 in his four starts at chavez ravine in 2007 and 1-0 with an era of 0.82 in his two starts on the road that year. in 2009, the trend continued as he was 1-2 with an era of 8.49 in his three home starts and 1-0 with a 0.00 era in his lone road start that year.

2006 topps makes its first appearance in the frankenset today, thanks to odalis perez. perez was my last hope for the dodgers to see some return on the gary sheffield trade.  i was quite disappointed when fox traded mike piazza to the marlins, but they did get sheffield in return who put up some of the best offensive seasons the dodgers had ever seen.  the other parts of that trade (bobby bonilla, charles johnson, jim eisenreich) dead-ended, and perez was part of the package (along with brian jordan) that the dodgers when sheffield was dealt to the braves.  jordan left via free agency, and after a couple of decent seasons from perez that got my hopes up, he had some mediocre campaigns and the dodgers sent him to the royals for elmer dessens during the 2006 season.  still, i have a soft spot for perez because he gave me a ball at angel stadium on june 30, 2006 - about a month before he was traded.

i was happy to see that topps considered kirk gibson's 1988 world series home run to be a 'golden moment' for their 2001 subset along with hank aaron's 715th career home run, bill mazeroski's world series winning home run, and kerry wood's 20 strikeout game, among other events.  i was even more pleased to see topps finally recognize nomar's home run

in the 4+1 game this year.

there is a well known saying regarding player development in the dominican republic that "you don't walk your way off the island", and wilton guerrero is an example of that philosophy.  he had a bunch of rookie cards in 1996, including this 1996 pinnacle card, as he was in line with a wave of young talent that the dodgers debuted in the '90s, kind of similar to what we are seeing from the cubs today. guerrero had only a few at bats with the dodgers in 1996, but spent most of 1997 with the big club and hit .291 that year.  unfortunately, he walked only 8 times so his obp was just .305.  even his brother, vladimir (a notorious hacker), took a walk more often.  he was traded to the expos during the following season.

next we have andre ethier's 2014 topps heritage card. i read over the weekend that ethier's return to the dodgers is not certain for this season.  that is too bad on a couple of opposing fronts.  first, he is now a 10 and 5 player, and the dodgers have literally nothing to show for not trading him prior to his gaining that status this past off season. second, we have not been able to see ethier build on his comeback season last year. i am more disappointed in the latter.

the next two cards are somewhat tied together. i'll explain a bit more in the "final thoughts" below, but maury wills (shown on his 1971 topps card) and manny mota (shown on his 1977 topps card) were traded together by the expos to the dodgers in 1969.  it was wills' second time around with the team and he played well enough to reclaim the shortstop position for a couple of seasons.  in 1971, in fact, he finished 6th in the league mvp voting, right behind roberto clemente.  mota, on the other hand, was the dodgers' primary left fielder in 1970 (and an all-star in 1973), but gradually saw his playing time decrease to the point of him being a pinch-hitting specialist by the time this card was issued.  it's worth noting that mota is striking a very similar pose to wills on his card, and the photo might even be from the same stadium.

speaking of stadiums, the 1959 topps don drysdale card features a photo from inside the la memorial coliseum which was the home of the dodgers for four years before dodger stadium opened.  the back of the card notes that his nickname is 'airedale' but i only ever heard him referred to as 'big d'.  of course, he was finished pitching by the time i was born.

cards that didn't make the cut:

some other options that i considered but did not choose for this page include 1998 fleer tradition todd hollandsworth

at number 379, 1989 o-pee-chee orel hershiser (world series) at number 380, 1967 topps dick schofield

at number 381, 1994 topps mitch webster at number 382, 1963 topps pete richert at number 383, 1993 score select lenny harris

at number 384, 1993 upper deck eric karros at number 385, 1976 topps ed goodson at number 386, and 2009 upper deck 20th anniversary retrospective pedro martinez at number 387.

my favorite card on the page:

i think the scuffed up drysdale wins over the '77 mota.  i do like the 2001 gibson, but there are other cards depicting the impossible that i like better, such as the 1995 upper deck sp championship series card

even if it is the same photo.

final thoughts:

i don't think that i ever gave it much thought before, but seeing the 1971 topps card next to the 1977 topps card, i am made aware of how similar the designs are.  turn the black border to white, italicize the team name, capitalize the player name and position, but those are minor tweaks. the biggest change, of course, is the position in the pennant on the '77 card and i suppose that is why i never thought much about the similarities between the two.

i have considered the 1974 and 1980 designs as very similar, as well as the 1975 and 1986 (just without all of the different colors) designs (and the 1962 and 1987 sets are the most obvious), but i never associated the 1971 and 1977 sets this way.

frankendodger sheet 16 (cards 136-144) - managing to fit in the managers...

here's sheet number 16 of my dodger frankenset - cards numbered 136-144:

and the back:

these cards are:

136. 2010 topps heritage joe torre
137. 2007 topps turkey red jason schmidt
138. 2003 donruss studio odalis perez
139. 2000 pacific crown collection craig counsell
140. 1964 topps world series
141. 2006 fleer hee seop choi
142. 1996 topps gallery roger cedeno
143. 1995 skybox emotion raul mondesi
144. 1974 topps walt alston and coaches

the "no brainer" of the day:

as obvious as it may seem, i did not always have the 1964 topps dodgers celebrate card at number 140.  no, the no brainer of this sheet is the counsell card, simply because it is the only card i know of that features him in a dodger uniform.

about the cards:

this sheet features a couple more dodger managers - torre in the first spot, and alston in the last.  as is customary with topps heritage, the torre card is the same number as alston's card in the 1961 topps set.  it's difficult to believe that turkey red was a stand-alone set from 2005-2007 before becoming an insert set in 2008.  it's even more difficult to believe that the dodgers signed jason schmidt.

the 2003 studio set was a nice set for team collectors like me who appreciate their team's stadium as all of the cards featured backgrounds of each team's respective home.  i'm glad they went with a interior shot of dodger stadium of the top deck, as some cards featured the exterior of the stadiums.

thank goodness for pacific.  they made the counsell card when other companies did not.  counsell was a dodger who appeared in 50 games during the 1999 season and didn't do so well. they released him and he went on to arizona where he was the mvp of the 2001 nlcs.

the 1964 topps card shows the relative mayhem following the dodgers' sweep of the yankees in the 1963 world series.  alston makes a second appearance on the page (he's number 24), and he is celebrating with marv breeding (23), lee walls (7), and pitching coach joe becker (33), with sandy koufax in the middle of the group.

the hee seop choi card is nice with the pirates' scoreboard behind him, and the cedeno card is fairly forgettable as many of his cards are.  and was raul mondesi attentive? i don't know, but skybox thinks so.  i didn't say it earlier when referencing alston's 1974 topps card so i'll say it know - i love seeing coaches on cards.

cards that didn't make the cut:

aside from the 1961 topps alston, other options at number 136 include the 1964 topps world series card featuring sandy koufax

and steve howe's 1981 fleer fashion show card.

at 137, i chose not to use another 1981 fleer card (this one of bobby castillo with his jacket in his pocket) or the willie davis world series card from 1964 topps.  number 138 could have been a reprint of mike piazza's 1994 topps rookie card from 2001 topps traded or yasiel puig's 2013 topps chrome card among others, and a couple of also rans at number 139 include andy kosco's 1969 topps card of him not wearing a dodger uniform

and frank howard sealing the yanks' doom on a 1964 topps card.  i passed on both steve garvey's 1975 topps card and fernand(o)'s 1981 fleer rookie card at 140, and at 141 kirk gibson's 2003 topps tribute world series edition card took a back seat to hee seop.  babe ruth's coaching for the dodgers card was a contender at 142, as were steve sax's 1986 fleer and 1984 o-pee-chee cards at 143 and 144, respectively.

my favorite card on the page:

there are some nice cards here, and i really do like the perez card, even if i am pretty sure he wasn't standing in the top deck when the photo was taken.  i'll go with another card featuring dodger stadium - the 1964 topps world series card as my favorite.

final thoughts:

i'm not listing the coaches as official appearances, so that's why the alston card is here.  both tommy lasorda and jim gilliam have been featured in the set already, but i think this is the only time we'll see red adams and monty basgall.  a tip of my cap to red and monty!