New Year 2020 Surprise Package From The Pancake King

Aloha, everybody,

JBF, The Pancake King, mi hermano, sent out 13 Lucky packages before Christmas. Here's what I received in mine.

Aloha!

A Fistful of Dodgers From Bo's Box

Aloha, everybody, 

As you may remember, I'm showing off some samples from the large box of cards that Bo sent over to me. We're down to the last couple of posts, so let's get started. 

Here come some great Dodgers cards from the shiny and creative '90s and beyond. Leading off are a few Beltres...

Now some shiny (and new!) Nomos...

Tribute reprints that came off very nicely...

I wonder how many reprint versions of that Steve Garvey All-Stars card are out there? This is my third different one. 

Let's get modern with some Diamond Kings...

These DKs work just as well on the backside. I like stats on the back as much as the next guy, but I'm also a big fan of the snippets I can read that give me context...

Takeshi Saito didn't get on a lot of cards back then, but boy, I'm glad he made it onto this cool blue Spectrum specimen...

I don't think there's another ex-Dodger who's cards make me feel sad, like Pedro's...

This Mondesi card has a nice textured surface to go along with the shiny stars...

I wonder if we'll ever get sparkly, glittery cards again...

Let's close with a couple of lights-out pitchers...

As always, THANKS for these cool cards, Bo! 

Aloha! 

Rediscovered Dodgers Goodness 60's - 90's

Here comes Part 2 of the Dodgers goodies I found in a long-neglected shoebox. Yesterday we saw the Brooklyn Dodgers on cards from the 50's.  Today, we move forward to Los Angeles, the 60's, and beyond.

The Dodgers have a long history of big-time, home run hitters, but the heart that pumps their Blue Blood is that of a pitcher.  The Dodgers have long been a team built around pitching.  

They left the 50's and Brooklyn behind, and were fully embraced by their new home town.  Below is a card that symbolizes that changing of the team from the old bums of the borough to the shiny new stars in Hollywood...

 Although Koufax played for Brooklyn and Podres pitched in L.A., nobody really pictures them in those roles. Soon enough Podres would move over and the Dodgers became Sandy's team.  

Of course, Koufax had a little help...

  
Topps gives us a great portrait of Drysdale with an iconic old-time stadium in the background. 

The shoebox also contained some old stadium giveaways.  Leading off with1987, here's some highlights from a team set...

 These team-sponsored giveaways are great because they always contain lots of old Dodger Stadium scoreboards and seating colors from the past. 

Here's one of those multi-colored Astro's unis.  Any Astros fan out there know who the catcher might be?

Below is one of the card backs, followed by a card for Matt.  Recognize that guy, buddy? 

Next, a team set from '92. First up, Tim Crews, who was killed in a tragic boating accident...

 Seeing Davis here brings back my point of the Dodgers being in love with traveling home run hitters, but Orel is the heart...

 

  The final team set is from Mother's Cookies. Again, some great background Dodger Stadium lurkiness...

 Look at how young The Tornado looks! 

 I think that's Brett Butler's batting helmet lurking. 

You think only today's players can rock the shades? Check out Raul Mondesi looking ready to hit PCH after the game...

I'm unsure when this next giveaway took place, but I'm guessing around '95 or '96 because Hideo Nomo was included in this refrigerator magnet set of three.  I haven't opened the package, but I moved the magnets and we can see it contains 1990's Dodgers stars Karros, Nomo and Mike Piazza. 

  Of course there were more than Dodgers in that shoebox, so the next post or two will contain those finds. 

As always, thanks for reading!

Dodgers All Stars In Championship Years 1981 1988

Welcome, beloved readers and treasured trade partners, to the final installment covering the past Dodgers who participated in All Star games during their respective World Championship years.

The last time the Boys in Blue won the W.S. was back in the 80's.  We had bookend victories, at the start and end of the decade.  First up...

1981

 Gary Carter hit two HRs and he was MVP.   The '81 squad featured a whopping half-dozen Dodgers!  Bruce Bochy's head woulda exploded!  And I woulda loved it...

Garvey didn't start, but he had two ABs, and he hit a double.

Pay-Dro  Goo-Rare-Oh pinch hit and struck out.  No worries, as Pedro went on that season to become an MVP in the World Series. 

Happy Hooten pitched a 1-2-3 fifth inning and struck out George Brett.   He got hammered in the sixth, giving up 3 small ball runs. 

Lopes started at 2B.  He came up once, and walked. No SB.

Fernando was the starting pitcher.  He gave up 2 hits, but no runs.

Dusty Baker entered the game in the 6th, and had two ABs, hitting one single.  At least he didn't jinx the National Leaguers, as they won 5-4.

1988

1988's contest was played in Oakland-Alameda Stadium.  The National Leaguers won 2-0.  The N.L. returned once again at the end of the '88 season in the form of the Dodgers...

Bulldog entered in the 5th inning.  He got Harold Reynolds, Kirby Puckett and Wade Boggs to ground out.  Now-Dodger Manager Damn Mattingly walked.

He went out and pitched the 6th as well, facing the minimum batters.  Tony Fernandez, George Bell and Dave Winfield went out 1-2-3 against the Bulldog.

Set Potched - Wheelered - Dealered - NAILED !

Hey everybody,

This is the reason I started ATBATT and this is the reason our hobby and it's participants are AWESOME!

I've been chasing a pretty dang cool vintage subset - the 1976 edition of The Sporting News' All-Time All-Stars - for quite some time.   However, one little card had been standing between me and completion.  Sure, I could have found one on the bay (a quick search shows I can snatch one up for $5 to $10), but clicking "Buy now" just isn't the kind of fun that I got involved in our hobby to have.

I think you know what I mean.  We've all done it. Checking around the local card shows, diving into boxes hoping to make that GREAT FIND.  You know the feeling...blissfully sifting through cards, occasionally stopping to ooh and ahh over something you hadn't seen before, or slowing to internally smile and say to yourself, "Heh, I've got that one."

When suddenly...THERE IT IS !  The card you need, or almost as exciting,  the card you didn't know you needed until you saw it.  Man, that's the juice right there!

That didn't happen for me this time.  But what did happen was equally as good, perhaps even better.  You know the story...some guy halfway around the country who loves cardboard just as much as you do realized he has the card you need, or he sees it himself at a card show a thousand miles away from you, and he grabs it in order to help you out in your card quest, because he's cool like that.

Enter Cool Like That Potch, from Potch Wheeler And The Cardboard Heroes.    Naturally, the guy from the cardboard heroes site noticed I needed one cardboard hero myself, and he sent it out to me. YAHOOO !!!    Enough intro already.  Here's the card...

The previously elusive Mr. Hornsby with his mitt stuffed into his back pocket.

Here's his buddies, the rest of the set.  altogether these guys make up an awesome team.  We have the infield, outfield and 2 pitchers, one a righty, and one a southpaw. 

Mission Accomplished, Set Complete 

Ordinarily that one card would have been enough, but Potch bein' Potch tossed in a coupla piles (and I mean PILES) of other baseball heroes of the Dodger Blue variety.  Here's just a few of the highlights...

A new Piazza!  Coooool!   How about that mug?  I think he gave a face like this to Clemens when that punk tossed a piece of bat at him in the WS.  

Remember when Dee Gordon's 2011 Topps issue personified "Dodger double play"?  I now present Eric Young's bid for that title.

A new Bulldog card.  Suddenly yellow on a card works. 

One of my all-time favorite Dodger shortstops.  The more things change, the more they remain the same...infielders still love to keep gloves in thier back pockets.

 Potch tossed in a great bunch of Dodgers form the 80's and 90's.  Although I liked the stars as much as anybody, I also liked to cheer for some of the lesser known guys and the utility players.  Here's a few of my past favorites...

Of course, in receiving as many cards as Potch sent, there's going to be one or two guys who I forgot were actually Dodgers.  For example...

Raw Sewage?

Jokes aside, what a great trade.  I got lots of cards from my favorite team, and of course, the clincher...the final card I needed, courtesy of my newest Cardboard Hero, Potch.

THANKS for a great trade, Potch, and THANKS for reading everybody!

BTW: If you see this, Night Owl, I am happy to request the removal of my quest from the One Card Challenge at your blog.   Everybody else, I encourage you to stop by that section of Night Owl's blog and help a fellow collector in finding that one last card.  

Inspired By A Night Owl...Kinda

Hey everybody,

When you're blogger of the year, you don't just write cool stuff that your blogger brethren love to read.  Heck, if that were enough to win, I might just take that title myself next year - or the year after that - or the year after that one.

No, you've gotta do way more than write stuff we like to read.  You've gotta write cool stuff that helps us see our hobby through a new filter and through refreshed eyes.  And if you're good -  i mean, if you're really good, you inspire other bloggers to write yet even more cool stuff about our hobby.  That's what B.O.Y. Night Owl did with his offbeat, but definitely interesting new "thing".  Over at N.O's blog, he's matching up albums and song titles to cards.

So here's my take on it, my "thing", if you will.  I'm offering up my top 20 movies represented by cardboard.  Two rules to be included:

1. It must be a movie I can watch 100 times or more. 
2. The card must be in my collection (and a Dodger card whenever possible).  Check 'em out...

20. BOOGIE NIGHTS
A movie chock full of young actors just bursting on the scene, Marky Mark Whalberg, Don Cheadle, William Macy, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and veterans Julianne Moore and Burt Reynolds.  The story of a young man's rise and fall in the California porn industry, circa 1975-80, and the group of actors, actresses, camera people, hangers onners and the director who become his supportive "family".

"I never take my skates off." 

Karros and Piazza were rumored to love the night life during thier heyday, basking in the glory of being a rich, young baseball player in LA.  Back in those days, whenever we heard a car driving by blasting loud marengue or salsa music, we used to joke, "There goes Raul Mondesi."

19. GHOST DOG: WAY OF THE SAMURAI
Director Jim Jarmusch's  smart, funny and violent study of an African-American hit man (Forrest Whitaker) who follows the ancient ways of the samurai in modern-day Brooklyn, New York.

"If a warrior's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty." 

When Jackie broke the color barrier in baseball, even if unwittingly, he followed the way of a quiet and serious samurai, silently enduring hardship and defeating countless enemies with his physical prowess and the weapons of his chosen art.

18. RAISING ARIZONA
The first true comedy in my countdown.  A quirky and at times, hilarious baby-kidnapping film starring Holly Hunter and Nicholas Cage.  Also, in a brilliant bit of casting as a bounty hunter, 'Tex' Cobb.

"Well, it aint Ozzie and Harriet."

I couldn't for the life of me find anything connecting to the film, so here's a backdoor reference to the All-Star game that was played that year in Arizona.

17. GOODFELLAS

I think we all know this one.

" You're really a funny guy!"

Dodgerdom's first Goodfellas - the 1955 Brooklyn squad.  The first team to bring home the World Series Championship.

Our last Goodfellas - The 1988 Los Angeles squad.

16. ANIMAL HOUSE
Hands down, the absolute funniest college comedy, ever.

"See if you can guess what I am now."
 

The Dodgers have had a few "animals" over the years.  First we had a Toro.

Then we had a Bulldog.

Now we have a Bison.

15. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

Wow. The storming of Omaha Beach scene alone was worth the price of the ticket.

"I was a schoolteacher."

If you were a Dodger pitcher needing a 9th inning save, watching Eric Gagne take the mound meant Game Over! 

Hope you enjoyed the first installment as much as I enjoyed writing it.  Thanks for reading!

Next Post: Part 2