An Old Friend Gets Back in the Game

Aloha, everybody, 

You might think there are already plenty of Dodger bloggers around, but believe it or not, back when I first came on board, there were even more. 

One of those past blogger/collectors, Spiegel, stopped blogging a couple of years ago, and he pretty much disappeared - at least as far as our collecting community is concerned.

In a pleasant surprise, Spiegel reappeared in the form of a message to me via Twitter. He said he was ready to get back in the collecting game, and would I (the guy who runs a blog called "All Trade Bait, All The Time") be interested in trading again? 

In the time it takes Tommy Lasorda to put away a meatball and provolone sandwich, we had cards flying in the mail. 

Speigel sent me not one, but TWO fistfuls of cards. Here are just a few of the highlights...

Check out them high-tops! 

 I figure Mets fans think it blasphemy to see The Straw in A Dodgers uni, but I say I can't get me enough Straw cards. All your Darryl as a Dodger cards are welcome right here. 

Before Eric Gagne hit Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers had another beefy closer. Too bad we can't see his Elvis sideburns too well in this shot...

Unfortunately for Broxy he had most of his success rising to the level of closer. Once there, he had setbacks with blowing saves in the post-season and constant injury. 

Too bad, because he rocked those Elvis chops like nobody. 

Most of the Sports Flix I run into are non-Dodgers, so this was a pleasant surprise. 

Bad ass Mondi, also sporting high-tops. 

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking this is the same look the Duke had on his face when he received the news he was being indicted for tax evasion...

Just like the Straw, here's a card that's blasphemy to fans from that team up in the bay. Just send all yer Jeff Kent as a Dodger cards to me. 

What the heck is that structure behind Hirok? It looks like he was pulled away from his kid's birthday party at the park to take this pic. 

Some of you out there may have forgotten that I also collect Hall of Famers from other teams. Spiegel didn't...

I cannot have too many cards from the Human Vacuum Cleaner. This one is a sweet miiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnniiiiiiiii. 

This one threw me for a loop. Pudge as a Marlin! 

Here's a cool card of Christie...

Which is your favorite team's uni to see Junior wearing? I prefer him as a Mariner. 

Finally, a fun type of shot that you'll find everywhere in today's card sets, but I'm thinking was a rarity back in its day...

That's just a sampling of the cool cardboard that Spiegel sent my way. Oh yeah, he's back in the game, alright. Welcome back, buddy. 

A couple more notes: 

I ran into Ernest from Dodger Blue Heaven at the Dodger blogger event last Friday. Writing this post reminded me I ran into Ernest, Spiegel and Greg (from Plashke, thy Sweater is Argyle fame) at a card show back in the day. I found a photo of all of us...

I'll leave it to you all out there to decipher who is who. 

And this happened today...

Another blast from Operation Cardboard Rain hit the post office, because why not? 

Aloha! 

Who Got Cards? We Got Cards!

Aloha, everybody,

Before we go any further...drink this in...

Do you all remember that scene from the movie Goodfellas? I'm referring to the scene where Ray Liotta (playing gangster Henry Hill) pulls out a stack of money because the wife asked for some shopping funds. 

He asks her, "How much do you need?" She responds by making a rather large letter "C" shape with her thumb and forefinger. It's not about a specific amount, it's a measurement of how high a stack of money she wants. 

THAT'S how thick the stack of cardboard was that I received from the King of all Card Bloggers, the venerable Night Owl.  

N.O. doesn't do PWE's like many of us who send a few cards in a measley envelope and call it a bombing. No sir, when N.O. sends you cards, he is sending serious numbers, team bags and stacks. 

Best of all, if you're lucky enough to be a fellow Dodger fan, just about all of that cardboard is of the wondrous Dodger Blue variety.

 Since N.O. is so beloved and respected in the blogosphere, people from all around the country are constantly sending him cards galore. That means his overflow and extras are passed on to his fellow Dodger collectors in huge stacks full of cardboard gems. Aint life grand?

Here's a great example. This shiny Flair Showcase features a great photo of Nomo at bat. The kid could hit, and he even displayed occasional home run power. 

Here's something else I love about this Nomo card - it's the outstanding backside, featuring a washed in blood, obvious tribute to the master of mayhem, Japanese film director, Takashi Miike,

  
Another blogger named Greg, from Plashke, Thy Sweater is Argyle is the biggest Russel Martin collector I know.  He probably had this card long ago, but it's my first time to come across this awesome PATP with a crashing Yankee? White Sox? Anyway, the guy looks out to me.

What would a package from Night Owl be without some vintage Dodgers?

Sometimes I think Tommy Davis is the only Dodger on this checklist, or they double-printed Tommy's cards, because his is the only Dodger card that I ever seem to come across from this set. 
 

 Good ol' Bobby Castillo was a local boy from LA, and seemed to have settled somewhere close to my neck of the woods, because almost every year at my sons' PONY baseball opening day, he would show up in his Dodgers jersey (which still fit well) and toss out the honorary first ball of the season. 

Here's World Series hero Charlie Neal. The Dodgers appeared in 1959 Topps in photos that were shot at the Los Angeles Rams' new home for the 2016 football season, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

Many LA Ram fans probably thought the Rams always played in Anaheim Stadium, sharing the confines with the Angels, but us old-timers remember they played in the Coliseum before moving out to Orange County.

Welcome home, Rams. 
 

Apparently someone along the way decided to scratch out the word "outfield" under Ron Fairly's name. Perhaps Fairly dropped a can of corn and lost a critical game, causing some irate ten year-old to angrily scribble out the word with a hearty, "Yeah, right."

It's getting late now, and I'll have to stop here if I want to hit the Publish button before I sleep. We'll have to break this post up into a two-parter. Most recaps of cards received from N.O. take up two posts anyway. It's par for the course. 

I've probably already lost the west coast red eye readers, so perhaps only Night Owl will see this late night post. That's just fine with me, because it'll simply be two Dodger goodfellas, talking about tall stacks of cardboard. 

Up next: Part 2

Aloha!

I Went To A Card Show & A Trade Fest Broke Out

Hey everybody,

(The below post was written last night and finished too late to post...but here it is in its original form.) 

LtoR: Ernest, Zawkin, StealingHome, Spiegel

 Today's post about the card show out in Culver City is going up a bit late because I went to the card show with a friend.  After the show we hopped over to Santa Monica and I just got home.

What a cool card show it was!  It was held in a city auditorium...

 You can read Spiegel's review of the show as a dealer  here.

Here's our dealer hero now!

 I left before the end of the show, so I don't know if Spiegel was able to sell off all the rest of this below, but he did tell me he had already made back his table fee and every sale from there on was Champagne Money! Woo-Hoo!

As Spiegel mentioned, it was more than a card show, because it was a great chance for several Dodger bloggers to get together, talk cards and get a couple of trades going.

It was extra cool for me because even though I have been blogging for a little more than a year now, I'm still a relative newbie when it comes to meeting up with my fellow Dodger bloggers. As a matter of fact, I'm such a newb that I met Ernest from Dodgers Blue Heaven today and I thought I had simply met a cool guy.

Ernest, I apologize I didn't make the connection that you're the guy behind that great resource blog of all things Dodger Blue.  I'm looking forward to the next time we meet and talking a bit more.

How about a couple more shots from the show...

It wasn't a huge card show, but vintage was well represented.

Speaking of vintage, there were some very cool old-time bats here. Zawkin said he held Hack Wilson's bat.

 My friend who joined me at the show today doesn't know much about baseball, but this guy was definitely a familiar face...

 Did I mention some trades took place?  First up was a card exchange between Spiegel and myself.  He gave me a great stack of cards; here are just a few highlights...

Above is a very cool -and new for me - shiny card honoring the best third baseman the Dodgers have had in a decade.  A DECADE !  Do you hear me, Ned Colletti????

THIS was the best card of the trade for me.  My first card of the Dodgers new K-Kid. 

How about this one? Dodger pitcher relics are cool, but I really appreciate a bat relic from a pitcher.  Nice one, Michael.

 There was also a quickie trade between Zawkin, from the great blog,  Plashke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle and myself.  First of all, I've gotta say the only thing I expected to get was the cold shoulder because of the way I've chewed up Zawkin's favorite player, Matt Bison Kemp here at ATBATT in the past.

Well, because Zawkin's cool like that, he dropped a very nice card on me...

  

I now have my very own Mickey Hatcher autograph.  A-way back in March, Zawkin posted about a trade that netted him the above Hatcher card, and I commented that I've gotta get one of my own.  Zawkin is such an awesome dude that today he gave me THAT very card because as he said, he knew, "I liked it"!  Zawkin, THANKS, man.

Most of you non-Dodger fans are probably thinking who-the-heck is Mickey Hatcher?  Some of you probably know him as the dude with the giant baseball mitt from his '86 Fleer and '91 Upper Deck cards, or as the former batting coach for Mike Scioscia's Angels.

Mickey is much more than that.  To me, Hatch is the unsung hero of the 1988 World Series.  Everybody remembers Kirk Gibson's 9th inning heroics from Game 1, but that never woulda had a chance to happen if it wasn't for Hatcher's 1st inning, 2-run HR off of A's ace, Dave Stewart.  Hatcher and Gibson's homers were the only ones for the Dodgers that night.

That wasn't all for Hatcher.  After Gibby knocked out that legendary HR, he never appeared in the series again.  Who replaced him?  Yup, Mickey Hatcher.   He provided a great spark of enthusiasm and fire for that Dodgers team that ran hard on Tommy Lasorda's unique brand of baseball spark.

Nobody hit another home run for the Dodgers in that series again until Game 5.  Like he was placing bookends on the WS, once again Hatcher stepped up and blasted a 2-run HR in the 1st inning to help lead the Dodgers to win that 5th and final game of the series.

After hitting only 1 homer all season, Hatcher replaced Gibson in the freakin' World Series, no less, and went on to bat .368 with 2 homers and 5 RBI's. When Baseball's Spotlight shone the brightest and hottest, Hatch delivered and he truly became a World Series hero.

Oh yeah, there was a card show today, which means I also bought a few cards.  That post is yet to come.

What was the secret joke that made us all laugh in this shot?

THANKS for reading everybody! 

When Dodger Bloggers Collide - Trades Explode!

Hey everybody,

Last week the Dodgers held their Fanfest, which a couple of the other bloggers out there wrote about.  You can see Speigel's Nomo's Sushi Platter post here , and Greg's Plashke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle post here.  

Although I was there, I chose not to stand around all day at Linefest, so I broke off to enjoy my Saturday in other ways.  But that was not before I had a great time meeting a few of the other LA-based Dodger bloggers, shooting the breeze for a bit (while standing in the longest line I have ever seen for anything in my life) and engaging in a "Pile o' Cards Swap" with Speigel.

One would think that when one Dodger collector hands another Dodger collector a couple of  piles of cards that it would be anticlimactic.  I mean, we collect the same team, and thus the same players, so it would seem most of what we trade would be boring repeats, right?  One could not be more wrong.  While a few were repeats, the vast majority were brand new to me.

Speigel handed me a GREAT variety.  Shiny cards, miiiiiinnnnniiiiiis, Dodger legends, MLB legends, oddball cards, new issues, flash in the pans, today's stars and HOFers.  What a great hunka cards.  Let's check out a few...

I got at least 5 new Nomo cards for my collection. This one is a beauty.

This card reminds me of the 55 Bowman "TV" set.  Really thick card stock on this one.

A nice framed piece.  Paulie hit the only inside-the-park home run that I ever witnessed. He line drove it into the right field corner and he was off to the races!

A new Piazza!  What a cool photo.  Piazza's wearing the Dean Man's Number patch for Tim Crews.

Awesomme Gehrig!

Here's a miiiinnnnniiiii Mike!

Here's a nice shot.  Overall, a great card, but that obnoxious trademark "R" has gotta go.

Here's a great shot of Sciosca wearin' the tools of ignorance - at Spring Training, perhaps? Note the "Yeager Special" neck protector hanging from the catchers mask.  Everyone wore those after Steve Yeager took a broken bat to the throat.  I saw that on TV.

How about this cool Hideki Kuroda card!

I'm not a Juan Pierre fan, but this card is awesome for this photo of the rabbit looking for his chance to break. 

Speaking of awesome - here's a Kershaw I never saw before!

did somebody order shiny and sparkly?

Another great Nomo.  This trade was so great, even the cards themselves had lurkers attached to their backs.

Closing out with a great new addition to my Don Sutton collection.

THANKS for a great trade, Speigel! and THANKS for reading, everyone.