more brown and yellow from the steve garvey binders

the 18th sheet of the steve garvey binders begins with a different former dodger wearing the san diego brown and yellow. i'll explain below.

so, those cards are:

1. 1985 topps dick williams
2. 1985 topps glossy all-star
3. 1985 topps pete rose #81
4. 1985 topps rubdown
5. 1985 topps stickers (foil top)
6. 1985 topps stickers (foil bottom)
7. 1985 topps stickers (nlcs - batting)
8. 1985 topps stickers (nlcs - posed)
9. 1985 topps stickers (foil)

the dick williams card is here because steve garvey is lurking in the background, signing autographs for his legion of fans.  two cards over is another card in which garvey is a background lurker.  it comes from a 1985 set produced by topps that features nothing but pete rose.  there are 120 cards in the set, which seems excessive, but i was happy to find card number 81 in the set that shows the scene at first base following hit number 4192.  i think that it's pretty cool that garvey was on the field for both babe ruth's career home run record being broken as well as the passing of ty cobb's career hit record (although some statistic scrubbing in the following years would show that rose actually passed cobb in an earlier game).

the rubdown 'card' is the same as the 1984 version with only the copyright date changing, but it gives bill russell another reason to be in the garvey collection.

here are the backs:

the back of the rose card shows how far they were reaching for content - hey mr. hit king! how important is batting practice?  jeez.  you can also see that i did not keep the rubdown instructions as i did with the 1984 version.

here's sheet 19, which transitions into 1986

the cards are:

1. 1985 topps stickers
2. 1985 topps tiffany (record breaker)
3. 1985 topps tiffany
4. 1986 burger king
5. 1986 cunningham
6. 1986 donruss
7. 1986 fleer
8. 1986 fleer (superstar special)
9. 1986 fleer league leaders

here are the backs

i think burger king confused baseball with football - there are no all-pros in baseball.  the fleer superstar special card features a photo from the 1985 all-star game (not all-pro game) in minneapolis.  garvey, dale murphy, and dave parker represented the national league in the home run derby that year, along with jack clark and ryne sandberg.  parker won.  and, if you're wondering, garvey led the league in games played in 1985 with 162 - i'm assuming that's why he was in the 1986 fleer league leaders set.

mail in random order

i had a few cards sitting in my mailbox the other day. i'm behind on trade posts, and am still waiting for a few long standing return packages to arrive.  and the traveling box.  whoever has the traveling box, please get it moving.  anyway, there were three pwe's sitting there when i picked up the mail.  here's what was inside.

this 'card' is a 1985 topps rubdown, featuring half of the infield - bill russell and steve garvey

it is identical to the 1984 topps rubdown i showed a while back, except for the date in the copyright line.  the second card in the first envelope, which came from royals and randoms, was this 2003 fleer patchworks adrian beltre card

beltre has driven in over 100 runs for three straight years, after not having achieved that milestone since his monster 2004 season for the dodgers.  he's got over 2200 hits, and is only about to turn 34.  hall of famer?  we'll see.

the second envelope was from the angels, in order, and contained two sandy koufax cards from 2012 topps.  they are both 'golden greats' inserts, one of which addresses koufax's performance in the 1965 world series against the twins

 and the other which covers his first career no-hitter

i was surprised that 38 years had passed since someone took only 9 pitches to strike out the side.  that seems odd to me.

the third envelope was a sase which is pretty much always a ttm return.  and so it was - my 1978 topps jim clancy card found it's way back

a nice return, with about a 3 and a half month wait.  clancy was part of the first toronto playoff team in 1985, but made it to the world series before the blue jays did, as he was a member of the 1991 atlanta braves.  his career actually came to a close in that series as he won game 4 and made two other appearances for atlanta.  he still ranks pretty highly on the blue jays leader board, and i enjoyed following his career as a closet blue jays fan, so i was happy to get this one back.

thanks all around for the envelopes!