a partial run through the 1998 mother's cookies dodger set

earlier today i posted some cards from the 1997 mother's cookies dodger team set.  it was the first year that the set went away from full-bleed photos, and the 1998 set followed suit.  here's glenn hoffman's lone card as the dodger skipper.

tripp cromer gets a dodger card

thanks to this set - one of two cromer as a dodger cards that i have (the other comes from the 1999 keebler dodgers set)

mark guthrie

joined the dodgers in the 1995 trade that sent ron coomer to the twins and brought kevin tapani to los angeles. he pitched for the dodgers in 205 games over 4 seasons, but the only cards i have of him in a dodger uniform come from this set, the 1996 leaf signature series set, and the 1998 pacific online set.

the same goes for darren hall

who pitched in 83 games for the dodgers over 3 years, and trenidad hubbard

except that his dodger cards are limited to this set, the '99 keebler set, and the '98 pacific online release.

scott radinsky shows up in these sets, plus the pacific online set as a dodger, and he

almost had a 1999 fleer card as a dodger, but i had to settle for a cardinal wearing a dodger uniform.

i'll end this post with the coaches

john shelby replaced reggie smith as the first base coach, but charlie hough took over for dave wallace, so the number of players from the team of my youth on the staff remains the same.  mickey hatcher shows up in place of longtime coach mark cresse although he was the hitting coach.  1998 was cresse's last year as the bullpen coach, but he didn't make the card for some reason.  rick dempsey took over for cresse as the bullpen coach in 1999.

an abbreviated run through the 1997 mother's cookies dodger set

1997 was all about the 50th anniversary of jackie robinson's major league debut, and the mother's cookies dodger set that year included a special card with the anniversary logo.

that's the logo that the dodgers wore - remember, while all teams wore a similar patch, the dodgers, marlins, and expos put their own twist on it.

here are a few more cards from the 1997 mother's cookies dodger set

bill russell

the manager!

and his coaches!

plus, the five straight rookies of the year - eric karros

mike piazza

raul mondesi

hideo nomo

and todd hollandsworth

here's the current diamondbacks manager, chip hale

in what may well be his only dodger card

darren hall

has a couple of dodger cards, but not many.

does anyone recall nelson liriano as a dodger?

he played in 76 games for the 1997 dodgers, and his lone home run in dodger blue was a 9th inning game winner against the cubs.

here's one more - scott radinsky

if it weren't for these mother's sets, i don't think i would have more than one card of the pulley lead singer and current dodger minor league pitching coach.

thanks again to mr. haverkamp for brokering the deal that netted me these sets.

filling the gap in my mother's cookies dodger collection

aside from the 1989 mother's cookies dodger set (and the special mike piazza/tim salmon set) that i already owned, the recent package from mr. haverkamp included the rest of the run of sets produced by the purveyor of bagged baked goodness.  i was a sucker for their iced animal cookies for sure.  anyway, the set that was missing was the 1996 set, which i subsequently picked up on ebay.

here's the manager, tom lasorda

in what would be his final set.

his coaching staff

included holdovers joe amalfitano, mark cresse, manny mota, bill russell, dave wallace, and reggie smith.  russell would assume the managerial position during the season after suffering a heart attack.

this set also includes the five straight rookies of the year for the first time - eric karros

mike piazza

raul mondesi

hideo nomo

and todd hollandsworth

who would win the award in '96.

here are a few other random dodgers from the set - delino deshields,

pinch-hitter extraordinaire dave hansen,

one of the many hot corner stopgaps between ron cey and adrian beltre, mike blowers,

milt thompson,

who spent the first half of the '96 season with the dodgers, and…

…chad fonville

fonville was one of the most exciting players to watch in 1995 after he joined the dodgers in may.  he wound up stealing 20 bases in 88 games during the regular season, and then went 6 for 12 in the three-game loss to the reds in the nlds.  i'll take as many fonville cards as i can get.

this was the last year that the mother's sets used the full bleed photos. i'll show some cards from the '97 and '98 sets in a future post.

i ran into the fuzz at the card shop

a new (yes, new!) card shop opened up in the twin cities about a year ago.  one of the owners is also one of the 'vintage bargain bin guys' from the local shows.  he's the one that sold me my 1955 topps sandy koufax card, in fact.

it took me a while to get over there, but i finally did a few weeks ago.  the store is packed with not just cards, but various pieces of memorabilia and pretty much every kind of sports collectible you could think of.  amid the bobbleheads and pennants, there was a shelf that had a bunch of smaller complete sets on it. boxed sets, like the fleer sets of the 80's and 90's, along with some mail-in sets and some stadium giveaway sets.  it was there that i found a 1993 dodgers police set for $3.

started in 1980, the police sets were, like the later mother's and keebler sets, a good way to get some of the deeper roster players on a card.  and, there were coaches!  i know i have belabored that point recently, but i'm not sorry about it.  here's the coaches card from the 1993 dodger police set

that's manny mota, joey amalfitano, ron roenicke, ben hines, tommy lasorda, ron perranoski, joe ferguson, and mark cresse.

lasorda also got a card of his own

with the one of the outfield pavilions in the background.

ramon martinez was still king of the hill at dodger stadium in 1993

and his little brother pedro was there with him

boyhood friends eric davis

and darryl strawberry

roamed the outfield at chavez ravine, with disappointing results.

the 1993 set was the one that featured lance parrish, despite the fact that he never did suit up in a big league game for the dodgers.  i've shown the front of parrish's card before - i bought it as a single to document his dodgerdom - so here's the back

one reason that parrish never got the call from the dodger brass was the play of a rookie catcher named mike piazza

piazza went on to win the rookie of the year award and hold the dodgers' catching job for about 5 years before he was traded to the marlins.

i'm not sure which card in the set is more desirable - the pedro or the piazza - but i am sure that jody reed's card

is probably not in the running.

more coaches man, coaches

i've extolled the virtues of coaches cards in mother's cookies and the dodger police sets before, and now with the bounty of mother's dodger sets that mr. haverkamp procured for me, i can show more of these great cards.  they aren't anything special in way of design, but they document the guys who don't show up on cardboard very much at all.  let's have a look at tommy lasorda's coaching staff, shall we?  be sure to enjoy the dodger stadium backdrop while we do so.

1988

that's joe ferguson, ron perranoski, bill russell, mark cresse, joe amalfitano, manny mota, and ben hines.

1988 was ferguson's first year on the coaching staff, although he had been serving as their 'eye in the sky' for the previous few seasons.  starting in '88, he was tommy's bench coach.

perranoski took over the pitching coach duties under lasorda in 1981, replacing the retiring red adams who had been the pitching coach for the dodgers since 1969.

russell joined the staff in 1987 following his retirement as a player.  he replaced the retiring monty basgall as the team's infield coach which seemed appropriate as basgall was instrumental in russell's conversion from the outfield to shortstop.

cresse had been the bullpen coach under walt alston for a couple of seasons before lasorda took over the managerial reins, and continued in that role on tommy's staff.

amalfitano became lasorda's third base coach in 1983, taking over (i believe) for danny ozark.

mota began coaching first base for the dodgers in 1980, and aside from a couple of late season appearances as a player, remained on the coaching staff in a variety of roles for some 35 years.

hines had been on lasorda's staff in 1985 and 1986, but took a break in '87.  he was back in '88 as the dodgers' batting coach, taking the role back from mota who had filled in during the previous season.

1990

yes, i skipped a year, although there was no change in the staff.  however, ferguson had taken over the first base coaching duties from mota who became a sort of roving instructor, and russell moved into the bench coach spot.

1991

still no change in personnel, and the roles remained the same as well.

1992

same staff except for the guy on the far right.  that's current brewers manager ron roenicke.  bill russell was sent down to manage triple-a albuquerque, and so roenicke joined the staff in his place, taking over as lasorda's bench coach.

1993

tommy employed the same staff as the previous season.

1994

some new (and old) blood was added to the staff for 1994.  you will notice that reggie smith, the right fielder for the team of my youth, in the back row, and bill russell, the shortstop for the team of my youth is back in the front row.  gone are ron roenicke and ben hines. roenicke began his managerial career in the lower levels of the dodger organization, and russell returned from the high minors to take over roenicke's previous role as tommy's bench coach.  smith took over for hines as the batting coach and also replaced ferguson as the first base coach.  ferguson went back to his role as the 'eye in the sky' positioning defenders from the press box.

1995

here we are in 1995, and ron perranoski is no longer on the dodger staff.  he moved up north to join the giants' organization for some strange reason.  dave wallace took over for perranoski as lasorda's pitching coach and appears in the top row on the coaches card. this was the staff for lasorda's final full season as the dodger manager.

the mother's lode

many moons ago, mr. haverkamp commented on a blog post somewhere that he had access to a purveyor of mother's cookies cards.  issued in team sets as stadium giveaways in the 1980's and 1990's, these card sets are good (and sometimes the only) ways to get cards of lesser known players in your favorite team's uniform, provided that your favorite team was one of the subjects of these sets.  for the dodgers, they weren't included until 1987, but had sets produced from then through 1998.  keebler picked up the production in 1999, and issued sets through 2003 as far as i can tell.  

anyway, i inquired with mr. haverkamp, and knowing that i already had the 1989 set, commissioned him to pick up as many of the other sets as he could.  he delivered. 

those are ten of the twelve sets issued from 1987 through 1998 - the aforementioned 1989 set and the 1996 set were the only ones missing.

the 1987 set came with a nice surprise - a card featuring dodger stadium.

that makes sense - it was the stadium's 25th anniversary in 1987.

the sets were consistent in their inclusion of a manager card, even as topps seemingly vacillated about their inclusion in the '90's.  here's tommy lasorda's card from the 1987 set.

the cards also feature photos almost exclusively taken inside chavez ravine, which is nice.

the sets also gave some love to the coaches, which is fantastic.  here we have tommy's 1987 staff

mark cresse, ron perranoski, don macmahon (who died during the season), the recently retired bill russell, joey amalfitano, and manny mota.

here's tommy in 1988

on the way to winning his fourth pennant and second championship, 

in 1990

with an effective slim-fast diet,

in 1991

with the three sisters in the background,

in 1992

with what is for these sets a rare non-dodger stadium photo,

in 1993

wearing the tim crews memorial patch,

in 1994

before the strike kept the first place dodgers from reaching the postseason for the first time since 1988,

and in 1995

in his final full season as the dodger skipper which resulted in a postseason bid as the nl west champs.

as i mentioned above, mr. haverkamp couldn't get his hands on a '96 set which features tommy for the last time.  in 1997, bill russell took over the manager's card.

and the sets lost their full bleed photo design.  that's ok, i'm just happy that the shortstop of the team of my youth actually had a manager card made by someone.

i'll show a bunch more of these mother's cards throughout the day.  they're great.

thanks for the help with these sets, mr. haverkamp - you (along with arpsmith and matt r) are giving giant fans a good name in these parts!