i was there when the impossible happened and i've got the photos to prove it

not that i need an excuse to post a fantastic card like this 1995 upper deck sp championship series kirk gibson die-cut classic performances card

but i thought that i would expand on something i've mentioned a time or two before.  mainly, that i was at game 1 of the 1988 world series with my dad.  i came across some of our photos from that game recently, and scanned a few.  let's relive the excitement, shall we?

pre-game

we were sitting in the right field pavilion, and were in line for dodger dogs during the team introductions.  debbie gibson sang the national anthem.  when we got to our seats, the good year blimp was flying above the top of the park.

bottom of the first inning

that's mickey hatcher about to round second after hitting a home run to put the dodgers up 2-0.  hatcher was starting in left field in place of the aforementioned gibson, who had two bad legs following the nlcs against the mets.

the second photo there shows hatcher nearly catching up to steve sax as he nears third base.  when sax turned around after touching home plate, he was visibly surprised to see hatcher right behind him.

top of the second inning

tim belcher loaded the bases, partly by walking dave stewart (that's stew at second base), but he got dave henderson (at the plate in the photo above) to strike out for the second out, but that brought up jose canseco.

canseco took the first pitch in the photo above, but sent the second pitch on a line over the center field wall.  one of the hardest hit balls i have ever seen in person.  here's a photo of canseco rounding the bases

after what turned out to be his only hit in the series.  and here's a photo of him out in right field afterwards

i believe this is when the 'steroids' chants began that night.  did he flex for us? i think he did, but don't recall for sure.

bottom of the third innng

mickey hatcher came up again, and i thought his home run so improbable, that i took a picture of the diamondvision scoreboard.  hatcher drew a walk, but mike marshall lined out to third to end the inning.

bottom of the fifth inning:

here franklin stubbs (as the tying run) grounds out sharply to mark mcgwire at first base with tracy woodson on second base to end the inning.

bottom of the sixth inning:

with one out, following mike marshall and john shelby singles, mike scioscia is at the plate

and he singled to left to drive in marshall, making the score 4-3, which is how it stayed going into the final inning.

bottom of the ninth inning:

dennis eckersley is on the mound pitching to mike davis with two outs in that photo. davis draws a walk to extend the inning…

…and look who's coming up!

that's gibson, of course, making his way to the batter's box.  everybody in the stadium was up, and most were hoping for a home run, i am sure.

the next two pictures are from the first pitch eckersley threw - my dad's photo is better

than mine

must be the cameras.  the pitch resulted in a foul ball to the left side.  many hopes for a home run were dashed after that swing, i would guess.

here's the 0-2 pitch to gibson

i think this was also the pitch after which a's catcher ron hassey threw back to first to try to pick davis off.  i remember thinking that it would have been a terrible way for the game to end.

after that pitch, both my dad and i stopped shooting and watched instead. we are glad that we did.  i took this next photo after watching gibson's hit land in the pavilion to our left.  we have eck walking off the mound with steve sax holding his head in disbelief.

here's where we all were losing our minds.  the pavilion was rocking and i was full of adrenaline and joy, so this picture didn't come out at all

that's gibson, though, approaching second base.  i remember seeing the fist pumps.  it was awesome.

after that, i focused on home plate, which is too bad because i missed gibson rounding third.  this photo shows mickey hatcher and orel hershiser up the line to greet him

as does this one

but now gibby is somewhere in the mass of dodger humanity at home plate.

this series of photos is really not much to look at - it's just the celebration at home plate blurrily taking place, but i like it more for the slow progression of a's left fielder stan javier making his way off the field.  he's there at second base in the above photo

now he's almost half way to first base

and now he's just about out of the frame.

about the only person i can make out in all of this is tracy woodson, as he was wearing the blue pullover.  you can tell by the poor quality of these photographs that i am very happy to have so many cards in my collection that capture gibson's home run, including the one up top.  that's partially why there are two such cards in my header, which reminds me to remind you to get your entries in for my contest - only a few days left.

i know a guy who has only attended one baseball game in his lifetime, and it was game 7 of the 1991 world series.  he says that he's never felt the need to go to another after seeing that game in person.  game 1 of the 1988 world series was not the first game i had been to, obviously, but i kind of know what he means.  it is a hard act to follow, but that's the beauty of the game - anything can happen on any given night - and that's why i keep going back.

sunday morning target dodgers - uncle robbie pays a visit

it must be sunday because here's another 15 cards from a sheet in the 1990 target dodgers 100th anniverary giveaway set. let's get right to it.

doyle alexander

alexander was part of the dodgers' hugely successful 1968 draft class.  he was taken in the 9th round and was pitching in the major leagues three years later.  after going 6-6 with four complete games for the 1971 dodgers, alexander was traded to the orioles in the frank robinson deal.  he may be best remembered for being traded by the braves to the tigers in 1987 for john smoltz.

lloyd brown

brown began his career with the robins in 1925, but found better success with the senators later on. in his lone year with brooklyn, brown was 0-3 in 17 appearances (five starts). from 1928-1932, brown was 58-49 for the senators, and he also pitched for the browns, red sox, indians, and phillies during his big league career.

hal gregg

gregg pitched for the dodgers from 1943-1947.  he won 18 games for the club in 1945 after losing 16 the previous season.  overall, gregg was 37-41 as a dodger during the regular season, and 0-1 in postseason play (he pitched in three games during the 1947 world series) before he was traded to the pirates in the trade that  also sent dixie walker to pittsburgh.

roy henshaw

the dodgers traded for henshaw in 1937 after he had gone 21-11 with a 3.68 era for the cubs over the previous three seasons. with the dodgers, however, henshaw was just 5-12 with a 5.07 era in 42 appearances.  as a result, he was dealt to the cardinals after the season ended in the deal that brought leo durocher to brooklyn.

george kelly

'high pockets' kelly belongs to that list of hall of famers (greg maddux and rickey henderson are recent examples) who are not typically remembered for their time with the club, but ended their career playing for the dodger organization.  for kelly, that was 1932, and he joined the dodgers after spending the 1931 season in the minors.  kelly hit .243 in 64 games for brooklyn, and netted his 1000th career rbi while doing so.  he was elected to the hall of fame in 1973 by the veteran's committee, although he is often cited as the least worthy hall of famer.

ken lehman

lehman was a september call-up in 1952, and struck out the first batter he ever faced in the big leagues (sam jethroe).  he was 1-2 in his four appearances that month, and impressed folks enough that he was added to the dodgers' postseason roster.  he appeared in one world series game against the yankees, and pitched two scoreless innings.  lehman returned to the majors in 1956, pitching in 25 games for brooklyn, but he appeared in just 3 games for them in 1957 before the orioles purchased his contract.

eddie miksis

speaking of the orioles, i think of miksis as one because his 1958 topps card (which featured him as an oriole) was one of the first '58 cards i ever owned.  anyway, miksis started his big league career as a dodger in 1944 when he was just 17.  he hit .220 in 26 games that year, and then returned to the majors in 1946 after a stint in the navy, but hit only .146 in 23 contests.  miksis improved in 1947, hitting .267 and appearing in the world series. he remained with the dodgers into the 1951 season until he was traded to the cubs in the andy pafko deal.

earl naylor

naylor, who had spent a couple of years with the phillies earlier in the decade, appeared in three games for the 1946 dodgers, although he did not play in the field. he pinch-ran and scored a run in his dodger debut, and then was used as a pinch-hitter twice - he grounded into a double play and struck out.

wilbert robinson

uncle robbie, who had a 17-year playing career as a catcher, was the manager of the brooklyn baseball club from 1914 through 1931.  as the team had no official nickname, it took on the name 'robins' during robinson's tenure in reference to the manager.  his robins teams won more than 90 games three times, twice claiming the national league pennant.  for his career, robinson won 1399 games as a manager (1375 with brooklyn and 24 with baltimore when he was a player-manager in 1902) and lost 1398 (1341 with brooklyn and 57 with baltimore).  he was elected to the hall of fame in 1945, and is one of seven brooklyn/los angeles managers so honored for their managerial careers.

dave sax

the older brother of steve sax, dave sax made his big league debut in september of 1982 - the year after his younger brother first played in the majors.  he appeared in just two games that year, going 0 for 2 and seeing action in left field in his second game (most likely due to the fact that it was the 16th inning and tommy lasorda was running out of players - luckily steve garvey hit a walk-off homer to win the game in the bottom of the 16th).  sax was back with the dodgers in 1983 and finally saw some action behind the plate at his regular position, and at the same time that his brother was playing second base.  unfortunately, he was 0 for 8 with an rbi during his stints with the dodgers that year, and didn't make it back to the majors until 1985 with the red sox.

joe simpson

simpson was a september call-up for the dodgers in each season from 1975 through 1978, although he did get a couple of midseason call-ups during that time as well.  he hit .188 in 71 games for the dodgers during that time, and had his contract purchased by the mariners prior to the 1979 season.  simpson is best known these days as one of the braves' broadcasters, as he's been performing that function since 1992.

milt stock

stock joined the robins in 1924 following 11 years with the giants, phillies, and cardinals.  he hit .242 as the team's third baseman his first year, and then moved to second base in 1925 and hit .328.  at one point that year, stock had four consecutive 4-hit games, which is considered to be a record.  stock finished his playing career with just three games in 1926 for the robins, and he went on to manage in the minors and eventually coach in the majors, including for the dodgers in 1949 and 1950.

bill sudakis

sudakis was a third baseman who was drafted by the dodgers in 1964 and made his debut for them in 1968. he was their primary third baseman in 1969, and his 14 home runs were second best on the team that year. in 1970, billy grabarkewitz got most of the playing time at third, and so the dodgers had sudakis play other positions, including catcher - a position that sudakis had not previously played at the big league level, and had only played for a handful of games in the arizona instructional league. it was also curious because he had bad knees.  the mets picked sudakis off of waivers prior to the 1973 season, and he went on to spend time with them, the yankees, the rangers, the indians, and the angels before retiring after the 1975 season.

elmer valo

the owner of one of my favorite non-dodger baseball cards was himself a dodger in 1957 and 1958.  acquired in a trade with the phillies, valo played in 81 games for the brooklyn dodgers in their final season.  in fact, he was the second to last dodger batter at ebbetts field, grounding out before gil hodges struck out to end the 8th inning on september 24, 1957.  the following year, valo played in 65 games for the los angeles dodgers in their first season. it was the second time that valo had played for a team that relocated while he was on the roster (he had previously played for the philadelphia/kansas city a's), and wouldn't be the last (he would later play for the washington senators/minnesota twins).

sandy vance

another member of the dodgers' 1968 draft class, vance pitched in 30 games as a major leaguer - all with the dodgers in 1970 and 1971. he was 7-7 as a rookie in 1970 with two complete games and a 3.13 era.  in 1971, however, he was just 2-1 with a 6.92 era. vance continued to pitch in the minors through 1973, but was unable to return to the majors.

there are only two sheets left in the 1990 target set to show, so we are definitely close to the end.  i'll have one of those sheets next week.  stay tuned….

canadian food and other items of subjective merit

i guess poutine is the food most often cited as canadian fare, at least in my experience. i've been to canada many, many times, and i've never tried it, so i can't say whether it is any good or not.  what i do know to be good is receiving cards in the mail, as i did a short while back from brian at 'highly subjective and completely arbitrary'.

one of the cards that was on display in one of the team bags was this pedro guerrero oddball

it turns out that it is from a 1987 general mills fold-out food issue, which was obviously distributed in canada, because it's got the requisite french translations on it.  at first i didn't know it was a fold-out, and i thought that it just had the astros' kevin bass on the back.  but no, it's a fold-out

in fact, this is one of six fold-outs - one for each division - and it folds out to larger proportions.  inside there are more players, including the dodgers' steve sax

and fernando valenzuela

here you see fernando next to the padres' tony gwynn and the braves' dale murphy

with some of the other players being the astros' mike scott, giants' chili davis, and reds' dave parker.

the other player featured is the astros' bill doran, and i had to unfold the thing one more time to get him to show up.

that seems like a lot of astros, but keep in mind they won the division in 1986.  i like to think that if this had been issued a year earlier, steve garvey might have been included.

most of what brian sent was part of the trade break that he recently conducted, but there were a few other random dodgers included in the package, like this 1990 score john wetteland card

i haven't shown cards of the 1996 world series mvp very often on this blog, but that's because he was traded to the reds in the eric davis deal after the 1991 season so there aren't a ton of dodger wetteland cards to show.

there are even fewer (i think) of victor diaz, but a 2003 topps heritage card

is one of the ones available to team collectors like me.  diaz never actually played in a big league game for the dodgers, but he did see some action later with the mets and rockies.

i wish there were fewer cards of andruw jones as a dodger, but here's a 2008 topps heritage card, anyway.

if that card were the lowlight of the package, then this one was one of the highlights - a 2012 panini cooperstown tommy lasorda blue crystal parallel

there are no two ways about it - that is objectively a nice looking card. in my subjective opinion.

thanks for the cards brian - i'll show more of the trade break stuff another time.