Blue-tiful

One of the big drawbacks of living almost 3,000 miles away from the best team in the world is you miss out on a lot of things the team is doing.

I have never been to a game in Dodger Stadium, and I don't see a point in the future when that might happen.  I don't get to participate in any of the various activities that the Dodgers put on in the area (although it sounds like the recent fanfest fiasco was best avoided). And I don't get to go down to the local strangely named, West Coast-only grocery store chain and obtain an autograph from Ken Landreaux or Tommy Davis or whoever is willing to sit in a chair and sign for strangers for three hours.

This is especially excruciating for me since, near as I can tell, my favorite player of all-time -- Ron Cey -- is at just about every Dodger event there is.

But, by far, the worst part of living on the other end of the country from the Dodgers, is not being able to find team-issued or other locally-produced Dodger sets. This has bothered me since I first learned of Dodger Police sets in the back of some Dodgers yearbook that I had ordered. I'm sure I've addressed this before.

And I've also addressed how cool it is to have a blog where you can connect with those who are close to the Dodgers and have access to stuff like this.

One of my favorite Dodger-issued products is the Dodger Blue set from 1979. I haven't done much research on it, so I don't know how many cards are in the set, but I know what I like.

I had only managed to obtain the Ron Cey and Charlie Hough cards until Jim from garveyceyrusselllopes recently sent me a package. Included were several Dodger Blue cards.

Isn't that wonderful?

These are some fantastic-looking cards for the time that they were issued. This is long before collectors were screaming for full-bleed pix in everything. I think whoever produced these -- I don't know if they were team issued -- did a magnificent job.

Those are some more of them. Look at that gorgeous background. Makes you want summer to get here, doesn't it?

But even though all that blue pops up in this set, it isn't really named "Dodger Blue" because of the backgrounds. It's named that because of the card backs.

Each of the backs says "Go Dodger Blue!" on the back. I certainly agree.

Here are two cards without blue backgrounds, but still enough blue in the picture. (By the way, Lasorda is credited for coming up with "Dodger Blue," which also is apparently a real, official color).

That Lasorda photo is a frequently issued picture. It was taken back when he was still a coach for the team. In fact, in this post by gcrl, he points out that a lot of the photos in this set were taken three years prior. Baker and Hooton, in particular, are wearing the 1976 National League centennial patch on their jerseys.

Terry Forster doesn't get a blue screen or anything remotely blue in his background. Someone must have known he was going to serve up a gopher ball to Joe Morgan three years later. No blue for you.

I'll have to get the rest of the cards in the set. We'll see if I remember to do that before the year is out.

Meanwhile, I received a few other cards from gcrl:

A desperately needed upgrade to the 1975 Topps Bert Campaneris minniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii that I have owned for 38 years.

A 2010 Bowman Chrome Matt Kemp that I'm pretty sure that I've thrown in the dupes box a couple of times thinking I already had it. ... but I did not have it. ... except that I actually did ... it was just in the dupes box ... anyway ... This is my Matt Kemp Bowman Chrome card.

Pedro Baez isn't going to need that bat anymore, because -- have you heard -- he's now a pitcher! (By the way, the comments on sites like that are totally bizarre. I never know what's going on with people when I read stuff like that -- I feel like I entered an alternate reality in some sort of dimension-less world).

Speaking of bizarre ... this is a card. That someone made. And published. Expecting people to buy it. And like the twisted addicts we are, we bought it.

Just Minors '02 is probably the worst set of the last decade. If it was a TCMA card from 1974, I'd forgive it. But 2002? Awful.

Two cards for my various interests. The card on the left is definitely going in the night card binder, I don't care who I have to boot. The card on the right is going toward the "Greatest Glasses" countdown, which is looking less likely by the month. But you never know.


I also received a card from gcrl that he said he was going to send but then I forgot about it and I went and got it myself.

That's too bad. But it is good news to somebody who will be receiving the card. I won't show it here because it's a surprise.

Hope you enjoyed some Blue-tiful and not-so-blue-tiful cards.