All in the timing

I completed another set. I know nobody seems to care about that lately (apparently, if my experience Monday is accurate. every human being is out back-to-school shopping and not blog-readin'). But it's still exciting stuff to me and I'll continue to post about it until even the crickets go silent.

 

This one is the team set for 2004 Upper Deck Timeless Teams. This is one of the more attractive retro sets of this time period and Upper Deck liked it so much that the theme returned in its Timeline set a mere four years later.

These were the last two Dodgers cards I needed to finish it:

There are a whopping 39 cards in this team set and that's not even including the Memorable Moments cards, which are also part of the base set but look nothing like the rest of the cards.

The Timeless Teams set is not  equal opportunity  focusing solely on the best teams of the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s. So while the Dodgers have 39 cards and the Yankees also have 39, the Astros, Braves, Expos, Indians, Mariners, Padres, Rangers, Royals and White Sox have none. Most of these teams were notoriously awful during this time period, but the Royals got screwed and it would be interesting seeing one of those early '80s Expos or mid '80s Astros teams featured.

But enough about that, this is about the Dodgers set. Here it is (click to embiggen):

As you can tell, Upper Deck did not set a limit on how often a player could be featured, no "one player, one card" for this. It doesn't bother me as much as it should -- I love dateline sets too much for that -- but speaking of datelines, the set does open itself up for critiquing.

Upper Deck has a well-known blind spot when it comes to picking a time-accurate setting for its retro sets, syncing the timing of the photo for the time period being portrayed.

Timeline is really good with this in some instances, and lousy at it in others.

Let's look at some examples. First the really good ones.

Steve Garvey showed an incredible ability to look exactly the same no matter what year it was, the guy was practically a wax figure. But Upper Deck is completely right when it says this photo took place in 1981. Garvey is wearing the Los Angeles city centennial patch that the Dodgers wore in 1981 on his left sleeve.

These are two more accurate pairings from 1981. Both Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager are celebrating in the Yankees locker room after winning the 1981 World Series. Guerrero is holding the MVP trophy that he shared with Ron Cey and Steve Yeager. On the Yeager card, his arm can be seen wrapped around Yeager.

I'm assuming those numbers affixed to the lockers in the background are Dodgers uniform numbers, which in 1981 would be pitchers Bob Welch (35) and Bobby Castillo (37).

 

The two Mickey Hatcher cards are interesting just because 1980 and 1988 seems so far apart to me. (But 2013 and 2021 does not). But Upper Deck is dead spot-on with this. Hatcher wore No. 44 when he was called up to the Dodgers for 1980. And when he returned to the Dodgers and played in the World Series in 1988, he wore No. 9.

 

I've liked this Bill Buckner card because it's pretty similar to his 1976 Topps card.

So, whether the Timeless photo was taken in 1974 or 1975, it's close enough. I'm not going to argue with that Buckner glare.

OK, now let's see where Upper Deck Timeline was off, in some cases waaaaaaaaay off.

 

This isn't glaring or anything but Russell looks a bit too young for 1977 here. His hair isn't long enough in the back and he doesn't look as weather-worn as he seemed in the late '70s.

It's possible that Don Sutton has been the victim of more time-inappropriate cards than anyone. Everyone wants to use the '60s youthful shots for years when he had a full '70s afro popping out from underneath his cap. In 1974, Sutton didn't have the perm yet but he didn't look like he was just up from the minors like he does here.

Swap the two pictures and you would be closer to history, although I think that Lopes shown on the 1977 cards is more like 1972. The photo shown on the 1974 card could be accurate, but I associate the industrial mustache more with the mid-to-late '70s.

There are a few more examples, but I think that's enough set-dissecting for today.

If you want a real deep-dive into this set, check out the gcrl blog. He's got everything over there. I don't know how he does it. All I wanted to do was complete the team set. That was hard enough.