Ho-ly smokes

 

I went out for a walk yesterday and looked toward the porch to see if there was any mail as I walked past.

 

There were two packages sitting there. One was tremendous progress on a particular set, which was part of a trade. One was a large box, totally unexpected, from Bob of the best bubble.

 

He recently struck a deal with an elderly gentleman at an estate sale and a whole bunch of memorabilia and other goodies came his way. It was pretty impressive.

 

Never did I expect to receive anything from that transaction but that clearly was where the box came from. Completely awesome of Bubble Bob and you will see exactly how awesome by the end of this post. (Scroll to the end if you're patience-deprived).

 

The box contained a wide assortment of stuff, but I'll start with the cards because, as much as I love them, they were probably the most average things in the entire box.

 

These are either cards I need or can use for spin-off collections. I like the Reggie Smith global imports item. He wasn't a Dodger at the time, but there's nothing on it that tells you that. The 2022 Kershaw number monstrosity is also very much appreciated, although it's yet another thing I can't fit into a binder page.

 

 Some pocket schedules and a few other fun Dodgers cards. The stadium card is actually from a traditional deck of cards set. The pocket schedules mostly involve the Dodgers' centennial season, which was a running theme with this package.

An uncut sheet of the 1995 Vero Beach Dodgers set. Don't get too excited -- nobody on here had much of a major league career, if any.

 

Bob sent the entire 1986 Dodgers Police set. I just needed three of them to finish the set and these are those!

The primary job here is to find some sort of page set-up to store these.

Wooooooooo! A super tall, super-inconvenient 1978 Steve Garvey SuperStar Pepsi "card!" 1970s oddballs rule all. It's tremendous that this is intact.

I shall detour to the Bills before getting back to Dodgers stuff. Some well-loved early '70s stuff (save for one '69) here. Gotta match it up and see what I need!

That's almost the entire 1978 Topps Bills set. A couple key guys missing (Joe D. all-star card and a couple subset cards with O.J. on them) but as someone who didn't collect any football in '78 this makes me pretty damn proud.

 

That was mostly all the card stuff. The rest fall under the heading of "I hope I have a place to display this."

The gum pack is cool. I was surprised it was only from the '90s, it looks a lot older and I'm even less inclined to chew this than what appeared in Topps packs in the '70s. ... I have a couple of Dodgers mini-helmets sitting on my shelf at work. They're both different shades of blue. I'll see if I can get a third shade up there.

Somebody was a Campy fan.

These plaques seem to have been sold by Major League Baseball. Like a lot of the things in this box, I know very little about it. I do know I should be able to find a spot on the card room wall for it.

Some large-sized photos (there is a Hershiser, too, but the pic I took is blurry). The Sutton is interesting. Have never seen that shot before.

Here is Hershiser on an even larger photo. These sepia pix (no idea on origination) are like 11x13. So, yeah ... hey, hon, how about a second card room????

This has got to be displayed somewhere, right???

Some tix. I do love me some of those and one appears to have been signed by Bill Madlock!

The Dodgers-Reds ticket is a lost cause for a Dodger fan. Aug. 4, 1987 was a Reds 10-4 victory. Tim Leary got torched and Bo Diaz hit two home runs. I see it's unused meaning either a Reds fan regretted going or a Dodger fan lucked out missing that fiasco.

 

We've reached the publication portion of our tour and this is where things get really interesting, at least for me. Not much to see with this MLB-issued mag from 1993. Your typical '90s glossy thing.

 

A 1990 Dodgers calendar. I might put this up this year. Keeping track of a 32-year-old year has got to be better than keeping track of this year.

Hey look, the All-Star Game is at Wrigley Field this year!

More from 1990, the big, fancy yearbook the Dodgers put out this year. I wonder how much this cost to send through the mail, since I was in the habit of mail-ordering for my Dodger yearbooks from the late '70s to mid-1980s.

 

Duke's comic self has never been removed from the wrapping. What to do?

 

Oof, the back shows card-type things inside! Hobby quandary alert!!!

 

These, however, were not sealed and also are "unauthorized and proud of it." Don't know the time period from these, if I had to guess it would be late '80s or early '90s.

I shall be reading this on my bed upstairs as I did with comix in those hazy teenage days.

This is interesting. Not sure exactly what it is but it seems to be packed with advice to the new ballplayer in the Dodgers organization. Loads of propaganda in here, which could be interesting for a future blog post. I wonder if these were handouts to incoming pro players?

 

All right, let's go way back, to 1956 (!!!!) and look into a scorecard that the Dodgers handed out that year!

 

The classic advertising.

Getting Don Draper vibes here. (It's toasted!)

Walter Alston looks super young. I suppose smoking cigarettes and managing ballplayers for 20-plus years changed that.

The scorecard for your game. Another meeting with the Reds. I gave up trying to find the date of this game. I have a big box of stuff to go through!

Best-for-last time.

This is the 1956 World Series program. It is in immaculate shape. I have never seen a publication so old look like it was so new.

I started to think I was the first person to have touched it, but that would be dispelled a bit later.

First the very 1950s back:

OK.

I ever-so-carefully turned to the scorecard section of the program to see if anyone had scored the game.

They had.

This is what I saw:

I saw the Dodgers side first. My brain didn't register exactly what I was seeing at first glance. "What was with all the zeroes? Did someone not finish totaling everything up?"

Then I turned to the Yankees page.

Then I knew. This was Game 5. Don Larsen's perfect game!

And it appears Don Larsen signed the program!!!!!!

Holy Smokes!

 

Me, upon realizing what was in my hands.

 

That was some crazy estate sale.

 

I've said many times that I try to steer clear of publication memorabilia because I have limited space and that stuff can really pile up (the cards have already piled up). But stuff like yearbooks and programs I cannot resist and some amazing bit of history like this ... well, it's an honor to receive.

 

It's interesting to note that this arrived on my doorstep absolutely free, however if I wanted the 2004 Topps Fall Classics programs insert card that featured this same program, I would have to fork over 12 bucks on COMC.

 

 

 Night Owl, if you ever think about stopping blogging ... don't.