Dodgers, Baseball cards, TTM's and that Magical 1988 Season
The Summer of 1988 was a magical summer. 8 year old me was playing little league baseball and watching one of the greatest baseball teams to ever step on the diamond, '88 Dodgers. Watching that season unfold was what made me fall in love with baseball and in turn, baseball cards. I had already been introduced to cardboard gold by my aunt with the 1986 Topps set, but 1988 was when I went full on in search of all the Orel Hershiser and Kirk Gibson cards I could get my hands on.
I collected that cardboard for years. After high school, I had a momentary lapse of reason, got rid of all my cards and stopped collecting. Thousands of Dodger cards gone.
A few years ago, a fiery guy from Cuba joined the Dodgers and reinvigorated my love for the Dodgers, baseball and baseball cards all over again. Yasiel Puig quickly became my favorite Dodger as I frantically hunted for all his cardboard I could get ahold of.
Then, a friend I met online told me about this TTM gimmick. I thought how awesome would it be to get signatures from all the '88 Dodgers. After 3 years, I have managed to get 9 players of that team to sign cards for me. Dave Anderson, Tim Belcher, Mike Davis, Alfredo Griffin, Jay Howell, Mike Marshall, Franklin Stubbs, John Tudor and Tracy Woodson. I have failed with Fernando Valenzuela and Alejandro Pena. I currently have requests out to Mickey Hatcher and Rick Dempsey.
On top of Dodgers TTM's, I have also started a collection of all the Dodgers flagship Topps cards. I'm currently working on a want list of anyone wants to help me finish some years off. It's in my pages, but like I said, I have alot to add. There's alot I haven't even restarted yet since I've been back in the hobby.
I'm always willing to trade any non-Dodgers I get for Dodgers.
Mike Marshall was such a beast. I called him Grand Slam Mike when I was a kid. He's one of only a few Dodgers to play on both the 1981 & 1988 World Series teams.
Franklin Stubbs has been nice enough to sign quite a few cards for me over the last few years. He can currently be found coaching the Hillsboro Hops.
Tracy Woodson is currently managing the University of Richmond Robins.
Love the ttm Dodgers. I became a Hershiser fan around 1992 when I read his ‘Out of the Blue’ book.
ReplyDeleteI used to do ttm autographs and was trying to get all of the ‘88 Dodgers on 1989 Topps cards, and when I sold most of my collection, I was only missing Tim Crews, John Shelby, Danny Heep, Ramon Martinez, Tommy Lasorda, Brian Holton, Jeff Hamilton, and Mike Scioscia. Wish I would’ve kept them.
Man, you had some good ones. That 88 team was so good. I'm up to over 70 different Dodgers players that I've gotten through ttm. That number would be alot higher, but there's a surprising number of players cards I missed out on the years I wasn't collecting. A Comc order may be in my future.
Delete