Mailbag: A Kuo Sweet Spot and an Unexpected Bonus

I've been largely absent from the eBay marketplace all year.  Sure, from time to time I'll place a bid on something, but I rarely follow up and chase a card as fervently as I use to.  That being said, when I do win something I'm always pleasantly surprised.

A couple of weeks ago I won a card that will be proudly displayed in my collection.  Check out the 2008 Upper Deck Sweet Spot autographed card above and below.

First of all, Hong-Chih Kuo was a great Dodger.  Not Hall of Fame great, mind you, but "tough like a warrior" great. He battled.  He fought through adversity.  He pitched with his heart on his shoulder.  There is no doubt in my mind that he gave everything he had for the team, and I like to believe that many fans recognized that.  Over the past several years he grew to be one of my favorite Dodgers.

As a special bonus, the seller packed a handful of filler cards when shipping the Kuo Sweet Spot card.  One of those "throw-away" fillers is the Orel Hershiser card below.  WooHoo, I needed that card.

It is a 1988 Donruss Leaf card, and it fills a hole in my collection.

I'm sure I knew this already, but Orel is the 4th Orel in his family (which causes an immature laugh from me).

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2012 Bowman Chrome Baseball Cards- Dodgers Base Cards

Another week, another new Baseball card set.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this new set is.  It's like deja vu.

Officially released yesterday, Topps unveiled their 2012 Bowman Chrome card set.  It is very similar to their normal Bowman set they released in May of this year.  Go here to see the base cards from the normal 2012 Bowman set, here.

In fact, for the base cards it uses the exact same checklist (except Loney is not included in this new set) and photographs (except the Kershaw appears to be cropped in a little closer).  Significant differences include a couple of new rookies (Elian Herrera and O'Koyea Dickson) and a new numbering system for the cards.

Check out the Dodgers base cards to the set below.  I'll have the handful of Dodgers inserts posted up later on.

45 Clayton Kershaw

97 Matt Kemp

Below is the Dee Gordon card, but as you can see it is a green parallel that can only be found in retail packs.  As always, there are numerous parallel versions of each base card in the set.

123 Dee Gordon

177 Elian Herrera RC

186 Ted Lilly

Below is the only Dodgers Bowman Chrome Prospect card in the set (at least I didn't recognize any of the other names in the published checklist).  Similar to the Dee Gordon card above, this Dickson rookie card is a parallel card.  It is a orange border version and is numbered to #25.

BP172 O'Koyea Dickson

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Collection: A Matt Kemp 2007 Topps Autograph

This was my very first Matt Kemp autographed card.  Featured here is a 2007 Topps Moments & Milestones autographed insert card of Matt Kemp.

Interestingly, Topps throws out a nickname for our future slugger.  They call him "Masher Matt."  Thankfully, another more appropriate nickname came up.  I'd take "Bison" over "Masher" any day.

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Collection: 1996 LA Dodgers Police Baseball Card Set

Following up on my series of post focused on Dodgers LAPD police sets throughout the years, here are scans of the 1996 LAPD Police set.  This is the 16th LAPD set the Dodgers have put out over the past 17 years (they skipped 1985).  To see those other police sets I have featured go here.  There are 30 cards in all, and they were given away to fans as a give away during a home game on April 11th.  Below is a look at what the reverse of the cards look like.

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Collection: Happy Hooton 2005 UD AutoFacts

Burt "Happy" Hooton had a fine Dodger career.  He joined LA in 1975 in a trade that sent Geoff Zahn to the Cubs.  Hooton went on to pitch in 10 seasons in Blue while compiling a Dodgers career record of 112-84 with a 3.14 ERA.  Happy was a member of the 1981 World Championship club and had a postseason record of 6-3.

Featured here is a 2005 Upper Deck MLB Artifacts Auto-Facts card of Burt Hooton from my collection.  As the card back states,

"traded to Los Angeles from Chicago in May 1975, Hooton was the winning pitcher for the Dodgers in the finalgame of the 1981 World Series against the rival Yankees."

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Dodgers Blog Kiosk: 10/12/2012

Even with all of the controversy surrounding game-used relics in cards, I still find this card really cool.  Found on ebay is this "1 of 1" 2012 Triple Threads All-Star booklet card of Matt Kemp.  It appears to include game-used apparel from the 2011 All-Star game.

• GCRL shares a whole bunch of his Ron Cey autographed cards.  Then, he comes up with a great post about a new trending meme called "Suttoning".
• The Dodgers third base coach Tim Wallach is expected to interview for the open Boston Red Sox managerial position, via the Boston Herald.
• Howard Cole grades the 2012 Dodgers.
• I would like to extend a big Blue Heaven congratulations to the Ellis' on the recent birth of Audrey!

(Twitter Link)

• The Dodgers continue to search for talent internationally.  As has been reported widely, the Dodgers spoke with 18 year old Japanese right-handed pitcher Shohei Otani, via WEEI.  Eric Stephen at True Blue LA,   Mike Petriello at Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness, and Chad Moriyama go into it deeper.
• For you aspiring journalism professionals this should be an interesting read.  Tom Hoffarth at the Daily News reports that LA Kings Insider blog reporter Rich Hammond left his job as an independent reporter employed by the Kings because the NHL was unhappy with an interview he wrote with Kings winger (enforcer) and team player representative Kevin Westgarth about the lockout.  His position was always rife with peril.  It's a difficult balance between being an objective report and being paid by those he reports on.  It seems that he did not feel comfortable with the notion that the Kings could safeguard his work, even as the Kings promised that they could.  So, having the kind of integrity his readers have come to appreciate, Hammond's chose to resign and work elsewhere.  Niesy at Jewels from the Crown has more.
• I miss hockey.  
• Yeah!  Cheerleaders in a house of horrors, via Terez Owens.

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