A Collection of Milton Bradley Autographed Cards

Following up on yesterdays post featuring a group of Paul LoDuca autographed cards, I bring to you a 4-card lot of autographed Milton Bradley Baseball cards.

I remember being excited that the Dodgers received him in a trade with Cleveland in 2004.  I saw his potential as a on-base guy with statistics that could make this trade a big win for the Dodgers.  He was coming off a phenomenal season with the Indians where he batted .321 and had a OPS of .923.  Sure, I had read of the problems he was having, but figured that coming home would do him wonders.  Of course, things didn't work out as planned.

Featured above and directly below is a 2005 Topps autographed card.

2005 Topps Finest Autographed Card

2005 Leaf

2004 Topps Traded & Rookies Signature Moves Card

UPDATE

As I searched around a bit I ran into another Milton Bradley autographed card that I had yet to post up.  So, here it is.  It is a 2005 Topps Pristine Personal Endorsement card.

 

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Dodgers Blog Kiosk: 12/27/2012 - New Dodgers Batting Practice Lids

A little belated on my part.  Here is a pic tweeted by the @Dodgers of Don Mattingly playing the part of Donnie Claus on Christmas Eve.

• Battle of Los Angeles: Angels vs. Dodgers, via David Leon Moore at USA Today.

Whether Angels owner Arte Moreno was urged to break the bank for Hamilton by the Dodgers' signing of Greinke is a matter of conjecture.

But these two franchises have been poking fun at each other for a long time, and Moreno seemed to be particularly enjoying himself talking about the Dodgers at the news conference introducing Hamilton.

• Ken Gurnick at MLB.com takes a look back at the 2012 Dodgers and notes the top 5 Dodger moments.
• Stacie Wheeler at Lasorda's Lair notes the importance of Chad Billingsley to the Dodgers this upcoming season.
• Eric Stephen at True Blue LA informs us that Ivan DeJesus Jr. was also a part of the Joel Hanrahan for Jerry Sands trade.
• This just warms my heart.  Steve Dilbeck at the LA Times shares a great story from Dodger Stadium this past season that includes a 11-year old kid who can teach us all a little bit about giving.
• Dustin Nosler at Feelin' Kinda Blue takes a look at some videos of several Dodgers prospects.
• Here's the strangest list you'll see about 2012.  Jayson Stark at ESPN notes some truly bizarre and wacky things from the 2012 Baseball season.

Only one pitcher in the National League struck out nine hitters in a row in any game this year. But it wasn't Cliff Lee, Stephen Strasburg or Clayton Kershaw. It was (who else?) Aaron Harang, who punched out nine straight Padres on April 13. So how many other times do you think Harang has struck out nine in a game in his last 73 starts? None. Of course!

• What gives, Google?  Via Markle05 on Reddit, if you do a Google search on Clayton Kershaw they note that his nickname is "The Claw."  When did this happen?  Am I that clueless?

• Paul Lukas, proprietor at Uni Watch, writes at ESPN about the new batting practice caps for the 2013 Baseball season.  Below is what the Dodgers will be wearing next to what they wore in the recent past.  Go read his article for a sneak peak at what other teams will be wearing.

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A Collection of Paul LoDuca Autographed Cards

Over the past year or so I've been posting up pics of my entire collection of autographed certified Dodgers Baseball cards.  As you can imagine, I have plenty of duplicate players, so instead of featuring each one individually I thought I should just group some of them together in one post.  Featured here are 7 different Paul LoDuca cards.

As a Dodger fan it is only natural that I have an affinity for catchers in Dodger Blue.  They are the quarterbacks of the team, and often hold a special place within Dodgers lore.  The string of great Dodger catchers goes as far back as Bill Bergen in the early 1900's to Chief Meyers, to Al Lopez, to Roy Campanella, to Johnny Roseboro.  Modern catching heroes include Joe Ferguson, Steve Yeager, Mike Scioscia and Mike Piazza.  For six years, Paul LoDuca manned that position at the turn of the new century, and would eventually cement himself as a member of that vaunted class of great Dodger backstops. 

Shown above and directly below is a 2003 Topps Tribute Modern Marks autographed card - along with a gold parallel card numbered to 25.

2002 Bowman Heritage autographed card

2003 Topps autographed card

1999 Bowman autographed card

2003 Topps T205 autographed card

2004 Topps Series 1 autographed card

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Dodgers Blog Kiosk: 12/26/2012

Dodgers photographer Jon SooHoo shared a late 80's pic of Dodger Stadium organist Nancy Bea Keulen Hefley.  (photo credit: Jon SooHoo LA Dodgers)

• Marc Hulet at FanGraphs shares his list of top 15 Dodgers prospects.
• Old Time Family Baseball shares a recording of the Dodgers 1959 as told by Vin Scully.  Listen to it here. You can even download both the A and B sides of the record to enjoy later on.
• It's been "15,000 Days Since Two Big Dodger Trades," via Chris Jaffe at Hardball Times.
• How the mighty have fallen.  Andruw Jones was arrested on Christmas Morning for domestic battery, via a AP report on Yahoo.
• David Schoenfield at ESPN writes a great piece about recently visiting the Philadelphia Sports Card and Memorabilia Show in Prussia, PA earlier this month.
• TPM shares a bunch of great photos that celebrate the year in space.  Check them out here.
• Are you ready for the coming deluge of end-of-the-year best-of lists?  Check out the below video featuring 50 of the best viral videos of 2012. 

Video Link:

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Rize Draft Baseball - Dodgers Cards - Yasiel Puig

There's a brand new card set in the hobby.  While doing some searching on eBay I ran across a card company I had never heard of.  They were a non-licenced kind of concoction with no team logos and a poorly crafted design.  Still, it focused on many up-'n-coming prospects; including Yasiel Puig, so I had to pay attention.

The card company is called Rize, and the set has been dubbed Rize Draft.  On the reverse it indicates Leaf Trading Cards as the manufacturer, so I naturally assumed it was one of their products.  As I read more about the cards on a forum thread on FCB, I realized my assumption was wrong.  Rize is a separate company who purchased a licence from Leaf and had them produce the cards on their behalf.  This actually caused a bit of confussion and controversy on the FCB thread, so Leaf President Brian Gray responded to collectors on the thread.  

The cards appear to only be available online, via eBay, from a handful of dealers.  It's likely that cards were sold directly to those sellers.  For the time being, there are no packs available, and no autographed cards - although, an advertising sheet I saw indicates that some autographs will be made.  Of note, these cards provide the only base cards available for many newly drafted prospects.  For instance, the only Yasiel Puig non-autographed base cards in the hobby are these cards.

See the Rize Draft Dodgers cards below (front and reverse).  Click on any pic to embiggen.

#67 Yasiel Puig

#79 Corey Seager

#90 Jesmuel Valentin

This is a part of a insert set called World Class.  Yasiel Puig is the only Dodger in the set.

Here is another insert card of Puig called Rize of the Prodigy.

This insert set is called Emergence and includes both Puig and Seager.

The card below clearly looks like it should be an autographed multi-card.

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Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

I just couldn't resist making this holiday themed fantasy card of Tommy Claus and Alyssa Milano.

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