Welcome Back, Scott Elbert!

I had almost forgotten all about him.  Per a report via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com, Scott Elbert will be rejoining the Dodgers in San Francisco tonight.  Per Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider, Red Patterson has been DFA's in a corresponding move.  Per Weisman:

Since clearing waivers and accepting an assignment to the Isotopes in August, Elbert allowed seven runs, 14 hits and three walks in 7 1/3 innings while striking out six, but that was skewed when he gave up five runs while getting one out at Las Vegas on August 8. From August 14 to the end of the season, Elbert pitched 4 2/3 shutout innings with five strikeouts.

As you'll recall, Elbert was the Dodgers 1st round draft pick in 2004.  He had originally been drafted to be a starter, but like so many high-flying prospects the bullpen soon became his calling.  In 2011 he finally solidified himself as an integral part of the Dodger relief staff - as our lefty specialist.  That season he pitched in 47 games, allowing just 9 earned runs over 33.1 innings and saved two games.  He also struck 34, walked only 14 and left-handed batters hit only .191 against him.  The next season he pitched in 43 games but regressed a bit - left-handers batted .271 against him.

Unfortunately, arm problems that began with shoulder issues that caused him to miss most of the 2007 season continued to plagued him.  His 2012 season was filled with several trips to the DL and finally ended with surgery in mid-September.  Then, a setback resulted in another surgery several months later in January 2013.  By mid-year he looked ready to go again, but pain emerged in his elbow after pitching on consecutive days in rehab.  So on June 10, 2013 he had Tommy John Surgery.  Just over a year later Elbert returned to the mound and has been working on getting back into game shape. 

I don't know if we should expect much from him, but it'll be nice to have another experienced lefty arm in the bullpen.  Just as a reminder, Elbert throws a low 90's four-seam fastball and a high-80's slider.  He also uses his slider as his out pitch.  It'll be interesting to see if some of the zip he used to have is still there.

In celebration of Scott Elbert's return to the Dodgers I made the above fantasy card for him.  I used a photograph grabbed from Dodger photographer Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2012 and the 1971 Topps Baseball card design.

Below are his career statistics, via Baseball Reference:

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2014 Topps Triple Threads Baseball - The Dodger Relic Cards

Follow up on yesterday's post featuring the Dodger base cards found in Topps 2014 Triple Threads packs, I now share the various relic cards that are available.  Go here to check out all of my post post on this set.

First up are the scarce All-Star cards.  Most of these are "1 of 1's", with exception of the card directly below.  That card is an All-Star Patch card and they are limited to only 9 copies.  There is also a ruby parallel card numbered to only 1 copy.  BTW, only Clayton Kershaw is featured.  Yasiel Puig, even though he was on the All-Star team, is not available.

All-Star Patches Set

#ASP-CK Clayton Kershaw

Three All-Star Book Clayton Kershaw booklet cards have yet to be unearthed.  They are the All-Star Jumbo Sleeve Patches Book Set (1 of 1) #AJSP-CK, All-Star Jumbo Sleeve Team Patches Book Set (1 of 1) #JSTP-CK and All-Star MLB Logo Patches Book Set (1 of 1) #AMLP-CK. Below is the Kershaw All-Star Laundry Tag Patches Booklet card.

Blog Kiosk: 9/12/2014 - Dodger Links - Some Odds and Ends

I just love this photo tweeted out by @Dodger_History on twitter of a less-rotund Tommy Lasorda and Steve Garvey playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic.

BTW, the showdown with the Giants begins tonight in San Francisco.  Hyun-Jin Ryu faces off against Madison Bumgarner at 7:15 tonight.

• What is this all about?  Via AP on FoxSports, "Man charged with allegedly smuggling Dodgers' Puig from Cuba."  I'd be willing to bet that this has been a huge distraction.
• Via Harold Uhlman at Think Blue LA, "Lookouts fall behind 2-0 in Southern League Finals."  The Dodgers AA famclub is on the brink of elimination.
• Via JP Hoornstra at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, "Dodgers’ Dee Gordon embraces change, is stealing bases with his feet."

“It’s about safety and being able to (steal a base) in the long-term, and being called safe more,” he said.

In July 2012, Gordon dislocated his thumb sliding head-first into third base in a game against the Cincinnati Reds. Since then, he’s managed to avoided any serious hand injuries by wearing a protective guard. He tried switching to a foot-first slide multiple times since, but the change never took until recently.

• Ow!  Watch this with caution.  Via David Brown at Big League Stew, "Marlins' Giancarlo Stanton hit in face with pitch and taken to hospital."
• Ron Cervenka at Think Blue LA tells us about Roger Kahn's newest book, 'Rickey & Robinson.'
• Via Daniel Brim at Dodger Digest, "Jamey Wright, Lefty Specialist?"
• Sometimes I get emails from other collectors hoping I can help them fill a wantlist. Well, the other day I got an interesting one that I thought I would pass along. A collector named Scott is in the process of collecting tickets from every game that Mike Piazza has played in, and is in need of tickets from his days as a Dodger, from 1992 to 1998.  If you have tickets from this era (preferably a season ticket holder from that time) that you'd be interested in parting with please let me know.  I'll hook you up with Scott.

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2014 Topps Triple Threads Baseball - The Dodger Base Cards

Topps Triple Threads officially went live last night, and I've got some pics to prove it.  Below are all of the Dodger cards that can be found in the 100-card base set.  Go here to check out a complete checklist of the set.

BTW, Chris Olds at Beckett let us know that Topps inserted Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) relic memorabilia cards in boxes in honor of the movie franchise Major League.  Earlier this year Topps had announced that they acquired a movie-used Vaughn jersey from Major League II and planned to cut it up to put into cards.  Check out an example of one of those cards on the right.

Now check out the Dodger base cards below.  FYI, the Adrian Gonzalez card is an emerald parallel card numbered to #250 and the Hyun-Jin Ryu card is a amethyst parallel numbered to #325 cards.  See the checklist for a listing of the other parallels that are available.

Of special note, there are a bunch of Mike Piazza as a Dodger cards in the set.  WooHoo!

#9 Yasiel Puig                                     #20 Adrian Gonzalez

#31 Mike Piazza                                #45 Hyun-Jin Ryu

#66 Jackie Robinson                               #75 Sandy Koufax

#82 Hanley Ramirez                                 #84 Clayton Kershaw

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Blog Kiosk: 9/11/2014 - Dodger Links - Haren and Crawford Lead Dodgers to Victory

Dan Haren has just been fantastic.  As Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider noted, Haren has a 1.70 ERA over his last seven starts, and has gone 94 batters since he last gave up a home run.  All of this is translating into end of the season success, and increased confidence that we can enter the playoffs with a solid four-man rotation.  Hilariously, those who had previously predicted his demise are now eating crow - including me, although I was far from being vocal about it. 

Last night, Haren threw seven shut out innings, gave up just four hits and struck out five for his tenth win of the year.  The photo above of Dan Haren was taken by Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2014.  Go here to check out more photos of his from yesterday.  To back him up was a hot-handed Carl Crawford who recorded four hits (three of them doubles), two RBI's and a run scored.  He has nine hits over the past three games.

The Dodgers defeated the Padres 4 to 0 and maintain a 2.5 game lead over the Giants.  We have a day off today, but the Giants play.  So come Friday we will either have a 2 or 3 game lead over them at the start of our weekend series in San Francisco.  Below are some links to check out:

• Something to keep an eye out for, this is usually the time of year the Dodgers will hold their annual rookie hazing event.  Usually they will dress up their rookies for the roadtrip to San Francisco, and I suspect we'll see that again today.  Stay tuned, photos are sure to invade the 'net like a hurricane.
• Cary Osborne at Dodger Insider takes a look at the, "Lead candidates for Dodger Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year."
• Via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com, "Rodriguez closer to returning to Dodgers' bullpen."
• Jeff Passan at Yahoo names YahooSports All-Minor League team, and several Dodger prospects made the cut.  They include Joc Pederson (OF of the year), Corey Seager (SS of the year) and Julio Urias (as honorable mention as pitcher of the year).
• Via Dustin Nosler at Dodgers Digest, "Carlos Frias could positively impact Dodgers now, in postseason."
• As always, Night Owl Cards writes something I found thoroughly entertaining.  Check out his "The worst of the best" as he talks about the bad Ron Cey Baseball cards.

I've always felt that Ron Cey takes a great baseball card. No matter who was issuing the card, or what the design was, Cey's card always turned out great. I'm biased, of course, because he's my all-time favorite player and basically can do no wrong to this very day. And the card you see at the top of this post is example one. It's my all-time favorite card, and I think if folks look at it objectively, they would agree that Cey makes this card and every card better.

Since Cey's retirement and the rise in retro cards of past all-stars, he's never let me down. Every card is great even 25 years after he played his last game.

And then I saw this...

• Via Bill Plunkett at the OC Register, "What's Dodgers' Ramirez thinking? Don't ask."

“There are a lot of things that happen in your career and he may look back on that (his current media blackout) and go, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ … But I can’t speak for him. I can’t put words in his mouth or tell you what he’s thinking.”

• Here's a great story about the MLB Authenticators.  Via Megan Ryan at the StarTribune, "Keeping it real: MLB authenticators ensure legitimacy of game-used memorabilia."

MLB is the only major sports league with such a vast and comprehensive authentication program. It has collected about 4.8 million individual unique items, averaging about 500,000 new authentications each season.  

That's a lot of stuff.  BTW, all of the MLB authenticators are current or former law enforcement officials.

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Weekend Autograph Opportunities: Mike Marshall, Manny Mota and Garvey & Friends

Here are this weekends autograph opportunities and events throughout the Southland. As always, be sure to check the Blue Heaven Calendar for other events (a link can always be found on the tab at the top of this page, just left of center), and always confirm with the establishment. Everything is subject to change.  Please email me with any tips about upcoming events in Southern California.  As the rest of the week progresses I'll update this post with other events (if there are any) as I become aware of them.  Also, I don't always list every event below, so be sure to check my Calendar.  I always try to favor free signing events over paying events.  Click on any pic to embiggen.

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Former Dodger slugger Mike Marshall will be at Harry's Dugout in Whitter to sign autographs for fans.  Go here for information.

Harry's Dugout
10715 Beverly Boulevard
Whittier, CA

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Angel players Efren Navarro & Matt Shoemaker will be at the OC Dugout in Anaheim to sign for fans.  Go here for information and ordering details..

The OC Dugout
1238 S Beach Blvd
Anaheim, CA

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Manny Mota will be at Zendejas Mexican Restaurant/Club in San Dimas on Sunday, September 14, 2014 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.  Hat Tip to Roberto at Vin Scully is My Homeboy - who has more information, as well.

Autograph + Photo-Op = $15
All proceeds to benefit the MANNY MOTA FOUNDATION

Zendejas Mexican Restaurant/Club
665 W Arrow Hwy
San Dimas, Ca 91773

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This coming Monday, September 15 at the San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino in Highland is the newest installment of "Garvey & Friends."  Go here for information.

Coming out to talk baseball and swap stories will be Maury Wills, Tommy Davis and Dusty Baker. 

Doors open at 6:30pm
Dinner service starts at 7pm

The $40 cost includes a three-course dinner. "Garvey & Friends" follows dinner. Get tickets at Ticketmaster.com or the San Manuel Box Office. Seating is limited. Buy your tickets early.

San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino
777 San Manuel Blvd
Highland, CA

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