Baseball card stories from Tom Dodd

Outfielder Tom Dodd played eleven years of professional baseball, mostly in the Yankees and Orioles organizations. He made the major leagues with the Orioles in 1986, hitting .231 with 1 HR and 2 RBI in eight games. Now Vice President, Southern Sales Region at Kaplan Early Learning Company, he kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.

"My favorite card set comes from the 1987 Charlotte O’s.  We had just come off a long bus ride from Orlando and they had set up the photo shoot for when we got off the bus.  Bad idea.  Most of the players goofed off for their picture including me in which I was holding the bat cross handed.   We took an impossible situation and ended up with a pretty good set. 

 

My favorite personal card is my only MLB card.  Do you remember the 1987 Rookies set by Rob Broder?  If not, look it up.  This guy was putting out unauthorized cards and MLB put him out of business. Anyway, I was on first base only 3 times in my MLB career and he got one of them."

Thanks! I had not heard of Rob Broder, and was interested to look him up. It turns out not much is known about him today, or if that was even his real name. The 1987 Rookies set was an unlicensed set advertising a sports photographer named Rob Broder. This set was so popular that over the next few years, many similar-looking unlicensed sets were produced, often called "Broders" though it is unclear whether Broder was actually involved in any of the subsequent sets. DaClyde of Clyde's Stale Cards has put together a great Broder/Unlicensed Reference Guide complete with checklists.

I don't have either of the cards above, but here is a card of Dodd I have with Charlotte from a more sedate photo shoot.