Dodger postcards

I stumbled across a lot of vintage Dodgers postcards at a reasonable opening bid, and was not outbid. I'm pretty sure both of the legendary Dodger bloggers (Night Owl and GCRL) have shown them on their blogs, they definitely look familiar. I guess it's disputable but I consider them baseball cards. They are cards, of baseball players, and look really nice. Better than most of their cardboard contemporaries.

Almost all of these are undated, and I haven't done the research yet to pin an exact year on them, if it's possible. That research will be fun, though.

Part of the lot were these smaller cards, which aren't postcards but some kind of team issue set. They are unnumbered but have full writeups of the players on the back. They appear to be from 1979. I like how the stadium lines up perfectly on Russell's and Yeager's cards. I also like the off-center action shot of Doug Rau (the back says his nickname is "Bayonne"!) I also like the green St. Patrick's day hat on Garvey.

More from this set. These photos are less interesting. On the back of Manny Mota's set is something you probably wouldn't see written on a card today: "His bonus was a plane ticket away from the ghettos of Santo Domingo and $400."

On to the actual postcards. Starting with two photos that were also on the cards above.

The rest I broke up into categories. This one could be considered "spring training". I love the details like the cars visible behind Billy Grabarkewitz. I don't know for sure whether Walter Alston is in the dugout in Florida or L.A.

Pitching. I should have put Forster in the spring training column. The Dodger Stadium shots look great though.

Action shots! Willie Davis happens to be on the top of the pile on my desk right now, and the speck of dirt on the third base line aligns perfectly to make it look like he has a big pointy nose.

Dodger Stadium posed shots! Most of the cards here are from the 70's but these are mostly '60s players.

Horizontal shots! Ted Sizemore on the handball court is kind of weird (in a good way) but the Sutton and Buckner photos are spectacular. You can even see a Braves pitcher warming in the bullpen on Sutton's card.

Best for last. These are two I know I've seen on the blogs before. The Dick Allen card (the signature says Richie, the back of the card says Rich) is very similar to his '71 Topps card, which I'm not likely to get any time soon. Great to get a card of him from his short Dodger stop. Another short-term Dodger stop for a legendary star, Hoyt Wilhelm's night card I've seen on several blogs.