…Where Life's a Pitch

At the Game: Dodgers vs. A’s

Posted on April 12, 2018April 12, 2018 by BBCARDZ 1 Comment

On Tuesday 4/10/18, I got to go to my first Dodger game of the 2018 season. I’ve attended anywhere between two and eight Dodgers games almost every year since I was a young kid but for some reason, I rarely get to attend Dodger games in April. But I really wanted to attend this game (the first of a two-game interleague series against the Oakland A’s) since I knew the Dodgers were having a rather special stadium giveaway: 60th anniversary Dodgers baseball cards manufactured by Topps and featuring the 1965 Topps design. The cards celebrate the Dodgers 60th anniversary in Los Angeles.

The Dodgers will have five similar card giveaways during the season, each featuring a different decade and different Topps design (check out the video here). I’m hoping to go to each of these games to collect all of the cards but work priorities might derail that plan.

The entire evening at the game was among the best I’ve ever experienced. We got to the stadium gates five minutes before they opened and then stood next to the left field foul pole to see the tail end of the Dodgers batting practice and the entire A’s batting practice.

And I have to admit it was pretty cool seeing some of the A’s players up close. Catcher Bruce Maxwell, outfielder Matt Joyce and former Dodger Trayce Thompson each trotted over to by where we standing to retrieve stray balls and give them to kids. Matt Joyce even autographed a baseball for one of the kids and posed for a picture with him.

The game itself was pretty special too as Chris Taylor and Corey Seager launched back-to-back home runs to open the home half of the first inning. And Dodgers pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu pitched extremely well, not allowing a hit until there were two out in the fifth inning. It was almost déjà vu for us because the last time we saw Ryu pitch was Memorial Day 2014 when Ryu pitched seven perfect innings vs. Johnny Cueto and the Cincinnati Reds. The Dodgers hung on to win that game 4-3, and in this game the Dodgers went on to win 4-0.

I was also happy that I was able to obtain a couple of extra packs of cards (not so happy when I got home to find that the cards in one pack had severely dinged bottom-right corners). Here are the seven cards that come in each “50’s & 60’s” pack:

For stadium giveaway cards, these are great cards. The photos are very nice and may possibly be from the same photo sessions as 2018 Topps Heritage (except for the Sandy Koufax card which uses the same photo as that used in the super-short print 2017 Topps #597 variation.

So as we give the Dodgers and their sponsors a Stadium Fantasium tip o’ the cap and a big thank you, we remind ourselves that the next Dodgers 60th anniversary card giveaway is Monday April 23 vs. the Miami Marlins. There’s a pretty good chance I’ll be able to go to that game. And please share with us whether your team is doing a similar stadium card giveaway. Stay tuned…