Wednesday, July 15, 2009

1975 L.A. Dodgers Baseball Postcards #5, Bill Russell

The Dodgers knocked out several official postcard sets during the 1970s. They probably went out to fans at the stadium, local businesses, or for team promotions. Only two issues included a numbering system and solid shortstop Bill Russell filled that role in 1975. (Charlie Hough sat at #5 for 1976.)


I like Bill's throwing pose, an unconventional release shot, though today's photographic quality would far exceed this card's somewhat blurry colors. Russell played in the famous 70s L.A. infield with Garvey, Lopes, and Cey and also answers the trivia question, "who replaced Tommy Lasorda as Dodger manager?"


The back's as blank as any postcard should be, aside from the address space and vertical divider. Can you spot the #5 designation? It's waaay up in the stamp square as a "-5" suffix. Beggars can't be choosers--a type card by any other name would fill the 4-count sheet just as well.

5 comments:

night owl said...

Holy smokes, there aren't many cards that you show that I actually have. Here's one of them.

How do you know it's from 1975? I got the whole set, but it was much later than 1975. (Probably around 1980 or 81). I suppose they could have used the same photos over and over each year.

Matthew Glidden said...

I use the number prefix in the stamp square. 1975 starts with KV78 and KV88 is 1976. What prefix appears on your Russell card?

night owl said...

The one I have says KV7813-5

Matthew Glidden said...

Cool, sounds like a 1975 postcard to me! Starting from 1973, here's the prefix breakdown I've seen.

1973 (KV5251)
1974 (KV)
1975 (KV7813)
1976 (KV8861)
1977 (KVB9869)
1978 (B10975)
1979 (KVB11)
1980 (KVB129, BakerKVB130)

night owl said...

Hmm. When someone ordered a team set, the Dodgers must've mixed older postcards with newer ones, because I checked the numbers on the back from my set, and according to your breakdown, some are from '75, some from '77, some from '79, etc. I have a Valenzuela one, which only has D-10 listed on the back. That must be from '81 or so.