one patch, two patch, red patch, red patch!

you know i love me some dodger blue, but i think that the red number patch on the front of the jerseys is what really makes the dodger unis stand out.  as such, i am always on the lookout for cards featuring some red patch goodness.

andre ethier bring the red patch to this 2013 topps museum collection card

while matt kemp, steve garvey, and sandy koufax bring relics of their own. this is one of the rare steve garvey relic cards that is in my dodger collection. i already had one of the gold parallel versions (#/25) in my garvey collection, but red patch! so i bought another one.

next up it's clayton kershaw and hanley ramirez with red patch goodness on this 2015 topps museum collection card

adrian gonzalez has a bit of blue patch, and yasiel puig has just plain white jersey going on.

here's a 2012 playoff prime cuts biography card of don sutton featuring a piece of his retired number 20

and a 2017 panini national vip prizm corey seager card with a piece of corey's number 5

this card is an example of panini trying to alter history by coloring the number on the front of dodger jerseys blue. they are not blue, but rather a glorious red (except on days when they are pink or baby blue or army green or whatever other color mlb dictates in order to sell more stuff).

rickey henderson wasn't a dodger  for long, but he did wear the uniform long enough for some relic cards to be made

that's a piece of his number 25 (24 was retired by the dodgers for walt alston) on a 2004 playoff prime cuts material card.

matt kemp is back with a small piece of red patch on this solo quad relic piece from 2013 topps museum collection

and here is a 2013 topps tribute card of kemp with a larger red patch

prime patch indeed!

how about some number 22 from the jersey fronts? ok, here's a 2017 panini national treasures clayton kershaw card

so formal with the full name, but again with the false blue number in the image.

another kershaw - this one from 2017 panini donruss

and another from 2017 topps tribute

the red patches are usually on the low-numbered parallels as those kershaw cards demonstrate.

numbers don't get any lower than 1, as in 1/1, as in this 2008 topps sterling steve garvey card

red patch!

mood

i'm still a realistic optimist, though.

what's black and white and branca all over?

with the dodgers playing a western division tiebreaker on the first of the month, there was some attention given to their previous tiebreaker appearances. when that happens, one cannot help but think of ralph branca.

i recently picked up my first 1953 bowman black & white dodger card, and it was ralph branca's card

only two more (preacher roe and billy cox) for the full team set!

note that this streamlined and very short post took about five minutes to scan, crop, and edit.  five minutes is really not a lot of time!

topps dusts off the 1978 design! sort of.

i was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon one of the recent topps on demand releases a couple of weeks ago.  these are the sets that are offered for sale online only 'while supplies last'. they are different in that regard from topps now sets, and even topps throwback thursday sets, as i understand it.  this particular set is called "inspired by '78", and features a modified 1978 topps design.

i didn't know about this in time to order a set from topps, so i went to ebay and picked up the two dodgers in the base set - clayton kershaw

and walker buehler

you can see that the big difference here is the full bleed photo.  other modifications include the elimination of the position ball and the smaller type for the player names.  the full bleed effect on the borders makes me think of natgeo.

the backs of these on demand sets are known for their uselessness

the text here seems disingenuous.  if the 1978 topps is such a classic design in topps' eyes, why has it been so sparingly used in fan favorite and archives sets? if the 40th anniversary is worth celebrating, why has the 35th anniversary of 1983 topps dominated the flagship sets?

while the '78 design has been largely absent this decade, it wasn't always this way.  one of the most famous basketball cards used the same design. yes, i'm talking about the 1980 topps larry bird/dr. j/magic johnson card

 in 1981, topps used the team name font on their squirt issue

and on the backs of their super home team cards

 and then there was 1982 cracker jack, which was a sort of mash-up of 1978 and 1979 topps

topps later resurrected the design for some of the early 2000's fan favorite sets. i think the most recent occurrence of the design being used was the reimagining of eddie murray's rookie card as a future stars that never were in 2014, which i featured in a post related to my quest for a 1978 topps master set.

i wound up purchasing a "full" 35-card issue on ebay.  this includes the complete 30-card base set, plus two numbered parallel cards, one 4-in-1 rookie card, one "then and now" card, and one "tfamous flashback" card.  those last three cards are from "insert" sets of varying sizes, so it would take quite a few set purchases to put together a truly full set.  autographs were seeded 1:2 sets, but i got shut out.

i did do ok with one of my numbered parallels - it was the blue (#/50) version of buehler's card

but the other was a purple (#/75) paul goldschmidt.

i did ok with my 4-in-1 rookie card - devers and torres, plus 2

but obviously would have preferred the one with buehler (and ohtani), or the one with alex verdugo (and soto and acuna).

my then & now card, modeled after the manager cards in the 1978 set, features dale murphy and ozzie albies

(shout out to giovanni who has been making some 1978 topps then & now cards for quite some time) there are no dodgers in this insert set, but a don sutton/walker buehler card would have made sense.

the last card in my purchase was the "famous flashback".  these are cards featuring players from the past, most of whom were in the 1978 set.  no steve garvey, or any other dodger in this set, but some nice players like rod carew, carl yastrzemski, eddie murray, jim rice, etc.  my card was joe morgan

it's not everyday that a card features someone wearing a skirt.  getty says that this is a photo of little joe taking bp at shea stadium, but that doesn't help me id the woman watching the reds pregame prep.

maybe the 2,040 sets issued with this 1978 inspired design will spark some ideas at topps, and we'll see more of the original design in next year's archives.  it would be a shame to have to wait until 2027 heritage.