a year in review

another year is about to enter the books, and i've got a simple one card post to see it out the door.  this is a 2008 topps chipper jones year in review insert

it was created to mark jones' achievement of passing dale murphy's mark as the atlanta franchise's all-time home run leader. jones hit two on july 5, 2007 - one from each side of the plate - to give him 372 career bombs as opposed to murphy's 371 that he hit as a brave.

the feat occurred at dodger stadium, and i have high confidence that this is a photo from the actual game, or at least dodger stadium from sometime in 2007. chipper is wearing the memorial patch that the team wore that year for johnny sain and lou burdette, and the yellow seats in the background are a pretty good giveaway. the digital scoreboard on the facade of the loge was fairly new at the time - maybe 2005?  at any rate, the card goes in my dodger stadium collection.

i also finally received my 2021 topps now world series champions card

that i bought because will smith's back was to the camera and you can kind of/sort of see the stitched memorials for hank aaron and phil niekro. i've updated a previous post that mentioned those memorials.

it's fitting that it's a couple of braves cards that finish off the year as they are the reigning world series champions. wait 'til next year - it's just four hours away!

happy new year!

chrome it up

first seen in 2000, and now back for the second year in a row, we have stadium club chrome to collect. i do like that the set serves as a sort of combination of a chrome-ified version of the regular stadium club set, plus a shot at an update set, and that at least some of the images used on the cards are different than in the regular stadium club set. however, jackie robinson's card

is the same

down to the wrongly colored number on his back.

former dodger corey seager's card image is the same

although cody bellinger's is not.

clayton kershaw's card features an image that was also used on a topps now card showing off his world series ring

instead of the one with the world series trophy

on his "regular" stadium club card.

mookie betts' card gets a new image, too

and it's a nice right field corner shot of dodger stadium. this card looks like it was taken by a fan which is great. i like these types of cards because they reflect the view that i/we have when we attend games in person.

there are some additions to the checklist - the "update" part of stadium club chrome that i was sure to pick up - mitch white

dj peters (hello, aj pollock)

and luke raley

all saw playing time with the dodgers in 2021, although peters and raley didn't do very well and peters wound up finishing the season with the rangers. he just recently signed to play in korea during the 2022 season. i need another copy of the raley card for my dodger stadium card - the unocal logo will always guarantee that the card gets in to that mini-collection.  

more "update" type cards thanks to in season trades and signings - here's what might be max scherzer's last dodger card

along with one of the first trea turner dodger cards

and then there is albert pujols

who will hopefully have many more dodger cards in 2022 as he didn't sign with anyone prior to the cba deadline.

i am not paying super close attention to stadium club chrome from a team set completion standpoint, but i will likely pick up cards of dodgers that differ from the base set. as for regular topps chrome, i do hope to someday complete all of the team sets but that is a post for another day.

quien es mas macho? a puzzle edition

did any of you get a jigsaw puzzle for christmas? we used to get one every year when i was a kid, and we'd put them together with our grandma. good times.

a year or so ago, one of my most wanted cards was this 2002 fleer ultra card

it features kevin brown and luke prokopec, and it completed my team set. it might even be a short print for all i know, and i didn't know the card was designed with interlocking puzzle pieces until it arrived in my mailbox. 

for those that may not recall, many baseball card sets in the late 90's and early 2000's were issued late in the year prior to their designation. ultra was one, so the back of this card has a copyright of 2001 even though it is a 2002 card. this has caused me a ton of frustration over the years as i try to date some cards through copyright dates on the back. thank goodness for the internet and the resources available these days!

while brown and prokopec were team mates (and i suppose, "team players") in 2000 and 2001, prokopec was traded to the blue jays in december of '01, right around the time this card was released. about eight years earlier, another trade took place that became the subject of another puzzle-design bearing card:

ah yes. the infamous delino deshields for pedro martinez trade that occurred in november of 1993. this card is from 1994 topps traded. the puzzle part of the design reminds me of how sometimes i would try to force two pieces together even though the images on them weren't a match.

i am on record as being optimistic of this trade when it happened - deshields was 24 with four seasons under his belt and seemed to be a solid, all-star type player. pedro was 21 and had turned in a very promising rookie season in 1993, but the odds of any one pitcher developing in to a generational talent like pedro are low and fred claire rolled the dice. kudos to the expos brain trust who landed pedro in return for deshields. in the end, i still blame jody reed.

ok, quien es mas macho?

jim kaat is in my hall of famer collection

one of the criteria i had for my hall of famer collection was related to the 1978 topps set. if they are in the hall as a player, and were included in that set, then they automatically gain entry in to my hall of famer collection. so, let's welcome jim kaat to the collection, with this card as his entry:

that's a 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph. here's the back:

kaat was voted in on the golden age ballot earlier this month, but i've had this card for a few years now. i plucked it out of the "traveling box" that bad wax established - the box that went missing under what i considered to be suspicious circumstances. 

i've held on to this card for just this purpose, even though i didn't really expect kaat to be voted in - i was actually thinking that dick allen might be the only one elected, and he missed by one vote! to me, kaat was a longevity guy who was firmly established in the hall of very good. by his own admission, he was never the ace of a pitching staff, but was rather a solid 2 or 3 in the rotation. 

i do recall turning his 1978 topps card over as a new collector and seeing the very small font on the back thanks to his already extended career and thinking that he must be a pretty good pitcher. his 1983 topps card had even smaller font, and even though he fell short of the magic numbers - 300 wins and 3000 strikeouts - his career was still impressive to me.  kaat remained on my radar in the 1990's as an announcer, and he's been around the twins every now and again to call some games on their cable broadcasts. he was elected to the twins' hall of fame in 2001 (their second class), and it will be interesting to see if his number 36 gets retired now that he's in cooperstown.

i would expect that tommy john is very happy to see kaat elected as there are a lot of similarities between the two pitchers and their careers. i also wonder if the writers will give a boost to andy pettitte due to kaat's election.

anyway, congratulations to kitty kaat - i am glad he's on the right side of the grass to enjoy the call! i've updated my hall of famer collection on my want site - i decided not to show it in these posts anymore.

a memorial patch for dick allen

i made sure to acquire this 2021 topps update 1986 35th anniversary bryce harper card

to put in my memorials collection due to the presence of the "15" patch on his right sleeve in honor of the late dick allen.  allen passed away just over a year ago, in december of 2020. thankfully, the phillies were able to honor him with a number retirement ceremony in september of last year, just a few months before he passed. 

i first knew of allen as a guy whose high number 1971 topps card was a "need" for my dodger team set that seemed, at the time, unobtainable. shortly thereafter, i learned that he won the american league mvp the year after he was traded by the dodgers, and had been named the national league rookie of the year in 1964. even though he had such a big year after leaving the dodgers, i was ok with it as his departure opened up third base for steve garvey and then ron cey. i would have known about allen a heck of a lot sooner had he been included in the 1978 topps set, but his career ended too early in the 1977 season for him to be included on the checklist.

allen just missed out on the hall of fame (again) which is either too bad or the right call depending upon where you stand on his accomplishments and the criteria for enshrinement. for me, i was hoping he would get the call. rest in peace, wampum walloper!

i wonder what dantooine looks like

all that i know about dantooine was that it was too remote to make an effective demonstration of the power of the death star. i do, however, know that tatooine featured a desert landscape that spawned a mini-collection of baseball cards for me.  here are a smattering of such cards that i've added or transferred to that collection in recent months.

1995 pinnacle rickey henderson

happy birthday (one day late) to the man of steal!

1995 upper deck collectors choice se and silver signature parallel will clark

2003 topps chris magruder

2003 topps quinton mccracken

1999 topps sammy sosa league leaders

hard to tell from the scan, but that's nothing but dirt behind sammy

2021 topps gypsy queen david bote

believe it or not, i've yet to find a star wars card that is cropped such that it would fit in to this mini-collection.

so this is holiday

it's been awhile since i've walked down a big box card aisle, but it looks like the annual holiday set was released on time and available for widespread purchase.  i received this 2021 topps holiday victor gonzalez card

as a throw in from an ebay seller recently. the card i purchased was a 2021 topps archives 1989 big foil don sutton insert

which features the pre-perm dodger hall of famer. i am a sucker for new don sutton cards, and after learning that this particular seller usually adds cards to the order i pulled the trigger.

i actually like the 2021 topps holiday cards more than the previous years' issues, and i went over to sportlots to find a few more.  so, here are trea turner

albert pujols

max scherzer

and clayton kershaw

great to see what turner's update card should have looked like, and happy to have at least one card of scherzer as a dodger on a topps flagship design (sort of).

i like to think each of these 2021 holiday subjects would join me in wishing you and yours a merry christmas and a happy new year!

'tis the season for red and green (and gold)

last year, collecting cutch was showing off red and green cards in advance of christmas. i had a couple of cards in mind to share at the time, but didn't receive one of them until closer to new year's. so, here we are about 51 weeks later.

2015 panini donruss signature series steve garvey red parallel #/25

and 2015 panini donruss signature series steve garvey green parallel #/10

waiting on this post for a year allows me to add a gold card, too. this is a 2021 topps gold label garvey autograph

it's gold framed in addition to being from the gold label release. there are a bunch of parallels, but i've not really chased any.

merry christmas to all and to all a good night!

i need 0 of 525 of 456 2002 206 cards

the title of this post is a very roundabout way of saying i completed the 2002 topps 206 set! i finished it off - all 456 cards plus the 69 variations - in early 2021 with a couple of online purchases to get the final few cards i needed. like this joey votto card:

a votto card in 2002! actually, the votto is not from 2002, as the third series of this set was issued in 2003.

i took a liking to this set when it was first issued (the first series, anyway) back in 2002. part of my interest in it stemmed from the fact that i was unlucky with my pursuit of the first topps heritage set in 2001. i had preordered a box of 2001 topps heritage when it was first announced - before we knew of short prints and what not - but my seller passed away and i was pretty much last in line to be accommodated and never did get that box or my money back. by that time, boxes were way more expensive and here i am twenty years later with my set still incomplete.

anyway, when this set came out, i decided to pursue it the way i had originally intended to pursue heritage. i thought is was great to have cards with this design in the modern size. i was still all in when topps issued the second series, although that release included a bunch of variations, and then the aforementioned third series came along, and it had more variations plus short prints.

here are a few more of the first year players who, like votto, were in series three and were among the last cards that i obtained. the first year player cards were slightly short printed in series one and two, but i don't think that was the case in series three. however, some came with variations.

james loney first year player with sky variation

curtis granderson first year player

bj upton first year player with people variation

mark prior red background short print

larry broadway first year player

sergio santos first year player gold

wes bankston first year player blue and with sky variation

khalil greene first year player red variation and green

there were some stars from earlier series that i was missing, like this albert pujols card from series 1

but the majority of what i needed came from series 3.  such as, barry bonds without elbow pad variation short print

sammy sosa blue jersey short print

jason giambi batting short print

nomar garciaparra one bat short print

ichiro blue jacket short print

derek jeter blue short print

chipper jones short print

alfonso soriano without wristband short print

gary carter retired short print

fergie jenkins retired short print

harmon killebrew retired short print

roberto clemente retired short print

and robin roberts retired short print

the roberts card sticks out like a sore thumb due to its photographic quality. it's sort of like the cards topps included in the 1953 archives set from the 1990s for players like duke snider that weren't in the original set except that this is more puzzling.

the reason that most of my final needs were from series 3 is that i slowly chipped away at this set and went from low number needs to high when filling out sportlots orders. every once in a while i found a card that i needed at a show or on comc or even in a trade, but most of the cards i acquired in the last few years came from sportlots.

i don't think i would build this set if it were issued today - i recognize the variations and the short prints for the nonsense that they are now, and there has certainly been t206 overload in the last decade - but 19 years ago i was sold on it.  feels good to have it complete!