more like this, please

more murals. more cards showing murals. it's a simple request

i recently found brendan donovan's 2023 topps heritage card in a pack, and can't get enough of it even though i am not a cardinals fan.

i am a fan of these murals - the dodgers, braves, angels, white sox, and cardinals have all had them at one point or another - and i especially love when they show up on cardboard. donovan's card in particular is great because it gives a glimpse of august busch, for whom the team retired number 85. it's the only cardboard i know of that has that feature, and i will take it even though it meant that the mural to the left of bruce sutter isn't shown, and that mural features jackie robinson.

thanks topps!

now you see him, now you don't

i went ahead and picked up a couple more cards for my dodger stadium collection. this time, it was the chrome and chrome refractor versions of andruw jones' 2022 topps stadium club card. i guess these are from the chrome set and are not chrome parallels (why so confusing, topps?). anyway, i wanted these cards because they feature eric gagne from one of the outfield wall murals the dodgers installed in the early 2000's.

the refractor and base scan differently, 

so you can see where the title of the post comes from.

big little guys

i recently completed another trade with oren, a collector who is familiar to many of you out there in the blogosphere. he sent some great stuff my way, including some 2023 topps allen & ginter clayton kershaw cards of big and little sizes.

those are a boxtopper and a mini parallel, and the mini is an a&g back to boot!

i am always happy to be adding kershaw cards to the collection, but my favorite card of the trade is this one

that's raul mondesi's 1996 leaf signature series silver autograph card. it is the first mondesi auto i have from that set, and while it is not his "base" bronze auto (that is the only one i still need to complete the dodger team bronze set), it is a really great addition to my collection. here's the back:

which notes that he hit two homers on opening day in 1995. while true, my favorite two-homer opening day for rauuuuuuuuul was on april 5, 1999 when he hit a two-out three-run home run in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game, and then hit a walk-off two out two-run homer to win it in the 11th.

oren also sent some parallels, including a 2022 topps stadium club chrome cody bellinger xfractor

and red foil parallels of noah syndergaard

and mookie betts

from 2023 topps stadium club.

one more parallel to rule them all - a 2023 topps series 2 1988 all-star relic mookie betts black parallel

another great trade in the books. thanks oren!

the second show successes

last saturday, i wrote about the choices i had in card shows the previous weekend. i ended the post with a note that i was heading to the second show of the day - the monthly club show. i didn't bother going to the third show option i had (the mall show), but did find some cards to take home at the club show. take a look...

i had mentioned that the church show wasn't too crowded, and the attendance in terms of both sellers and buyers was down at this show as well., and there were some regular sellers that i didn't see at either show. one guy who was at this one was the guy who always has a couple of dime boxes under his super disorganized table. he's the guy who also sells a dime box for a friend, so you have to keep the cards separate, but he doesn't tell you this until the end. anyway, this time his friend's box was a quarter box so i guess it was at least distinguishable from the dime boxes. i wound up with 17 cards for $2.

the dime box focus was rookies, and i found a 2018 panini donruss optic walker buehler holo prizm parallel

for the dodger collection plus a variety of other rookie cards, including these nine

the quarter box had a hall of famer theme, and i took a burleigh grimes card and this cal ripken jr oddball

home with me. this card is from a 1996 classic cal ripken jr baseball's all-time ironman set. it's the certifcate of limited edition card, to be exact, and it certifies that "only" 21,310 sets were made

and i am just learning that the "king of collectibles" was the chairman and ceo of the score board.

i continued around the room and stopped at a table that had a few dollar boxes out. the seller was chatty, in a good way, so i went through the boxes and wound up with 53 cards for $45. only nine cards were dodgers, but they were all needs

ranging from a rainbow foil parallel of joc pederson's 2015 topps rookie card to a 2023 topps black & white james outman rookie card. as you can tell, there was a lot of online product in these boxes. i wound up with more than dodgers

and of course there is a color background parallel in a black & white set. the outlier there is the topps tribute sixto sanchez green parallel, and it represents a number of numbered parallels that were available. one of the first i came across was this 2020 topps uk nick castellanos purple parallel

which is numbered to 50. the lowest number i saw in the boxes was 25 which is not bad for a dollar box. i also grabbed some sort of george brett oddball

i believe spot-bilt is now saucony, but i could be wrong. it's shoes, anyway.

the next stop i made was at a table that was staffed by a younger seller who i recognized from years of attending these shows. he has gone from a collector at the shows to having tables of his own, which is something. anyway, he had dollar boxes or 10 for $8 and i decided to take a look. then i saw buybacks.

topps heritage buybacks

topps 75th anniversary buybacks

topps originals buybacks

topps 65th anniversary buybacks

and rediscover topps buybacks

i had actually hoped to find some 2024 topps heritage buybacks at the show, but i really didn't see any new heritage product. however, with this array of buybacks, i was so certain i was going to stumble across a 2015 topps originals 1978 elias sosa or terry forster or tommy lasorda buyback that i couldn't get through the boxes fast enough. i didn't find any of those most wanted buybacks, but i did find a bunch of others that i liked.

for some reason, i dig stamped buybacks. in all, i took 54 cards from this seller for $45. 43 were buybacks, and the other 11 included a variety of stuff like 2014 topps future stars short print variations.

good stuff.

the last purchase at the club show was a lot of six 1955 bowman cards for $13. one of the cards was earl torgeson

who is trying to figure out how to get out of tv land.

what a fun way to spend a saturday morning! i think next weekend i'll tell you about the huge show i went to last weekend. stay tuned!

my retired number collection - 27

this is the 27th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here are the three people for whom number 27 has been retired:

juan marichal (retired by the giants in 1983) 1974 topps

the giants retired marichal's number on july 10, 1983 in advance of his enshrinement in cooperstown later that summer. marichal spent the first 14 seasons of his 16 year career with the giants, winning 243 games and striking out 2,281 batters while pitching 244 complete games for them. he twice led the league in wins and once in era, but was among the league leaders in most of the seasons during the 1960's.

marichal's 1974 topps card is one of my favorite base cards of all-time, and it found its way into my collection very early on in my youth. even though i knew of him initially because of the incident with johnny roseboro and was sworn to dislike him as a dodger fan, i liked the card. later i realized that if roseboro was able to forgive marichal, then i had no business holding a grudge. 

the giants held number 27 out of rotation after marichal's contract was purchased by the red sox prior to the 1974 season, and they never reissued it, making marichal the last giant to wear the number. in his one year with boston and two starts a year later with the dodgers, he did not wear 27 because of carlton fisk (more on him in a moment) and willie crawford, respectively.

jim hunter (retired by the a's in 1991) 2002 fleer fall classic

jim "catfish" hunter had his number retired by the a's on june 9, 1991. he was already a hall of famer at that point, having been inducted in 1987, but the a's had never retired a number in the franchise history until they gave hunter the honor four years later so it's not as if his accomplishments had been ignored. with the a's, hunter won 161 games and the 1974 american league cy young award. more importantly, he led them to three straight world series titles from 1972-1974, posting a 4-0 record in six starts across those series.

he began his career at the age of 19, and pitched a perfect game in 1968 when he was just 22. he was probably my favorite a's player of all-time when i caught billyball fever and began collecting a's cards back to 1965 because it was his rookie year. even though he had been a yankee who beat the dodgers in the first two world series i followed as a fan, i was a fan of his. i like the 2002 fleer fall classic card because it showcases one of the cool uniforms the a's wore during hunter's time with the club. because the a's had never retired a number, they didn't keep 27 out of circulation when hunter joined the yankees in 1975. as a result, several players wore it in the ensuing years (including don sutton) until ron hassey became the last athletic to do so in 1990.

carlton fisk (retired by the red sox in 2000) 2023 topps stadium club

carlton fisk wore number 27 for the red sox from 1971 through 1980, which is why marichal wore a different number in boston in 1974. fisk was the 1972 american league rookie of the year and a seven time all-star for the red sox. he helped them win their first pennant in the division era in 1975, and then delivered one of the most iconic home runs in baseball history to force a seventh game in the world series. the photo used on the 2023 topps stadium club card above is from that at bat and gives a great view of his number. just like "the catch", i will pick up pretty much any card that shows fisk as he waves that home run fair.

fisk did not leave the red sox on good terms, and the team did not keep his number out of rotation after he joined the white sox. in 1999, kip gross became the last red sox player to wear the number as the franchise decided to retire the number in fisk's honor on september 4, 2000 following his induction into the baseball hall of fame.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 27 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 42

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 42

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 23, 42

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 42

angels - 11, 26, 42

expos - 8, 10, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 42

rockies - 17, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 118

running total of non-hall of famers: 44

a moment for carl erskine

it's been over a week since we learned of the passing of carl erskine, and i would be remiss if i didn't take a moment here to acknowledge it. aside from being a member of the dodger franchise and "the boys of summer", erskine was a member of his community whose good works won't be forgotten.

i recently added his 2001 fleer greats of the game autograph card to my collection

to go along with the 2004 topps team legends auto of his i already owned. i've been remiss in trying to finish off the dodger team set of these autograph cards, as they come from my favorite fleer "legends" set of all-time. the problem is that i look at what the tommy lasorda card will cost me and kind of lose hope over picking up the others (joe black, roger craig, preacher roe, and duke snider) that i need.

erskine left his mark on my collection in other ways, as he was a fantastic signer of cards through the mail. i sent ttm requests to him once or twice or actually six times, and the cards always came back. i wonder if he kept track of people who sent him cards, because only with my first request did he include his own personalized card.

that card highlighted the carl d. erskine rehabilitation and sports medicine center in his hometown of anderson, indiana where he also donated land for an elementary school that bears his name. it makes no mention of the many organizations that erskine gave his time to, including b.a.t. and the special olympics. although he lived to 97, i think we could have used a few more years from carl erskine.

ya basic

a few months ago i bought a don sutton card from the 1975 mengler set

which left me with just bill buckner's to track down (plus a second steve garvey, i suppose) to complete my dodger team set. or so i thought.

for those of you who are unfamiliar, i showed some others from this set in an older post and more recently found a photo of a checklist and ad for the set that gives a better explanation

i found this helpful, if not a bit frustrating, as neither andy messersmith and jim wynn are listed as dodgers on tcdb. not that i will ever find their cards, or buckner's for that matter, at a price i am willing to pay.

not so long ago, i wouldn't have given the mengler set a second thought. it was too plain, too basic, and not what i thought a baseball card should be. becoming more of a completist (or at least a more fervent player and team collector) of dodgers from this era over the last several years had me thinking otherwise.

adding the sutton card and again seeing how truly simplistic the mengler cards are had me thinking about my early collecting days when i eschewed sets like the ones tcma put out in the late 1970's because they lacked any sort of design or name or team affiliation on the front. today, i have no problem adding cards like this 1979 tcma the 1950's sandy koufax

or this 2019 bowman heritage dustin may

to my collection. yes, they are basic, but they are also baseball cards of players that i collect.

the almost daily dodger - eric karros

here we have a 1997 pinnacle totally certified card of eric karros

you can see that this is a "platinum red" card, which leads me to my disdain for this set.

i first found cards from the 1997 pinnacle certified sets in bargain boxes at shinder's in the late 1990's and only recently fully came to understand these cards, thanks to tcdb. there was a 1997 pinnacle certified set, that included parallels called "certified red", "mirror red", "mirror blue", and "mirror gold". then along came 1997 pinnacle totally certified with the "platinum red" card you see above considered its "base". there are also "platinum blue" and "platinum gold" parallels. each of the totally certified cards are serial numbered - platinum red is /3999, platinum blue is /1999, and platinum gold is /30.

whatever the case, i am one card short (wilton guerrero) of the regular certified dodger team set, but have only three of the seven dodgers in platinum red form for the totally certified team set. i do have one platinum blue parallel, but no parallels of the regular certified set.

the karros came to me from a bargain bin at a card show a few months ago and prompted me to really figure out what i actually had. it's worth noting, since this post was supposed to be at least slightly about him, that his son jared made an appearance for the dodgers during the freeway series and pitched two scoreless innings against the angels. i believe there have only been three father/son dodger combos to date - al and jim campanis, ivan and ivan (jr) dejesus, and dick and dick schofield. maybe the karros boys have a shot to join that list.

taking my turn in the blog bat around with my five best pack pulled hits

i am always happy to engage in a blog bat around, and this one initiated by diamond jesters is no exception. matt asked us to share our five best pack pulled hits, and i knew right where to go. i had previously hinted at my list in a post from a few years ago, and had included some of the cards on that list in a post even further back as part of a blog bat around that i initiated.

before i get to the top five, i will note that i am going to discount anything i found in packs of topps tribute. i opened a box or two of 2001 topps tribute, as well as boxes from 2002 and both retired player releases from 2003. there was a guaranteed hit in every pack, so it's a bit like cheating. i did find some nice cards, including babe ruth bat cards from the 2003 perennial all-star edition

and the 2003 world series edition

my best pull from the inaugural 2001 release was this eddie mathews patch 

which has a print run of 30. i still have both ruth bat cards and the mathews patch card, by the way.

so, on to non-guaranteed hits. here's an honorable mention:

that's a mickey mantle magenta printing plate 1/1 from 2006 topps chrome. it was an exciting pull, but it seemed gimmicky to me at the time, and i sold it. even though it was the first 1/1 i ever pulled, i have it just outside of my top 5 pack pulls. 

number 5 is this 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams platinum auto 1/1 of bake mcbride

pulling a 1/1 from a pack of cards of one of my favorite upper deck era sets is a very good thing.

number 4: 2003 ud sp legendary cuts bill dickey cut auto #/25

to this day it is the only hof cut auto i have ever pulled. oddly, i've pulled cut autos of living guys like mark prior (back when he was still pitching) from a pack. anyway, i bought a box of this product online for $60 and sold this card for $200 back in 2004. it's the only box of legendary cuts i ever bought.

number 3: 2016 topps chrome update clayton kershaw auto/relic /25

it's a lot of padres for a dodgers card, but pulling this card from a target blaster was a huge surprise. the autograph is way more visible in hand - the scan brings out the bubbles.

number 2: 2000 upper deck legends mickey mantle legendary game jerseys relic

a coworker and i went to a card and comic store over lunch one day and i bought a box of this product back in 2000. i was stoked to find this card in one of my packs as relic cards were fairly new to the hobby. i immediately tried selling it, but set a high reserve that was just barely not met. that coworker asked me why i would sell it, because "isn't a card like that why you collect?"  he was right, and the card is still in my collection today.

number 1: 2013 topps allen & ginter nick saban autograph

this card came from a target blaster back in 2013, and it is one that i did sell. it's number 1 on the list today because of what it is worth today - my baseball focused brain didn't really think this one through, although i did get a nice sum for it 11 years ago. still, who knew that alabama would go on to win three championships in the ensuing years after this card was issued.

thanks for the inspiration matt!

garvey's back without a brand new photo

after not making the checklist in 2023, steve garvey returned to where he had been in 2021 and 2022; which is to say that he was relegated to the autograph section of the 2024 topps tribute checklist. it took me awhile to bite on one of his cards, but i finally did.

i settled on the green parallel due to price and whimsy. it's 99/99 which by my math makes it a 1/1 (that's a math joke - not a hitz bro serious take). 

there are other varieties, of course, but i don't plan to add any of them -the base /199, blue /150, gold /75, purple /50, orange /25, red /15, black and plates /1 - unless the price is low and i am in a certain mood. i would probably go for a base rainbow were he included in the base set, but i'm not going to chase the autos like i did in the past.

the design is a bit different for tribute with the horizontal elements and i like it, but as i mentioned in an earlier post, i am at the point where i need to see some new photographs across the expanse of products topps produces. this particular photo was also used by topps in their 2023 finest and pristine releases, as well as their 2017 bunt digital issue and so i have enough cards displaying this image.

an embarrassment of opportunity

there were three card shows in the twin cities metropolitan area last saturday. the regular monthly club show, a semi-annual regional show at a local church, and a mall show. this would be the south metro, west metro, and east metro. i made it to two of them and could have hit the third but i haven't been too impressed with the mall shows over the last couple of years.

i started off with the church show, just because it usually features some different sellers than the club show (which is a given when they are on the same day), but it was a bit underwhelming in terms of the number of tables. it wasn't too crowded, however, so i was able to belly up to a few tables pretty easily.

first stop was an older couple who i have purchased cards from before. they have a good variety of stuff in their bargain boxes, although they don't have dime boxes. i started with the 6/$1 boxes, and my favorite find was this 2004 fleer greats of the game announcing greats card of kirk gibson and ernie harwell

but a close second was this 1993 upper deck robin yount and george brett insert

celebrating their 3,000 hits. i used to have a 3k collection and i still have a hard time passing up any cards that are based on that milestone for hitters or pitchers.

i had some good luck with the few dodgers i pulled as i didn't check want lists. thankfully, these were all needs

1994 upper deck mike piazza electric diamond parallel

1995 donruss studio mike piazza

1996 upper deck collector's choice raul mondesi silver signature parallel

and 2022 topps pro debut pee wee reese milb legends insert

technically, that reese card would be a red sox card as he was a member of their organization while playing in louisville, but i am making an exception because it's the champ.

i also added a 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor double play card to my collection

courtesy of jonathan villar. in all i wound up with 42 cards for $7, and then i took a look through their 3/$1 boxes. i came away with these 45 cards 

for $15, although the seller at first just asked for $3. i told her that my california math told me it was $15, but i was happy to pay her price. after that, she would call out to me as "california" when i walked by.

i poked around at a few other tables, but didn't bite on anything. then, on my last round of the church gymnasium i spotted a table with a small box that was maybe half full, but the cards in it were being offered for a dime apiece. i saw some inserts from 2023 topps archives and dug in, taking several home with me including these 9

plus freddie freeman's 1969 single player foil insert

as well as a few others from the set.

the box was mostly base cards, but there were a lot of 2023 panini donruss parallels and inserts, too.

i grabbed a couple of dodger parallels - jim gilliam's purple holo

and michael busch's carolina blue holo

those carolina blues are pretty sharp, in my opinion. the tim raines one is really nice.

i suppose this is a parallel, too

even though it is an insert. it's a rapture parallel of the elite series card for duke snider, to be exact.

i did grab a couple of base cards from the box, including a 1995 sportflix tony gwynn card

for the name/number on the back collection. in all, i wound up with 30 cards for $3 from this seller.

it was still somewhat early, so i decided to head to the club show. i will save that haul for a separate post. stay tuned!