ranger danger

at the card show in houston i posted about recently, i picked up this 2022 topps heritage high numbers card of corey seager

it's a 1973 topps comic insert, and to be honest, i didn't register the fact that he was a ranger on the card until later. still, i decided to put the card in my dodger collection because in half the panels seager is representing the dodgers, and is shown in his dodger uniform in the fifth panel. that's good enough for me!

it is clearly meant to be a ranger card, and if it were produced today, i don't think there would be anything dodger about it other than maybe a reference to his being a two-time world series mvp. he certainly fulfilled the purpose that topps laid out for him in the second and last panels.

here are some honest to goodness dodger cards featuring seager that have joined my collection in recent months.

that one is a 2019 topps manupatch card that is numbered to 150. i got it for a couple of bucks.

this is a 2017 topps stadium club gold parallel

that helped fill out a sportlots order for two bits, and here is a 2021 topps 70 years of topps insert

i was trying to complete the dodger set of these inserts a couple of months ago, but i didn't quite make it. with archives, seeing current players on older designs is less of a thrill, but i did enjoy the variety of the 70 years of topps inserts. i wonder if they will do the same thing in 2026 as they get to 75 years.

the almost daily dodger - jim gilliam

today i want to share jim gilliam's 1962 topps card

that has been languishing in my scanned folder for a few months. i think i scanned this card back when i was starting my retired number collection. that was before i found the card that i ultimately used to represent gilliam's number 19 that the dodgers retired following his death during the1978 postseason.

gilliam has had a big impact on my fandom, primarily through his work as a coach guiding steve garvey, ron cey, bill russell, and davey lopes in the finer points of infield defense. his "clinics" were nicknamed "gilliam's island" which is a name i've used for a fantasy baseball team a couple of times. the fact that the dodgers wore a memorial patch for him in the 1978 world series also piqued my interest and curiosity about that sort of uniform enhancement which ultimately wound up with me creating a mini-collection focusing on examples of these tributes in baseball and other sports.

most recently, gilliam has become one of many players whose career stats have improved following mlb's inclusion of negro league stats in career totals. thanks to his time with the baltimore elite giants, gilliam is now credited with over 2,000 hits (2,021) and 1,250 runs (1,255). his national league totals in those categories were 1,889 and 1,163 respectively. gilliam now sits with the 150th most runs scored in history, which is around 65 spots higher than where he placed prior to this statistical update. he jumped about the same number of spots on the all-time hits list as well.

finally, i will admit that i was well into my collecting years when i finally figured out that the 1962 topps set design was based on the concept of a peeling photo/poster of the players, as if it had been applied to a fence or a wood pole.

joey votto is in my hall of famer collection

happy canada day! to celebrate, here's joey votto's card that i have in my hall of famer collection:

it's a 2020 topps clearly authentic autograph, numbered 36/50. here's the back:

i bought this a while back and wasn't sure when to post it. i had been waiting for votto to either retire or get called up by the blue jays. neither has happened yet, so i figured canada made sense given votto's canadian heritage.

over the course of votto's career in cincinnati, he put up what i consider to be hall of fame worthy numbers. he recorded over 2,100 hits and 1,300 bases on balls - in fact, he reached base by hit or walk exactly 3,500 times! he also hit over 350 home runs and had an ops of .920. he was the 2010 mvp and had two other seasons in which he finished in the top three of mvp voting.

votto compares favorably to a number of hall of fame first basemen using modern metrics if not counting stats. his war/162 games is the same as frank thomas', and his jaws rating places him between future hall of famer miguel cabrera and should be hall of famer rafael palmeiro (and higher than hall of famers willie mccovey and todd helton, among others). regardless of what happens with future hall of fame voting, he's in my hall of famer collection.

i decided to hold on to some of his 2024 topps cards in case he retired or doesn't return to the majors to put in my final tribute collection. here is his 2024 topps base card

with what would be his complete career stats on the back

and here is the same from 2024 topps big league

with limited seasonal stats on the back

and 2024 topps heritage

with, once again, full career stats on the back

i saw votto play in cincinnati back in 2019. he was 1 for 3 with a double, a hbp, and two runs scored. one of those runs came on matt kemp's only home run as a red. i was happy to be there to see it. if he does return to the big leagues with the blue jays, i hope he's playing at the end of august so i can see him in person again at target field.

as a reminder, you can see votto and the other members of my hall of famer collection here!