my favorites of the year

as we close out another year, it's time to look back at some of the cards i've added to my "annual" collections. i've already shown the first of these cards (topps flagship #350), but this post will cover my selections for the other annual collections: topps flagship through the years, favorite dodger, favorite non-dodger, and favorite 2025 dodger and non-dodger cards that i've acquired. first up is the first card that went into these collections, and it's the card i chose to represent 2025 topps in my flagship through the years collection

gunnar henderson's card provides plenty of action and color, and it shows him breaking through the card design. the only real complaint i had about this design was the horizontal cards that were used for player base cards. team cards with the three letter abbreviation (except for the athletics) would have been fine, but to have a player's card with such a different design element or approach seemed wrong to me.

my favorite dodger in 2025 was still clayton kershaw, and i have his topps 1990 35th anniversary card

representing him in that collection for the final time.

my favorite non-dodger in 2025 was still byron buxton, whose 2025 topps chrome xfractor

makes the collection. i feel like all buxton cards should show him making an incredible catch - there are plenty of different plays to choose from! 

as for my favorite cards that i've obtained from 2025 releases, the 2024 dodgers

gave me a lot to be excited about, and that excitement carried over into the 2025 calendar with all of the card releases. that card above is from 2024 topps heritage high numbers, which makes it ineligible - not that it was in the running anyway.

back in 2021, i chose the topps heritage card celebrating the dodgers' world series victory as my favorite that year. this year's heritage card - seen here in its royal blue parallel version

is fantastic and wonderful, but my mind was made up well before heritage was released. that's because when i first saw this card...

favorite dodger card of the year: 

will smith's golden mirror variation knocked out all challengers. knowing that walker buehler wasn't going to get a dodger card in 2025 made this card featuring that moment a classic. it took me a bit to find a second one of these at a decent price to add to the annual collections binder but i made it happen. this card will never not bring a smile to my face.

as for non-dodgers, i was happy early on in 2025 to find brooks lee's flagship rookie card

it features a photo from his rookie debut which i did not attend. i went to the game the following day and had hoped that he wouldn't debut until then. i've mentioned before that he is from near where i grew up and went to the same college as ozzie smith so i had been keeping an eye on his minor league progression.

later in the year, i found tyler o'neill's card in a pack

and admired the stadium club level photography and the pitted green monster. a great card for sure. rod from padrographs also sent me this trevor larnach card 

during the season. it was the very first team color border parallel i'd ever seen in person and i really liked it - so many logos! 

one other contender is the newest card to make its entry - it's jc escarra's topps update golden mirror variation

it first caught my attention because he is wearing jackie robinson's number 42 on his chest protector. of course, these 42 cards have largely been variations (here's the back)

and i am still on the lookout for the dodgers' 2024 topps team card golden mirror with the players wearing the iconic number. i might have decided to pass on escarra's card but when i noticed the detail on his chest protector

i had to have it. in the end, it belongs in my "42" collection as a close second. in time, it might become the favorite non-dodger card i acquired this year, but right now...

favorite non-dodger card of the year:

the fact that i pulled this topps chrome brooks lee rookie image variation refractor from a pack myself made it an instant favorite. sure, lee's season wasn't up to expectations, but he's young and will hopefully break out in 2026.

this is the ninth time that a twins card (tenth if you consider charlie brown to be a twin) has sat in this position and i suppose that makes sense. i assure you, however, that this choice is about lee and a card that i pulled myself and not the team.

i am looking forward to seeing what 2026 brings in the way of cardboard. happy new year!

'tis the night before christmas

deck the halls and what not - it's christmas time! it's also time for me to show some topps holiday cards that i've added since we last shared yuletide greetings.

this release should really be called "topps christmas" because that is the only holiday the cards reference, and it's been that way since the first issue in 2019. here's a 2019 cody bellinger variation

that is pretty easy to spot.

this 2020 bellinger variation

is a bit tougher. here, the variation is the "la" ornament hanging off of his bat. i am guessing that there are many of these languishing in forgotten boxes of unwanted base cards.

the 2021 set included the bead curtain design, and here's a max scherzer variation

i wore a scarf just the other day.

mookie betts variations are also in my possession - this one from 2022

and this one from 2023

as well as this one from 2024

that last one is him in an elf hat, but the card design has it looking more like something that comes out of a christmas cracker.

this year, the variation i purchased was roki sasaki's

which combined the santa hat with the christmas light necklace.

i also picked up betts' 2021 base card to complete the team set

as well as the remainder of the 2025 base cards i needed to complete that team set

the parallels have evolved over the past few years, and i added a few of them to my collection over the past few months. here's freddie freeman's 2022 silver metallic snowflake parallel

and then freeman and max muncy on their 2024 equivalent

except these are called "silver glitter" now.

no surprise that 2025 expanded on the parallels. here's clayton kershaw's sliver glitter

dalton rushing's light blue & white glitter

blake snell's metallic blue foil christmas lights

teoscar hernandez' gold foil christmas lights

and freeman's green plaid

that last one was a throw-in into a lot of 2025 allen & ginter i bought which was a nice surprise. it came with some other, non-dodger inserts from 2025 topps holiday that i found interesting, like this evergreen harmon killebrew card

which is die-cut. i also got a laugh out of seeing emmanuel clase on the nice list

what a crazy story that is.

it wouldn't be (almost) christmas without me thinking of the late rickey henderson. at some point during the year, i found a seller with rickey's 2003 topps chrome traded base and refractor listed. they were listed separately and i am not sure that the seller knew one was a refractor. i bought them both 

for $40 which is a steal (pun intended). let's take a moment to look at rickey's almost career totals on the backs of these cards

the refractor is noted on the back down by the card number.

i still need a couple more refractors to complete my 2003 topps chrome traded team set, but i did find james loney's card shortly after picking up the rickey

this one was listed as a refractor, and it was pretty obvious from the photo of the front, and it is marked as such on the back

just in a different way than rickey's.

rickey's 2003 upper deck card is probably my favorite from his dodger stint

but i have questions about the back

i have never seen "mariners" shortened to "mrl". and, "athletics" is nine characters, so why not say "mets/mar". ponderous.

back to christmas, i pounced on this complete printing plate run from 2024 leaf metal happy holidays web exclusive

so i suppose i could print my own steve garvey holiday cards now? i haven't seen any of the actual cards hit the market yet, but i may have missed any that did because these are so short printed by leaf.

some other holiday "hits" to share - a 2022 topps holiday cody bellinger relic

and, very fittingly, a 2025 topps holiday jhonkensey noel relic

that i pulled from a holiday tin earlier this month. it's the first noel relic card i've pulled. ha.

also in that tin was a 2009 design card of ol' saint nick himself

which is part of the multi-year santa archives. here's the back:

i remember hearing about zsu zsu pets but did not partake.

earlier in the year, i found the 2014 card in a dig box at the lcs

here's the back

i don't recall any of those toys. i think i first heard about paw patrol last year. 

finally, here's the first card i purchased from 2025 topps holiday - the 1978 design santa archives

i've added it to my 1978 topps master set. any idea why santa's position is identified as "cpt"? at first i thought that was an abbreviation for "captain" which didn't make a lot of sense. i googled "cpt" and found that it is also an acronym for "carriage paid to" which is an international trade term that means the shipper delivers goods at their own expense. that certainly applies, but it seems like an obscure "position" for mr. claus. here's the back:

ah yes. this i remember. it was all star wars at my house that christmas. i remember getting the milennium falcon and immediately mixing up the stickers on the back. good times. here's hoping that 2025 creates memories that last a lifetime.

and now please enjoy norm macdonald reading the dickens classic. merry christmas to all and to all a good night!

it's been a year

another trip around the sun for us and for my favorite player, steve garvey. today he celebrates his 77th birthday. that's as good a reason as any to show off a bunch of garvey cards i've added to my collection this past year - ones that i haven't posted previously, anyway.

i will kick things off with one of the few padre offerings in 2025 products

that's a 2025 leaf metal savage autograph. it's a sticker auto, but the card is die-cut and unique enough that i went for it. it's numbered to 10 as seen on the back

and i think "savage" sums up 2025 for a lot of people.

this is the oldest garvey card i picked up in 2025

it's a 1976 hostess twinkie card - recognizable by the black bar on the back

this was an upgrade for the version in my dodger collection which had very little of the black bar showing.

i snagged a couple of after market garvey autographs to help fill out my collection - 1981 donruss

1981 fleer

1986 topps glossy all-star

there are a few other cards of his that i wouldn't mind adding to this ttm/ip collection, but it is by no means a priority.

certified autos (and relics) were a big part of garvey collecting this year, of course. here's a 2009 topps sterling career chronicles auto relic quad numbered to 10

i picked it up in february. here's the back:

if only garvey's career ops were closer to his postseason ops, he would be in the hall of fame. i also understand that if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.

here's a 2024 topps triple threads single auto jumbo relic 

i picked up in january and a 2024 topps definitive collection definitive autographed relic

that i bought in april. some of this is due to 2024 product not being released until 2025. here's the back:

that card is one of the more paniniesque cards that topps has created, and speaking of panini...

i bought this 2024 panini national treasures legend jumbo lumber signatures card

in june and this 2024 panini impeccable illustrious ink card in october

i wonder if the players were meant to sign the jumbo bat rather than squeeze their autograph in under their photo. anyway, here's the back of the impeccable card

"fan favorite" and "face of the franchise" is right.

here's another autograph i bought in october:

it's a 2024 topps allen & ginter x silver ink auto, numbered to 25

parallels also abound, and i bought some 2024 allen & ginter/allen & ginter x minis

as well as a trio of parallels from 2022 topps chrome platinum anniversary. this is the platinum toile white & green refractor

numbered to 99

this is the platinum toile cream & gold

numbered to 50

and this is the platinum toile white & orange

numbered to 25

another numbered parallel i added to some others i already had is this 2024 panini prizm white prizm 

that is numbered to 99

my garvey purchases didn't just feed the player collection, either. i still consider my team collection separate from my garvey collection, and this 2005 topps retired signature black parallel

that i picked up in march can go in the team collection as i already had one in the garvey binders. it's numbered to 54

also in march, i bought another 2023 topps heritage mvp buyback autograph

that's numbered to 74. this is a great concept and it is sad to know that i won't be able to chase a dave parker card like this in 2027 heritage.

of course, there were actual 2025 cards that i bought this year. here are a couple that i've not shown before from the 2025 topps all-star game release. this is the all-star greats insert gold parallel

and this is the black parallel of the same insert

gold is to 50 and black is to 10. as a two-time all-star game mvp, including garvey in this release was a no-brainer, although topps has left him out of other insert sets such as the "perennial all-stars" from 2019. here's the back of this particular insert

yes, 1974 was a very good year for the garv. not to say 2025 wasn't, as i am sure the highlight of garvey's year was meeting me at the national.  with that said, i wish him an even more memorable 78th trip around the sun!