look mother's, no legs!

bonus mother's day post!

i've mentioned before that i will occasionally check in on cards that i need for my various player collections, and i did so a few months ago with dusty baker. i found a couple of cards for cheap and pulled the trigger. the first one comes from the 1991 mother's cookies giants set, and features baker amongst the rest of roger craig's coaching staff

when i first saw the card, i thought that dusty might have been added to the photo at a later date because there are only eight legs visible among five men. a closer look revealed ten feet and the understanding that dusty's legs are positioned behind those of norm sherry and wendall kim.

the other baker card i added was his 2002 topps home team advantage parallel

not much to say about it as it is one of the weaker parallels of the era.

the seller of these cards included a freebie - this 1987 mother's cookies dodgers alejandro pena card

it's a duplicate, but i have added it to my dodger stadium collection. there aren't a lot of cards that feature both the diamond vision screen over the left field pavilion and the scoreboard over the right field pavilion, but this card does just that!

later, i added another card from the 1991 giants set.

i don't pc mark leonard; instead i was looking for a good example of the retired number placards at candlestick park. this card was the best i could find in terms of clarity and quantity of the placards. in the background we see christy mathewson, john mcgraw, bill terry, carl hubbell, and willie mays. mel ott's placard is behind leonard. i've added this card as a sort of header to my retired number collection, to go along with a couple others that show how other teams do it. i'd like to find cards showing the murals that the white sox and braves used to have, so if you know of any please help a blogger out!

2025 brings balance to the franchise

i was pondering the upcoming 2025 baseball season last winter and did some quick math in my head regarding some dodger milestones. it will be the 70th anniversary of the team's first world series title and the 60th anniversary of their fourth. it will also be the 135th anniversary of their inaugural season as a member of the national league. as you likely already know, while the team existed for a few years prior, brooklyn officially joined the national league in 1890 and later moved to los angeles following the 1957 season. 

partly inspired by the fact that the a's were heading to sacramento after having been in oakland longer than they were in philadelphia, i pondered the dodgers' multi-city status and realized that with this being their 136th season in the major leagues, 2025 will mark their 68th season as the los angeles dodgers, matching the 68 that they played in brooklyn. franchise symmetry! (note that the giants still have seven years to go to reach this franchise fulcrum, as they began play as a national league team in 1883).

in 1957, topps gave us this team card of the brooklyn dodgers

but despite '57 being their final season in brooklyn, we got one more brooklyn dodger team card in 1958

since these were always "last year's" team photos. topps left off the city for the dodgers (and the giants) which was out of step with the other team cards. seeing roy campanella on the card makes me even more disappointed that topps did not give him a proper final tribute. finally, it's worth noting that topps not being able to color the numbers on the front of the dodger jerseys correctly is not a new phenomenon.

in 1959, topps gave us the first los angeles dodgers team card

and they got the red numbers right!

the last single player brooklyn dodger topps card belonged to don elston in 1957

and the first los angeles dodger topps card belonged to charley neal in 1958

around the first of the year, i took the opportunity to complete a couple of sets that span both cities. first, the 1980 tcma all-time dodgers

which features more brooklyn folks than los angeles ones. this 1991 line drive set

reverses that trend. i had a few of the tcma cards previously, as well as the garvey from the line drive set, but found it easier to buy the sets than piecemeal the missing cards.

i have plenty of other cards from my scanned folder to show today that play on this theme, including a couple gil hodges cards

that's a 1949 bowman reprint (chromified) from 2001 bowman chrome, and this is a 2002 topps 1952 world series insert

while hodges played for the dodgers in both brooklyn and los angeles, he's representing brooklyn in each of his cards in this post.

here's hodges' teammate in both brooklyn and la, duke snider, on a 2005 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary lineage insert

duke has his brooklyn hat on here, but is repping los angeles in the all-time dodger set above.

another dodger who played in both cities is jim gilliam, seen on a 2023 panini donruss pennants insert

his helmet has no logo, but the card makes it obvious that he is representing the brooklyn dodgers here. the brooklyn dodgers won nine pennants, but just one world series.

one great who didn't make the trip to los angeles with the club is jackie robinson. here he is on a few cards - 2024 topps mega box 1989 all-star

2024 topps allen & ginter mini chrome parallel

and 2023 topps archives 1969 single player foil insert

that really makes the case for brooklyn.

don drysdale, seen here on a 2008 donruss threads baseball americana insert

pitches for brooklyn, but the big d shown here on a 2022 topps gypsy queen short print

pitches for los angeles.

here's another sandy koufax card, this one from 2024 topps

it's another mega box exclusive parallel. koufax, of course, also spanned the franchise's time in brooklyn and los angeles, and he's wearing the latter on his chest here. he led the club to three world series titles in the first 10 years of their existence on the west coast and is still revered by the dodger faithful today.

once the 1970's arrived (represented here on a 2020 topps update decades' best blue parallel)

the club won three pennants, but lost each of the world series in which they played. the card above features a photo from the 1978 world series, which was especially heartbreaking for young gcrl who assumed that the dodgers would win since they lost in 1977. it was their turn!

the 1978 season did cement steve garvey as my favorite player, and i was far from alone in that regard. here's the garv on a 2024 topps allen & ginter gold mini parallel

while the perennial all-star didn't lead the dodgers back to the postseason in 1979, the 1980's brought two pennants and two championships to los angeles, represented by this 1989 mother's dodgers card

but then came some lean years. there were some bright spots, as a number of rookies of the year, including mike piazza seen on a 1994 ultra pro card

gave us hope. that hope petered out with two postseason sweepings in the middle of the 1990s. then came the jim tracy years. here's tracy on a 2004 topps gold parallel

his tenure included the dodgers' only postseason single game win since 1988, but also included a number of interesting player personnel decisions. one solid player who was there for part of the tracy era was shawn green, seen here on a 2005 donruss classics team colors insert

that is most decidedly "la".

another highlight of those years was "game over". eric gagne's prowess at saving games was highlighted on this 2006 upper deck epic epic events insert

gagne won the cy young award in 2003, and the dodgers didn't have a pitcher win another until clayton kershaw came along.

here's kershaw on a 2009 topps unique red parallel card

kershaw's arrival coincided with a run of team success. in fact, in kershaw's 17 seasons, the dodgers have missed the postseason only three times. here's a 2015 topps limited edition dodger team card

showing the 2014 squad celebrating their regular season success.

it wasn't until the dodgers added mookie betts, however, that their postseason fortunes changed. here's betts on a 2021 topps 70 years of topps insert

betts led the dodgers to the world series title in 2020, and he was aided four years later by freddie freeman and shohei ohtani (shown on his 2024 topps archives card)

who went 50/50 during the regular season.

of course, perhaps the greatest dodger and the real bridge between the franchise's time in brooklyn and los angeles, was vin scully. here's a 2013 panini cooperstown matrix parallel

of the longtime broadcaster.

i am excited to watch this team as it reaches its equilibrium this year and as it tips the scales to los angeles in years to come. i am very happy that the stateside opening day is tomorrow!

parrallelapalooza

well it's the end of the year and i've made some progress in clearing out my scanned folder through the "almost daily dodger" series of posts and other random ramblings throughout the year. several months ago, i started dumping scans of parallels into this draft, and i figure new year's eve is as good a time as any to hit publish.

enjoy a year end celebration of a variety of parallels!

steve finley's 2005 fleer ultra card is one of my favorite dodger cards of all time. about a year ago i picked up the gold medallion parallel

and the platinum medallion parallel

viva fernando!

these next two are parallels of an insert from 2000 pacific revolution

holo silver and holo gold parallels, to be exact.

the gold borders from 2002 topps aren't the most obvious when they are scanned

but you can tell in hand.

refractor parallels of cards from 2010 topps 206

are a bit strange because of the old-timey design, but they are still shiny.

here are a bunch of random parallels from 2011 through 2018

sluggo sent me a bunch of alex wood cards a year or so ago in one of our trades. and, i suppose technically the allen & ginter x card isn't a parallel since it's a base card of that set, but that set is a parallel of the regular allen & ginter set, so...

in 2015, topps issued three versions of these 1st home run inserts, and this is yasiel puig's gold version

and then in series 2 there was a white version, too. but not one of the series 1 versions. weird.

blackless cards used to be a mistake, but in 2018 topps gypsy queen

they were done on purpose

here's a more recent gold parallel

that parallel seems basic compared to some of the ones that panini came up with in recent years. this is a 2020 panini prizm cosmic haze parallel

and it's just one of literally dozens of parallels available of that card.

in 2020, topps introduced royal blue parallels. this one is from 2021 topps

and in 2022 they introduced ray wave refractors.

that cody bellinger card is from the 2022 topps chrome sonic set which thankfully was a one and done. now topps puts these refractors in regular chrome releases.

yellow parallels used to be a retail exclusive thing, but i don't think this 2024 topps card

was part of any walgreens exclusive

the aqua parallels from 2024, like this freddie freeman card,

were exclusive to fanatics packs.

finally, topps has continued with "holiday" themed parallels since debuting them in 2023 update. i suppose this is a way to support the huge print runs of base cards. here's a 2024 topps series 1 "base" holiday parallel

and a series 2 "base" holiday parallel

as well. 

i am sure 2025 will bring more of the same, but bring it on. happy new year!