the almost daily dodger - odalis perez

there was a point in the summer when i was getting pretty obsessed with colored topps chrome refractors, especially those from about 16 or 17 years ago. i wound up picking up one from 18 years ago for my collection - odalis perez's 2006 topps chrome blue refractor

it's not as impressive in hand as the 2007 topps chrome blue refractors, but it's still nice. some of the other refractors i picked up around that time included a gold 2004 topps chrome cesar izturis refractor

a base 2005 topps chrome traded jeff kent refractor

and a black jose valentin refractor from the same set as kent's card

black refractors are always sharp.

back to odalis, however. it's been over two and a half years since he passed away, but i still think of him from time to time. he was kind enough to hand over a baseball from the dodger dugout during a game at anaheim stadium so that we would have a ball for each of the kids that my friends and i were at the game with. my son got a ball during pregame, and i caught a ball from nomar as he left the field at the end of an inning for one of the other kids. in one of the latter innings, the guy i was sitting next to was chatting up perez in spanish and got him to toss us a ball. all three kids were happy! thanks odalis!

j.d. drew had a good run

j.d. drew hit the majors with a bang in 1998 when he slugged 1.436 in 14 games for the cardinals. those high expectations were hard to measure up to over the course of a full season, and eventually drew was dealt to the braves. after putting up a career year there in what was a "walk" year, the dodgers signed him and now we have legion cards of drew in dodger blue.

i noticed that the ones i had in my scanned folder all showed drew running.  

here's his 2005 upper deck update card

which used a donruss design combined with a blackberry device. really strange.

here's his 2006 topps bazooka blue parallel

and his 2006 topps gold parallel

those two topps produced cards certainly show images captured within seconds of each other. here's one more - drew's 2006 topps chrome black refractor parallel

that is, of course, identical to the flagship gold parallel.

drew did more than run as a dodger, even though he was injured for much of his first season with the club. the second year, 2006, he played in a career high 146 games and drove in 100 runs for the only time in his career helping them get to the postseason. i recall being hopeful when drew was signed, disappointed when he was injured so much in 2005, and then content with his performance in 2006.

i was even more hopeful when the dodgers decided not to re-sign drew (or kenny lofton) after the 2006 season, as i figured that meant matt kemp would be an every day outfielder. however, the dodgers went and signed juan pierre and luis gonzalez and kemp was left to wait a bit longer.

worth the price of admission

i went to the semi-annual big old card show in st. paul a couple of weeks ago. this was a hotel show last fall, but has been held in the st. paul rivercentre for the last two occurrences, which is a big improvement in terms of space.

i went on the friday - it was open on thursday to vendors and vip types - and so i am sure i missed some of the larger crowds who were likely there on saturday and sunday. still, most tables were full and some patrons were in full body odor mode.

as you might imagine, most tables seemed focused on slabbed stuff, and there were more than a couple tables that were solely pokemon, but i still found some bargain boxes to dig through, which is my card show jam. i wound up with about 200 cards in total, and i didn't pay more than $2 for any of them. in fact, the average price turned out to be around 70 cents - a bit more if you factor in the cost of admission which was $15.

for that price, i was given a paper ticket, and not a qr code

that was unexpected as i didn't know paper tickets were still a thing at any venue.

as we move to the cards, i will go straight to what was worth the price of admission. this 2024 topps chrome shohei ohtani card

is presumably worth $20 due to the anticipated mvp buyback program and ohtani's status as the national league frontrunner. the dealer i bought it from had it in a 50 cent box. that same dealer had this 2024 topps trading card day ohtani

for the same price. i wound up buying some other cards from his box just to spend a little bit more for him.

another dealer had this 2024 topps chrome black ohtani

in a dollar box. here's yoshinobu yamamoto's 2024 topps chrome card

that was in the same 50 cent box as the ohtani chrome card.

some other dodger favorites that i picked up at the show include this 2023 topps heritage bill buckner 50th (really 49th) anniversary card

and a 2015 topps heritage adrian gonzalez action variation card

from a quarter box of 70s and 80s cards came this 1984 sports design products duke snider card

and the lone card that i paid $2 for was this 2020 topps corey seager photo variation

i am always going to pull albert pujols dodger cards from these bargain boxes, and some of the ones i found were these three chrome parallels/ben baller edition cards

i also found a sheldon neuse dodger card - it's a 2022 panini donruss pink fireworks parallel autograph

of a guy who played in 33 games for the dodgers in 2021. i don't think he has a non-autograph card showing him as a dodger.

i am not going to add panini sets to my dodger want lists anymore, but i did still spend a few minutes looking through a big monster box of 2024 donruss. i was mostly looking for parallels for others but did grab a jackie robinson foil parallel

plus a couple of vladimir guerrero inserts

that first one is an homage to the 1984 action all-stars oddball release. another seller had this 1999 pacific revolution tripleheader

which was a no-brainer for me to pick up for some loose change.

i did not know that 2024 topps dynamic duals was a thing, nor that it was out, but someone was selling a few singles and i grabbed a dusty baker and lou piniella mashup

i figure we will continue to see johnnie b baker show up in future card releases which is fine by me.

speaking of mash ups, here is a 2022 topps stadium chrome bo jackson card showing him shaking hands with ronald reagan

i thought that someone might want the card, but there is a scratch on it above ronnie's head, so i put this one in my lurkers collection.

my double play collection benefitted from the show with this 2023 topps chrome josh smith sepia refractor parallel

and this 2006 topps chrome felipe lopez red refractor parallel

the lopez parallel is numbered to 90, but that's not the lowest numbered card i picked up at the show. i will probably show more of those cards in a different post, but here is a sample of the variety of parallels and serial numbered cards that i added to my stacks

i was also somewhat surprised to be able to buy a fernando tatis jr rookie card for less than a buck

even if it is from a set like 2019 topps holiday.

there was so much more to my haul, but i will stop there for now. maybe there will be another post with cards from this show, but i have another show's worth of stuff to show off so who knows.

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!

be my be my a-a-angel

i see that the cult is (or at least was) touring with black rebel motorcycle club. that would be a great show. i skipped their twin cities appearance, however, as i have previously seen both bands in concert (each as the headliner) at 1st ave, and i don't think my current aged ears could take the pounding.

lil' devil is a song form the cult's "electric" album, which was a shiny followup to their fantastic album "love". it's a catchy tune in which ian astbury implores his lil' devil to become his lil' angel, and that is where the title of this post comes from. what i am trying to say is that i recently bought a big lot of angel cards.

the reason i did so is sort of dumb (it had to do with combined shipping), but the price was right and i figured i would get some new vladimir guerrero cards out of the deal, which i did.

2005 donruss zenith vladimir guerrero epix orange play

these epix things are pretty neat. this one name checks another former favorite player of mine, don baylor, on the back:

2006 topps stars insert

2008 topps stars insert

so not a whole lot of new vladdy cards, but i did add a few other halos to various other parts of my collection.

for the double play collection a cognac parallel from 2011 topps

a base card from 2006 topps chrome

and a gold parallel from 2011 bowman

for the dodger stadium collection, a pair of parallel cards from 2011 bowman draft picks & prospects

for the name/number on the back collection, a couple of jered weaver cards from 2011 and 2012 topps update

and for the lurker collection, one from 2021 topps

featuring shohei ohtani in the background.

speaking of ohtani, the lot included an insert from 2021 topps big league

but not anything else of his. i am not surprised, although there were a fair number of mike trout cards. one of the more mundane is this 2021 topps update insert

there were a bunch more inserts of various angel players through the years, but there really isn't much of a market for anthony rendon or josh hamilton cards these days. i am glad that i salvaged a few cards from the lot.

i also received some angel cards from nick, who is a fellow vlad collector. he sent me a 2009 topps 206 card

i was all in and completed the 2002 206 set, including all the variations, but was not nearly as interested in the 2009 version.  he also sent a 2022 panini donruss card

that i think would look better if panini had stayed true to the original 1988 design.

my collection overlaps with nick's in other ways, as we both collect double play turns, and he sent along a 2022 panini donruss ryne sandberg card

plus a few others for me to add to my collection

the schoendienst card in the middle top is a sample, if i recall correctly.

and, of course, nick sent some dodgers. here's a mashup between 1988 donruss and 1988 donruss baseball's best featuring will smith

no logo catcher cards are generally the best of the bunch.

i already had this 2001 upper deck legends of new york jackie robinson card

but i wanted to show it to you because i just noticed that upper deck got the month wrong for jackie's debut which is ridiculous. inexcusable, really.

very rarely do i get dodger team issue cards in a trade package, but nick sent along a couple of cards from the 1989 dodgers smokey set 

wally moon and jim lefebvre are a couple of dodgers that i can appreciate for sure. 

finally, in addition to that angels lot i mentioned at the start, i bought a couple of additional large random lots for some reason. there was a lot of panini stuff, and i found a few cards to keep for my collection, including a pair of 2022 panini donruss jose altuve cards

for the double play collection, and a pair of bryce harper cards from the same set

for the name/number on the back collection.

the seller who sold me the angel lot doesn't seem to be selling anymore which is fine as i am trying to stay away from purchases like this now, but who knows if the mood will strike again.

ciao baby!