summer sortin' had me a blast

i have a bunch of cards to sort through and haven't dedicated the time to do so in recent months. or is it years? anyway, i was envious of fuji who noted that he was doing a big summer sorting project and now i have become one of the beneficiaries of his work!

i received a bubble mailer full of dodger (and selected other) goodness that ran the gamut from oddballs to parallels and even a custom pinback.

i was able to add some cards to my collection from 1986 sportflics including a tri-star card of fernando valenzuela that also features vida blue and john denny.

denny is a good outlier for me to use on the immaculate grid from time to time thanks to him being a non-steve carlton phillie cy young award winner who was featured in the 1978 topps set. i try my best each day to complete the grid using players from that set.

there were a number of fernando items, including stickers like this one from 1984 topps

that is a sears catalog worthy pose!

fuji also sent me my first 1993 topps micro dodger cards, including darryl strawberry, orel hershiser, and eric karros

i've had some of these in the past of other players, but these are the first keepers for me.

these next two items aren't new to me, but i did want to show how clayton kershaw went from a ryan reynolds lookalike on his 2012 panini triple play sticker

to a more hirsute individual on his 2013 panini triple play sticker

it's a transformation similar to what was seen for some players between early 1970's topps flagship sets - 1970 and 1971 richie/dick allen comes to mind (yes i know the photo on his 1970 card is an older photo).

these next three are all new to me - 2013 panini prizm mike piazza diamond dominance

and yasiel puig fearless

inserts, plus a 2018 panini diamond kings jackie robinson portraits insert

obviously, those cards are all lacking logos, but i think i prefer that to whatever it is that todd hollandsworth is wearing on this 1995 signature rookies card 

it kind of looks like a rec league jersey, but hey - the card is 1 of only 25,000!

there were cards with logos, including one that is just the logo

from 1987 donruss opening day.

with fuji being a padres fan, i wasn't surprised to see some steve garvey cards make the mailing. here's a 1986 donruss pop ups card

that celebrates garvey's (last) all-star game which was played at the metrodome in 1985.

my favorite item of the package was this pinback

that was constructed using his 1982 donruss diamond kings card. this is right up there with the coaster that p-town tom sent to me using a 2012 topps mini matt kemp card in terms of custom coolness.

finally, there were a handful of cards from the 2021 topps complete set (gold star edition) for my collection, including corey seager

and the championship fireworks

it's been a long time since i received a gold star from a teacher!

thanks mark! enjoy the last few days of your summer vacation!

when champs were kids

two posts in less than a week featuring cards from 2013 panini triple play. wow. this card

completes my dodger team set from that release, although it's not a dodger card, really. sure, it's a clayton kershaw card by name, and that's why it's on the dodger team checklist, but i could have done without it.

anyway, it's a "when i was a kid" short print. whoever thought of putting short prints in triple play was hopefully fired. here's the back:

i believe the game described there is more commonly referred to as "knee hockey". my son played it with his friends, and i don't think they got the idea from the back of a 2013 panini triple play short print card. anyway, it's a card that addresses the very well known story that i am sure you are aware of regarding how 2020 world series champion clayton kershaw grew up with 2022 super bowl champion matthew stafford. if you weren't aware, that means you weren't watching the super bowl a few weeks ago. they mentioned it once or twice.

i have to say, i prefer the 1972/1973 topps versions of these sorts of cards - it would be great to see a photo of the two actually playing this game. makes you wonder what sort of games bryce harper and joey gallo were playing together as kids.

gone daddy a-gon

2013 panini triple threads is about to make its first appearance on this blog! ready? here we go:

this adrian gonzalez all-star card is an insert, and it feels like a "real" card on cardstock as opposed to the slicker feel of the base set. i actually like the 2013 version of triple play with the more cartoonish images of players more than i liked the 2012 release. i am not sure i would have recognized this image as adrian gonzalez, however.

gonzalez recently announced his retirement formally, although it seems like it was understood as he hadn't played in the big leagues since 2018 when he was a met. i think it was unfortunate that gonzalez was injured in the 2017 season and so missed out on the dodgers pennant win. it was odd that he wasn't around the team during the postseason as i recall, as he had been a big part of the team since he was acquired in a 2012 trade with the red sox.

i am on record as saying that that trade was the end of the dodgers as i knew them. even with the kevin brown signing, i resisted the urge to think of the dodgers as the "yankees west", but the trade of james loney, ivan dejesus jr, and a couple of others for gonzalez, josh beckett, carl crawford, and nick punto was something that bowie kuhn would have likely disallowed. it was a huge salary dump by the red sox, essentially, and there were few teams that could take on that salary. not to mention the fact that crawford was hurt at the time of the deal.

i happened to be at dodger stadium the day the dodgers claimed gonzalez on waivers and i figured it was just a move to block someone else from acquiring him. never did i think that he would become a dodger, but he did. he played well, too, leading the national league in rbi in 2014 which probably would have been a bigger deal to me had matt kemp not done the same in 2011, becoming the first dodger in my lifetime (and only second los angeles dodger) to lead the league in that category. speaking of kemp, the dodgers traded gonzalez to the braves after the 2017 season in the deal that brought kemp back to los angeles.

anyway, i wish gonzalez well in his retirement, and i wonder if he will ever show up in future releases like archives.