tommy lasorda's legacy continues

while the dodgers' pitchers and catchers reported last friday, the astros' batteries report tomorrow. they will be arriving to a new manager now that dusty baker has retired from the position.  i bought the topps now card that was issued after he announced his plans to hang up his personalized sweatbands for my post-dodger dusty baker collection

he has since rejoined the giants as an advisor, but won't be adding to his accolades noted on the back of the card

i hope he considers second place finishes in the national league west "great things".

anyway, with dusty retiring there was a period where there were no longer any major league managers who played under tommy lasorda. a long time ago, i wrote about the tommy lasorda managerial tree and i haven't stopped paying attention. baker's managerial career began while tommy was still leading the dodgers, but there were some years after lasorda's retirement where baker was not managing. fortunately, in 2007 there were lasorda players willie randolph, phil garner, mike scioscia, and ron washington leading teams to keep the tree alive. dusty was also out of the game in 2014 and 2015, but scioscia and ron roenicke were managers during both of those seasons, along with kirk gibson and washington in 2014. in 2018, scioscia was the only one still standing and i was a bit concerned that the end was near.

scioscia stepped down after the 2018 season, so in 2019 we were without a manager who played under lasorda until tom prince got to manage the last game of the season for the pirates. thankfully, baker was hired by the astros for the 2020 season and now here we are.

in addition to the astros, the angels have their pitchers & catchers reporting tomorrow and their new manager will be there, too. that would be ron washington who was hired in early november. i have a managerial card of washington in my dodger collection because he was featured on a 2014 topps heritage ad panel with chris capuano and (future dodger) chris perez

here's the back:

i am actually hoping that washington finds some success in anaheim because mike trout deserves to be playing in the postseason.

i may as well show one of my newest lasorda cards - a 2022 topps chrome platinum anniversary black & white mini diamonds refractor

along with another card i picked up last year for another one of my post-dodger player collections.

that would be a 2002 topps gold parallel card of davey lopes who managed the brewers for a couple of seasons. like baker, lopes is retired from managing and coaching (he was on dusty's staff with the nationals) and so he won't be showing up in any dugouts in the future. 

where it is with heritage chrome

a few weeks ago, i gave a synopsis of where my dodger collection is regarding topps heritage releases. this post will do something similar with the chrome heritage offerings. some collectors don't like the idea of chrome cards in heritage releases since there were no chrome cards using flagship designs until the late 1990's. i like the chrome cards and don't see them degrading the heritage sets at all, although there are plenty of other things for collectors to nitpick about (myself included).

anyway, the inaugural heritage release in 2001 introduced us to these partial set parallels, and i just recently finally added one to my collection

2001 sets meant dodger collectors were getting a whopping serving of kevin brown, shawn green, and gary sheffield cards. those three are the dodgers who were feted with chrome cards in 2001, but i only have brown's.

in 2002, brown and green again got the chrome treatment and were joined by paul loduca, omar daal, and chan ho park. i don't have any of those cards. i did pull a cc sabathia chrome card from a pack of 2002 heritage, but i've since parted with it.

five dodgers were included in the 2003 topps heritage chrome cards, including ruddy lugo

in addition to the lugo, i have shawn green's card but am missing kaz ishii, franklin gutierrez, and loduca.

there were only two chrome dodgers in 2004 - shawn green and edwin jackson - and i only have green's card. in 2005, green was joined by ishii, jeff kent, and eric gagne. i have the green and the ishii from that set.  then, in 2006, jeff weaver

rafael furcal

and kent 

joined nomar garciaparra as chrome dodgers. this is the first team heritage chrome set that i have completed.

i have also completed the dodger 2007 heritage chrome team set. it features andre ethier

delwyn young

and jonathan broxton

broxton's card looks fantastic in refractor form

it's the only one of the three that i own and i wouldn't have it any other way.

i have also completed the team set for 2008 heritage chrome. this one includes 10 dodgers (2 of which are part of the inaugural high numbers release). in addition to ethier, kent, andy laroche, and hiroki kuroda, dodger fans were treated to cards of andruw jones

matt kemp

brad penny

takashi saito

russell martin

who i also have in refractor form

and chin-lung hu

whose refractor looks really great

there were 10 more dodgers in 2009 heritage, and i have them all. kuroda

martin

penny

orlando hudson (high numbers)

ethier

whose refractor also sits in my collection

james loney (whose refractor made this post rather than the base)

the others in the team set include clayton kershaw, kemp, manny ramirez, and randy wolf.

six dodgers showed up in 2010 heritage as chrome parallels, and once again, i've been able to complete the set. here's chad billingsley's card

he is joined by kemp, kershaw, ethier, martin, and manny.

in 2011, if i recall correctly, the chrome cards were included in heritage and chrome? is that correct? anyway, there are nine dodgers and i have six of them. i am missing don mattingly, kuroda, and billingsley, but have casey blake, loney, kershaw, etheir, the kemp/ethier combo card, and kemp's solo card. here's his chrome parallel

that also graces my collection.

2012 heritage included five dodgers and i have three of them, including kuroda in base

and refractor format

i am missing ethier's card and the matt kemp league leader card, but i have kemp's solo card and kershaw's league leader card in chrome form.

2013 heritage only had five dodgers as well, and i own ethier and kershaw cards but need hanley ramirez', kemp, and adrian gonzalez. for 2014, hyun-jin ryu, zack greinke, and yasiel puig joined kershaw, ramirez, gonzalez, and kemp. i have kershaw and kemp

and i also have purple refractors of greinke and kemp

i don't have kemp's 2015 heritage chrome card, but i do have greinke's

i also have kershaw, dee gordon, puig, and gonzalez, but am missing ryu, ramirez, and kenley jansen. as for the high numbers, i have jimmy rollins but none of the other dodgers (yasmani grandal, trevor cahill, alex guerrero, and brett anderson).

there were only three dodgers - greinke (need it), puig (need it), and kershaw (got it) - given chrome cards in 2016 heritage, but high numbers gave us four more. scott kazmir and ross stripling are the two i am missing as i have julio urias and kenta maeda

it was more of the same in 2018, with four dodgers in the base run of heritage - kershaw (got it), maeda (got it), corey seager (need it), and urias (need it). then, in high numbers, there were four more. i need andrew toles, rob segedin, and cody bellinger, but have jansen.  

in 2019, topps returned to a greater number of dodgers included as chrome subjects as seager, maeda, bellinger, yu darvish, walker buehler, alex verdugo, puig, and kershaw were all included. kershaw's is the only card of those that i own, although i do have a couple of refractor parallels of others.  in high numbers, there was only matt kemp, and while i need his base chrome card, i do have his refractor parallel

man it was good to see him back with the dodgers in 2018.

things got sort of confusing for me in 2019 when i was putting together the checklists. i guess some of the chrome cards were only available in mega boxes, like this jansen

and this joc pederson 

while matt kemp was among those getting true "base" chrome cards. i don't have kemp's card, but i do have his refractor parallel

in all, i still need buehler, kemp, maeda, and max muncy from the base chrome checklist (i have kershaw), and i need only bellinger from the mega box checklist (i have seager in addition to the pederson and jansen cards above). high numbers included chrome cards for a.l. pollock and alex verdugo (along with russell martin in the mega boxes), but i have none of those.

twelve dodgers were included in 2020 heritage chrome (combining base and mega box exclusives). of those twelve, i only have bellinger

jansen, kershaw, and verdugo. i am still on the lookout for muncy, dustin may, gavin lux, will smith, seager, buehler, justin turner, and pederson.  i do have refractor parallels of bellinger 

and jansen

and they look pretty sharp. i would love to add the mookie betts chrome card from 2020 high numbers, along with any of the other three dodgers (edwin rios, brusdar graterol, and david price) but i have yet to do so.

in recent years, as you can tell, i've paid less attention to completing team sets of chrome, and that is true for 2021 where i only have kershaw and need the other four dodgers (muncy, betts, seager, and bellinger) plus the seven dodgers in high numbers (dj peters, victor gonzalez, price, lux, zach mckinstry, albert pujols, and buehler). 2022 is the same, where i am missing all of the chrome cards from the base heritage (buehler, urias, betts, trea turner, and bellinger) and only have kershaw from the high numbers release (missing craig kimbrel).

finally, 2023. so far, there are four dodgers to chase in chrome form - james outman, betts, freddie freeman, and buehler. i have buehler's card

and am looking forward to high numbers and what i will assume will be another kershaw card.

i mentioned that i have a number (actually all) kershaw chrome cards, including purple refractors from 2021 

and 2022

and i figured i would show the complete run of base kershaw chrome cards, starting in 2009

2010

2011

2012 (no base chrome card for kersh)

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

as i mentioned, i am looking forward to seeing kershaw's heritage card this year - might it resemble claude osteen's 1974 card? - and whomever else is in high numbers this year. 

thanks for sticking with this post - it was a lot of cards for sure!