some favorites on card autos

i decided at some point in 2024 to seek out autographed cards of my favorite non-dodgers of the year. i have a card for each player representing the season in which they were my favorite, and i already have autograph cards of my favorite dodgers scattered throughout my dodger and steve garvey collections, and some of my non-dodger favorites were already in my hall of famer collection with autographed cards or in a couple of cases, other parts of my collection. still, there were a couple of non-dodger favorites that i was missing and in the end, i decided to add a new autograph for each member of this group to keep with my year-to-year favorites card collection.

i've finally finished this effort, so without further ado, here are the cards that i added for all of my yearly non-dodger favorites, from don baylor to byron buxton.

don baylor (1978-1979): 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph

baylor had a monster year in 1979 and led the angels to the postseason for the first time. however, i was already a big fan of pete rose, and i switched my favoritism to him starting with the 1980 season.

pete rose (1980-1982): 2016 panini pantheon milestone scripts /25

rose was the first of my favorite players - dodger or non-dodger - to win the world series as a favorite of mine. i definitely wanted this card to be from rose's philly days, and i was happy to find it for a pretty decent price (this was before rose passed away). i can remember a lot about the phillies' win over the royals to this day. once my favorite dodger left los angeles, however, i dropped pete like a hot potato.

steve garvey (1983-1987): 1999 fleer sports illustrated autograph

i now have three of these particular autograph cards in my collection - one in this one, one in my garvey collection, and one in my collection of cards featuring games that i've attended in person. garvey took the padres to their first, and his last, fall classic during this stretch where he was my favorite non-dodger. i held out hope that he would return in 1988, but he went unsigned (collusion? he thought so) and accepted the padres' offer to retire his number early in the season. with rose also retired, i moved on to another longtime favorite, and elevated him to the top spot.

paul molitor (1988-1994): 2025 topps chrome world series champion autograph /100

like rose, molitor won a world series while he was my favorite non-dodger, and i was happy to be able to land this card celebrating his title with the blue jays in 1993. i followed molitor closely until he retired, but after the strike, i did a bit of a reset, and switched my favorite to a different blue jay.

shawn green (1995-1999): 1999 topps autograph

when green joined the dodgers, i turned to my favorite of the american league shortstop triumvirate.

nomar garciaparra (2000-2005): 2023 topps finest autograph

nomar joined the dodgers which was fun for me but meant i needed a new favorite non-dodger. vladimir guerrero (my son was becoming an angels fan at this time) answered the call.

vladimir guerrero (2006-2007): 2025 topps finest creators autograph

the hometown team won out in terms of my son's fandom, so i switched my non-dodger favoritism to local hero joe mauer.

joe mauer (2008-2018): 2022 topps museum collection archival autograph /50

with mauer retiring, a former favorite dodger took over.

matt kemp (2019-2020): 2019 topps heritage real one autograph

kemp retired after the 2020 season, and i decided to go younger with my favorite for 2021.

fernando tatis jr (2021-2022): 2020 topps tribute iconic perspectives autograph /99

i stuck with tatis through his suspension before i realized that i was really paying more attention to the twins' center fielder.

byron buxton (2023-present): 2021 topps five star autograph blue parallel /25

that buxton card is pretty cool - 25/25 and all that. plus he raised his name to the 25th power!

i don't see anyone unseating buxton in the near future unless he retires. when healthy, he is a beast and he is always fun to watch.

i'll note that i also picked up another dodger autograph of nomar garciaparra - a 2016 topps archives signature series /6

this 2006 topps updates & highlights card was nomar's first and last topps flagship card as a dodger. he was included in most other 2006 topps releases (plus 2007 topps cosigners), but i was eagerly anticipating his update card. it turned out to only be an all-star card which i thought was weird at the time - not giving him a base card as a dodger. anyway, here's the back:

nomar was my favorite dodger that year, but was supplanted by matt kemp in 2007. 

fred mcgriff is in my hall of famer collection

we will find out in a couple of days if anyone was voted in to the baseball hall of fame as part of the class of 2023. there is already one member who will be inducted later this year, and that is fred mcgriff. i've added him to my hall of famer collection with this card:

that's a 2016 panini pantheon milestone scripts autograph card, numbered 37/99 (here's the back)

and it is a whole lot of blue!

i bought the card just before the announcement of his election in an attempt to avoid a spike in prices, although i am not sure if that is actually happening. i chose a card of mcgriff as a blue jay because it was during his tenure in toronto that i became a fan of his.

my american league allegiances were originally for the angels, and then i bought in to billyball and the oakland a's teams of the early 1980's. by the time 1987 came along, i had sort of gone back to the angels but also had an affinity for the blue jays. with my canadian roots and their success in 1985, i was ready to fully back them once the '87 pennant chase got going.

and, while i was disappointed that the blue jays blew their lead in the al east during the final weekend of the season , i stuck with them as my american league team in 1988, which is when mcgriff really broke out. over the next three seasons, mcgriff played at a superstar level for the blue jays, hitting 34, 36, and 35 home runs, with his 36 bombs in 1989 leading the league and serving as the focal point of the card above. i was definitely a fan, and was shocked when he was traded to the padres prior to the 1990 season.

i still followed mcgriff as a national leaguer, but certainly wasn't rooting for his teams to win. i got to see him play in person finally during the 1991 season on april 12 (dodgers' home opener) and august 19. mcgriff had hits in each of those games - 3 in the latter - but the most memorable thing to me from those games was tommy lasorda coming out of the dugout and instigating the home crowd toward the end of the august 19 game. the crowd responded and the dodgers rallied thanks to mitch webster of all people and won the game in extra innings.

i saw mcgriff play in person a couple more times during his tenure with the braves, and then a couple of times during his first stint as a devil ray. he didn't do anything memorable in those games, unfortunately. the lone dodger game i attended in 2003, his only season with the club, came late in the season after he had played his final game that year.

when mcgriff joined the dodgers, i was excited because i thought for sure he would hit his 500th career home run wearing dodger blue as he was only 22 shy of the milestone, and he had hit 30 in 2002. i remember telling a friend of mine at the time that i figured mcgriff would play a couple of seasons in la and hopefully hand the reins over to james loney when he left. as it turned out, mcgriff only hit 13 with the dodgers and they did not re-sign him following the season, instead moving shawn green to first base. mcgriff closed out his career with a partial season in tampa bay, 7 homers shy of 500.

i have to believe had mcgriff reached 500 home runs, the writers would have voted him in to the hall early on in his candidacy, but who the heck knows. i am glad he is finally getting his due while he is still around to enjoy the accolades.

you can see all of the players and their cards that comprise my hall of famer collection here. i am looking forward to the announcement on tuesday - maybe there will be another player for me to add to the collection - stay tuned!

collecting by numbers

most of the cards missing from my steve garvey collection are serial numbered items - low numbered parallels or similarly scarce auto and/or relic cards.  this was especially true prior to the last couple of years when garvey was absent from almost all new topps releases. still, even now, most of his cards are numbered. as a result, it's not every day that cards get added to my collection. but it does happen!

i've been dumping new garvey gets in to this draft post for more than a couple of years, so there are going to be quite a few cards shown. one of the most recent of these numbered garvey cards to enter my collection is this 2021 topps archives signature series 1983 topps buyback auto

it is randomly numbered to 52. the buyback itself is not in very good shape at all. hey topps - let me know if you need some cards in better shape to buy back for future releases. i can definitely help!

the next card is actually unnumbered. not just not serial numbered, it has no number whatsoever.

that is the unnumbered version of the 1990 baseball wit

release. i mentioned these cards in a post earlier this year, but i've had the garvey for a couple years now.

in recent years, most of the garvey cards have come from panini. i try not to purchase panini product off the shelf since they seem intent on screwing me out of my one redemption request that's in limbo, but i have picked up many, many garvey cards on the secondary market.

from 2019 panini immaculate collection, i have a garvey auto numbered to 49

and the gold parallel numbered to 25

those two cards are about as well as panini can do without a license, in my opinion. yes, there is no logo on the helmet, but it is not as obvious as on these next cards, also from 2019 panini immaculate collection

those are the dual material autograph cards, and again, i have the "base" numbered to 49 and the gold parallel numbered to 25.

i added a third bronze parallel from 2004 upper deck legends to my garvey collection

these are numbered to 50 as you can see. i only need the 1977 subset bronze card to complete the garvey bronze collection from this set, and that one is the one i wish i had the most as it is a "memorable moments" card which looks great in bronze (and gold). hopefully someday.

here's a 2008 donruss threads garvey parallel

it's the "century proof gold" version, numbered to 50

it's amusing to me how different companies, and sometimes the same companies, change up numbering for gold (and other precious metals) cards from one release to another.

at least serial numbers like 99, 50, and 25 are fairly universal. in 2005, donruss went crazy with their studio portraits release. i think there are 56 different steve garvey cards in that set, all serially numbered with some, like this one

which is a studio blue card numbered to 45

this set includes cards numbered in increments of 5 from 5 to 60.

here's another gold card - a 2021 panini national treasures retro materials holo gold

card numbered to 25

here are more cards numbered 25 - the first two from 2005. one from donruss classics

and one from donruss leather & lumber

2012 panini signature series provided me an opportunity to add this diamond cuts auto

and this signature stamps card

both of  which are numbered to 25. here's the back of the stamp card

the diamond cuts auto is neat because it features a photo from garvey's introductory press conference back in december of 1982. i think the first card to feature such a photo that i was aware of was wayne gretzky's 1988-89 topps card, but i could be wrong.

upper deck also has some garvey cards numbered to 25, and i've added this 2007 sp legendary cuts quad materials card

to the collection. i am still on the lookout for the dodger version of this card.

this 2002 upper deck sweet spot classics bat card

is paired with the gold version of a jersey card from the same set that was already in my collection.

there aren't too many cards numbered to 15 in my collection, but i do have this one from 2019 panini national treasures

it does kinda suck to see a sticker auto on a card numbered to 15.

even worse is a sticker auto on a card numbered to 10 as is the case with this 2012 topps golden moments gold sparkle card

the card would look a lot better with a hard signature in my opinion.

going back to 2016, panini released something called pantheon. there were a bunch of garvey cards, and one that i didn't have until a couple of years ago was this "arena acclaimed" materials card

that is numbered to 10

this is a "bronze" card, but the only other version is numbered to 1 and panini calls that a "holo silver". go figure.

also from 2016, panini's national treasures release included a "six swatch signatures" card. i already had the "black" version which is numbered to 10, but i now also have the "green" version numbered to 5

these are really attractive cards in my opinion, even with padre brown, yellow, and orange.

one of my favorite recent garvey numbered gets is this 2004 upper deck legends gold autograph card

that is numbered to 5

i have 2 of the 4 garvey gold autographs now which is two more than i really ever figured i would find. 

finally, the newest numbered garvey card to come in to my collection is this 2021 topps dynasty relic-auto card

numbered to 10. this is the "dap-sg2" card, one of three different cards (each with a different photo) of garvey in this set. it completes my trifecta of having one of each of the three, each numbered to 10. i previously showed the other two in this post.

i don't see the trend of numbered parallels and low-numbered base cards changing any time soon. and so it goes for the player collector, although i am long since resigned to not having anywhere close to all of them. 

bonus content!

sometimes player collections reach a point where the line is moved and items are added that are a bit of a stretch. i have a couple of new examples, beginning with this 2022 topps x aaron judge curated set card of dusty baker

which features steve garvey in the on deck circle in the background. unfortunately, not much of garvey is visible, but i will still add this to my garvey collection (along with one for the dodger collection).

in addition, i recently found this 1991 dodger pocket schedule

in a box that i hadn't looked through in several years. i am adding it to the garvey collection because he appears on two of the pins that were given away that season, including one honoring the infield of cey, russell, lopes, and garvey (not the way i normally refer to them, but going around the horn that's how it is). and yes, both the 30-home run pin celebrating dusty baker, garvey, cey, and reggie smith, and the infield pin are already in my garvey pc. there just aren't enough cards featuring garvey, cey, russell, lopes.