not as advertised

we may well see the 2023 baseball season come to a close tonight if the rangers can win another road game. seeing corey seager continue his strong play in the postseason makes me a bit wistful for what might have been if he had decided to remain with the dodgers, especially given the diametrically opposed results for the two teams this season.

first up here is a 2011 topps heritage advertising panel that i picked up recently

with the back 

that has nothing to do with the front as you would expect from an ad panel. i show it only because it sort of fits with the title - the dodgers weren't as advertised once the postseason began.

the dodgers won the west (again), just like they did back in 2013 - a title which warranted a mural on the outfield wall that showed up on yasiel puig's 2014 topps photo variation card

before the dodgers went full advertising on the outfield wall.

i picked up a couple more variations from 2014 topps featuring hyun-jin ryu and hanley ramirez

celebrating in ways that i was hoping to see more of this year.

i was hoping to see another pennant which would have made this 2023 panini donruss duke snider card

much more relevant.

same for these 2017 topps update sandy koufax cards - heroes of autumn

and storied world series

that could have been used to draw a parallel to the performance of some other postseason participant wearing the dodger uniform.

finally, i was hoping that this 2022 topps stadium club clayton kershaw trophy hunters card

would have stood in for a different trophy that the dodgers would have hoisted.

back to "wait 'til next year" i guess. in the meantime, i can live vicariously through old friends nathan eovaldi

and corey seager.

what the heck, i may as well give the guy his due and recognize him as a ranger

he may well win his second world series mvp trophy tonight!

everyone wishes for silver and gold

hard to tell, but this 2019 panini leather & lumber walker buehler card

is the base version with silver foil lettering.  this clayton kershaw card,

is the embossed parallel with gold foil lettering.

both cards came to me from night owl. this continues a nearly 12-year trading regimen wherein i receive some dodger hand-me-down goodness.

there were other cards in the pwe, of course.  here's a 2020 topps silver pack clayton kershaw card

and a couple more gold cards to continue with the theme

that's a 1997 fleer ultra pedro astacio gold medallion edition card. for some reason, in 1997, fleer decided to put a different photo on the gold medallion cards making them more of a variation than a parallel.  speaking of parallels...

that's a 2017 topps update justin turner gold parallel, featuring yadier molina's back.  not everything in the envelope was silver or gold, but the remaining cards were more than welcome.  here's a couple of 2019 bowman prospects - keibert ruiz and dj peters

ruiz is a catcher and made it to triple-a last season. he's only 21. peters, whose initials are actually d.s., spent more time in oklahoma city last year than ruiz. both are on the 40-man roster but are blocked to some degree from the bigs.

last but certainly not least is this 2019 topps mlb sticker collection sandy koufax sticker

there's a national on the back, but nobody needs to see that.

thanks greg!

04/10 on 4/10

today, 4/10, is lee lacy's birthday (he's 72), as well as the 73rd anniversary of jackie robinson signing his big league contract in 1947. it's also the 58th anniversary of the opening of dodger stadium. and, more to the point of this post, it's the number on this card:

that's a 2017 topps update storied world series gold parallel card celebrating the 1955 brooklyn dodgers. it features duke snider (number 4 - ebay 1/1!) and teammates pee wee reese and jim gilliam, along with the bat boy (according to getty images, anyway) after duke hit a home run in game 2 of the '55 world series against the yankees.

i picked it up in what i considered to be an underpriced dodger parallel/game used/auto lot, that also included this 2006 fleer greats of the game steve garvey dodgers greats auto, numbered 21/30

among other cards. since there is no 21/30 on the calendar, that card gets added to this post. i enjoy finding good deals out there on dodger lots!

i'd buy that for $0.07! and i did!

i made it to the monthly card show on saturday for the first time in a while.  i made purchases from three dealers. the first guy had a decent dime box from which i found 40 cards.  good deal.  the third guy had his 15/$1 boxes, and i had to quickly dig before the people next to me decided to buy the full boxes at $12/each.  one guy did pull two boxes before i could get there, but i found some pretty decent stuff, including a 2017 topps update yu darvish photo variation short print.

yu had some friends, including the robinson cano

and joey votto

photo variation short prints from the same set.

i've never completed my 2017 want lists, so i wasn't sure if i needed the darvish or not.  it didn't matter in the end, as i wasn't going to leave him there for less than a dime.

in all, i found 75 cards to take from the boxes - some to flip and some to keep for my mini collections.  this is a 2005 upper deck mvp batter up card of phil niekro

who happens to be standing in dodger stadium.  you might think phil was there for an old-timer's game, but knowing the way ballplayers aged back then, this could be phil in his 30's.

here's a new double play for that collection - a 2012 topps erick aybar golden sparkle parallel

comc calls these parallels "golden moments", but i go with the sparkle.

my big daddy vladdy pc is represented by his 2001 upper deck legends card

here's a 2017 topps all-time all-stars card of eddie mathews

i like this insert set a lot, but it would have been even better had they included a certain dodger first baseman who won the all-star game mvp award twice.  oh well.  as much as i like this mathews, it was not the best one i picked up on saturday.

the last time i was at the card show, i picked up a big name (roberto clemente, to be exact) for my 1957 topps set build, and i did the same on saturday with this card

this came from the second dealer i purchased from, and i also grabbed another 10 cards from the set from him.

while i was looking at the 57's, i heard a person next to me talking about building the 1964 topps venezuelan set, and i knew that it had to be brian from highly subjective completely arbitrary. and so it was.  we had just recently completed a trade, so we didn't have any cards to exchange, but it was good to see him nonetheless.

here are a couple of the cards he sent me recently:

that's a 2018 panini diamond kings original materials relic card of clayton kershaw, and this is a 2018 topps stadium club kyle farmer auto

i like it when brian is assigned the nl west in his transatlantic box breaks!

as for the rest of the show, i was pulling cards from a quarter box at another seller's table when he began a homophobic rant to the seller next to him regarding someone who had walked by earlier. i loudly put the cards back and said no thanks. i wouldn't buy that at any price.

the phillies wore a patch for dallas green, but what about jim bunning?

phillie reliever pat neshek is here to show the memorial patch that the phillies wore last season in honor of former manager and advisor dallas green who passed away just prior to the beginning of the 2017 season.  here's the patch on the right sleeve, where it was worn the majority of the time

and here it is on the left chest, where it was worn during the all-star game

green managed the phillies to their first world series title back in 1980, so the memorial patch is understandable.  however, the phillies lost another legend during the 2017 season - hall of famer jim bunning passed away in may - but did not add a patch that i am aware of.  perhaps they figured that the phillies "p" embedded in the "d" for dallas was enough of an homage to bunning.  it still seems strange given the phillies' penchant for memorials in recent years.

no mystery regarding the mr. i patches

last season the tigers wore memorial patches for owner mike ilitch (pizza pizza!) who passed away at the age of 87 in february, 2017.  ilitch was a detroit native who started little caeser's and bought the tigers in 1992 from the owner of domino's pizza.  

there was a white bordered version of the "mr. i" patch that the tigers wore on their right sleeves at home

and an orange bordered version that they wore with their away grays

for the all-star game the orange bordered patch was moved to the chest

ilitch also owned the detroit red wings, and they wore a rectangular "mr. i" patch

they also wore a memorial "9" patch for mr. hockey, gordie howe, who had passed away in june of 2016.

ilitch was also behind the detroit caesers softball team, and therefore the msa discs that were distributed in 1977

 of which i picked up the steve garvey version

a while back. it always comes back to the garv around here...

my favorite card of 2017

sure, a topps now card of the dodgers celebrating a world series championship would have been great, but i was very happy to pick up the card documenting their advancement to the fall classic.

i haven't had a card like this since 1978, thanks to topps not producing postseason cards (let alone cards documenting the nlcs) in 1979, 1982 or 1989.

and then there was this card

which featured a fantastic moment from the 2016 season when the dodgers saluted vin scully following his final home broadcast. it was an early leader for favorite card status, although its excellence was hindered somewhat by topps' inability to put scully on a card of his own.

still, i think my favorite card issued this past year is this one from topps update

that's the sandy koufax legends short print.  yes, it's a colorized black and white photo, but it features dodger stadium and the old right field scoreboard showing the futility of the giants on may 11, 1963.  this was koufax's second no-hitter. koufax allowed two walks - one each to ed bailey and pinch-hitter willie mccovey.  koufax also induced a double play, so he only faced one batter over the minimum.  the guy who faced koufax four times? that would be harvey kuenn who would strike out two years later to end koufax's perfect game against the cubs.

for the record, steve garvey did have a few cards issued by topps this year (although only the tribute autos were not buybacks of some sorts).  he also had this card included in the expansive san diego padres trader jack sga,

but i am not so blind in my devotion to garvey collecting that i would appreciate this card over an unexpected and fantastic koufax card.

thanks to p-town tom for hosting this contest again this year, and here's hoping that scully will make the 2018 topps first pitch insert set!

international black armbands and a royal patch for yordano ventura

members of team usa and team venezuela, along with the entire team dominican republic, wore black armbands during the world baseball classic to honor the late yordano ventura.  on team usa, it was royal teammates danny duffy and eric hosmer wearing the armbands (you can see it on hosmer's right sleeve on this 2017 topps now card).

it's kind of dark, yes, but the armband is there.

on team venezuela, royal teammates salvador perez and alcides escobar wore the armband, which is visible in this getty images photo of perez.  

no topps now card that i saw showed the venezuelan tribute, but i did pick up one more for team dominican republic.

ventura was a native dominican, which is why the entire team wore the armbands.

the royals also wore a patch for ventura on their jerseys during spring training (as seen on this 2017 topps now road to opening day danny duffy card),

and they are wearing the same patch (although on their right sleeve rather than their chest) throughout the season, as seen on this mike minor card from 2017 topps heritage high numbers.

for the all-star game, the patch was moved back to the chest as shown on jason vargas' 2017 topps update card

don't drink and drive folks.