the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - house of the mouse edition

yes, the kountdown to 3,000 strikeouts for clayton kershaw continues as he pitched against the angels on tuesday night in anaheim, not too far from disneyland. he struck out 5 batters to give him 103 strikeouts on the season. those 5 halos that he k'd increased his career total to 2,910.

in honor of his performance, here are 5 cards to represent strikeouts 2,906 through 2,910.

2,906 - 2018 bowman sky blue

2,907 - 2019 topps big league gold

2,908 - 2020 topps utz

2,909 - 2021 topps finest flashbacks

2,910 - 2022 topps cosmic chrome

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and will remain there until he passes zack greinke, who struck out 4 on sunday against these same angels to increase his strikeout total to 2,940. kershaw is now 30 k's behind greinke (although greinke is slated to pitch today) and 90 away from the 3,000 milestone. 

with the game taking place in anaheim - a city that i spent a lot of time in back in the 1990's - i figured this was a good time to show off an oddball card that i added to my dodger collection a few months back:

that's a dodger card - even though it says "mickey mouse all-stars" - from the 2010 all-star game that was held in anaheim. it was a fanfest giveaway that came in packs of five cards. i believe there were ten cards in all - three non-franchise cards (national league, american league, and all-star game) and seven franchise cards (dodgers, angels, braves, cubs, mets, yankees, giants). here is the back of the dodger card:

there's a bit of weirdness on the back as i don't know anyone who refers to 1932 as the first season for the dodger franchise. otherwise, the card presents a nice snapshot in time in terms of franchise leaders. today, kershaw would replace chad billingsley in each of the active leader pitching categories, plus sandy koufax as the all-time whip leader and don sutton in all-time strikeouts with 2,910 and counting. see? this card ties in to the k is for kershaw kountdown quite well!

it would seem that kershaw's next start will come against the rockies next tuesday in colorado. regardless of when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!

i saved ferris

enjoy this former most wanted card of mine that i saved from someone's sportlots inventory several months back to add to my collection:

like the guy said, "life moves pretty fast..."

matt kemp held on, but topps didn't

matt kemp is my current favorite non-dodger, and i was looking forward to adding a 2020 topps update card to my "favorite non-dodger" year by year mini collection. kemp spent the entire 2020 season with the rockies, but topps left him out of the update set.  they did include him in the topps now summer camp set, so i bought one of those cards instead.

oddly enough, kemp wasn't in series 1 or 2, but he was included in 2020 topps gallery and 2020 topps fire - both as a marlin.  i only have the fire card

which i bought on sportlots sight unseen thinking it would be a rockies kemp card. i've since sent it to nick as a "short-term stop".

for the record, here is the other kemp card in my "favorite non-dodger" collection, a 2019 topps big league gold parallel of kemp with the reds

i actually saw kemp play in person as a red - it was the game in which he hit his only home run with the team.  

previously, kemp had been my favorite dodger from 2007 through 2014, and he is represented in my "favorite dodger" year by year mini collection by these cards:

2007 topps finest rookie finest moments

2008 upper deck timeline 2004 legends timeless teams

2009 upper deck sp authentic

2010 topps chrome

2011 bowman blue parallel

2012 topps museum collection

2013 topps chrome chrome connections die-cut

2014 topps archives

the collection is a good use of some of my dodger doubles. of course, i pick up other kemp dodger cards for my dodger collection as well. here are a couple that i added to my collection a few months ago:

2014 topps gypsy queen blue framed parallel 

2011 topps allen & ginter mini framed silk #/10

2018 topps update photo variation

i hope kemp is able to continue playing in 2021, and i will continue to follow his exploits, but i think i might find a new favorite non-dodger who plays a bit more regularly. any suggestions?

my most wanted cards walked the plank

i recently sent some cards that i'd been stacking to matt at bob walk the plank. he returned fire by trying to single handedly obliterate my nefarious 9 list of most wanted cards that i keep on the sidebar of my blog. he also mentioned that somewhere in his collection lies a joc pederson card with my name on it. can't wait!

the first card i'll show is one of the non-dodger bonus cards that i list as an appendix to the nefarious 9.  matt found the 1986 leaf dusty baker card

i assume with relative ease. currently, my most wanted non-dodger card is 1995 score #361 brian anderson. it's for my lurker collection.

the main focus of the nefarious 9, however, are dodgers. sometimes, they are cards that will complete a team set, like this 1994 fleer roger mcdowell card

and this 1994 pacific henry rodriguez card

other times, they are cards that i have in parallel form, and i feel weird not having the base. that was the case with this 2019 topps big league kenley jansen card

i had actually ordered the card from sportlots and the seller sent me the gold parallel instead. so the base version went up on the most wanted list.

sometimes, i will add a card that i thought i had but don't. this 2001 topps chrome shawn green card fit that description.

i was a pretty serious green collector in the early 2000's, and thought that i surely would have had at least one of his 2001 topps chrome cards. when i saw that it was on my want list, i double checked and was surprised to find that it was indeed a need. on to the most wanted list it went!

matt sent some other chrome cards from my regular want list - these are from 2001 bowman chrome

a nice 4-pack of vets that whittled my needs for this team set down to a couple of rookies. maybe they will show up on the nefarious 9 in the future.

matt attempted to knock off one more of my most wanted cards, but sent the optic version

instead of the regular 2017 panini donruss jose de leon card. somewhere between those two releases, panini followed de leon to tampa bay. it's an easy mistake to make, and matt still gets an "a" for his efforts.

thanks matt! the list has been refreshed if you (or anyone else) wants to take a run at it. you will be rewarded!

collecting roberto alomar double play cards is kind of like playing whack-a-mole

just when you think you have them all, some more pop up! i was going to say they were like a bad penny, but they are not a bad thing!

a recent perusal of comc led to me picking up these two cards from sportlots

those are 1991 score blue jays alomar cards, with one celebrating the 1991 all-star game that was played in toronto. you can see alomar turning two on that card with ozzie smith sliding in. the batter on that play was tony gwynn.

here's another alomar double play card that i acquired recently

it's from the 2004 donruss world series blue release, but doesn't feature world series action. i think that is wayne kirby joining in on the action.

of course, there are other double play cards to acquire that don't feature alomar, and i found one in a pack of gypsy queen a few months ago

yes, this shed long card features a double play turn. i promise. as does this 1994 o-pee-chee rich amaral card which, appropriately enough, came from baseballcardstore.ca.

more traditional double play cards are more plentiful, and there was this jose altuve card

included in the 2020 topps american league stars factory team set that i bought and broke apart.

i found a couple more to go with the aforementioned amaral in a recent baseballcardstore.ca order - a 2019 topps big league tim beckham

and a 2012 topps orlando hudson walmart blue parallel

however, sportlots is my main source for purchasing cards of this ilk, and i recently added a few more parallels to the mini collection from that site - 2014 topps chrome orange refractor andrelton simmons

2017 topps chrome ben zobrist

2018 topps asdrubal cabrera rainbow foil

and 2019 topps chrome whit merrifield pink refractor

plus a 1999 upper deck mike lansing card

a 2018 topps stadium club xander bogaerts card

and a 2019 topps stadium club rougned odor card

which is pretty tremendous.

double play cards are by far the most populous of my mini collections, and i know there will be more for me to add, including some roberto alomar cards that will pop up out of nowhere.

players from the city of angels, in order

it was in the early 1980's when i learned that the angels, at one time, played in dodger stadium (they called it chavez ravine) and were, in fact, known as the los angeles angels. once they moved to orange county, however, that name was changed, and for whatever reason, gene autry chose "california" over "anaheim". 

i wasn't at all annoyed when the california angels changed their name to the anaheim angels in the late 1990's when disney took control of the team and reached a deal with the city related to stadium improvements.  i was actually working on a couple of projects with disney at the time, and the name change made sense to me. besides, i was always a bit confused as a young fan that they were the state's team while there were four other major league teams within the state.

i was, however, quite annoyed a decade later when the team changed its name to the los angeles angels of anaheim without a corresponding move into the city of angels, or even la county. arte moreno just wanted the name, which funnily enough translates to the angels angels of anaheim. anyway, the blogosphere's biggest angel collector sent me some pwe's earlier this year.

it is hard for me to believe that this past spring, i was still in need of some 2019 topps flagship dodgers. tom from the angels, in order helped me out with this kenley jansen card

which kickstarted my efforts to complete the team set.

he also helped me complete the 2020 topps series 1 team set with cards of kenta maeda

and max muncy

along with an kiké hernandez card

that i can add to my dodger stadium collection.

tom was kind enough to include a corey seager players' weekend variation from 2019 topps big league, too.

is it weird that i was disappointed not to see the 2019 players' weekend monochrome uniforms in this year's big league release?

in a separate pwe a month or so later, tom went in to the way-back machine and sent some older dodgers.  here's a 1995 score gold rush brett butler card

which is somewhat rare in that butler isn't bunting in the photo used.

as you know, tom has a blog featuring the 1995 skybox emotion set, and he filled one of my needs with this masters raul mondesi insert from said set

no actual emotion is given, but on his card in the base set, he is shown as "attentive". weird.

we will now leave the city of angels with the last card that i will show from tom.  it is this 1993-94 fleer excel minors card of ken huckaby 

who is shown as a member of the dodgers' high-a affiliate located in vero beach, florida.  huckaby is probably best remembered for the opening day collision that injured derek jeter's shoulder and knocked him out of action for 30+ games in 2003. i also remember him as a dodger farmhand who was blocked by mike piazza during his tenure in the dodger organization.  the highlight of this card is the sweet sleeve patch that reveals vero beach (where the dodgers used to hold spring training) as "the hibiscus city".

thanks tom!