christmas in august

like many of you, i was both surprised and excited to see an email from david at tribecards a few weeks ago. he let me know that my cards from his christmas 2020 giveaway were shipping! about a week later, i had a 660 count box in my mailbox!

now, i had forgotten about this giveaway, and so i went back to see what it was all about. after all, this was not the first time that david hosted a huge card giveaway. for this one, he had asked us to choose our top 3 teams and top 3 players. i didn't see any cards featuring the players that i most likely identified, but i recognized the three teams for sure.

the dodgers were team number one for me, of course, and while there weren't a lot of boys in blue, the best thing in the box related to them was this 1997 donruss vxp 1.0 mike piazza thing

that's the front of a booklet that contained this

which is a rectangular cd-rom. i did not know that donruss was in the cd-rom game, but they were. here are the instructions

i did not try the item out before putting it in my 1997 dodgers binder, so i don't know if it is windows 10 compatible or not. what a great oddball for my collection!

the other two teams i identified are represented by the oldest and newest cards in the box

a 1977 topps dan ford twins card and a 2024 topps heritage george springer blue jays card. the oldest blue jays card was this 1978 topps jesse jefferson

and holy smokes i love getting 1978 topps cards in the mail!

there were a couple of outliers in my box, including a 1980 topps rusty staub card

i certainly didn't mind seeing le grand orange, and this card and the other 1980 topps cards gave me some serious flashbacks to neighborhood pack ripping.

here are some of the other cards that caught my eye. 

from the dodger stack, this 1988 score mini great moments in baseball insert was new to me

it's all about the end of don drysdale's scoreless innings streak

i always knew drysdale's streak as 58 and two-thirds innings, but at some point, elias changed it to just 58 innings which is the number on the back of the card. i recall drysdale not being in favor of losing two outs from the streak (although that last out was a sac fly). it was all made moot when orel hershiser went 59 innings without allowing a run at the end of the 1988 season.

here's a 1982 topps derrel thomas card

that made me do a double take. it's not blackless as it has the border around the photo and the facsimile signature, but the color is definitely not all there.

another printer anomaly was this 1991 topps mike scioscia

which had some printing plates off register - but not as badly as some that jon shared recently!

another 1991 card david included was this jose gonzalez card

which really features a photo of billy bean. bean passed away recently, and will be remembered as a bit of a trailblazer in the sport.

not a dodger card, but here's the guy who was drafted immediately after alex rodriguez

little d had flashes of dominance, but it just didn't work out in the end.

most of the cards i received (like last time) were twins cards. i've no issue with that, as these cards included some gems like this 1995 topps embossed golden idols kirby puckett card

i had probably not thought of or looked at darrell jackson's 1981 fleer card

for over 40 years, but there it was in the box i received and i immediately thought back to me and my friends wondering why an american league pitcher was holding a bat.

the cards also reminded me that shane mack must have had a clause that his cards needed to show him sliding into third base

i don't think i had ever seen randy bush's 1989 fleer card before (i stopped set collecting fleer after 1987)

but his teammates were nicer to him than bill ripken's teammates were to ol' duckface. for what it's worth, i don't think that bush is holding his bat in the photo.

there were some recent twins cards, including these 2024 bowman inserts (paper and chrome)

of brooks lee. lee is from near where i grew up so he has potential to become my favorite non-dodger.

one more twins card - a 2021 topps allen & ginter ryan jeffers auto card

it's more like an initialed card, but it's still pretty sweet.

as for the blue jays, here's a roger clemens base card

from that donruss vxp 1.0 release.

i have a weird affinity for buybacks, and i received these two from 2017

the 1999 topps jose cruz jr is a silver foil version, while the 1988 topps jose nunez is bronze. i remember being shocked when the mariners traded cruz to the blue jays during his rookie campaign as he was a highly touted prospect.

speaking of prospects, here's a 2023 bowman sterling prospect autograph of manuel beltre

i think this one actually is just initialed, but with a star added for effect. beltre is currently 20 years old and with the blue jays single-a affiliate in dunedin.

my favorite blue jays card in the box was this black & white parallel

of vladimir guerrero jr's 2019 topps archives snapshots card.

by choosing the dodgers, twin, and blue jays, i was able to handle a lot of cards that i hadn't taken the time to look at for a long time. i was also able to do a comparison of ken landreaux cards from near-opposite ends of the 1980's

fun fact - for a brief time in 1987, the dodgers had half of the players that the angels sent to the twins for rod carew in landreaux and brad havens. i will always remember landreaux for the 1981 season and the fact that he caught the last out of the 1981 world series.

thank you david for your giveaway! your generosity is appreciated!

rod rocks

rod from padrographs has been ripping a ton of packs over the last few months, and is now sharing the cards he pulled with many in the good ol' blogosphere. i received the cards he sent my way and was happy to find this 2023 topps heritage high numbers taylor motter card

among the bounty.  this was one of my most wanted non-dodger cards! always a good day when a card from the "nefarious 9" gets knocked off the list!

rod sent some other cards that fit my mini-collections, including this custom card of brandon dixon

that would fit with my tatooine cards. i decided to keep it with other custom cards that i've received from folks over the years. 

one of the boxes rod opened was 2023 topps stadium club, and he sent me the kodai senga card

for the "nob" collection, and the michael harris card

that would fit in either that same collection as the senga or the lurker collection. i put it in the lurker collection thanks to ronald acuna jr's presence.

most of what rod sent my way were twins cards from his breaks, and there were some good ones, like joe ryan's card from stadium club

the visitor side of target field gives a great view of part of downtown minneapolis through the plaza into the warehouse district and beyond. target center, the home of the timberwolves, is the building with the target mascot on it.

you don't see 1982 fleer too often these days, so i figured i'd show this jack o'connor card

and there you have it.

here are a couple of hall of famers - harmon killebrew on a 1991 sportflics kellogg's corn flakes baseball greats card

and jim thome on a 2021 topps allen & ginter historical hits card

torii hunter is hanging on the hall of fame ballot, but i don't see him being voted in by the writers. here's his 2022 topps stadium club chrome card

showing him doing what he did best - robbing home runs!

thanks to the variety that rod sent, i was easily able to compare a 1988 topps card of backup catcher tom nieto to a 1988 topps insert from 2023 topps update of twins stellar rookie edouardo julien side-by-side

that's pretty close, with the player name being the most notable difference

here are the backs

i think the twins are going to be fun to watch this year with julien and royce lewis playing together. here's another julien rookie card 

that's from the totally unnecessary 2023 topps cosmic chrome release.

speaking of unnecessary, here's a silver patterned foil parallel of christian vazquez

from last year's update release.

one of my favorite cards in the package was this 2023 topps holiday byron buxton card

it looks like buck in in the midst of a snowball fight, and he has just thrown a snowball out in the yard.

adding to the fun, rod also included a package of pop rocks

which i hadn't had since the late 1970's. now i'm off to eat them while drinking a diet coke just to see what happens.

thanks rod!

the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - setting your guardians down edition

yes, the kountdown to 3,000 strikeouts for clayton kershaw continues as he took the mound against the guardians this past wednesday night in cleveland. he struck out 4 batters to give him 115 strikeouts on the season. those 4 guardians that he k'd increased his career total to 2,922.

in honor of his performance, here are 4 cards from my collection to represent strikeouts 2,919 through 2,922.

2,919 - 2019 bowman heritage veterans/rookies

2,920 - 2020 topps gallery heritage

2.921 - 2021 topps allen & ginter silver portrait

2,922 - 2022 topps allen & ginter pitching a gem

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there until he passes zack greinke. greinke, who struck out 5 in his return from the il on tuesday, has a career strikeout total of 2,960. kershaw is now 38 k's behind greinke and 78 away from the 3,000 milestone. 

kershaw pitched only two innings against the guardians, as the grounds crew rolled out the tarp right after kershaw recorded his fourth strikeout of the night. there was no rain, however, until 28 minutes later. curious.

it looks like kershaw's next start will come against the diamondbacks in los angeles early next week, meaning he won't start on short rest in boston this weekend. regardless of when he makes his next start or how many k's he posts, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!

not quite mainstream

2022 marked the third time that steve garvey was included as part of topps' allen & ginter's/ginter release over the course of that brand's run.  the first time, in 2013, he was included only as part of the relic subset

and was a short print at that. 

the next time, in 2021, he was included in the historical hits insert set

thanks to his 1984 nlcs walk-off home run. 

this time, he finally received a base card, 

but was part of the high numbered short prints. still not quite making the cut for the true "base" set! of course, even having a short printed card means that it still gets all the parallels, including the "hot box" version:

and the minis - base:

black bordered:

gold bordered:

you all know what the backs of minis look like, but here's a view anyway

so that i can show you the a&g back parallel

and the brooklyn back parallel

i don't know that i have seen anyone write "11" that way in a long, long time.

not parallels, but rather a completely separate issue, is allen & ginter x. i have garvey's base

and mini 

from that set as well. 

however, because the chrome version of this set only features the first 300 cards of the regular set, garvey is not included in that release. like i said, not quite mainstream.

i mentioned in a post awhile back about stadium club that garvey will likely never find his way in to the base checklist for that set due to the sheer number of dodger options that exist for topps to choose from. he is not going to replace jackie robinson - the only retired dodger featured in this 2022's stadium club release. 

the other dodgers that topps has been using in recent years include hall of famers roy campanella, gil hodges, duke snider, sandy koufax, don sutton, and mike piazza. garvey isn't going to supplant any of them i don't think. so, i will be content with cards like these and surprises like the 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary set that allowed for a number of seldom seen dodgers from the past to be included in a base set.

maybe he will show up in a future archives release. 2016 was the last time he was featured in that release, and it was as a short print, too.

of course, garvey received a fair amount of checklist space as an autograph subject last year, including in topps museum collection

those are the "base" and "copper" autographs

and topps tribute

that's the purple version that i added to the "base", "blue", and "green" versions i already had.

i am wondering if garvey and other retired fan favorites will get more play in panini releases like donruss now that those checklists will only be retired players and prospects. i know i would definitely rather have more base to chase than autographs at this point, but player collectors can't be choosers if they want to continue to add cards to the collection.