calm before the next round

the dodgers passed the first test of the 2025 postseason, as did the tigers, cubs, and yankees. they did so in not quite as exciting a fashion as the 2021 club who used a chris taylor walk-off home run to advance from the wild card (game, not round, back then). here's a 2022 topps green foil parallel that celebrates that moment

interestingly enough, taylor did not get a card of his own in flagship in 2022 - just this one which is actually a checklist. he did get a relic card though

and was featured in some of the other topps sets so he wasn't totally forgotten about. no chris taylor card in update this year, at least not that i saw when i perused the checklist.

the dodgers dispatched the reds in the first round, saying hello and goodbye to old friend gavin lux in the process. here's a 2021 topps big league rainbow foil parallel of lux

that i meant to post prior to the series.

now the dodgers go on to face a somewhat familiar postseason foe - the phillies. it's a matchup straight out of my childhood (as well as 2008 and 2009), although not in the nlcs this year. there are a couple of familiar faces on the other side of the matchup that we will see - trea turner

featured there on a 2022 topps significant statistics insert. today i learned what "bolts" are. i've had this card in my collection and my scanned folder (as well as the uk edition version) for a couple of years and never bothered to look at the stat that topps deemed significant. bottom line is that turner is fast and scores runs.

walker buehler is another phillie. here are his 2022 topps chrome refractor parallel

and his 2021 topps 1986 chrome silver pack 

cards. i wonder if he will get a playoff share from the red sox, too. i'll be honest; when the red sox released him i hoped that the dodgers would bring him back.

i mentioned that the tigers are moving on, and here's a 2024 topps heritage high number card of andre lipcius

i show it because lipcius' only major league experience came with the tigers in 2023. topps was highly speculative when they included him in the checklist for 2024 heritage high numbers, and it didn't match up with the dodgers' roster decisions. these days it looks like he is in the white sox organization. 

now i figure i should show some actual dodgers who will participate in the series against the phillies. here's mookie betts on a 2020 topps of the class card

freddie freeman on a 2022 topps 582 montgomery card, 

and shohei ohtani on a 2025 topps 2024 all topps team insert

ohtani will pitch in the series, and i am looking forward to seeing him match up against kyle schwarber among others. no baseball tonight but plenty of action starting tomorrow!

the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - rocky mountain high edition!

clayton kershaw made his eighth appearance of the 2025 season thursday afternoon against the rockies at coors field, so i am pleased to be able to post another edition of the k is for kershaw kountdown as we track his progress to the 3,000 strikeout milestone.

kershaw continues to post solid outings after a couple of shakier starts to begin his season. agains the rockies, he went six innings and gave up just two hits and one walk. one of those hits was a solo home run, but that was the only run he allowed. as for strikeouts, kershaw k'd five batters, and those 5 k's he recorded bring his season strikeout total to 29, and his career total to 2,997.

in honor of his performance, here are five cards (not seen on this blog before) from my collection to represent strikeouts number 2,993 through 2,997.

2,993 - 2017 topps rainbow foil parallel

2,994 - 2021 topps 1986 35th anniversary all-star insert blue parallel

2,995 - 2022 topps update rainbow gold parallel

2,996 - 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary prism refractor parallel

2,997 - 2024 topps 1989 35th anniversary all-star insert

i gave serious consideration to heading out to colorado for this game. i think if kershaw had been within five strikeouts of 3,000 going in, i would have done it.

kershaw won his fourth decision in a row, as the dodgers beat the rockies 3-1. he is now 4-0 on the season, and he lowered his era to 3.03 on the season.as well. the outing was better than usual for kershaw at coors field, although he did throw a shutout there once. overall, his colorado era is well over 4 in a not so small sample size (28 games pitched). still, the rockies are one of the six teams that passed on kershaw (as well as max scherzer and tim lincecum) in the 2006 draft, and i am sure they would have been ok with how he turned out had they known at the time.

here is a non-kershaw card - it's a 2022 topps 582 montgomery (set 2) mookie betts card

betts had two hits - an rbi single and a double - and scored the dodgers' second run of the game. i am hopeful that he gets on a streak over the next couple of weeks as he hasn't been quite the mookie we are used to this year after starting the season out with a pretty serious illness.

kershaw is still in 20th place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there unless he passes john smoltz (or is himself passed). smoltz has a career strikeout total of 3,084 and so kershaw is now 87 k's behind smoltz, but just 3 away from the 3,000 milestone. for what it's worth, he now has 216 career wins, which puts him in a tie for 87th place overall with curt schilling, wilbur cooper, and old friends max scherzer and charlie hough.

kershaw should be back on the mound next week against the white sox at dodger stadium. the ravine will be packed, no doubt, but i won't be there. i don't think it's a stretch to say that he will get to 3k during that start as the white sox batters strike out about 27% of the time, and only six teams have more strikeouts as hitters than the southsiders. regardless, know that when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned! 

h-town card show, part 2

i'm here to wrap up my visit last month to planet houston and the hotel card show i attended. yesterday's post covered my pick-ups from the first few dealers i worked with, and now here is the rest!

the next dealer i found had a quarter box filled with topps inserts and topps on demand releases. i took 37 cards from him, and he charged me 8 bucks.

here's a lot of 2022 topps 582 montgomery cards from 2020-21 set 1 and 2022 set 2

plus six more from 2022 set 3

and here is a pair of red sox from 2021 topps brooklyn collection

i knew that i already had the ichiro card because of the duke snider mural in the background - i had added the card to my dodger stadium mini-collection as soon as i first saw the card online. i didn't realize, however, that i also already had the trea turner card.

i did find some other dodgers that i did need here, too, including this 2022 topps a&g x freddie freeman mini

i had more luck with dodgers at the next stop. this was a guy in a braves hat who said his boxes were 50% off the marked prices. i made away with 48 cards for a total of 20 bucks. highlights included a 2021 topps update dj peters vintage stock parallel

a 2020 topps heritage 50th anniversary buyback of wes parker's 1971 topps card

a pair of color parallels of clayton kershaw from 2021 topps big league

and 2022 panini donruss optic

a pair of jackie robinson short prints

from 2021 topps gypsy queen and 2010 topps national chicle, respectively, and a pair of autographs from a couple of 2019 topps products

of dennis santana. santana most recently pitched for the yankees, and i will admit that i was a bit sad to see the dodgers get to him during the first two games of their series in new york. after the second game, in which santana was pulled and replaced by a position player, it seemed pretty clear his time was up and the next day the yankees dfa'd him. fortunately, like mitch white in yesterday's post, santana was picked up by a nl central team - in his case, the brewers.

i added five more dodger cards from another seller for 10 bucks, and i was happy with that price. i figured that he would be asking for that much for this card alone - 2024 topps shohei ohtani/mookie betts checklist

i think topps is playing fast and loose with what a hug is. maybe their copy editor has some issues.

the other four cards were inserts and parallels from stadium club chrome and topps chrome releases

at least half of which are unnecessary, but i remain the fool that buys them (on the secondary market).

next up i stopped at a dealer who had pretty much only texas team items and dug through a short stack (is there any other kind?) of jose altuve cards for a trading partner who collects the astro 2nd baseman. i found four cards for 2 bucks, and i am keeping one from 2022 panini donruss optic

since it's a double play turn!

then i stopped at another table and dug through a couple of rows of a monster box that was ambiguously priced. i was on my way out so i didn't look too seriously but, did pick out two autographed cards which totaled 10 bucks, one of which was this 1997 bowman karim garcia auto

he gave them both to me for five which was nice. i guess there is also a "blue ink" version of the garcia card, but i will count my collection complete with this one.

i made one more stop, figuring that i should see if i could pick up some 1955 bowman. there was an older couple with some vintage stacks, including cards from the tv set. i picked out a few and offered ten bucks. the toploaders that the cards were in had prices on them, and ten bucks was a pretty good discount. the guy looked at the cards and countered with the full marked price.  i then reduced my ask to two cards which had a total marked price of six bucks and asked if he would take five. he looked at them and told me "six dollars". it was then that i realized he was hard of hearing. i held up five fingers and he said ok and so i was able to cross off st. paul native fred baczewsi and gil coan

from the want list as i work towards completing the set. i'm making some decent strides in that regard but still have a ways to go.

big thanks to houston for hosting a show that coincided with one of my visits. i have plans to be there again, but don't see any shows scheduled during that time which is too bad for me because i really did have a good time.

card shop battle!

i was out on the west coast a couple of weeks ago, and before i went i stopped at one of the card shops in the twin cities where i wound up picking up a few cards from the various bins. once i got to the west coast, i visited a couple of shops - a couple in the bay area and one further down the coast. i figured i'd share some of the cards i picked up via a card shop battle!

starting in the twin cities, i spent some time digging through the shop's nickel cards and found a few that interested me enough to take them home, including a 2022 panini donruss independence day adolis garcia card

i was disappointed to see garcia not able to play in the full world series, as he was on a tear.

here's a 2018 topps stadium club ichiro card

that fits in to my name/number on the back mini-collection.

i was surprised to find a bunch of cards from one of the 2022 topps 582 montgomery sets (set 5 to be precise)

and i spent sixty cents to bring these cards home with me. i'm not 100% sure why i did - probably just because they were different from all the other base cards in the boxes.

i moved on to the quarter and fifty cent cards which are conveniently sorted by team. somehow there was a 2022 topps now clayton kershaw card

for the taking, and i also grabbed several numbered dodger parallels. the two that surprised me the most were these two 2021 topps gallery gavin lux parallels

which are the orange and blue pattern parallels, numbered /25 and /50, respectively. they were a quarter apiece.

this shop also has a 50% off bin filled with autos and relics, and so i came away with a $1.50 auto of former dodger andre jackson

from 2022 topps stadium club.

in addition to all the singles i took, i bought a pack of 2023 topps chrome and found a base shohei ohtani card

that i may well be bringing back to the shop for a credit should he win the american league mvp.

all in all, it was a productive time spent at the local card shop!

once i got to california, i had some time to kill before getting down to the business that i was there for, so i went to a shop in san jose.  this shop had a very small box of dollar cards on a counter, and i grabbed a couple to purchase - a 2015 topps chrome corey seager perspectives insert

and a 2017 bowman walker buehler prospects yellow parallel

turns out i didn't need either.

i also bought a blaster of 2023 topps allen & ginter, and when i got the register there was a small pile of loose ginter cards. the guy said i could have them - some box breaker left them behind. i grabbed a few that interested me, like these two "only in..." minis from chicago

and kansas city

along with this ice cream sundae

dessert mini, and a new vladdy for my pc from the spotless spans insert set

the blaster wasn't too exciting, even though it did include this relic

of some guy from some thing.

i made my way down the coast, and a few days later stopped in at another card shop. this one had a couple of two-row boxes on the counter that included dollar cards. i dug through and found a few to purchase, including an infinitely better ginter relic

that joc pederson plain white swatch is from 2016 topps allen & ginter. i couldn't resist owning mitch white's crappy autograph for a buck, picking up this 2017 bowman's best best of '17 auto

brutal, but i wish him well in toronto or wherever he winds up in the future.

i probably overpaid for this yellow 2021 topps cody bellinger

and this 1994 upper deck sp bo jackson die cut

but what the heck. i was on vacation. the bo fits in to my lurker collection because rodney cline carew is in the background, even if it doesn't look that way in the scan.

of all places to find a signed 1978 topps card of the late adrian devine

i would not have picked a west coast card shop, but here we are. i am not sure if it is legit but it matches ok with some other examples i've seen. i still don't have any illusions about completing my 1978 topps autographed set, but this (and the recent long lost ttm i received) had me motivated to pick up a few more cards (future post coming).

a few more dollar cards that i settled on included a 2021 topps heritage joey votto target exclusive red border variation

a 2022 topps heritage 1973 buyback

and a 2014 topps supreme die-cut autograph of garin cecchini

i had assumed at the time of purchase that it was his brother gavin who signed, making this a nice pickup for baseball card breakdown, but alas, it is a card of the other cecchini.  still, it's the first supreme card i've seen in person and it only set me back a buck.

the last thing i took out of the dollar box was this pack of 30 cards

that is, of course, a sealed pack of the 1997 upper deck "trade" cards that were available through a wrapper redemption. eddie murray as an angel on the front, and hideki irabu

on the back. i sent away for these cards back in 1997 and busted it open to get at the todd zeile dodger card. good times.

the last purchase i made at this shop was a jumbo pack of 2023 topps series 2. not much in there other than this sticker autograph of the "other" yankee rookie, oswald peraza

at least it's the black parallel.

i actually returned to this shop a couple of days later and bought a hobby box of 2023 topps update, but i'll save that for a future post.

eventually i made my way back to the bay area and stopped at another shop not too far from the airport. like the first shop i visited in cali, this one had a small box of dollar cards on the counter and i bought this 2015 topps archives clayton kershaw 1990 #1 draft pick insert

along with a 2023 topps silver pack jose altuve

double play card, and a 2002 topps chrome ralph houk 1952 world series refractor parallel

you don't see those in refractor form too frequently.

i also bought a box of update from this shop, and will post about it later.

i should mention that i also bought a 2023 bowman mega box at a target somewhere in california, and netted this hao yu lee mojo auto

lee is the player that the phillies sent to detroit for michael lorenzen last season. he seems to have done ok in the arizona fall league over the past month.

i guess i should declare a winner in the card shop battle, but they all had their moments. i just wish those west coast shops would set up some dime boxes instead of focusing so intently on boxes and hits. but, as i realized while driving past the location of my childhood lcs that is now a parking lot for a mostly empty larger retail mall, such is progress.