the return of mr. glass, now

there is no doubt that tyler glasnow is a talented baseball player, as evidenced by his stellar start against the tigers yesterday. for him, however, staying injury-free has been a challenge. if you could at all read the stats on the back of this 2026 topps vintage stock parallel card

you would see that glasnow's career high in innings pitched is 134 in 2024, the same year that he made a career high in starts with 22. he now has over 1000 strikeouts in just 805 innings pitched, but that has occurred over the span of 11 seasons. 

for no real reason other than it's a recent pickup and you can actually read these stats, here's the back of a 2022 topps david price vintage stock parallel

the front of which is not too dissimilar from the regular topps cards

while topps has continued it's thoughtful "vintage" interpretation of the card design in 2026

i definitely would like to have more of these cards in my collection because of the fronts and in spite of the backs. i think this year, the vintage stock parallels do not cover the entire series 1 and 2 sets, but are instead made for just a handful of players from each team.

here's another recent glasnow pickup from 2026 topps - a city connect relic card

these dodger uniforms make me think of cupcakes with the confetti. i think they would look better without that noise. for the record, i don't think the mark on the swatch is a confetti part of the material - it looks too small and round. like maybe an isolated dot of ketchup spray. who knows.

one more card to share - a 2024 topps update gold foil parallel

that looks pretty sharp.

make no mistake, i am glad that glasnow pitches for the dodgers, and it seems that they are handling his workload appropriately to make sure that he is available when it counts the most - the postseason. he had a big save in the world series last year, after missing the fall classic in 2024 following those career high starts and innings in the regular season. i just hope the kids don't have any more reasons to call him mr. glass.

triple crowning achievements

a couple of decades ago, as i began assembling my topps "sampler sets", i paused to admire the 1967 league leader cards. my m.o. in regards to my sampler sets was to have at least one example of a league leader card for each year, but the '67 set piqued my interest for a couple of reasons.

first, they represented sandy koufax's only appearances in the set. second, frank robinson's 1966 triple crown meant that he was in the first position on the three american league offensive leader cards. similarly, koufax ended his career with a triple crown feat of his own and was likewise placed on the national league pitching leader cards.

i made the decision back then to complete the league leader card subsets that celebrated these triple crown achievements to include in my sampler set. when i disassembled those sets around 2014 to focus on completing my topps dodger team sets from the 1950's (still working on '52 and '53) and 1960's, the koufax cards went into my dodger collection and the robinson cards languished in a monster box.

sometime last year, i made the decision to reinstate the sampler sets. having completed the 1955 bowman set and realizing that it would be the last vintage set i would complete, i wanted to have the cards from the topps sets i didn't have completed represented in my collection. so, i dusted off what i had kept from 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. when i got to the 1967 cards, i again paused at the sight of the league leader cards.

after thinking about it for a bit, i decided to complete the full league leader subset and keep it with some other subsets of cards i have completed. so, let's (finally) see some cards!

here is sandy koufax's triple crown in card form

and the backs:

i've always wondered why it was "pitching leaders" on the front and "victory leaders" on the back of these cards. anyway, sandy's line was 27 wins, a 1.73 era, and 317 strikeouts. it was a runaway triple crown, really. koufax won the cy young award unanimously, and remember, this was when there was just one award for all of major league baseball. he also received more first place votes for the national league mvp award than the winner, roberto clemente, just missing his second such accolade.

not to be undone, here is frank robinson's triple crown in card form:

and the backs:

the twins gave robby a good challenge, but he also ran away with the triple crown with a .316 average, 49 home runs, and 122 rbi. robinson unanimously won the mvp as you would have expected with a season like that, leading the orioles to the pennant to boot. and yes, i know that they won the world series, too, but that wouldn't have factored in to the mvp voting.

here are the american league pitching leader cards

and their backs

interesting to me to not see many oriole pitchers place highly in these categories.

here are the national league batting leader cards

and their backs

clemente had a great year, and so did richie allen, hank aaron, and the alou brothers. felipe alou actually received two first place votes in the mvp voting, with allen getting one of his own.

after all that, i picked up a couple more of these cards because i reinstated my sampler sets late last year. i'll have some posts up at some point this summer to share them. i've also added some more modern league leader cards to my dodger collection recently.

2023 topps national league batting leaders gold parallel

2024 topps national league batting leaders royal blue parallel

2022 topps national league pitching leaders gold star parallels

lots of dodger representation there. note that i am still a fan of a single league leader card that shows the leader for each league on the same card, but that's because i grew up on the 1978 topps set and that's how it was that year.  i'll also note that i decided not to pick up all of the league leader cards for carl yastrzemski's triple crown (nor miguel cabrera's for that matter), but i do have clayton kershaw's in my dodger team set.

four for four twenty

here's a 1981 donruss tommy lasorda card

that has something in common with these next four cards - 2019 topps heritage kenley jansen (this is the chrome parallel)

2020 topps mookie betts

2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary joe kelly (this is the refractor parallel)

and 2022 topps austin barnes

those four cards represent a four year run in which topps had assigned a dodger card to number 420 in one of their sets

i took note of it in 2021 when i saw the checklist for platinum anniversary. alas, there was no continuation of this in 2023, but i couldn't help but wonder if it were an intentional thing, similar to what upper deck did with number 666 in their early days.

not that it's a bad thing - 420 is a number associated with cannabis use, thanks to some california teens in the 1970s and i pass no judgement. it was just conspicuous to me that topps put a dodger in that spot four years running.

speaking of four years running, if cody bellinger (seen here on a 2022 topps allen & ginter chrome mini)

homers today, he will have hit a home run on 4/20 in four consecutive seasons. bellinger, as you might know, has a few 420 themed memes out there.

i almost forgot to mention - the donruss lasorda card up top is the first dodger card that i am aware of to slot at number 420 in a major set. these days, the dodgers have a 1 in 30 chance of being there in just a handful of sets each year. i took a quick look and found that no other team had more than two consecutive seasons at 420 in a topps set. donruss put the a's at 420 three years in a row in their flagship set in the mid-1980s, and the rangers were at 420 three years in a row in major pacific releases. it makes some sense to me as it has to be easier to set a checklist by starting with the previous year's, but maybe, just maybe, there were some shenanigans afoot.

free cards for the taking

i am inspired by the giveaways that kevin at the diamond king hosted over the last few weeks - congrats to fuji, night owl, and gavin for winning some great cards! as part of those giveaways, i committed to sending out more card mailings than i normally would this time of year. my regular trading partners have dwindled over the years and so i figure a giveaway is the best way to fulfill my commitment.

i will be looking to generate a list from those who comment on this post from which i will randomly select three commenters to receive six inserts and/or parallels featuring players from that team. make sense?

these days, there are no shortages of inserts or parallels to choose from as both topps and panini have gone wild. i have a bunch of these cards languishing in my scanned folder, so here's a sampling of some dodger inserts and parallels that i've picked up but not yet posted about over the last few months.

1997 pinnacle mike piazza/greg maddux cardfrontation

2007 topps finest matt kemp rookie finest moment black parallel

2012 topps gypsy queen matt kemp framed gold parallel

2019 topps update gil hodges iconic card

2020 topps tony gonsolin purple parallel

2020 topps allen & ginter tom lasorda foil parallel

2021 panini chronicles mookie betts revolution fractal parallel

2021 panini donruss mookie betts livestream

2021 topps mookie betts zero to sixty

2022 topps mookie betts sweet shades

2022 topps dodgers foilboard parallel

2022 topps andre jackson 1987 silver pack chrome

2022 topps mini freddie freeman 1987 

2022 topps update freddie freeman 1987 35th anniversary black parallel

2022 topps update mike piazza 1987 silver pack chrome

2023 topps allen & ginter tony gonsolin silver portrait

2023 topps allen & ginter will smith mini gold parallel

2023 topps chrome jp feyereisen refractor parallel

2023 topps chrome miguel vargas sepia refractor parallel

2023 topps chrome update miguel vargas prism refractor parallel

2023 topps update david peralta orange foil parallel

2023 topps update gavin stone royal blue parallel

2024 topps mookie betts rainbow foil parallel

2024 topps chrome mookie betts 1989 35th anniversary

2024 topps heritage high numbers mookie betts perfectly programmed

2025 topps austin barnes (series 2) holiday parallel

2025 topps teoscar hernandez ops leaders

2025 topps michael kopech gold parallel

you get the idea - there are lots of inserts and parallels out there.

those cards are not ones that i necessarily have duplicates of, but i have plenty of similar dodgers for this effort, as well as similar cards for every current major league team. 

leave a comment that includes the name of a current major league baseball team before 11:59 pm on thursday december 18, and if your name is randomly selected, i will send you six non-base cards of said team. i will likely run the randomization on friday morning because i plan to check out a mall show that day and i will be on the lookout for inserts and parallels to supplement my current supply. i will post the results on saturday and connect with the winners via email.

this is not an "almost free friday" scenario - no return is required so have at it. thanks for the inspiration kevin, and happy holidays!