to give is to receive

most of the giveaways i've hosted have been "almost free" in that claimants can have as many cards as they choose, and need only send one card back to me in return. the most recent giveaway i hosted was a true giveaway so i was a bit surprised when one of the winners, mark z, sent a few cards back my way.

mark took care of a few 1991 needs from my want list, with five cards from 1991 classic including steady eddie murray

along with brett butler, kal daniels, orel hershiser, and ramon martinez

that's the first new kal daniels card i've added to my collection in a long time! 

another 1991 need sent along was this 1991 legends sports memorabilia darryl strawberry card

new dodger strawberry was the subject of an absolute avalanche of oddball cards back then. the homecoming didn't go quite as planned but there was so much excitement early on. i really enjoy finding and receiving new-to-me dodger strawberry cards!

one more card to show, and it's a bit more modern. it's a 2013 topps chrome andre ethier blue refractor parallel

these guys are numbered to 199

i am reminded of the interesting stuff topps put on card backs in the early 2010's. in this case, the career chase of hank aaron's rbi total. ethier amassed another 152 rbi in his career after this card was printed, so he only fell 1,610 short of hammerin' hank's mark. 

that's good stuff, just like these cards. thanks mark!

bonus content!

jon from penny sleeves reached out a couple of weeks ago asking about some player collections of mine and late last week these two cards showed up in my mailbox:

1997 collector's edge masters mark brunell ripped

2000 topps tek vladimir guerrero pattern 7

pattern 7 is "hometown" and topps has "nizao bani" listed for vladdy. he was born in nizao (according to baseball reference) and bani is close by. not sure why they had two towns listed, or if nizao bani is a whole separate entity. i am also reminded that i need to get my brunell cards listed in tcdb.

anyway, more good stuff for the collection. thanks jon!

a team set 30 years in the waiting

about three years ago, i came across this 1996 topps mike piazza card

here's the back:

if you are familiar with the 1996 topps set, you know that the card front and back are a mismatch. the "star power" subsets had a monthly breakdown of stats. here are the two piazza card backs from the 1996 topps set for your reference:

however, i didn't buy the card because of the back situation - i bought it because it has this addition under the topps logo

that graphic (which matches a jersey patch the dodgers wore) denotes the 35th season of dodger stadium which occurred in 1996 (note to topps - this is how heritage buybacks should be named, as this wasn't the 35th anniversary but rather the 35th year that the dodgers played in the stadium. saying a 1977 card has a 50th anniversary in 2026 is just wrong).

sorry for the rant. 

a little bit of research told me that this was a 1996 topps team topps dodgers card, from a factory sealed set! now, this predates the team sets that are sequentially numbered with a team related prefix by ten years, and i was very unaware that this set even existed.

since finding the piazza card, i've had a couple of ebay searches running with no luck until late last year when someone in alaska of all places listed this 

for sale. still sealed! i placed a bid and wound up being the only bidder, winning the set for less than the current blister team sets sell for.

i did consider keeping it sealed, but ultimately opened it to reveal the full set within:

the backs are identical to the flagship backs - here's nomo's card back

with just those two piazza backs being swapped. 

i took a photo of the back of the packaging, because it held more information

the package contained a 16 card team set, plus a bonus 15 card pack and a bonus "big" topps card. here are the team set and the bonus card pack - front:

and back:

even though there are rockies on both sides of the bonus pack, it's not a rockies team set. there are just 13 random cards from 1996 topps in between with no additional logos. in fact, only a few teams were given these team sets - braves, orioles, cubs, white sox, indians, dodgers, yankees, mariners, and rangers - according to tcdb. each set had a special logo (some have a team specific logo like the dodgers and some have a "team topps" logo). to make things stranger, these were sold only at walmart (again, according to tcdb).

here's a scan of the cardboard insert

with a checklist of sorts on the back

so where is this big topps card? i was thinking it would be nestled in there somewhere, but no - it was the back of the package

so it's just a normal nomo card printed on a bigger piece of cardboard. weird. here's the back:

what an oddball thing.

assuming there is a 2026 topps factory dodger team set, i think i will add this to the running list of team set posts i've made. now if only i could find a complete set of the 2004 fleer dodger team set - the one with the blue design....

flip a card

i have a few care packages to acknowledge - some from months back - and i am trying to get back on track!

to start, bo at baseball cards come to life sent me some cards that hit my mini-collections, including this first card that hits two of them. this 1995 upper deck sp john valentin card is very obviously at tatooine card 

but flip it over, and it's a double play card!

perhaps i should flip it in the air and see which side lands face up to determine where to house it in my collection. my friends and i never flipped cards the way i know some of you and many other collectors did. we just played the game on the back of the 1978 topps cards and traded.

anyway, that card lives as a tatooine card but this card from the same set of tim naehring

is a full on double play card for the collection.

i believe i may have claimed this 1999 topps stadium club card of dmitri young

and i did so because it fits in my "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection.

bo found a couple of obscure items for my dodger stadium collection - a 1982 fleer stamp of dave collins and a 1986 fleer miniature card of jose cruz

i appreciate bo's eagle eye!

easier to spot is the dodger stadium background on this 1987 fleer limited edition lenny dykstra card

and this 1989 fleer limited edition orel hershiser card

i miss those old field level scoreboards.

greg maddux's 1997 fleer card

also features a dodger stadium background, with a couple of dodger personnel people in the background.

bo didn't neglect my team collection, adding a couple of cards from 1997 fleer flair

those are showcase row 2 cards of brett butler and chan ho park, the latter of whom has made a hobby resurgence in 2025.

thanks for the cards, bo!

in other news, i skipped the monthly card show earlier today. while collecting is a way for me to de-stress, being out and about today for a card show didn't rise to the level of necessity. many of you have expressed concern over what is happening here in minnesota and it is concern well placed.

let's play hockey! and to the game?

i really do appreciate folks who trade cards through the mail. whether it's through tcdb (i have yet to complete a trade that way) or through email or blog posts, it's not a small effort these days to pull cards and get them on their way. it's even more difficult to send cards into this country at the moment, so angus of dawg day cards deserves a hearty thanks for sending me some items in return for my "almost free stuff friday" event.

plus, it is now hockey season (although it's still baseball season in my world), and the local club started out the season strong with a shutout in st. louis. i'll get to the hockey content in a moment...

i really should have held off on my post showing some of the other returns i received, as these items were en route at that time and they really do bring the international flair i alluded to in the post. first up is a near complete dodger team set of stickers from 1992 panini

however, these are the canadian version of the stickers as you could probably tell by the french position translations. it's always fun to see "premier but" on baseball cards or stickers.

missing from the set are the dodger team logo/header sticker and mike scioscia's sticker. i will for sure need to track those down. the backs of the stickers invite you to "au jeu!"

which is how they have translated "play ball". based on my rudimentary french knowledge, i would have thought that "au jeu" would be "to the game" (and not to be confused with "au jus" which is "with juice"). with these stickers printed in italy, were there some further language barriers in place? i would be interested to know how a french speaking umpire would say "play ball", and now that i think about it "to the game" sort of makes sense.

the other card that angus sent was one of my most wanted non-dodger cards - a 2013-14 o-pee-chee luc robitaille card

minimal french, even on the back

but it's understandable as there is not really any room for a bilingual bio. robitaille remains my favorite hockey player and i was happy each time he returned to the kings. i've replaced this robitaille card with a ron cey oddball on my most wanted non-dodger list, but i would think luuuuuuuuuuuuuc would reappear on that list at some point. i really need to get the rest of my collection (including my robitailles) entered into tcdb so i have better access to what i am missing.

thanks angus for the cards and for avoiding strikes and tariffs!

double b double 2

before clayton kershaw came along, perhaps the dodger most associated with the number 22 was johnny podres. i, however, tended to think of a couple of guys with the initials b.b. first.

bill buckner

and brett butler

both wore number 22 during their dodger playing days, which for buckner included an appearance in the 1974 world series as noted on his 2003 topps tribute world series edition card. butler's 1993 king b disc doesn't show his number, but he wore 22 during both of his dodger stints (he also wore 12 for a short time when he first rejoined the dodgers in 1995). 

it should be noted that neither bob bailey, bob bailor, billy bean, nor bobby bonilla wore number 22 during their time with the dodgers. 

22 days until 2024 regular season baseball!

all in a week

i went to a card show on april 15 - jackie robinson day - and my favorite purchase of the day was this 2022 topps on-demand rookie of the year 75th anniversary set card of the first rookie of the year

this show was not the regular monthly show, but rather the bi-annual show that the owner of one of the local card shops organizes in a church gymnasium. fittingly, i wore my dodger jackie robinson t-shirt

that i bought at dodger stadium back on opening day in 1997. 

the show was the end of a baseball card themed week for me, in that i stopped in at two local card shops on a couple of the days prior to the show.  on tuesday, an appointment got me close to a shop in the southwest part of the twin cities, so i stopped in for some supplies and to dig through a couple of their monster boxes of singles.

this is the card shop with a bunch of those boxes, but they are stored in such a way as to be difficult to access. the shop is so cluttered that there is really nowhere to put the boxes. it is mildly frustrating, but i still like to look through them so it isn't bad enough to keep me away. i picked out a couple of 2023 topps heritage purple refractors

and a 1994 signature rookies draft picks bonus signature jed hansen card

for the double play collection. most of the cards i pulled were for others, but these three are keepers. i picked up another double play card

but wound up selling it. it is a fairly rare "auction" card from 1998 topps gallery. it wound up covering my outlay for all of the cards i bought from this shop.

a couple of days later, i found myself near another card shop, and stopped in to see what they had to offer. this is the shop whose inventory of singles are either in display cases or part of an online inventory. the last time i was in, i heard one of the workers say that they were considering setting out some dime boxes, and sure enough, i saw some on a table. it turned out that they were quarter boxes, but still worth looking through.

it was a mish-mash of all sports, but i found a few for me and a few for others, including this 1997 fleer flair showcase row 0 brett butler

and a 2015-16 upper deck hockey card of luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc robitaille

the big story here is that i also bought a box of 2023 topps big league. i was undecided about this product when i first saw images of the cards at cardboard connection, but nick at dime boxes sent me a couple of singles, and so i figured i would add more of the cards to my collection. i had originally hoped to find singles at the aforementioned card show that was coming up later in the week, but this shop had boxes priced at $50 so i went ahead and pulled the trigger.

i think we all agree that the tier system topps applied to this set (similar to what panini has done with their select release) is dumb and annoying for a product like this. it does, however, allow for nice pulls like this:

red foil adley rutschman rookie!

my blue foil sp was jose altuve, so i will just keep going with an example of the regular foil short prints by showing this corbin burnes card

with opening day out of the picture, big league is your one-stop shop for bad photoshopping:

i would much prefer to have seen these guys as dodgers in the set. even if that meant not getting a jd martinez dodger card yet.

there's jd's card along with a few other dodger base cards.

as for non-dodgers, here's ketel marte turning two

and then there are the inserts...

i am not necessarily a fan of the idea of the city connect uniforms, but i do like some of them, including colorado's

the dodgers wore their city connect stuff in a game last weekend, although it was a mashup. they wore the blue "los dodgers" jerseys, but white pants, and the hat was not the "los dodgers" hat but rather a blue hat with the white interlocking "la" but with a black bill. it didn't look good.

bo jackson looks good on modern cardboard, though, and i was happy to find his 8 bit ballers

and roll call

cards among my inserts.

i found two of the three dodger big leaguers inserts

as well.

and then on saturday was the card show. i wound up purchasing cards from four different dealers. the first dealer was one that i had bought from at a previous show, and i was looking forward to looking through his 50 cent box.  it wasn't as fun as the last time, but i still picked out 23 cards that i got for $10.

here are some of the dodgers i pulled

that's a pretty bland batch of cards now that i look at it, but i was happy to find a few parallels and that chrome decades' best jackie robinson card.

here are some non-dodgers that were among the 23 cards i found

i guess i actually bought 24 cards because the roses were in the same penny sleeve and i didn't notice until i got home. i was really just after the framed parallel.

and yes, that is a basketball card in the scan. in fact, it's a 2021-22 panini donruss optic anthony davis insert

i had been looking at some articles about the nba play-in games earlier in the week and noticed that all players were wearing a memorial patch for bill russell (the celtics great, not the dodgers' shortstop of the team of my youth) and figured i would keep an eye out for a card showing that patch. instead, i found the davis card that shows the black band worn for former commissioner david stern, and the circular patch that the lakers wore for kobe bryant. i figured i would add it to the few non-baseball cards in my memorial collection.

the next dealer was another guy i had bought from in the past, but he was more organized this time with higher prices on his singles. i wound up buying a $10 grab bag and the jackie robinson card at the top of this post for a total of $10. the grab bag was mostly inserts and rookies, and i was guaranteed either an auto or a relic. i got a relic 

from 2017 topps tribute of xander bogaerts. i thought maybe it was a black parallel, but no, it looks like this is jus the base. i had to remind myself that i was at the show to buy cards that i could see rather than packs or bags like this. hopefully future gcrl remembers this.

next up was a dealer i hadn't seen before who had four monster boxes with cards set at 50 cents plus other dollar boxes. i wound up with 32 cards from the 50 cent boxes and 6 from the dollar boxes. he gave me a slight discount and i got them all for $20. i'll just show a couple of the more unusual cards, like this 2021 topps x mickey mantle collection card

it really looks like it is homemade. i think they tried to print it as if it were vintage but it doesn't look right. i can't believe it is a fake, but who knows.

i had never seen npb cards at a show, but this guy had a few. this is a 2021 topps npb card of former yankee zelous wheeler

it's a blue parallel, actually.

the last dealer was one that i had bought from before and provided some pretty good deals with their bargain boxes. this could have been due to some math errors since the person tracking things was keeping track of costs on a post-it note. this time, however, i think any math errors were not in my favor. 

i wound up with 52 cards from the 50 cent boxes (all came in semi-rigid holders so bonus), plus 42 cards from the 7/$1 boxes and then 29 other cards that varied in cost from 25 cents to $3 each. i spent $50 for the 113 cards so i am not really complaining.

it was nice to finally see some 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary cards in the bargain boxes, and i was able to add a few dodger base cards that i needed

the zach mckinstry parallel was not in the 7/$1 box, but was only 50 cents so still a bargain.  

i also found some 2022 topps chrome sonic parallels in the fifty cent box, including a black and white ray wave refractor of albert pujols

i wrote a short post about this set the other day. it is definitely not a necessary set, but i do like the refractor parallels.  here's a purple and yellow refractor of jorge soler

that was also just 50 cents.

this seller also had some cheap relics and autos. i found a 2020 panini chronicles classic autographs card of dodger legend terrance gore

gore appeared in 2 games for the dodgers. he played half an inning on defense in one appearance and pinch ran in the other. he doesn't have too many dodger cards as a result, although he did appear in 2020 topps update. i don't chase these sorts of autos (certified as a dodger when they were a dodger) like wrigley wax does with his cubs, but i was pretty happy to find even a sticker auto of an obscure dodger!

however, perhaps my favorite find from this dealer was this card from 2021 topps big league

it's one of those ssp home team tradition cards (the dodger dog was featured for us dodger fans), and i know bernie brewer's slide is a fairly popular thing. not a bad find for a quarter.

this post is already too long so i won't show any of the other cards i picked up. all in all, it was a good week on the card front.

and then there was the hotel show i went to this past friday.........