i didn't have this on my bingo card

as cool as it is to see hideo nomo back on cardboard this year, it was not too surprising given the popularity and interest in japanese born players over the last few years. shohei ohtani is the best in the game, and ichiro is going into the hall of fame so there is no better time to bring nomo back on to card checklists.

one related item that did surprise me, however, was finding a new dodger card of yu darvish this year.

that card is from the 2025 topps tokyo series set, and is a "stars of japan" insert, patterned off of the "stars of mlb" inserts in this year's flagship. rest assured padre (and cub) fans - darvish is featured in other uniforms in the insert set, too (but not the rangers as far as i can tell).

here's yoshinobu yamamoto's stars of mlb card from 2025 topps series 2

no cherry blossoms!

while i don't have any other darvish or nomo cards to show, i do have some recent and semi-recent dodger additions that are relevant to the post. i found this 2025 topps flagship collection of yamamoto

at the card show last month. his 2024 topps big league

and 2024 topps heritage high numbers

cards have been languishing in the scanned folder for a bit longer than that.

hopefully roki sasaki returns to the mound in the second half of the season. here are a couple of 2025 bowman inserts of his i added to a sportlots order recently - rookie of the year favorites die-cut

and rockstar rookies

i wonder if dime box nick would include those cards in his "getting the band back together" mini collection.

finally, here's an ohtani card that i've had for a few months now - his 2024 topps archives wrecking crew insert

given his status among players today, there are plenty of japanese dodger cards to chase, but i appreciate seeing darvish and wouldn't mind some others like kaz ishii or hiroki kuroda back in dodger blue for some new cards to pick up.

i'd buy that for $0.07! and i did!

i made it to the monthly card show on saturday for the first time in a while.  i made purchases from three dealers. the first guy had a decent dime box from which i found 40 cards.  good deal.  the third guy had his 15/$1 boxes, and i had to quickly dig before the people next to me decided to buy the full boxes at $12/each.  one guy did pull two boxes before i could get there, but i found some pretty decent stuff, including a 2017 topps update yu darvish photo variation short print.

yu had some friends, including the robinson cano

and joey votto

photo variation short prints from the same set.

i've never completed my 2017 want lists, so i wasn't sure if i needed the darvish or not.  it didn't matter in the end, as i wasn't going to leave him there for less than a dime.

in all, i found 75 cards to take from the boxes - some to flip and some to keep for my mini collections.  this is a 2005 upper deck mvp batter up card of phil niekro

who happens to be standing in dodger stadium.  you might think phil was there for an old-timer's game, but knowing the way ballplayers aged back then, this could be phil in his 30's.

here's a new double play for that collection - a 2012 topps erick aybar golden sparkle parallel

comc calls these parallels "golden moments", but i go with the sparkle.

my big daddy vladdy pc is represented by his 2001 upper deck legends card

here's a 2017 topps all-time all-stars card of eddie mathews

i like this insert set a lot, but it would have been even better had they included a certain dodger first baseman who won the all-star game mvp award twice.  oh well.  as much as i like this mathews, it was not the best one i picked up on saturday.

the last time i was at the card show, i picked up a big name (roberto clemente, to be exact) for my 1957 topps set build, and i did the same on saturday with this card

this came from the second dealer i purchased from, and i also grabbed another 10 cards from the set from him.

while i was looking at the 57's, i heard a person next to me talking about building the 1964 topps venezuelan set, and i knew that it had to be brian from highly subjective completely arbitrary. and so it was.  we had just recently completed a trade, so we didn't have any cards to exchange, but it was good to see him nonetheless.

here are a couple of the cards he sent me recently:

that's a 2018 panini diamond kings original materials relic card of clayton kershaw, and this is a 2018 topps stadium club kyle farmer auto

i like it when brian is assigned the nl west in his transatlantic box breaks!

as for the rest of the show, i was pulling cards from a quarter box at another seller's table when he began a homophobic rant to the seller next to him regarding someone who had walked by earlier. i loudly put the cards back and said no thanks. i wouldn't buy that at any price.