j.d. drew had a good run

j.d. drew hit the majors with a bang in 1998 when he slugged 1.436 in 14 games for the cardinals. those high expectations were hard to measure up to over the course of a full season, and eventually drew was dealt to the braves. after putting up a career year there in what was a "walk" year, the dodgers signed him and now we have legion cards of drew in dodger blue.

i noticed that the ones i had in my scanned folder all showed drew running.  

here's his 2005 upper deck update card

which used a donruss design combined with a blackberry device. really strange.

here's his 2006 topps bazooka blue parallel

and his 2006 topps gold parallel

those two topps produced cards certainly show images captured within seconds of each other. here's one more - drew's 2006 topps chrome black refractor parallel

that is, of course, identical to the flagship gold parallel.

drew did more than run as a dodger, even though he was injured for much of his first season with the club. the second year, 2006, he played in a career high 146 games and drove in 100 runs for the only time in his career helping them get to the postseason. i recall being hopeful when drew was signed, disappointed when he was injured so much in 2005, and then content with his performance in 2006.

i was even more hopeful when the dodgers decided not to re-sign drew (or kenny lofton) after the 2006 season, as i figured that meant matt kemp would be an every day outfielder. however, the dodgers went and signed juan pierre and luis gonzalez and kemp was left to wait a bit longer.

still scratching that 17 year itch

it wasn't too long after i had completed the 2007 topps chrome dodger team set that i decided to go after the blue refractor parallels. the base chrome cards seemed pretty lackluster, and with the chunky borders, the blue refractors were fantastically blue! it took me a while, but i got there, and i recently finished off the regular refractor and white refractor team sets, too.

here's the base dodger team set for comparison purposes later on.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young  

the black borders don't do the base chrome any favors, and shame on topps (and other companies at the time) for including autographs as base cards.

now here is the blue refractor team set - note that there was no delwyn young card in the blue refractor style

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux  

having the blue refractors but not the regular refractors gnawed on me a bit, so i got that job done.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young                

much, much brighter, of course. the young card is numbered to 500 in refractor form.

now for the white border refractors

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young    

the "pop" on these is largely background dependent. speaking of backgrounds, there was no nomar garciaparra chrome card in 2007, but he is in the background of chad billingsley's card.

the white refractors are numbered to 660 - hard to see on the scanned card back

but the delwyn young auto is only numbered to 200

interestingly enough, i have no xfractors in my collection. maybe that's next. or, the red refractor parallels. there is always something to chase!

the 17 year itch

after completing the 1992, 1993, and 1994 topps dodgers gold parallel team sets (and seeing night owl's complete 2008 topps series 1 and 2 dodgers gold parallel team set), i figured that it was time to complete a numbered gold parallel team set, and i decided that it would be 2007 topps. i chose that set mainly because it has big, chunky borders that allow for a lot of color, but also it does not include any rookie or early career clayton kershaw cards that i missed out on in real time!

i had maybe a third of the team set when i started, and it took me a few months to pull it all together, but i managed.  so, here is the complete 2007 topps gold parallel dodger team set

j.d. drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, james loney, jonathan broxton

brad penny, grady little, delwyn young

greg maddux, juan pierre, jason schmidt

matt kemp, randy wolf, luis gonzalez

takashi saito, russell martin, wilson betemit

derek lowe, chad billingsley, ramon martinez

dodger team card

 

but that's not all - i also completed the update team set

brady clark, david wells, mark hendrickson

olmaedo saenz, hong-chih kuo, tony abreu

andy laroche, russell martin, brad penny

takashi saito, russell martin (alex rodriguez) combo, russell martin (cole hamels) combo

scott proctor

the proctor card was the last of these that i acquired. there weren't too many options when it came to purchasing the vagabond reliever's card, but thankfully one of the two sellers who had high hopes with their buy-it-now prices sent an offer that was pretty reasonable and i was able to complete the set.

there are a lot of "let's remember some guys" up there, but i remember being pretty happy with kemp and martin and ethier showing up. luis gonzalez not so much. and, as you can see, there are definitely some differences in the pigmentation of the gold across the collection.

another difference is the numbering on the back. topps switched the orientation of the serial numbering between flagship series 1 and 2 and update. ramon martinez is from series 2 and olmedo saenz is from update

ok, so it's hard to see, but on the flagship card, the 2007 is closest to the topps logo, and in update it's closest to the player inset photo. and, how great is it that topps noted each of these as "gold parallel" on the back?!

with the black borders, topps was in need of a different treatment for the other-colored border parallels (this was before camo /25 and all that). they went with copper

which was numbered to 56

the low print run black border parallels debuted in 2003 and were numbered to 52 copies. since then they have increased in production by one to match the "years of collecting" on the front. as far as i can tell, 2007 is the only year that the border for these cards hasn't been black.

i have no plans to chase the copper parallel set, but i do have more 17 year itch to scratch. stay tuned!

mailday at tiffany's

one fine day last month, there were a couple of trade packages in my mailbox. both full of dodger goodness, and both featuring this guy

that's chuck tiffany on his 2005 bowman chrome refractor. it came from oren, a generous reader of blogs who i've now traded with a couple of times.

similarly, night owl sent this card

a 2005 topps update & highlights chuck tiffany gold parallel. not bad cardboard representation for tiffany, who was traded by the dodgers to the devil rays in 2006 and unfortunately never got beyond double-a ball. he did pitch for both the vero beach dodgers and vero beach devil rays which not many folks can say.

oren sent more fantastic parallels, including a black border matt kemp card

from 2014 topps heritage. i'm not sure if these were limited to a print run of 50 back then like they are now, but even if not it's the first one i've seen.

here's a parallel that is definitely limited in number - 557 to be exact

that's nomar garciaparra's 2006 topps heritage chrome refractor, and it is very much appreciated!

sticking with the shiny, here's a 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary tommy john aqua wave refractor parallel

and my first glimpse at the 2023 version of chrome platinum anniversary with bobby miller's base card

i am sure these cards refractor up nicely.

i had to laugh when i opened oren's package, because he included this 2021 topps chrome mitch white blue wave rookie autograph card

and i had just picked one up at the card show i attended in houston a couple of weeks earlier. what are the odds?

and, while i did pick up a karim garcia autograph at the same show, it wasn't this one

which is from 1998 donruss signature series. oren also sent wilton guerrero's card

plus his millennium marks parallel

for good measure. looks like wilton needed some better guidance on where to sign the cards!

a tip of the catcher's mask (courtesy of this 2006 topps updates & highlights toby hall gold parallel)

to you oren !

meanwhile, night owl completed a couple of team sets for me by sending these two 1997 topps stadium club members only box set cards of mike piazza and todd hollandsworth

as well as this 2023 topps stadium club jd martinez card

i had purchased the stadium club members only sets directly from topps in 1995 and 1996 but didn't bother in 1997. it's as if i knew the cards would be readily available on the secondary market decades later. as for the martinez card, it may as well be manufactured by panini. no team mention on the front and no distinguishing apparel. the palm trees are nice, though.

night owl came with the parallels, too, including this red foil parallel of michael grove's gorgeous 2023 topps stadium club card

a red foil parallel of jackie robinson's 2022 topps stadium club card

and, just to mix things up, a royal blue parallel of mookie betts' 2023 topps card

there was shiny in this group of cards, too, with betts showing up again on a 2023 topps chrome update all-star game insert

and this holo prizm card of clayton kershaw

from 2022 panini chronicles - spectra.

night owl provided some new relic cards for my collection as well, with this 2005 upper deck espn sportscenter swatches card of jd drew

(yes, it is a dodger card because of the logo to the left of the swatch) and this 2014 topps michael young trajectory relics card

and finally, not a relic but a commemorative city connect patch of walker buehler from 2023 topps

to commemorate another great trade with night owl - thanks greg!