chrome was a chore this year

i purchased a fair amount of 2025 topps chrome this year, and i purchased it from a variety of sources - directly from topps, from a couple of card shops, and from different target stores in different cities. none of it produced much for my collection, which from this product would be mostly dodgers. if i pc'd ketel marte, on the other hand...

the very first pack that i opened this year included a river ryan base card

and a couple of packs later, i found a roki sasaki prism refractor

that was a good start, but it also represented the sum total of my dodger cards across a lot of packs, until i found a teoscar hernandez refractor when i visited one of the local card shops

and then later, a yoshinobu yamamoto sepia refractor

in my final ill advised blaster purchase.

one other card for my collection from my pack ripping experience was this xander bogaerts double play turn

then again, i did also find a brooks lee photo variation refractor in one of the packs i purchased

lee sort of lives on the fringes of my collection. he's from my neck of the woods and so i have been setting some of his cards aside, and this is a nice one for sure. not sure whether or not it will hold, though.

at some point, i decided to go the sportlots route to get my chrome dodgers that were missing

which were all of the dodgers except for river ryan. that would be those nine above plus clayton kershaw

and shohei ohtani.

note that his chrome card shows him as a two-way player

while his flagship card did not. instead, he got two flagship cards - one for each position. i actually purchased two ohtani base chrome cards from a sportlots seller for $30. now that he has won the mvp, i'll exchange one for $20 and see if i can get that extra $5 value for the $15 i invested. stay tuned.

those initial orders included some parallels, too. 

hunter feduccia refractor

mookie betts, justin wrobleski, river ryan sepia refractors

freddie freeman prism refractor

mookie betts

and feduccia ray wave refractors

blake snell xfractor

and as many clayton kershaw parallels i could find from shopping cart sellers at reasonable prices.

refractor

ray wave refractor

sepia refractor

xfractor

while parallels are the name of the game in chrome (aside from autos), i did pick up a couple of mookie betts inserts - all-etch

and fortune 15

and i also waited on a buyer friendly ebay listing for this fanatical insert

which was a must have for me. i love seeing mookie and muncy (and nestor cortes, for that matter) reacting to freddie freeman's walk-off home run in the 2024 world series. here's the back

which doesn't mention the moment. i think, in that moment, betts was a fan and so it would have made sense to write about the homer. curiously, freeman has a card in this set but it does not feature this dinger. ohtani and sasaki also have fanatical cards, but they will likely remain out of my reach.

going online for my 2025 topps chrome fix was a lot easier, of course, but you know what? i still haven't learned my lesson with retail and hobby wax!

now that was a deadline

my goodness, that was a lot of activity at the trading deadline last week. it looks as though the padres will again pose a significant threat to the dodgers (and others) in the postseason this year with all of their additions, but the dodgers are counting on blake snell to essentially be a top of the line starter acquisition when he returns to the mound. 

anyway, the dodgers said so long to:

dustin may, seen here on his 2022 topps update gold parallel

may's stuff can be electric but he's not been able to put together a consistent run. i'm not quite sure why the dodgers didn't think about moving him to the bullpen with his stuff and their relief corps woes. in return for may, the dodgers acquired a couple of outfield prospects from the red sox.

james outman, 2024 topps 2023 greatest hits insert

and 2024 topps chrome ray wave refractor parallel

outman's offensive struggles have continued this season after a promising 2023 campaign was tempered by a lack of production in 2024. he could be a classic "change of scenery" guy, or he could be another dodger 4a player like billy ashley. outman was dealt to the twins for reliever brock stewart. stewart will officially become a dodger double dipper once he takes the mound for the blue, as he pitched for them back in 2016 and 2017. i will have to track down one of his (very elusive) cards from his initial dodger tenure.

hunter feduccia, seen here on a 2025 topps holo foil parallel

feduccia had only three plate appearances for the dodgers this season, as they went all-in on dalton rushing as their backup backstop. feduccia was sent to the rays in a trade that also involved the reds. the dodgers' return was reliever paul gervase and minor leaguers ben rortvedt and adam serwinoski.

the dodgers also acquired alex call from the nationals for a couple of minor league pitchers. here's call on a 2024 topps statue of liberty holiday foil card

statistically, call is an upgrade from outman, but i wish the dodgers had done more to upgrade the outfield. reagardless, it's time to say thank you and good luck to may, outman, and feduccia, but better luck to the new dodgers!

here's a heaping helping of heritage

after opening my hobby box of heritage, i went out and bought a fair amount more. i was interested in another box, but i wound up buying two opened boxes for the price of one unopened box. i am not sure why the seller opened two boxes and then sold the contents at half off. i suppose it is possible that they pulled a big card and i got the rest, but the haul matched what i found in my initial box, so i am pleased. i also bought a hanger box or maybe it was a mega box, plus about a dozen cards from an ebay seller. 

at any rate, here are a bunch more cards from 2025 topps heritage.

i think that chuck yeager's notable americans card

is a good one to start with. test pilot is a badass job, and he's related to the catcher from the team of my youth.

i appreciated finding jon jay's notable americans card

because i started reading "the federalist papers" last month. jay, along with alexander hamilton and james madison, published the collection of leaflets under the name "publius". i will say that all americans would benefit from reading this book.

heritage has taken the parallels of inserts to a new extreme. case in point is this foil parallel of mookie betts' through the years insert

and i have a couple more examples for later on.

the two guaranteed hits from the opened boxes were this luisangel acuna clubhouse collection relic

and a gold jonathan india clubhouse collection relic

neither are worth anything, really, but interesting to see.

meanwhile, rod from padrographs sent me a dusty baker father & son card

after i had commented that it was the card i was most looking forward to finding in this year's release. the additional cards i purchased netted me a chrome refractor parallel

the other father & son card of interest to me features the guerreros, and i now have the base

black

and blue

parallels in my big daddy vladdy collection.

the vladimir guerrero card that was used for this subset comes from 2000, which was only a year old when heritage began. that means that heritage has now run through half of the flagship sets that were in place when it started. makes me feel old. as does the holliday's card from the father & son subset

thanks to the 2007 card being used for the old man.

you might recall that in the box i opened, i found an image variation of tyler fitzgerald. one of the opened boxes i bought included an image variation of brooks lee

the variation is on the left. nice pickup considering i am low key collecting lee.

between all of these purchases, i was able to complete my dodger team set. here are the dodgers i didn't show in the first heritage post - hunter feduccia

will smith

clayton kershaw

max muncy, edgardo henriquez, michael conforto, andy pages

and shohei ohtani

i also found a few more of ohtani's all-star compadres, including corbin burnes

christian yelich, william contreras, and vladimir guerrero jr

i am looking forward to the first of the banner all-star designations in next year's heritage.

i did ok with dodger parallels, including a feduccia blue border

plus a couple of chrome parallels featuring ohtani

there were many light blue sparkle chrome refractor parallels for me, too, including these three dodgers

plus the league championships card

the base of this card was one of the few dodger short prints that i didn't pull from my first box of heritage, but it was there in the cards that i purchased

along with the world series short print

i appreciate seeing dave roberts on the card, plus the freddie freeman walkoff grand slam and walker buehler, too! even better, i added the chrome and the chrome light blue sparkle refractor parallels

but wait - why did topps change the layout of the card from paper to chrome? two of the four outside photos swapped places, and four of the five photos on the card are cropped differently. stranges.

here are those other insert parallels i foreshadowed earlier. these are yoshinobu yamamoto's

and mookie betts'

1976 revisited foil parallels. this insert set not only reimagined the card front design, but the back as well. here's a comparison of the card backs - original, 2025 base, and 2025 1976 revisited

the brighter back helps, but the green background would have been the first thing to go if i were redesigning things.

ok, i know it's not all about the dodgers or inserts, so here are some non-dodger, non-insert cards i found interesting enough to scan.

juan soto

topps is not waiting for high numbers this year to get soto out there in mets' pinstripes.

jose miranda record breaker

records aren't just broken by superstars, and topps did a good job this year to include jose miranda and danny jansen (i am still looking for one of the jansen cards, unfortunately). although i was at one of the games that was part of miranda's streak, it wasn't the one pictured on the card so i am not keeping this card in my "games i have seen" collection.

sonny gray's card, however, is a keeper

that's because he is wearing number 42 on jackie robinson day!

evan carter's card is a high number/short print

and i took note of the text on the back

over the years, i have sold cards to a players' relative or two, as well as the photographer whose image was used on a card. i've also filled sportlots orders for a blogger and the father of a blogger. most recently, jason grilli was buying up copies of his 2013 topps card on sportlots, including the two that were in my inventory.

speaking of sportlots, i had to go there to finish my topps news all-time all-stars subset set

my previous purchased netted all but the roberto clemente. i don't mind topps overloading this set with outfielders, although i will admit i was curious to see who topps would put at third base (schmidt or robinson?) for the record, i would pick schmidt. anyway, after last year's debacle with the mvp subset, i am just glad that they included both the father & sons and the all-time all-stars.

here's a sharp looking julio rodriguez red border parallel

and a triston casas chrome refractor blue parallel

plus a couple of chrome refractor green parallels

those green parallels came from the opened boxes. i didn't get anything like that in the box i opened.

here are some of the all-time all-stars in chrome parallel fashion - ernie banks is a sparkle refractor

willie mays is a light blue sparkle refractor

and hank aaron is a good ol' chrome parallel

aaron, being a member of the braves, reminded me that my purchases were a good one for a braves fan. in amongst my purchases, i found three braves blue parallels

a chrome refractor parallel of orlando arcia

and a sparkle refractor parallel of austin riley

the mega box yielded a clubhouse collection single player dual relic of ronald acuna jr

which isn't too bad. 

i know i am all over the place with this post, but bear with me - almost done. one of the reasons i decided to buy the open boxes was that one of the cards visible in the lone photo was this 1976 al downing buyback

i have mostly been targeting the quartet of steve garvey, ron cey, bill russell, and davey lopes when it comes to heritage buybacks, but i will add other dodgers if the mood strikes.

case in point, i picked up dusty baker's 1976 topps traded card in buyback form, too

it's interesting to note that the stamp on baker's card is lower than the stamp on downing's card. this is good to see as topps is playing attention again to stamp placement. i have a card from 2024 heritage high numbers that i haven't shown yet that demonstrates this as well.

with the bill russell and davey lopes cards already in hand, i was happy to find ron cey's card, too

and i also upgraded my lopes buyback

still no sight of the steve garvey card or the stolen base league leaders card, but i was able to add the one that i was most excited about - the davey lopes record breaker!

believe it or not, i have another heritage post in the queue. stay tuned!