that's really super, super teams

2002 topps super teams can perhaps be considered a precursor to upper deck's 2004 legends timeless teams release in that it focused on specific team subsets without including every franchise on the checklist. however, super teams was even more focused, and with more player representation, than timeless teams.

in my most recent trade with sluggo, i received nearly the entire dodger team set in retrofractor form. these cards are numbered to the season represented, so in the dodgers' case that means 1955

the only card not included was jackie robinson's, but a quick online purchase later, and that was remedied

in addition to the 1955 dodgers, the teams in the set are the 1954 giants, the 1957 braves, the 1960 pirates, the 1961 yankees, the 1967 cardinals, the 1969 mets, the 1970 orioles. the 1974 a's, and the 1986 mets. the mets are the only team to show up twice, and i think roger maris and gil hodges are the only two to appear for more than one team in the set.

i had a couple of these retrofractors in my collection already, but was excited to complete the set so easily. they look pretty sharp in person, and are similar to some of the bowman heritage parallels from around the same timeframe. i had hoped that there would be a sequel to this set to include other super teams, but so far it's been a one and done.

these memories have waited

in one of the boxes i received from sluggo, among the dodger cards were complete sets of the ted williams card company's 1993 "memories" inserts featuring the 1955 brooklyn and 1963 los angeles dodgers.

i had most of the 1963 dodger cards, but the 1955 ones were new to me. the first one features a fantastic color photo of roy campanella

along with a photo of jim gilliam wearing number 15

which makes me wonder if it is a photo of him from his time with the baltimore elite giants but with a brooklyn "b" added to his cap. the other dodgers are gil hodges

and duke snider

with a nice "posed" action shot. the fifth card in the 1955 part of the set is a checklist

and the 1963 checklist that finishes off the 10 card memories set was also a need

the '63 dodgers featured are don drysdale, willie davis, johnny podres, and maury wills. podres, of course, would have fit with the 1955 players as he provided one of the greatest memories from that season with his world series game 7 performance.

1955 bowman complete through 104!

my 1955 bowman set is coming together at a decent pace, and i've completed a few more front end sheets to share.

here is sheet 12, cards 89 through 96

hall of famer lou boudreau is probably the biggest name here, but hank thompson's card gave me the toughest time to acquire. andy seminick seems out of place as he upsets the teammate pairing, but that is becoming more common as we progress through the set.

here are the backs:

it's nice to see sal maglie's nickname mentioned on the back of his card, but there is only one non-narrative card back here. on the back of art ditmar's card, he shares several of his biggest baseball thrills, including his first big league win that came on the last day of the 1954 season. that means that ditmar is the last pitcher to record a win for the philadelphia athletics, as they relocated to kansas city for the 1955 season. staying on that topic, jim hunter was the last kansas city a's pitcher to win a game, and j.t. ginn holds that distinction for the oakland version of the a's.

here is sheet 13, cards 97 through 104

this is a great sheet of cards with johnny podres, jim gilliam, jerry coleman, bobby thomson, and eddie mathews. on this sheet, it's don johnson who is out of place and messing up the teammate duos.

here are the backs:

ted williams, who is famously absent from this set, is namechecked on the back of thomson's card as the best hitter thomson has ever seen.

the don johnson card is one of the cards in the set that has an error variation. the one shown above is the correct version, with this being the error

that is ernie johnson showed there. ernie obviously pitched for the braves, while don was an oriole. the back of the card is still don's

and this error is reversed on card number 157. i hope to get there with these posts very soon!

right back where i started from

i took a detour while returning from texas in may and headed west to my hometown. while i was there, i stopped into the local card shop which is located on the same street but a couple miles south of the card and comic shop i frequented as a kid.

i'd been to this shop once before, and i went straight to their dollar boxes. one of the first things i found was a complete 1992 front row roy campanella all-time greats set

this was contained in a single sleeve, so it was a buck. same for this 1993 spectrum diamond club boston red sox set

yaz, doerr, dewey, freddie lynn, and luis tiant for a buck. this 1992 front row all-time greats set featuring buck leonard

was also a buck, and was still factory sealed.

as for singles, this purple parallel of vladimir guerrero's 2023 topps stadium club card

numbered to 75

was the card that convinced me to go through each of the boxes they had on the counter. i went on to find a few more decent cards, including a red parallel of aaron judge's virtuosos of velocity insert

from the same set, and this 2019 topps heritage high numbers juan soto candy lid insert

it's always nice to find a photo variation short print in the dollar box, even if it is from the 2021 topps set

and black border topps heritage parallels are great, too

even when they are a's.

i certainly didn't expect to find an elly de la cruz card in the dollar box, but there it was

it's a 2023 panini prizm insert, so not considered a true rookie card but still a good deal for a buck. and i will always pick up a numbered willie mays parallel for that price

especially when it's a (dodger) blue prizm parallel.

being in dodger country, i didn't expect to find many dodger cards in these boxes, but i did find a few. i was happy to find this 2023 panini prizm jim gilliam purple prizm parallel

which is also serial numbered, and a red foil parallel of will smith's 2023 topps stadium club card

i thought that maybe this 2022 topps gold label clayton kershaw card

was a parallel, but it's just the base class 2 design.

this 2010 donruss elite extra edition shawn tolleson status red die-cut signatures auto /50

is considered a dodger card because it says "los angeles" on the back. it's one of five autos i took from the boxes, and here's one of the others - a 1996 leaf signature series auto of two time dodger mike maddux

after i was through those boxes - i had pulled 45 cards - the owner of the shop brought out a consignment dollar box from which i took another five cards. one was this 2023 panini donruss pink fireworks jackson holliday insert parallel

holliday was back in the minors by this time, but i was still pretty surprised to see this for a dollar.

as i walked to the checkout, i felt the need to open a pack of something and 2024 bowman was really the only new release available at the time. i should have passed on the pack. the only card that was of any interest (and mild at that) was this justin crawford chrome prospects mini diamonds parallel

i was hoping for a paul skenes or even better, the pete rose short print, but came up empty. the shop owner gave me a bit of a discount, so i wound up getting the pack for almost free.

on my way out of town the next day, i stopped for gas and picked up a 2024 dodgers pocket schedule

i find it interesting that they went with neon this year. i guess it is the trendiest noble gas in 2024. it's always good to be on the west coast and i can't wait to get back there again!

the almost daily dodger - jim gilliam

today i want to share jim gilliam's 1962 topps card

that has been languishing in my scanned folder for a few months. i think i scanned this card back when i was starting my retired number collection. that was before i found the card that i ultimately used to represent gilliam's number 19 that the dodgers retired following his death during the1978 postseason.

gilliam has had a big impact on my fandom, primarily through his work as a coach guiding steve garvey, ron cey, bill russell, and davey lopes in the finer points of infield defense. his "clinics" were nicknamed "gilliam's island" which is a name i've used for a fantasy baseball team a couple of times. the fact that the dodgers wore a memorial patch for him in the 1978 world series also piqued my interest and curiosity about that sort of uniform enhancement which ultimately wound up with me creating a mini-collection focusing on examples of these tributes in baseball and other sports.

most recently, gilliam has become one of many players whose career stats have improved following mlb's inclusion of negro league stats in career totals. thanks to his time with the baltimore elite giants, gilliam is now credited with over 2,000 hits (2,021) and 1,250 runs (1,255). his national league totals in those categories were 1,889 and 1,163 respectively. gilliam now sits with the 150th most runs scored in history, which is around 65 spots higher than where he placed prior to this statistical update. he jumped about the same number of spots on the all-time hits list as well.

finally, i will admit that i was well into my collecting years when i finally figured out that the 1962 topps set design was based on the concept of a peeling photo/poster of the players, as if it had been applied to a fence or a wood pole.

an embarrassment of opportunity

there were three card shows in the twin cities metropolitan area last saturday. the regular monthly club show, a semi-annual regional show at a local church, and a mall show. this would be the south metro, west metro, and east metro. i made it to two of them and could have hit the third but i haven't been too impressed with the mall shows over the last couple of years.

i started off with the church show, just because it usually features some different sellers than the club show (which is a given when they are on the same day), but it was a bit underwhelming in terms of the number of tables. it wasn't too crowded, however, so i was able to belly up to a few tables pretty easily.

first stop was an older couple who i have purchased cards from before. they have a good variety of stuff in their bargain boxes, although they don't have dime boxes. i started with the 6/$1 boxes, and my favorite find was this 2004 fleer greats of the game announcing greats card of kirk gibson and ernie harwell

but a close second was this 1993 upper deck robin yount and george brett insert

celebrating their 3,000 hits. i used to have a 3k collection and i still have a hard time passing up any cards that are based on that milestone for hitters or pitchers.

i had some good luck with the few dodgers i pulled as i didn't check want lists. thankfully, these were all needs

1994 upper deck mike piazza electric diamond parallel

1995 donruss studio mike piazza

1996 upper deck collector's choice raul mondesi silver signature parallel

and 2022 topps pro debut pee wee reese milb legends insert

technically, that reese card would be a red sox card as he was a member of their organization while playing in louisville, but i am making an exception because it's the champ.

i also added a 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor double play card to my collection

courtesy of jonathan villar. in all i wound up with 42 cards for $7, and then i took a look through their 3/$1 boxes. i came away with these 45 cards 

for $15, although the seller at first just asked for $3. i told her that my california math told me it was $15, but i was happy to pay her price. after that, she would call out to me as "california" when i walked by.

i poked around at a few other tables, but didn't bite on anything. then, on my last round of the church gymnasium i spotted a table with a small box that was maybe half full, but the cards in it were being offered for a dime apiece. i saw some inserts from 2023 topps archives and dug in, taking several home with me including these 9

plus freddie freeman's 1969 single player foil insert

as well as a few others from the set.

the box was mostly base cards, but there were a lot of 2023 panini donruss parallels and inserts, too.

i grabbed a couple of dodger parallels - jim gilliam's purple holo

and michael busch's carolina blue holo

those carolina blues are pretty sharp, in my opinion. the tim raines one is really nice.

i suppose this is a parallel, too

even though it is an insert. it's a rapture parallel of the elite series card for duke snider, to be exact.

i did grab a couple of base cards from the box, including a 1995 sportflix tony gwynn card

for the name/number on the back collection. in all, i wound up with 30 cards for $3 from this seller.

it was still somewhat early, so i decided to head to the club show. i will save that haul for a separate post. stay tuned!