smooth sailing out of los angeles

as a team collector, i don't typically avoid dodger cards in bargain bins unless i am certain that i already own them. i do pause, however, when i find parallels of guys like dennis santana, which was the case at a show last year. i wound up bringing home these 2019 panini donruss optic and 2019 topps parallels

but i would have preferred them to be of a current dodger. 

santana seems to have found his groove in pittsburgh which makes me happy. the dodgers in recent years have been quick to jettison young talent that they have developed in exchange for other teams' talent. in santana's case, they dealt him to the rangers for a minor league pitcher who toiled in the dodgers' minor league system through last season, and is now a free agent. i get that they are dealing from a surplus, but i still appreciate the older dodger way that allows me to collect and cheer for "homegrown" players for an extended period of time, as with clayton kershaw or will smith.

other dodgers whose departures i understood but to some degree regretted include joc pederson 

that's a 2016 topps update 500 home run futures club insert. spoiler alert - joc won't get close to 500 homers, but he hit some big ones for the dodgers and i am glad he is no longer in the national league west so i can root for him a little more.

cody bellinger, seen here on a 2022 panini prizm illumination insert

and a 2022 topps 1987 insert black parallel

was another one that was tough to see move on in free agency even though his performance with the dodgers in his last years had not warranted a big contract. i hope he has a nice season for the yankees but is at home in october. i do think the game is more fun when the yankees are good, but i really want the blue jays to get another crack at a title.

i was ready to be a ryan pepiot fan, but adding a proven starter in tyler glasnow was a deal too good for the dodgers to pass up. pepiot's 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor

was the last one i needed for that dodger team set of parallels.

just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced by the rays that pepiot was headed to the il and replaced on the 40 man roster by michael grove, seen here on a 2023 topps chrome sepia parallel

grove is also injured at the moment. i was ready to be a fan of his as well, but now all i will have are random cards to find at shows.

another example of a short time dodger that had a lot of cards available for me to collect is miguel vargas. this is his 2024 topps yellow parallel

and i am sure i will be finding vargas dodger cards in bargain boxes for years to come. will i buy them? time will tell. adding tommy edman and michael kopech in the trade that sent vargas to the white sox was a great move by the dodger front office, so i hope that vargas finds his way in chicago and lives up to a bit of the hype that surrounded him in his earliest dodger days to pay back that championship level deal that is currently a bust for the sox.

gavin stone, seen here on his 2023 topps chrome update refractor

and landon knack, shown on his 2025 topps gold parallel

are still dodgers as of now. they are both on the injured list, and who knows what will happen once they are healthy. there's not a lot of room on the pitching staff at the moment, so it's possible that these two become trade bait once they prove themselves healthy. i hope not, especially knack who i like, but i get it if it is the case.

and then there are guys like dalton rushing. 

his 2025 panini donruss card is one of many that i already have of him, and who knows how long he will be a dodger? blocked by his fellow university of louisville alum will smith, who is signed to a long-term deal, and too good to be in triple-a, he's not getting a lot of playing time. so far this year he is playing very well when he does play, but is it just enough to entice another team to make an offer that fills a different dodger need later in the season?

we will have to wait and find out who will join the likes of santana in the former dodger makes good elsewhere camp, and then subsequently haunts the bargain boxes and collections of team collectors like me.

nowhere is my chrome

2024 topps chrome has been out for awhile, but i haven't seen any in the wild. i did pick up a blaster online from target, using some target circle credit to offset the ballooning cost of these things these days. i haven't been to a card show or shop since may, so i suppose i haven't been looking too hard - only quick peeks at the card aisle when i am in target from time to time.

team breaks have been hard to come by as well, as shohei ohtani is the assumed favorite for the national league mvp award and the presumed return of the mvp buyback program has prices pretty high. i did find an ohtani card in my blaster

but it is an insert and not his base or a refractor parallel. i am not complaining about that - it's just an obvservation. the only other dodger in the blaster was will smith's base card

i showed one non-dodger keeper from the blaster yesterday, and another keeper (for now) is this zack greinke

i continue to hold out hope that greinke will return and pitch for somebody, but if not at least we have some final tribute cards for him.

i've also not seen any 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary out there either. with no ohtani dodger cards in that set, i was able to secure a team break pretty easily. here's clayton kershaw's card

the dodger checklist seems to be smaller this year which means that there aren't a lot of middle reliever or interesting checklist choices like there were a couple of years ago. no steve garvey cards, but gil hodges is back!

topps missed on his eye color, though.

jackie robinson is a given

as is roy campanella

and that's a refractor parallel of campy. the other refractor i received was kiké's

but i also got a michael grove green refractor parallel

there's a card show here in a couple of weeks that i will probably try to get to. if i make it, i am hoping to find some 2024 topps chrome for the picking.

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!

one more look at stadium club

how quickly we all moved on from 2023 topps stadium club as 2024 topps series 1 was hot on its heels. i still haven't completed the dodger team set, but i have added a few cards since my first post about the release.

as much as i enjoy seeing coaches on cards - and that's dodger third base coach dino ebel on max muncy's card

it blows my mind that topps didn't do anything about the remnant camera apparatus that was left in the image. it would have been easy enough to photoshop out. anyway, back to coaches - there is a great photo of ron cey rounding third and being greeted by then-third base coach tommy lasorda 

that would look great on a stadium club card - hint, hint.

my michael grove autograph showed up last week

and i am still happy about the photo topps chose. 

grove shows up on another card that i picked up

yes, that's grove delivering a pitch to corbin carroll on carroll's card. austin barnes is catching, and umpire d.j. reyburn is sporting the "bh" patch for the late bill haller. i put the card in my lurker collection since i already have a card in the memorials collection for the umpire patch.

i've also added three more thurman munson parallels to my steve garvey collection - black & white

orange

numbered to 199

and blue

numbered to 50

i'll keep my eye out but i am not going crazy to find any more of these. same goes for parallels of the grove card, and the rest of the dodger base for that matter. i must be mellowing out.

get into the grove

michael grove's 2023 topps stadium club card

is one of the better dodger stadium cards produced in recent years. it's a really great shot.

i bought a michael grove slot in a case break but wound up with just a few of his base cards. at least that means i have one for the dodger collection and another for the dodger stadium collection. if the different foil parallels were more distinctive, i would probably already have tracked down most of them after being shut out in the break. as it is, i will seek them out over time. i do have the autographed version 

on its way to me, so the chase has begun.

between this card and the thurman munson card, you might think that my favorite cards of the year are already locked in - dodger and non-dodger versions. you may be right, although i am struggling with the idea of 2023 cards being my favorites of 2024. we will see in about ten months.