it's rickey is the title

dodger legend rickey henderson has two cards in 2025 panini select - one in the base, concourse level checklist showing him as an oakland athletic, and one in the super (?) short printed diamond level showing him as a los angeles dodger. guess which one i bought?

there haven't been too many of these pop up for sale that i have seen, and i found this one priced with a low buy it now. prices seem to be settling, although the parallels for this card are going for a lot more. here's the back:

the other dodgers included in the diamond level series are hyeseong kim and hall of famers albert pujols and pedro martinez. i might go for base cards of the latter two, but it was rickey that i really wanted.

the only other card from the set i have so far is roy campanella's

campy's concourse level card is much easier to come by than rickey's dodger card in this set, and if i want to add any of rickey's dodger parallels, they will have to come via reasonable buy it now postings. with those, i'll have to be "right on time" because, you know, it's rickey.

bonus content! this showed up today!

i’ve opened a couple of packs and will have a post up this weekend most likely. the 2026 season is nigh!

the almost daily dodger - rickey henderson

i originally planned and wrote this post a couple of weeks before today, obviously not knowing that rickey henderson would pass away prior to its posting. 2024 has been a rough year for players that i followed closely as a young baseball fan, and henderson's death is still very surreal to me. 

it's still weird to me that rickey henderson played for the dodgers. however, it happened and like hoyt wilhelm and juan marichal before him, los angeles was his final stop before cooperstown. several months ago i picked up this 2005 playoff prestige prestigious pros blue parallel card

that features rickey as a dodger. his dodger cards seem to be fairly popular with collectors i've noticed, so i was pleased to find this one for cheap. the card is numbered to 900, which is a lot compared to this next one.

this is one of two 2004 playoff prime cuts rickey cards that i picked up twenty years ago

i'm showing it here because it is a true rickey henderson birthday card, numbered 12/25

for the christmas kid.

today would have been henderson's 66th birthday, but instead we are left to mourn the former dodger and remember how much of a revolutionary player he was. i am glad to have seen him play in person and been able to have followed his entire career. rest in peace, rickey.

who's coming to dinner?

i recall reading back during the second bush administration that the president arranged for a lunch or dinner at the white house that included a number of baseball hall of famers. i believe he made it an annual event and so was able to spend time with a large number of the greatest baseball players from the 1950s through the 1990s. there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that i would do the exact same thing if i were ever in a position to do so.

it's a play on the old question of who you would invite to dinner if you could invite anyone. sometimes, the "dead or alive" option is granted, and i think i will apply that to this exercise.

like michael scott, let's say that i only have six wine glasses so here are the five baseball dignitaries i would invite to join me for dinner.

vin scully

this is a no-brainer. scully would serve as the emcee - keeping the conversation going while staying quiet when others are carrying the conversation. and, he had stories for days about the game.

pete rose

i was at a couple of hot stove dinners that rose attended back in the late 70s and early 80s, and i remember him commenting at one of them that it had turned in to a mild roast. the other players were sharing some benign stories about rose, and i would love to hear his side of those stories as well as others that probably weren't fit for a hot stove crowd. one of my favorite pete rose quotes comes from george will's "men at work" where pete says during a moment of severe turbulence on a team flight something along the lines of "we're going down but at least i have a .300 lifetime average - what do you have?" it would be a blast, i think, to hear more stories from rose.

steve garvey

another no-brainer for me as a fan, although they say never meet your heroes. i would definitely run the risk with the garv. i would love to ask him about a few things and maybe even bring up don sutton or the 1981 world series mvp announcement that initially had him as a co-winner and not steve yeager.

jackie robinson

robinson would bring some gravitas to the dinner, i think, but i would want to focus on the on-field activities and hear about playing in the 1950's. sometimes i wonder if because of who he was and what he represented, jackie's playing experience and record lacks the level of respect it deserves.

lou gehrig

gehrig would bring the pre-war perspective to the party. i've been a fan of him since reading a biography back in elementary school. he may turn out to be a boring guest, but i would take that chance.

others i thought of in the first minute or so of this exercise

dusty baker

rickey henderson

old ross hadbourn

joe jackson

ty cobb

sandy koufax

tommy lasorda

and did i consider inviting jim tracy

just to ask him what the heck he was thinking with his lineups back in 2005? yes i did. these days, i don't care so much about tracy and his band of ja(y)sons, but 18 years ago he may have made the invite list.

not sure if this is "bat around" material, but i'd be interested in hearing your ideas for baseball dinner party guests. happy thanksgiving no matter who your dinner guests are!

safe travels this time

the last time i received cards from this particular trading partner - the cousin of jeff from my sports obsession - the box that the cards arrived in was pretty thrashed. there was no thrashing of the package this time, as kevin took great pains to overprotect the contents. and what wonderful contents they were!

there were a number of oversized items, including boxtoppers of jackie robinson and trea turner from 2018 topps gallery

and 2022 topps

plus an oversized hideo nomo card from 1998 topps super chrome

slightly smaller in size is this 1987 m&m's panel

featuring two dodger greats.

and then there were a bunch of minis, including a james loney 2009 topps allen & ginter

plus a couple from 2012 topps gypsy queen

the matt kemp is the image variation, and duke snider's card is the gypsy back parallel

other minis included parallels of cody bellinger and tom lasorda from 2019 topps allen & ginter

a gavin lux rookie from 2020 topps 206

a couple more snider cards from 2020 topps allen & ginter

and another cody bellinger parallel from 2021 topps allen & ginter

bellinger also shows up on this 2020 topps allen & ginter mini

although the base on balls is the real focus of the card

kevin is always good to send donruss color parallels, and he didn't disappoint with these 2020 donruss pink fireworks and vector clayton kershaw cards

they are not the most attractively designed cards, but they are dodgers and so they are welcome here!

kevin is also known for sending autographed cards my way, and this time he sent a 2012 topps gypsy queen nathan eovaldi card

and a 2017 topps chrome blue refractor rookie auto of jose deleon

deleon is only 30 and is currently pitching at triple-a for the twins. with some injuries in their starting rotation, i wonder if he will get the call at some point this season.

and then there are the relic cards, like this 2022 topps tribute purple max muncy card

muncy is also represented by this 2022 topps heritage clubhouse collection card

but i am most appreciative of these next two - a 2015 topps triple threads adrian gonzalez bat and jersey combo card

and a heck yeah 2005 donruss zenith rickey henderson bat card

i will always accept rickey henderson dodger cards!

the most interesting item kevin sent was this:

that is a roll of two uncut strips of the world series insert set from 1989 fleer. i hadn't seen these before, but they are definitely a thing.

 

finally, here's the cody bellinger tin from 2021 topps

all of the standard sized cards were inside the tin, snuggled in the foam protection. safe travels ensured!

thanks kevin! looking forward to next time!

i guess i'm on a rickey kick

i haven't had too many mailings hit my mailbox in recent weeks, but a couple of them had something in common. i picked up a former most wanted non-dodger card from sportlots - a 2019 topps stadium club rickey henderson card

that features fellow future-dodger eddie murray. it's a perfect fit for my lurker collection.

a couple of weeks or so later, jon from penny sleeves for your thoughts sent me a 2004 upper deck play ball rickey henderson home run heroics insert

the card celebrates the 81st lead off home run of rickey's career. it was also the last home run of rickey's career. i really appreciate rickey henderson dodger cards - thanks jon!

in between receiving these cards, i went to the monthly card show two weeks ago and spent about an hour going through the club vp's 5/$1 boxes that were absent from last month's show. i didn't bother to visit any other tables as i was on a time crunch.  i wound up taking a bunch of rickey cards home with me...

of those first 54 cards, 16 are rickeys. i was happy to find a new double play card - the 1997 marquette bank 1987 twins 10th anniversary steve lombardozzi card just before the nolan ryan cards in the last scan. i realized after i scanned these cards that the two cards from that set were actually 1997 cards and not 1987 cards. that's why they are out of order. i don't know why the four nolan ryan cards were scanned with cards that i thought were from the 1980's.

the last card above, along with these nine

make a complete set of the 1990 upper deck reggie jackson baseball heroes insert set, minus the autograph card.

there were quite a few holograms in the boxes, so i grabbed a few as you will see in this next batch of cards

only 7 rickeys in that batch of cards. a few vladdys for the collection, as well as a couple of dodger needs and some cardinal/brave trade bait refills. but wait, there's more!

a rickey as an angel parallel and more vladdys...

i hadn't seen those "you crash the game" cards before. it looked like the guy had a couple of sets - i assume they were redemption sets.

the randy johnson card in this next group somehow escaped my knowledge until that morning. it features the dodger stadium murals from 1998, and ron cey in particular. i'm now looking for the bowman chrome refractor version

that's a nice 1999 topps stadium club frank thomas for my "name/number on the back" collection (post coming soon).

rickey as a met, among other cards:

there were a whole slew of 2001 topps archives cards in one box. i know i have a near complete set, but i didn't have a list with me so i just grabbed a couple ryans and a jackie.

more cards:

the 2009 upper deck update barack obama card goes in my lurker collection, thanks to the presence of albert pujols. i couldn't leave those 2010 topps target throwbacks in the box even though i really only wanted the ebbett's field card, and some of the "yo momma" cards are original backs. i didn't expect to find any buster posey rookie cards, but there they were. also, rip jeremy giambi there on the "the flip" card.

next up might be the best find of the show for me, a 2010 topps blank "you sketch it" card:

although the purple refractor of hiroki kuroda from 2010 topps chrome was a nice find, too.

i wrote a post recently that featured a couple of 2011 topps diamond anniversary parallels, and the prevailing feedback i received was that folks liked these parallels and they are tough to pass up when they show up in dime (or two-dime) boxes. case in point:

this next scan features a 2011 andre ethier card that i had never seen before - it was a target exclusive i guess:

i couldn't pass up the 2018 topps update ohtani/trout in a golf cart cards. i guess that was 251 cards but i told the guy i had 250 - oops. that would be $50 but he said $40 and threw in a 300 count box. nice. i guess that means i was digging through a bunch of 16-cent boxes.

not too much rickey there in the last half, but still some fun cards. like i said, some of these are already on their way to trading partners, but let me know if there is something that you might be interested in.