participation cards

there's always a lot going on here in the blogosphere. the easiest way to participate, outside of posting itself, is to leave comments. i am guilty of not commenting often enough on the blogs that i read, and i certainly don't expect everyone who reads my posts to leave a comment. except for fuji - the blogosphere's most frequent commenter! seriously, thanks fuji!

there are other ways to participate, and the result is often trophies in the shape of cards!  case in point, chris at the collector recently asked for help with photoshop while he was setting up his new blog the 1993.  i volunteered my amateur skills, and was rewarded with some cards!

chris sent me this 2016 topps archives 65th anniversary frank howard card

and a 2017 bowman's best clayton kershaw/brendan mckay mirror image insert

just for helping a blogger out!

earlier this year, free card fridays became a thing thanks to jon, brian, rod, kerry, and others, and they have continued to pop up throughout the ensuing months. this is another way to participate in what the community has to offer!

i recently received cards that i claimed on these posts from the aforementioned jon - a 2015 topps chrome joc pederson prism refractor

jay at card hemorrhage also offered up some cards, and i scored a 2002 topps 206 stan musial card

for my set build that is 18 years in the making!

kevin the diamond king also offered up some cards and i requested and received a 2018 bowman draft luis robert card

kevin also held a contest recently (another way to participate in the blogosphere), and i came away as the lucky winner of this card:

that's a 2020 panini donruss divisions insert featuring the national league west. that's cody bellinger in the upper left, and he is joined on the card by nolan arenado, fernando tatis jr, ketel marte, and evan longoria. longoria is an odd choice for the giants, but who am i to judge.

kevin sent more cards for me along with the contest prize, including a six pack of vladimir guerrero

that included three of the four franchises for whom he suited up. i still wish the blue jays (his fifth franchise) had called him up in 2012. oh well.

group breaks have been around for a long time with many bloggers (including yours truly) hosting them at various times. one of the most venerable group break hosts is colbey at cardboard collections. his affordable breaks offer up a great variety of releases from the past and present.

i recently participated in a spate of breaks hosted by colbey that netted my some great cards from 1994 fleer flair. 1996 topps laser, 1997 leaf limited, 1999 pacific crown collection, and 2020 topps stadium club.

this mike piazza infield power insert is from 1994 flair

and this piazza card is from 1996 topps laser.

other dodger cards i received in that break were those of ismael valdes, hideo nomo, raul mondesi, and eric karros.

that's a complete team set, but unfortunately i didn't hit any of the inserts.

here's a trio from 1997 leaf limited

along with another mike piazza insert

pacific is always a fun product, and i was able to cross this antonio osuna card

off of my want list.

colbey held a random 2-team break of stadium club and i wound up with the brewers and rays. as a result, i picked up a couple of lorenzo cain cards

base and red foil parallel, along with a mike brosseau red foil parallel

he's the dude that hit the 8th inning home run off of aroldis chapman in the alds this year that sent the yankees home.

against my better judgement, i also entered a couple of colbey's football breaks. from 1995 topps stadium club, i took the vikings and jaguars and wound up with a sizeable stack of cards. this, in fact, may be the first time fuad reveiz has been featured on a blog anywhere, so here you go:

i actually followed the jags for a few seasons, and was happy to find a mark brunell card in my stack

i took the jags again in a 1997 pacific litho-cel break, and wound up with a keenan mccardell litho card

(no cel, unfortunately), and a jimmy smith game time insert

all that was missing was some fred taylor goodness!

and then there are the straight up trades that pretty much every blogger is up for. i've completed a number of them over the last few months, and i am working on catching up with my "thank you" posts for folks like brad's blog, baseball cards come to life, remember the astrodome, the collective mind, cards on cards, baseball dime boxes, night owl cards, 2x3 heroes, and others. i will catch up eventually, unless anyone wants to trade?

a blogger's impact

trading is not the only way for bloggers to impact another's collection. by simply doing what we do - posting about cards - we can increase other's awareness of the vast multitude of cards that exist.  case in point, nick at dime boxes recently showed a couple of cards as part of his second frankenset that i had not seen before.

one was this 2000 fleer impact edgar martinez card

and the other was this 2003 donruss team heroes mark ellis card

both cards were missing from my collection - the edgar is a sweet dodger stadium card, and the ellis is a double play turn - so i thanked nick and headed to sportlots to acquire these new found gems.

now, anyone who has shopped on sportlots knows that there is a temptation to maximize the return and add cards to the shopping cart to optimize the shipping costs.  even with the "box" option, many sellers offer decent shipping costs for multiple cards.  so, i decided to try to finish up a team set or two.

i settled on 1999 fleer tradition, and added the dodgers that i was missing from my setl

kevin brown

not a padre anymore.

antonio osuna

angel pena

jeff shaw

gary sheffield

and devon white

even with these cards, i still had room in my cart for a couple more without increasing the shipping cost.  so, i went to comc to browse images from the set, thinking that there may be a dodger stadium or double play card or two from another team that i could add.

one of the cards i came across was this charles johnson card

cj is an oriole in name only - he's wearing dodger blue, so i added it to the purchase.

i knew already that there were quite a few cards in the set that featured images taken in dodger stadium. because i needed a few dodgers, i filtered my search at comc by team to see if any of those cards featured a dodger stadium shot.  as a result, i picked up another copy of jeff shaw's card, but not gary sheffield's. that's because i didn't turn the card over until it arrived,

so it wasn't until then that i saw the '1965' behind him from the world championships mural. oh well.  i did pick up a second copy of eric gagne's update card for my dodger stadium collection

as well as a second card of eric weaver from the base set

i found a few other dodger stadium cards featuring players from visiting teams, like chris peters

masato yoshii

larry walker

the gagne card actually shows the 1999 murals in the background which were based on the heroes patches that the players wore that year. the weaver, peters, and yoshii cards show the 1959 championship in the background, with don drysdale appearing towards the edge of yoshii's card (the murals also included retired numbers). walker's card shows sandy koufax on the wall.

the murals weren't the only part of dodger stadium on display. here's jon lieber 

and jay powell

at the dugout rail. i always appreciate seeing a dodger usher in the background like on that lieber card.  interestingly enough, i already had the warning track parallel of the powell card in my collection, but not the base.

here's dante bichette

chillin' and maxin' in the golf cart he spent all day waxin', hanging out in front of the old dugout level seats.

and here's future dodger hitting coach turner ward

bringing good gum game to chavez ravine as a player.

i know that i will likely never have all of the dodger fleer ultra inserts, so that is a good place for me to look when i am adding cards to the collection. i wound up grabbing two copies of roger cedeno's 1996 golden prospects card.

one for the team set, and one for the dodger stadium mini-collection. i like the aerial view on the front.

so now we are getting to the double play portion of the post. 1999 fleer tradition did not disappoint as i was able to add a few new cards to my collection.

unfortunately, sportlots does not usually have images, especially for 20-year old base.  so, while i ordered a nm copy of abraham nunez's card, i received this jacked up version

it's miscut and suffers from offset printing. maybe i'll try to flip it and pick up a better version. i know some folks out there collect these sorts of printing errors.

other new-to-me double plays included this alex gonzalez card

plus a couple featuring miguel tejada - his card

and that of darren lewis

next up are a couple of tatooine cards - brant brown

and andres galarraga

i think galarraga's name is a good anagram for a star wars character.  how about sendar ralagraga? sounds right to me.

finally, i added this mark loretta card to my card.

the future dodger is shown in front of jackie robinson's retired number, which makes it a great add to my mini-collection.

in all, i picked up around 30 cards with this sportlots purchase that was spurred on by just a couple of cards nick posted. it was not the first time and won't be the last time that another blogger impacts my collection in this way, so thank you to everyone posting about their cards and collections! i never know what i might find to add to my collection as a result.