the next legend recognized

when i first started following baseball, there were two reggies. three, if you count reggie cleveland (shout out to the old-school bill simmons and his reggie cleveland all-stars). while cleveland was in my 1978 topps set, i only had eyes for reggie jackson and reggis smith.

while jackson was the straw that stirs the drink, smith was my right fielder. he was one of the four 1977 dodgers to hit 30 home runs and was a key component of their back-to-back pennant winning teams in '77 and '78. from a hobby perspective, he was the first player i took note of wearing a huge gold chain (thanks to his 1978 topps card) and i have core memories around his 1976 and 1980 topps cards as well.

the most recent card of the right fielder of my youth to join my collection is this 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic signatures card

numbered to 99, this card was listed on comc as a gold stitch, gold ink signature. however, it's actually the gold stitch, black ink version. the black ink has faded to "gold" in some sort of alchemist dream, but at least the signature is still visible. i love this card and the others like it from this set and it is an absolute travesty that upper deck screwed up the materials.

anyway, the whole reason for this post, other than to show off my latest reggie smith card, is to acknowledge the fact that tonight, he joins his teammates steve garvey, ron cey, manny mota, and dusty baker in the dodgers' legends of dodger baseball club. he will get his blue blazer and be celebrated for his role with the club as a player and as a coach. baker recently noted that smith was the best player he ever played with other than hank aaron. baker has also referred to smith as "a foxhole dude" meaning someone he would want by his side in war. that's pretty high praise.

smith wsa a five tool player and one of the best switch hitters ever to play the game. he was signed out of compton by the twins, but selected by the red sox soon thereafter, and later traded to the cardinals and then to the dodgers, much to my delight, although i didn't know any of that back when i was watching him hit three home runs of his own (not in the same game like that other reggie, unfortunately) in the 1977 world series. he was still a member of the dodgers in 1981 when they finally won the world series, but missed a lot of the season and appeared only as a pinch-hitter in the fall classic that year.

with don sutton and tommy lasorda having their numbers retired thanks to their hall of fame status, smith joining the legends of dodger baseball means that seven members of the team of my youth are honored by the club. i think that it is reasonable to assume that davey lopes, bill russell, steve yeager, and rick monday might all be added someday as well. tonight, however, is about reggie smith and i wish i were there in person for it.

a second look at series 2

my mega box of 2026 topps series 2 showed up a few weeks ago, but i held off on this post until i finished my dodger team set. that happened on monday, so here we are. this won't be all dodgers, though, as there were some cards featuring other teams that i enjoyed.

double play turns on cardboard seem to be less frequent these days, but here is a very nice jp crawford card

i don't seek out cards that feature cards, but i think it makes sense for topps to go this route given the state of the hobby

not sure why "stars align" was the title of this pack ripping themed card, but i don't work for topps. here's the back

"sweet hit" is mentioned but not "sick pull".

gerrit cole's card

features a photo of him pitching during game 5 of the 2024 world series, assumedly just before the wheels came off and the dodgers erased the 5-0 deficit in the 5th inning.

harrison bader's card

has me wondering what the rush was to get him into series 2 as a giant rather than waiting for update. this is an obvious photoshop that we didn't really need. i suppose that perhaps topps recognized that bader split 2025 between two teams and then signed with the giants for 2026. it's possible that by the time this year's update rolls around, he might not be on the giants anymore. for the record, this photo is bader scoring a winning run on a walk-off sac fly for the phillies. 

jake mangum's card

has me thinking that the ball is headed into the third base dugout.

denzel clarke

has some nice cards to date, and the only thing i don't like about this is the cramming of "athletics" into a space meant for three letters. why create a design element that doesn't work for all of the teams? it's ponderous.

the guardians' team card

is cropped nicely

the next two cards are dodgers in disguise. here's jack little

and justin dean

both of these cards have these world champions airbrushed into their new uniforms. here are the backs

that show their limited dodger experience. the little card is in my dodger stadium collection, as is josh hader's

which features a very similar looking shot.

i've added luis matos' card

to the "header" part of my retired numbers collection, as it shows orlando cepeda's number on display in pac bell/at&t park

i found kazuma okamoto's rookie card

with some impressive npb stats on the back

plus his teammate trey yesavage's rookie card

as for parallels, i found alec bohm

and gavin lux

in rainbow foil form, and cedric mullins

on an aqua rainbow foil parallel of a parallel.

here's a javier sanoja holofoil parallel

the inserts were a bit more interesting, with 1991 cards of carter jensen and nick kurtz

plus a 1991 all-star card of joe mauer

1991 topps was a favorite set of mine during the junk wax era, and the all-star card design is still my favorite of the separate all-star subsets that began in 1982.

here are a couple of the silver crackle foil 1991 parallels

juan soto, whatever, but i like finding new dale murphy cards.

the most plentiful inserts are the "titans of the game" cards that don't have that moniker on the front in series 2. i found tarik skubal

three rookies

plus one more

i read somewhere that topps intentionally left the "titans of the game" off of the fronts because the players' heads often obscured the "a" so the card looked like "tit ns of the game". not sure if that is true.

the other plentiful insert set is "stars of mlb". here are the ones that were in my mega box

back to inserts, i was fortunate to find a couple of dodger cards, including a silver crackle 1991 card of blake snell

plus freddie freeman's 1991 all-star card

base cards were in line with the expected distribution, and i was able to cross freeman

justin wrobleski, miguel rojas, hyeseong kim

tyler glasnow

and the shohei ohtani, yoshinobu yamamoto, and roki sasaki combo cards

off of my list. typically, topps reserves images showing the commissioner's trophy to golden mirror parallel status, so i was happy to see it on that "risen sons" card.

if you don't want to see any more dodger cards, go ahead and leave now.

to complete my team set, i went to sportlots and ordered the cards of jack dreyer, edwin diaz, emmet sheehan

kyle tucker, will smith

andy pages

and shoehei ohtani

i actually like that ohtani gets cards in series 1 and 2 since that means we get full stats on the back. hitting stats in series 1 and pitching stats in series 2

i did my best to fill out these orders with parallels and inserts that were reasonably priced. here's a sandglitter wrobleski

stars of mlb yamamoto and freeman

titans of the game freeman

and alex freeland

glove work mookie betts

and crooked numbers sandy koufax

382 strikeouts blows my mind, and then to think that nolan ryan reached 383 is beyond ridiculous.

this one is not from series 2, but it came with one of the orders so i'll show it here - clayton kershaw's perennial all-stars

i was hoping to find more cheap parallels and inserts at the june card show, but came away with only these three - rainbow foil kim

and a holiday and gold tucker

finally, i picked up a few cards on ebay, including clayton kershaw's crooked numbers insert

the base version of snell's 1991 card

this trio of 1991 all-star cards

plus glove work inserts of freeman and jackie robinson

those all came together in a lot.

as for singles, i've only bought one of the steve garvey 1991 auto cards

although parallels abound

this one was pretty inexpensive, perhaps due to the off-centered signature but i don't mind.

i am more pleased to have been able to add one of the world series champion autos again this year. this time, i bought a tommy edman orange parallel auto numbered to 25

that had a low buy it now price. here's the back

i would like to add a couple more of these, but prices are a bit out of line as you might expect.

i will probably purchase some update directly from topps and then wait for 2027 heritage. stay tuned!