what difference does seven years make?

i decided to try to fill in the blanks of my annual comparison posts between the topps flagship dodgers and their cards that are in the factory team set releases. those are the cards that are sold in blister packs and are numbered differently from the flagship sets. sometimes, there are photo (or other) variations, too.

as noted in the 2024 post, for some reason i did not purchase the 2017 team set back when it was released, but i have it now so here we go. remember, it's flagship on the left, team set on the right

lad-1 clayton kershaw

the only difference is the placement of the topps logo. as you will see, the factory set has the logo placed with equal side and top margins. flagship has the logo situated such that it is further from the top of the card than the side. i prefer the factory set format.

and here are the backs - flagship:

and team set:

topps eliminated the personalized twitter handles in favor of their hashtag on the factory set cards.

lad-2 andre ethier

same

lad-3 alex wood

same

lad-4 joc pederson

same

lad-5 scott van slyke

same. it's odd to me that scott van slyke was featured in the set but yasiel puig was not.

lad-6 yasmani grandal

same

lad-7 enrique hernandez

i could have rotated the landscape cards, but why bother? there's no difference between flagship and the factory set here.

lad-8 kenta maeda

same

lad-9 chase utley

same

lad-10 julio urias

same

lad-11 kenley jansen

same

lad-12 trayce thompson

same

lad-13 corey seager

no more rookie cup for seager, who was the 2016 national league rookie of the year. this is going to wind up being the only real difference in the whole set.

lad-14 justin turner

same

lad-15 andrew toles

same

lad-16 rich hill

same

lad-17 adrian gonzalez

same

i think i remember why i didn't bother with this set in 2017.

if you are interested, here's the running list of these posts. 2016 and 2018 are still partial set posts, and i have yet to find the team set from 2019. remember that there was no team set issued in 2021. otherwise, click and enjoy!

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2018

2020

2022

2023

2024

the ballad of the ballot

the hall of fame ballot is out and we can officially begin looking forward to the induction of adrian beltre. i am guessing he will go in as a ranger, but i, of course, think of him as a dodger. i think it was about this time last year that i finally picked up his most coveted (non-parallel) rookie card - 1997 bowman chrome #182

i've left it slabbed since it arrived. i have a tinge of remorse unslabbing a couple of cards so i've been leaving them be for a while. not that i've picked up many - maybe three in the last year.

in addition to beltre, joe mauer is on the ballot

and i would sure vote for him if i could.

there are a couple of interesting cases that have dodger ties - chase utley being one of them

utley is a borderline case for me. he compares well against some of the earlier era hall of fame second basemen like joe gordon, bobby doerr, or tony lazzerri and is actually not that far off from ryne sandberg. still, one could say the same thing about guys like lou whitaker and bobby grich who aren't in the hall of fame so i am not sure about utley.

the other former dodger of note on the ballot is adrian gonzalez

despite the best intentions of the 2016 topps update insert, gonzalez finished well shy of 500 home runs for his career - he hit 317 - and i don't think he has much of a chance to be inducted. he's in mark grace/don mattingly territory for first basemen which is still pretty good, just not hall of fame caliber.

of course, returning players like todd helton, billy wagner, andruw jones, and gary sheffield will get well deserved consideration too. i am looking forward to the announcement in january to see who will join jim leyland (elected by the contemporary eras committee earlier tonight) in the 2024 hall of fame class. 

so many dodgers on cards

by the end of this post, i will be caught up with trade packages that have been sent my way by kerry, he of cards on cards. i've posted some cards over the last year from some of these mailings, but i had a few remaining in my scanned folder so here we are.

back in november 2020, i received this 2020 topps update keibert ruiz insert

among other cards. it was an exciting card to have as the 1989 design has grown on me in recent years, and ruiz was the dodgers' top prospect. today the card means as much to me as the 1984 donruss sid fernandez rated rookie card. happy to have it in my dodger collection, but beyond that - meh.

more cards from kerry came in march of 2021, including this shiny card from 2020 topps chrome update

i like cards that focus on jersey numbers. there have been a few, such as the entire 2001 topps tribute set, plus various insert sets like this one. 

a month later, in april of 2021, still more cards arrived. i am guessing that maybe i didn't show any cards from this package before now, because i had quite a few scanned - such as...

a 2017 honus bonus chase utley card

sort of the opposite of those 2009 topps legends of the game inserts i showed earlier in the week.

how about a 2019 panini prizm dennis santana rookie auto red, white, and blue prizm

nice!

plus a 2020 topps turkey red insert of jackie robinson

i know kerry was trying to complete this insert set, and i had sent him a couple of cards for his set build.

and then there was this 1994 topps jose offerman

nothing really special about this card other than you don't see a lot of 1994 topps on the blogs. the player name text is reminiscent of 1970 topps and doesn't seem to fit too well with the other design elements. at any rate, this card goes in my "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection.

the last couple of cards i will show from this package come from the 1979 tcma the 1950's set.  here we have joe pignatano and gil hodges

along with someone named carmen mauro

i mean no disrespect, i mean mauro was a major league ballplayer for goodness sake, but i had not heard of him before. it turns out that he was born right here in st. paul, and the dodgers were the first of three teams he played for in 1953. he appeared in only eight games for the dodgers, so we should count ourselves fortunate that this card exists.

fast forward to may of 2021, and kerry sent almost a full team set of 2021 topps opening day dodger cards

along with a couple of 2021 topps needs

i like to see dodger world series cards!

also included was this 2021 panini donruss walker buehler name variation

i prefer "ferris".

one more card from that package, a 2021 topps heritage will smith boyhood photos of the stars

nice ymca representation. our local y didn't sponsor baseball or any other sport, although i played a lot of basketball there after school and on weekends.

last but certainly not least, i received some cards from kerry's annual spring cleaning event. these arrived in september of 2021. i had put in for twins as well as dodgers, and would up keeping a couple of cards featuring the minnesota club.

1994 pinnacle dave winfield

kirby puckett's presence on the card puts it in my lurker collection.

2011 topps update michael cuddyer

is a perfect fit for my tatooine collection

2018 topps chrome zack granite

goes in the dodger stadium collection, even though the scan doesn't show the background too clearly.

i picked a few cards from the dodger side of the box, including this 1983 donruss card of mark belanger

just like '94 topps, i don't think we've seen too much belanger on the blogs.

here's a 2011 topps triple threads pee wee reese card

and a 2021 topps stadium club mookie betts virtual reality insert

watching mookie in the 2020 postseason was a treat. such a great defensive player.

not the best segue to this 2021 topps allen & ginter max muncy relic card

but muncy's card does provide a good transition to this batch of cards also from 2021 topps allen & ginter 

in addition to sending me a complete dodger team set of the regular a&g cards (of which that lasorda is a short print), kerry also included those eight silver parallel cards. shiny!

2021 was a great year for dodger cards thanks to their 2020 postseason success. it made the back of allen & ginter cards all the more appropriate

the world's champions, indeed!

thanks kerry!

the 2018 dodger 60th anniversary giveaways reach the 1990's

this is old news, but the most recent installment of the dodgers' 60th anniversary card giveaways celebrated the 1990's with the 1994 design and italian-american superstar slugger mike piazza 

receiving the hall-of-famer slot in the set.  piazza follows sandy koufax (50's and 60's), don sutton (70's), and tommy lasorda (80's) as the rotating player to accompany the usual suspects in these sets

piazza and his rookie-of-the-year cohorts get a mention on the header card, along with lasorda, chan ho park, and the o'malleys

the 90's were the first decade since the 1930's that the dodgers did not appear in a world series. i was dismayed at their lack of postseason success that decade - they won the division in 1995 and the wild card in 1996, but were swept in the nlds both years.  of course, they were in first place in the nl west when the strike occurred, so maybe 1994 was supposed to be their year.

the 2000's are next, with the giveaway in early august. the rumors are that the 2001 topps design is being used, and i am once again trying to guess who the hall-of-famer spot will go to.  i will assume that the 2010's set will feature clayton kershaw in that spot, so the 2000's has to be vin scully, right?  here's hopin'...

more 2018 dodger stadium card giveaways!

the dodger stadium baseball card giveaways continued in may with the 1970s and 1980s being featured.  the header card of the '70s set is as close as i will get to a card of the infield, unfortunately.

don sutton was the known dodger legend to be featured in the '70s set

but it was a surprise to me that the same six current players who were featured in the '50s/'60s set were again featured in the '70s set

i had guessed that the '80s set would include tommy lasorda or fernando valenzuela or orel hershiser.  tommy got a shout out on the '70s header card, and fernando and the bulldog were mentioned on the header for the '80s set

but in the end, it was tommy who got the legends card

along with the same current players

topps is making up for lost time with the chris taylor cards.

i found it interesting that topps used the 1985 design for this set for a couple of reasons.  first, they used the 1965 design for the first giveaway. 1965 was a big year for the dodgers as they beat the twins in the world series.  the dodgers didn't win any of the three fall classics they were in during the 1970s, but the use of the 1977 design coincided with one of their nl championships, so it seemed to make sense that way.  1985 was an odd choice given that the dodgers won world championships in both 1981 and 1988, never mind the fact that they lost the nlcs to the cardinals in '85 after being up two games to none.

the '90s set is issued tonight, and i understand that the 1994 design is being used.  the dodgers were in first when the strike hit that year, so who knows what might have happened.  as far as the legend in this set, i will guess mike piazza, but the dodgers haven't really embraced his hall of fame-ness since he was inducted as a met.  we'll see...