a painted desert

if you read the tim wallach blog, you know about the 2025 topps shoebox treasures release. corey has turned wallach's appearance on that checklist into every player collector's goal, realized (check out his posts if you haven't seen them). as for me, no steve garvey on the checklist this year meant that i wasn't looking too closely at the set. until, that is, i saw this card

a watercolor version of the card that began the "tatooine" collection nearly 50 years ago?! yes please!! once i saw this card, i tracked down an ebay seller that had it and a bunch of others from the set for sale. i was able to add a couple of cards to my 1978 topps master set - the george foster/jim rice home run leaders

and keith hernandez

which, to me, was an interesting choice to paint as it's not one of the more iconic cards from the set. i added a fourth card to take advantage of some deal from the seller, and chose this one to round out the purchase

that's fernando valenzuela on a painted representation of his 1986 topps mini card. the back gives some explanation for choosing the card

noting that fernando had a career year in '86. the back also gives us the dodgers' hat logo and their uniform script. i appreciate the cartoon with the player holding a treasure map on the back as well. let's look at the others...

the cartoon kid has found the treasure (in a shoebox, of course) on the back of robinson's 1971 topps card

the text is pretty nondescript, so i'm glad andy friedman chose the 1970 world series highlight card to represent brooks. it's a bit odd that no logos were added to the card back, though. 

it's the same cartoon on the back of the league leader card

with the red sox' uniform script and the reds' hat logo. at first i thought that the "b" added there looked  like it could be the brooklyn dodgers' "b" rather than boston's, but it doesn't have the cutout in the left/middle part of the letter. instead, i accept that it's the blue boston "b" that was worn on the red hats like the one jim rice is wearing on the front of the card.

finally, the back of hernandez' card shows the discovery of a different treasure - the rookie cup!

and we also learn that the reason for the 1978 hernandez is that it was the first year that he won the gold glove, unseating four-time repeating winner steve garvey. that last bit is my contribution to the text, as garvey couldn't overcome the pete rose quote to make the card back.

there are some other cards from this release that i wouldn't mind owning, and i'll be keeping an eye out for them in bargain bins at future card shows.

remembering a legend

i was hoping against hope that i'd be able to include fernando valenzuela's election to the hall of fame in this post, but the eras committee didn't vote for him to be inducted. i was surprised that he was even considered to be honest, but once his name was on the ballot i thought that there might have been a path to selection. why else have his name added to this ballot if there weren't something beyond his hall of very good statistics?

what i do have is his topps living set card

that i bought sometime during the fall of 2025. i have a handful of these cards featuring various dodger subjects and should probably seek out some others. it's nice to see fernando included in the set and even better to see an image of him with his big hair and comparatvely small hat.

another card that i picked up later last year related to fernando was this 2025 bowman chrome yoshinobu yamamoto mojo refractor

i actually bought two copies of that card so that i could put one in my memorials collection. yamamoto is sporting the black patch that the dodgers wore in memory of fernando during the 2025 season. while they also wore the patch during the 2024 world series (i have blake treinen's card featured in this post in my collection to mark that occurrence) we know that this card features a photo from 2025 because of the gold adorned jersey and world series champion patch that yamamoto is sporting.

this is the first time that the dodgers have had a memorial span seasons. jim gilliam's patch was worn only during the 1978 world series as the team did not carry it over into 1979, but i am glad that they honored fernando for the entire 2025 season. the yankees did a similar thing for thurman munson in 1979 and 1980 and yogi berra in 2015 and 2016, as did the cardinals for august busch jr in 1989 and 1990 although i don't have any examples of the 1989 memorial. 

regardless of hall of fame status, fernando remains an icon of the sport. viva fernandomania!

remembering fernando still

one year ago today fernando valenzuela passed away. the dodgers have continued to honor him with a jersey patch throughout the 2025 season, rather than just wearing it during last year's world series (like they did with jim gilliam back in 1978). i think it was a nice touch by the franchise that benefited so much from fernandomania.

this card

from 2024 topps black & white might have been my favorite dodger card of 2024 had i picked it up last year. instead, i came across it early in 2025. it's still a fantastic card showing the stages of fernando's signature windup (at least from the stretch).

that is not the only card of his that i have added this year. here he is at another stage of his windup on his 1994 donruss card

it's fun to find cards of fernando as an oriole. here's his 1994 topps stadium club 1st day issue parallel

and here's another parallel - a 1995 upper deck electric diamond card

that not only shows him as a phillie, but also at the plate! he won a couple of silver slugger awards during his career.

most of his non-dodger cards come from his time with the padres, and that is due in large part to the proliferation of card manufacturers in the latter part of the 1990s. here are some more parallels from that era - 1996 upper deck collector's choice gold signature

1997 fleer ultra gold medallion edition

1997 pinnacle museum collection

he's been showing up in more and more modern releases as well. this is a 2017 topps new era version of a 1987 all-star card

that is similar to what was included in 2017 topps series 2, but the 30th anniversary stamp is not foil and i believe this was only available with a hat purchase.

here's another card from last year - 2024 topps archives black foil

i will always appreciate more fernando dodger cards, but couldn't topps issue at least one showing him during his (very) short stint as an angel?

it's also fun to add some oddballs from his playing days, like i did with this 1985 all-star program "insert"

it's hard to believe that it has been a year.

my mind is tiffany twisted

over the last few months, i've tried to fill out my sportlots orders with topps tiffany cards. it's tricky as there aren't a lot of sellers with these cards, but i've found a few that had other wares i was more interested in. as a result, i've added these cards to my collection:

1987 fernando valenzuela all-star

1987 steve sax

1989 dodgers team leaders

and 1985 terry whitfield

i remember whitfield's time with the dodgers as fleeting, but he actually was with them for 2+ seasons.

i flipped the script with these next cards - searching for a seller with all of them first before looking to fill out the order with something else. this is the complete dodger team set from the 1984 topps traded tiffany set

i was disappointed that orel hershiser wasn't featured in the set.

the backs are bright, of course, looking somewhat like the backs of traded sets in general. with the flagship "parallels"

that's ok because the card number is a differentiator. those 1984 traded backs are bright, too

but you will recall, however, that the 1984 traded set's normal backs were sort of gray.

so, what did i add to maximize my deal from this seller? this card

a 2025 topps sandy koufax call to the hall insert.

my sportlots purchasing has cooled a bit, but it's always a good spot to find those pesky base cards to fill out team sets. i will continue to try to add some tiffany cards when the opportunity presents itself. at least i don't have the mercedes "bends".

name games

i was intrigued enough to buy a card from the 2024 topps x chris berman set sight unseen. regardless of what chris berman became in his later broadcasting years, he was fun to watch on sportscenter during my youth and into my teenage years in the 1980's. he was known for his nicknames, and my favorite was bert "be home" blyleven. it was creative and smart and not so obvious. so, i ordered the card and it showed up at the end of january.

bert has a strong stirrups game! here's the back

really nondescript as we should all expect from topps these days, but to be fair there is not too much to say about nicknames. for the record, my next two favorites were john "tonight let it be" lowenstein, and mike "enough" aldrete. you younger readers may have to read up on the basis of the lowenstein nickname. unfortunately neither of those guys were included in the set.

nicknames on cards aren't anything new, really. here's a 2003 upper deck play ball card of ted williams

that includes his "splendid splinter" moniker. on the original 1941 play ball cards, ted was presented in quotes as a nickname derived from theodore, just like on these 1941 reprints from the 2003 set

do we still consider joe and/or hank nicknames? hank from henry is not as straightforward as joe from joseph.

here's juan gonzalez' mini parallel from that 2003 set

that presents his nickname derived from his home run hitting prowess. i appreciate that upper deck makes it clear that his nickname was, in fact, "juan gone" and not just "gone".

in other name related collecting topics, sometime last summer, i picked up a few 1988 topps big foil insert cards from 2022 topps archives. i set them aside and finally got around to dealing with them over the winter. two of the cards i added were ken griffey jr and rickey henderson. the backs made me scratch my head a bit.

i have many questions, particularly regarding the griffey card.

i know that he doesn't have two "ken"s in his name, and the fact that he is a junior means his name mirrors that of his dad. here's ken griffey sr's 1988 topps big card back

topps could have deleted the first "ken" on junior's card and fit the full "kenneth" in the middle. not sure who typed up that nameplate and thought it looked good with two "ken"s.

as for rickey, i can't say i knew he had two middle names, but according to baseball reference the "nelson henley" is correct. here's the back of his 1988 topps big card

that only used one of the names, and it is the one i was familiar with. 

also worth noting is the addition of nicknames. the original cards from 1988 did not include nicknames, but did have some names in parantheses. these would have been the mothers' maiden names of some latin players, such as fernando valenzuela

another player who was included in both sets was nolan ryan. topps got his name right in 1988

but not in 2022

not only is topps reinventing the wheel, they aren't checking to see if the wheel rotates before shipping it out!

here are a couple more cards that i want to share. first, don sutton's 2021 topps archives 1989 topps big foil insert

here's the back

while sutton's nickname of "black and decker" is given, i am showing this card because it is in a 1989 design and shows sutton's complete career stats on the back. even though it's not year by year stats, it still qualifies as a final tribute in my book.

finally, i found this pair of bailey ober cards in a 2024 topps heritage high numbers blaster.

that's his base card on the left, and the green border exclusive parallel on the right. sure, both cards have green borders but the parallel is a different sort of green. makes total topps sense. the applicability of these cards to this post is revealed on the backs:

on the left, we have the parallel (mistakenly identified as a white border above the number) and on the right, the base. for the parallel, topps decided to add ober's full name. not sure why they didn't have it on the base as that is the standard for 1975 topps cards as well as the vast majority of 2024 topps heritage cards i have looked at.

looking at the back of the parallel, it would appear that his parents found his name so nice, they named him twice! well, that's not the case, as his name is john bailey ober.

any other name games out there to share?

is it archives if it's not?

topps archives is one of my favorite releases every year. i will typically buy a box of the product and i really enjoy seeing new (and old) faces on random topps designs. shoot, even when archives was just reprints in 2001 and 2002 i was still all in on it.

this year i was a bit confused when i saw the first card images on the sell sheet. jackson merrill's card was one of the cards shown

it is, of course, the 1970 topps design, but with one (or two) big flaws. the text used for the name is nowhere near the cursive style of the original 1970 cards, and the position text is a lot smaller. here's a real 1970 card to refresh your memory

it's only been five years since topps trotted out the 1970 design as part of their heritage releases, and back then they stuck to the cursive font. they also maintained the same position descriptions ("outfield" instead of "outfielder") but the more recent change doesn't bother me so much.

perhaps the most ridiculous part of this is that they used another set in this year's archives that features the same cursive font!

go figure.

anyway, i mentioned in last week's post that i had pre-ordered some blasters, but then i got an email from topps about their "product drop" wherein i could try to buy a box at a price well below what they were going for from online resellers. i bit, and made the drop list and so i received a box to open the other day.

two autos and eight pink parallels, guaranteed.

no boxtopper this year though.

i will show the six packs from the lower left quadrant of the box. they were the first ones that i opened. 

pack 1:

starting with a dodger! i should have mentioned that 1961 is the other design chosen by topps. it is a bit jarring to see an action shot on the 1970 design and not have it be a super short print parallel. the insert in this pack is a take on the 1999 new breed inserts.

pack 2:

the own the game insert was originally included in 2006 topps.

pack 3:

there's our first pink parallel, and another dodger to boot.

pack 4:

second time this year seeing that frank thomas photo (also used in stadium club), and the ichiro is a bit of a tight crop. the "at the break" insert was originally seen in 1995 topps traded. that blew my mind back then, seeing an insert set with a traded set.

pack 5:

there's the first auto of the box. it's shoto imanaga on a new breed design. the card front is matte as opposed to the non-auto inserts which is a thoughtful touch by topps.

pack 6:

take note of josh jung's card for future reference. nice to see mickey mantle, and we also have our second pink parallel which features a familiar photo of monte irvin. the sandy koufax there also uses a familiar photo, but i had never seen the photo that was used on the back before:

the photo gives us a glimpse of dodger stadium in its early days when the dimensions were ten feet greater and the fiberglass was yet to be installed against the side of the pavilion. i might track down another one of these for my dodger stadium collection.

the one insert type that was not included in any of these six packs is the wrecking crew

which was from 1996 topps series 2. there are other, scarcer, insert types from four other topps sets but i didn't come across any of those.

here are some cards from the other packs that i took note of....

fernando tatis

just like jackson merrill's card up top, tatis' card gives a good look at the peter seidler memorial patch. i plan to stick with my original choice to represent the patch in my collection, however.

cole ragans

ragans is wearing the number 4 patch for lou gehrig on lou gehrig day. this, and the similar "21" patch worn by some on roberto clemente day, is not a memorial patch in the traditional sense, so i don't put these cards in my collection. they still catch my eye, though.

rickey henderson

this is the first rickey card i've pulled since he passed away and it was bittersweet.

paul skenes

obligatory rookie card inclusion

lou piniella

nice to see piniella as a royal. this is the first time topps has featured him as a royal on a base card in a regular (non-online) release since 2005 topps rookie cup. and rookie cup was the first time he was seen as a royal since 1974. at least from topps - the orioles issued their all-time orioles set in 1991, and piniella's card shows him as a royal.

don mattingly

this is just a classic looking card. yankees look great on the 1961 design.

ted williams

every year when i find out what designs are going to be used in archives, i think about the potential "cards that should have been" like the 1978 brooks robinson with his career stats on the back that we finally got back in 2022. maybe someday topps will put ted williams on their 1961 design to create a "final tribute"

what a missed opportunity this year though. they did give us another 1994 design george brett card

but it pales in comparison to his original final tribute.

hank aaron

like the mattingly above, this is another great looking card. of course, hammerin' hank was featured in the original 1994 set

topps did pretty well with the 1994 cards i think.

kevin pillar

pillar is back on cardboard after not getting any base cards in 2023 (he was on an insert in 2023 topps update but not a base card). his four game stint with the dodgers in 2022 didn't warrant a card, unfortunately.

elly de la cruz 

another obligatory rookie card share

i had pretty good luck with dodgers in addition to the ones shown above - freddie freeman

duke snider

fernando valenzuela

andy pages

i had a similar reaction to fernando's card as i did to rickey's.

no mookie betts base card, but i did get him as one of the pink parallels

along with ken griffey jr

here are the rest of the pink parallels from the box

the main non-auto hits from the box were a couple of numbered parallels.  this josh jung card

is a design variation red hot foil parallel numbered to 50

the design variation is the font used for the team name, which mimics the cursive name font from the original 1970 topps cards. it's pretty dumb to use that as a variation when the font wasn't used for the player names but whatever. i think the 1961 design variations moves the card number and player bio on the back to the bottom of the card and that is a worse type of variation.

here's a blue foilboard parallel of edwin diaz' card

it's numbered to 25 on the back

i also opened up a couple of the blasters i ordered. those come with a guarantee of four black parallels, and they are pretty sharp. here's mike schmidt

i tell you what. 2025 topps had better put schmidt on one of the series 1 1990 35th anniversary cards so we get him on that design with his full career stats on the back.

landon knack

was another black parallel i found. i also got a yoshinobu yamamoto new breed insert 

and a mookie betts at the break insert

so i did pretty well for dodgers but still missing a handful of their base cards.

as for the second autograph in my box, it was a 1995 fan favorites auto of dave stieb

here's the back:

stieb was featured in archives with a fan favorites auto back in 2017 (he was on a 1990 design) as well. i am going to keep this one in my "meaningful and just because" collection since i was a fan of his during his career, and he is pretty much the first guy i think of when it comes to the blue jays. after ron fairly, maybe.

i've only made one individual card purchase so far, and it was to secure steve garvey's 1995 fan favorite auto

here's the back:

this is the first time that garvey has appeared on the 1995 topps design, so that's nice. the other non-premium fan favorites dodger auto in the set this year is shawn green. green has been featured before but i may still see about picking up one of his cards - he's featured on the 2000 topps design. i am still holding out hope for a rick monday fan favorites auto someday.

so, that's archives for this year. i would say the 1961 and 1994 cards are pretty good, but the 1970 cards are merely inspired by the original topps design, which is disappointing. i count the 1970 set as one of my favorites - it was the first "older" set that i put together and the cursive names were a hallmark of the set that should have been replicated here.