big hurt to get over the hump

at last mention, i had 15 of the 30 super short print 3-d sluggers cards in my 2003 upper deck vintage set build. having half of them was still more than enough for me to consider the set complete, as the whole reason i started building it in 2003 was because of the 1965 topps design that upper deck stole, and the 3d cards had nothing to do with that design.

still, i keep my eyes open, and recently added frank thomas' card

to my collection and set build.

i also just last week added chipper jones' card (not shown), so i am now down to a baker's dozen of needs. well, 13 for the set plus a second shawn green card for the dodger collection.

the collection marches on!

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.

got yer ginter?

i already shared the 2025 topps allen & ginter cards that i found in a hanger pack courtesy of a nearby lcs, but i also picked up some cards from that release from other sources.

i had preordered a couple of blasters directly from topps, and they arrived shortly after the official release date. i'll show some of the more interesting (to me) cards, including the livvy dunne base card

it's reminiscent of years gone by when kate upton made an a&g appearance. it's nice to see topps expanding the checklist a bit to include players like cesar tovar

who haven't been seen in modern releases for a while. i sort of understand orel hershiser reappearing in card sets this year as he has a hobby connection, but to see the late tovar included was a very welcome surprise. he has a ssp card in 2025 topps series 2 that celebrates his feat of playing an inning at every position in a single game, so perhaps having him in more sets is tied to that appearance.

old stalwarts remain on the checklist, of course, including mr. cub, whom i found in miniature variety

along with george brett

complete with that particularly overused image.

there were more minis to be found - here's one of the other non-baseball subjects

it's actress emma roberts, and it's an a&g back

i understand that she is a collector? or at least a breaker?

caden dana is a baseball player, and this is his gold border mini parallel

some of the insert sets are minis, as usual. here is the new mexico state bird

beep beep.

and here is a jellyfish

i found some high numbers, including a vladimir guerrero 

for my player collection

as for dodgers, i found hyeseong kim

and river ryan

ryan's card seems to be more yellowed than kim's. i noticed this with a few of the cards but i don't think it's a thing.

i had good dodger mini success - finding mookie betts' black border parallel

plus a kirk gibson chrome parallel

and a shohei ohtani 1889 n22 mini

the omnipresent wicked curves inserts including don drysdale 

and yoshinobu yamamoto

while i found freddie freeman and the rest of the 2024 dodgers celebrating their sweet victory

over the yankees in 2024.

that wasn't enough for me, so i bought a couple of lots of ginter off of ebay. with the first lot, i wound up with more dodgers

i included the duplicate of ryan to show how different his card stock looks. gary sheffield was a bit of a surprise to me but i'm always glad to see cards like his show up assigned to the dodgers.

i also found hideo nomo's mini parallel

plus a black border of kim's.

i now know that kentucky's state bird is the cardinal

is it missouri's? well, i don't have that card but it is not.

the other lot i purchased was focused on the full size inserts, and i added the sandy koufax and don sutton wicked curve cards to my collection

i spy jim gilliam behind koufax and i am pretty certain that steve garvey is the player behind sutton. so certain, in fact, that i've added a second sutton card to my collection to document the nl iron man in the background.

as for the sweet victory cards, i added the kirk gibson dodger card celebrating game 1 of the 1988 world series and the mookie betts (with an uncredited cody bellinger appearance) card that celebrates the dodgers' 2020 title

here's the back of gibby's card

of which i have added a duplicate to my "games i attended in person" mini-collection.

gibson also got a card for his 1984 world series title

and, to show that i can have non-dodger related content, here's scott rolen celebrating the cardinals' world series title

in 2006.

not all of the cards were world series victory celebrations. this andruw jones card

celebrates the 1999 nlcs. most are world series focused, however, and this chris sale card

lives in my name/number on the back collection even though he's standing in dodger stadium celebrating the 2018 dodger loss

a couple of wicked curves cards that struck my fancy were bert blyleven's

he's got good stirrup game, and catfish hunter's

i miss the oakland a's.

once i got through those lots, there were still some cards i wanted, so i went to sportlots. i bought orel hershiser's wicked curves card

and blake snell's

as well as that of clayton kershaw

along with his silver portrait parallel

i also needed kershaw's base card

plus several more dodgers, like mookie betts

and gibson

and these four

and these three, too.

and, if you think i have brian cranston's card in my dodger collection...

...you're gd right.

finally, i used ebay again to pick up some of my primary targets from this set. steve garvey has both a mini framed relic and a full sized relic, so here they are

along with the gold filigree parallel of the full sized relic

one of the lots i bought inlcuded one of the garvey full size relics, so i was able to add one to the dodger collection which doesn't happen often. buying multiples of the same card to feed different collections may seem strange to some, and i would expect there are a lot of folks looking at me like this

but my enthusiasm for doing so is not curbed. keep on collectin'!