ring that bell

today is a good day to show juan bell's 1993 leaf card. especially the back

there are two bells there, in fact, making the card pretty meta. the liberty bell, as fans of the national treasure movies will tell you, was kept in the house of pass and stow (the steeple of what is now known as independence hall). you can see "pass and" on the card, but the big item that draws your eye is the crack which occurred in the early 19th century, well after pass and stow recast the original bell.

anyway, it's independence day and there are other cards that make sense to post. over the past few months, i've picked up a couple of topps' independence day parallels.

2022 has perhaps the lamest design - here's andre jackson

design aside, this card appealed to me slightly because it is numbered 01 out of 76

and it pairs nicely with this 2025 topps heritage high numbers evan phillips "color of the year" parallel

that is bookended at 76/76.

of course, this year is 2026 which makes it the country's semiquincentennial. earlier in the year, i was looking for cards that showcased the memorial patch that the brewers wore in 2025 to honor bob uecker and came across this isaac collins gold parallel

it is very patriotically numbered 1776/2026 on the back

and, while it won't represent the uecker patch in my collection, it is unique enough to land in my "meaningful and just because" collection.

semiquincentennial means 250th, and this tommy edman purple rainbow foil parallel

is numbered to 250 as most purple parallels are these days. however, this particular one is 250/250

and so is a semiquincentennial card in and of itself. 

more traditional 4th of july appropriate cards celebrate the red, white & blue, like this 2021 panini prizm justin turner parallel

although perhaps i should have turned it upside down.

and, last but not least, here is an independence day parallel from 2026 topps featuring blake snell

in recent years, topps has put more 'merica in the design of these. here's the back

jackie robinson number!

happy birthday america! i hope you survive another 250 years, but at least get through these next couple in a recognizable fashion.

o canada

some true patriot love today for the great white north as they celebrate canada day.

here's a 2023 bowman chrome wbc flag blue refractor variation of quebec's own edouard julien

formerly one of my favorite twins, julien now plays for the rockies. here's the back
which includes the serial numbering of 71/75.

happy canada day to all who celebrate!

this will do for now

i know - this makes two topps now posts in a couple of weeks. 

this one features more current cards than the bobby abreu card i showed earlier in the month, as i've made some purchases of 2026 cards so far this season. the first one was from opening day when the dodgers unveiled their 2025 world series championship placard at chavez ravine.

here's the front

which features dave roberts and shoehei ohtani, along with the first appearance of kyle tucker as a dodger on cardboard. i was not as much of a fan of the dodgers "gold" jerseys (and the hats? ugh) this year as i was last year.

here's the back:

i wound up buying three of these cards so that i could feed the dodger collection and the dodger stadium collection. these placards don't ever show up on cards, so this is a unique view of a dodger stadium element. before 2024, these were actual pennant shaped placards and way back in the o'malley days, they only had banners that they would attach to the outfield wall on opening day to celebrate the team's titles.

the third copy of the card goes in my steve garvey collection, as that is the dodgers' first baseman of my youth unveiling the 2025 placard along with fellow legend of dodger baseball, jaime jarrin.

a couple of other topps now purchases i've made this year include an impulse buy of konnor griffin's first card

interesting that topps capitalized "baseball" in the middle of a sentence. as for the card, it was the first one i saw that showed the bill mazeroski memorial patch (the "9" on griffin's left sleeve) but i am sure there will be better cards for that purpose in this year's update. i'll stash this card away and watch it lose what little value it has over the years to come. 

finally, i made my annual jackie robinson day purchase(s). first up is the jrd card which features aaron judge and shohei ohtani on the front

and andy pages on the back

i bought two copies so that i could have one in the dodger binder and one in my "42" mini-collection. i thought about a third card for the dodger stadium collection, but even though that is the chavez ravine outfield grass with the 42 mowed into it, i decided not to go that route.

one other card caught my eye from april 15, and it features padre (boo) jackson merrill. he made a nice catch and then had a big hit or something. on the bright side, we wound up with a card featuring 42 on the front

 and back

i've been to a couple of major league games recently, so perhaps there will be another topps now update in the future. stay tuned.

a loaf of bread, a container of milk, a stick of butter, and a rehabbing pitcher

i was reminded recently about an experience i had thirty years ago or so when i was living in orange county. a grocery run to albertson's one day resulted in a quick interaction with big league pitcher steve ontiveros. he was with the angels at that time, working back from injury, and we wound up in the checkout line at the same time.

to be honest, i don't recall exactly why i recognized him. i think it had something to do with me following mlb transactions very closely at that time as i was manually updating rosters in my ea sports tony larussa baseball pc game. it helped that he was wearing an oakland a's sweatshirt at the time. a head nod and a "good luck" later, i was on my way.

he doesn't have any cards that i know of showing him as an angel, so i've added this 1996 upper deck collector's choice card of his

to my "meaningful and just because" collection. him being an athletic on the card in my collection actually makes more sense, if you think about it. bonus point if anyone remembers what influenced the title of this post!

forerunner card for whom?

rummaging through some monster boxes recently, i found a couple of inserts from 2013 topps update featuring a rookie gerrit cole

that's from the 10-card franchise forerunners set, and cole is paired with his teammate andrew mccutchen. cutch was in his fifth season at the time, on his way to the mvp award. while technically a forerunner, cutch is not the player i would have expected to see with cole. granted, i am more familiar with the clayton kershaw/sandy koufax card in this set, so my perspective is tainted. and yes, i know that there is a yasiel puig/matt kemp card in the set that pretty much mirrors the card above, but i thought that was weird, too.

what's really weird about this card, however, is the back:

the card was obviously meant for pedro martinez and allen webster. both started in the dodger organization and went on to pitch for the red sox. note that there is no card in the set that features those two pitchers on the front, or a red sox player at all, so it's not a "wrong back" printing error. i would guess that cole's 2013 debut became more interesting than webster's, so the switch was made but topps forgot one very small, minute, insignificant detail.

the only other time i remember seeing something like this, it was a card with jeff kent on the front and a writeup about steve garvey on the back. i am sure this 2013 example is well known, but it took me 13 years to notice.

through with blue

in my last post, i mentioned some cards were included in my comc order that would show up in other posts. this is one of those posts.

i decided at some point while building my shopping cart grab parallels from 2013 topps update. the post yesterday showed the target red parallels i bought, and here are the four walmart blue parallels that were in the order

scott van slyke, juan uribe, brian wilson, and one of three yasiel puig cards from the set. these four cards left me five from completing the team set, and i was able to find the others pretty easily.

ronald belisario

yasiel puig

yasiel puig

hyun-jin ryu

and jose dominguez

completing the update parallel set means that i now have all of the 2013 dodgers' walmart blue parallels, as i had completed the flagship series 1 and 2 team sets a while ago. this feat goes well with my full run of the dodger emerald parallels from 2013. the 2013 flagship design offers up ample border space to fill with color, and i suppose that is one of the main reasons that i've been interested in picking up these parallels over the last 13 years.

i will probably turn a focus to the six remaining target red parallels i need from update so that i can match the target parallels to the emerald and walmart ones, as i have already completed the series 1 and 2 team set in red border form. after that, it's likely that i take a run at the gold parallels (it certainly won't be the seemingly scarce toys 'r us purple borders). 

i am 15 cards away when it comes to the gold borders, with this series 2 hanley ramirez

and this update yasiel puig

being my most recent pickups. will i get it done? probably? it helps to focus, and i am trying to do that more and more when it comes to team collecting. stay tuned!

the shipping hit the fan

last november, i placed an order at comc. i hadn't done so for a while, and when i decided to request shipment, i dutifully wore my store credit balance down to $5.99 by adding some random cards to my purchases. the joke was on me, however, as i was not aware that they had changed the pricing of their shipping.

i had more than 50 cards in "my possession", so i was lumped into bulk shipping. not much to do but upload some more cash and get the cards. i was a bit bitter about it as i know many of you have been. not sure how i missed this change, but it is a flaw in comc's system that you can't check shipping costs without advancing to the request shipment page. sure, you don't have to follow through at that point, but i guess i am used to sportlots or ebay where the shipping is more transparent.

once i requested shipment, the original estimated ship date was december 10, but it was later moved to late january. the cards arrived sooner than that - in late december - so i can't complain too much about that.

much of what i ordered was intended for specific posts, or has now been set aside for specific posts, but there were still quite a few cards that were "add ons" or one offs and so i'll post them here.

some of the cards that will be shown in the future revolve around targeting specific parallel sets (to completion!) but these 2013 topps update target red parallels of clayton kershaw

ronald belisario

and skip schumaker

bring me only slightly closer to finishing that particular dodger team set. maybe someday.

this 1992 panini french sticker of mike scioscia

is the penultimate sticker i need for the team set (now just need the sparkly dodger logo sticker) and this 2016 topps gypsy queen duke snider short print

was also the second-to-last card i needed for the team set. i have since acquired the last card, but i still need that last panini sticker.

this 2022 topps holiday walker buehler card

was a throw in to wear down my credit balance. i am not focused on this team set and still need five other cards to complete it.

i did, however, buy the last five cards i needed to complete the 2002 upper deck 40 man dodger team set. those cards featured brian jordan

mark grudzielanek, paul quantrill, dave hansen, and victor alvarez

not the most obscure bunch of dodgers from that set.

i also targeted examples of cards, as i know i will never complete team sets of such things as 2021 topps uk edition union jack parallels

or 2024 topps heritage high number blue borders

i did complete the dodger team set of 2024 topps heritage high number combo cards with this one (and only) dodger card

and am left needing only shohei ohtani's card to complete my 2025 topps all-star game dodger insert set of all-star game greats after adding this mike piazza card

to my collection.

these two jackie robinson cards - 2025 topps finest finest timelines insert

and 2025 topps series 1 1990 35th anniversary insert

were the last cards i needed for those two team sets. i still have some of the 1990 needs from series 2, though.

my order also paid attention to a couple of my post-dodger player collections, with these 1985 topps tiffany

1988 score glossy

and 1996 fleer ultra gold medallion edition

cards joining my don sutton and fernando valenzuela collections, respectively.

while building my order, i searched for some autographed cards of certain players, including milton bradley who was, for one season, my favorite active dodger. i pulled the trigger on his 2005 topps auto card

for a pretty low price.

the card that started this order was one i saw somewhere. it's a 2024 topps transcendent collection clayton kershaw transcendent icons chrome photo variation

it caught my eye because of the unique angle of the photo and the dodger stadium background. it's not one that is frequently seen on cardboard. i liked it so much, i bought two of them. one goes in the dodger collection, and the other in the dodger stadium collection. 

is this the last of comc for me? maybe. never say never, especially when i come across some harder to find cards that would fit nicely into my collection. still, the shipping will make future purchases slightly less likely. stay tuned i guess.