the closer

i know that he is back in the starting rotation, but roki sasaki has proven to be a closer for me in the early goings of 2026. no fewer than three dodger team sets had sasaki as the last card i needed.

2025 topps allen & ginter

2025 topps archives

and 2025 topps chrome update

all waited for sasaki's card to show up.

i've completed a few more sets that didn't include sasaki recently, including 2016 topps gypsy queen.

that kenta maeda rookie card was the last card i needed. it's a short print so i guess it makes sense that i waited for maeda to return to japan before seeking it out. i'll show the penultimate card i needed for the team set in a different post.

a sportlots seller had the last three cards i needed for 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary

i understand that topps is planning to reintroduce this set in 2026, but they will call it 2025 so that using the 1955 topps design makes sense from a platinum anniversary standpoint. topps/fanatics just can't seem to get out of its own way sometimes.

another sportlots seller had this 2025 panini prizm pee wee reese card

that shut the door on my team set from that unlicensed release chock full of prospects and retired players and not much in between for licensing reasons.

2025 topps stadium club came down to two cards - hyeseong kim

and yoshinobu yamamoto

both of which came from a sportlots order

my 2026 topps series 1 dodger team set is also now complete, thanks to dalton rushing's card

showing up in my mailbox a few weeks ago.

i've got one other recently completed team set to visit. sasaki was the second to last card i needed to complete the 2025 topps all-star game dodger team set

with shohei ohtani being the closer in this instance

i've slowly been accumulating dodgers from this set via various sources, and now i'll show the cards i haven't shown before (which i believe is all but kim's).

mookie betts

freddie freeman

clayton kershaw

yoshinobu yamamoto

i also added a classic swings insert of betts

as well as kershaw's all-star game greats insert

the back

focuses on the 2022 midsummer classic which was held at dodger stadium and saw kershaw make the start for the national league. synchronicity at its finest.

you knew this was coming - i added another steve garvey parallel from the set. this is his black autograph parallel

numbered to 10. here's the back

interesting that these were exclusive to mega boxes. or is that the only way this set was distributed? i wonder if there will be a 2026 version? and will it include former greats like the inserts did in 2025? if so, get ready for a bunch of phillies. now that i think of it, i could use some new pete rose cards (or to fit in with the title of this post, tug mcgraw), so bring it on!

if you squint you can make it out

j.d. martinez hit three home runs in a game five years ago today. i know this because i found this card in a dig box at the february twin cities club card show.

it's from 2022 topps heritage high numbers, and it's a now & then insert, the likes of which have since been discontinued by topps, much to my chagrin. to be honest, i was a bigger fan of the then & now inserts, but these were ok, too.

the reason that i flagged it for my collection is not because i was at that game, or am suddenly collecting red sox cards or heritage sets to completion, but rather because of the umpire in the background. that's andy fletcher who was working home plate in the game (thanks baseball reference!) by the way. on fletcher's left sleeve is a patch that is tough to make out, but we recognize it as the umpires' standard square initials memorial patch.

i went to getty images to find the raw image, and the patch is much clearer

in april of 2021, mlb's umpires wore two patches - one "dc" patch for derryl cousins, and one "ps" patch for paul schrieber. the "dc" patch is clearly visible in the photo, with only a small portion of the "ps" patch showing. because these patches were only worn in april of 2021, my hopes of finding an example like this were very low. now, i've added this card to my memorials collection.

cousins was 74 when he passed away in october of 2020, and the umpires wore the same patch during game 6 of the 2020 world series. they chose to honor him for more than that one game, and so kept the patch for the first month of the 2021 season. cousins was working first base when dallas braden threw a perfect game, and then was at third base a few weeks later when armando galarraga nearly did the same. had cousins been at first instead of jim joyce, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

schrieber passed away in november of 2020 at the age of 54. he worked 2,207 major league games, but i'll mention one of his minor league contests. he was the home plate umpire in birmingham when michael jordan hit his first home run during his baseball stint in the white sox organization. according to schrieber, jordan asked for the lineup card from the game, and schrieber obliged in exchange for some autographs from jordan himself. not a bad trade.

here's a different j.d. martinez card from my dodger collection that i've not shown before

it's a relic card from 2024 topps tier one. martinez had a nice year for the dodgers in 2023, but they upgraded at the dh position for 2024 (and beyond).

a moment for davey lopes

damn.

davey lopes passed away earlier today.

i heard he was in bad health just the other day thanks to a comment on night owl's excellent recent post. i went looking for an update on that news just about an hour ago and saw the announcement that he had passed away.

there aren't many words, so here is a retrospective of his primary topps cards from his playing days, each of which has a special place in my collection.

of course, lopes also featured prominently on topps record breaker and league leader cards throughout his career, as well as the 1978 topps 1977 nlcs retrospective card

and 1982 all-star and in action subset cards along with a traded set card that year. i even made a custom when he was left out of the 1984 and 1986 topps traded sets. he returned to topps flagship sets as the brewers' manager in 2001 and 2002

and has a ton of other cards from various releases due to his career as a player, coach, and manager.

i've written often about my love for the dodger infield, and that i played second base quite a bit. i was a big fan of lopes, and i wore his number 15 on a couple of different occasions in my babe ruth baseball playing days. i never really had the chance to interact with him other than a short recognition and simultaneous head nod and thumbs up from him at a nationals game in 2017 where he was the first base coach under dusty baker.

my most recent lopes additions to my collection come from that same year, as these 2017 topps rediscover topps buybacks

arrived in my mailbox just a week or so ago from a sportlots seller.

lopes is the eighth member of the 1978 topps dodgers to pass away, joining jerry grote, vic davalillo, don sutton, tom lasorda, lance rautzhan, johnny oates, and glenn burke. i am sad to have lost another member of the team of my youth, but happy that i was able to witness the majority of his career. 

rest in peace 15.

land of 10,000 points

the nba season is winding down and baseball season has begun. you can guess which sport i am paying more attention to. however, the last couple of years i have allowed some friends to take me to a basketball game, and it's been a good time. 

the timberwolves are a decent team, and the crowd is into the game. the game i went to this season wound up being immortalized on cardboard via a 2025-26 topps now card

during that game against the cavaliers, anthony edwards (he's pretty good) became the youngest guard to reach 10,000 career points in league history. the timberwolves' mascot (crunch is his name, thanks to nestle being an early team sponsor) had a sign at the ready

the mascot wears number 89 as that was the team's inaugural year - the heady days of pooh richardson.

i am happy to add this card to my mini collection of cards featuring games i have seen in person. it inspired me to seek out cards from one of the other handful of nba games i've attended, and i'll share those in a different post.

good luck in the playoffs, twolves. bring yo ass!

to give is to receive

most of the giveaways i've hosted have been "almost free" in that claimants can have as many cards as they choose, and need only send one card back to me in return. the most recent giveaway i hosted was a true giveaway so i was a bit surprised when one of the winners, mark z, sent a few cards back my way.

mark took care of a few 1991 needs from my want list, with five cards from 1991 classic including steady eddie murray

along with brett butler, kal daniels, orel hershiser, and ramon martinez

that's the first new kal daniels card i've added to my collection in a long time! 

another 1991 need sent along was this 1991 legends sports memorabilia darryl strawberry card

new dodger strawberry was the subject of an absolute avalanche of oddball cards back then. the homecoming didn't go quite as planned but there was so much excitement early on. i really enjoy finding and receiving new-to-me dodger strawberry cards!

one more card to show, and it's a bit more modern. it's a 2013 topps chrome andre ethier blue refractor parallel

these guys are numbered to 199

i am reminded of the interesting stuff topps put on card backs in the early 2010's. in this case, the career chase of hank aaron's rbi total. ethier amassed another 152 rbi in his career after this card was printed, so he only fell 1,610 short of hammerin' hank's mark. 

that's good stuff, just like these cards. thanks mark!

bonus content!

jon from penny sleeves reached out a couple of weeks ago asking about some player collections of mine and late last week these two cards showed up in my mailbox:

1997 collector's edge masters mark brunell ripped

2000 topps tek vladimir guerrero pattern 7

pattern 7 is "hometown" and topps has "nizao bani" listed for vladdy. he was born in nizao (according to baseball reference) and bani is close by. not sure why they had two towns listed, or if nizao bani is a whole separate entity. i am also reminded that i need to get my brunell cards listed in tcdb.

anyway, more good stuff for the collection. thanks jon!

it's real and it's spectacular, but it's also meh

believe it or not, i am now pretty picky when it comes to leaf products and the steve garvey items within. gone are the days of me trying to compile full rainbows of the multi-player bat relics, for example. however, i still find myself picking up leaf items here and there when they speak to me. they do have some decent "gimmicks" sometimes when it comes to putting out cards that tug on the nostalgia strings.

this card, from 2025 leaf spectacular,

is not that. 

it's a shiny base card, encased in a one-touch, and numbered to 10. i decided to buy it because the price was low and the card is numbered 6/10 which adds a bit of panache. for what it's worth, ron cey is also included in the base set, so maybe you'll see his card pop up in a post sometime in the future. or maybe not. i have to draw the line somewhere.

more days of archives

here's another late to market post, sharing my second wind roundup of cards i've added from 2025 topps archives to advance my dodger collection, mostly. 

to finish up the 1964 dodger cards, i added dalton rushing

and chan ho park

both are spring training shots typical of the eras in which these players played. 

i have most of the 1996 cards added as well - here's teoscar hernandez

clayton kershaw

and will smith

all at dodger stadium. not sure if i mentioned it before, but it annoys me slightly that the inset "phantom zone" (as i call it) photo is not skewed the way it was on the original '96 cards.

here's more of the dodger team set using the 2005 design - hyeseong kim, river ryan, mookie betts

and yoshinobu yamamoto

i like the betts card very much because of the world champion gold-lettered jersey he is wearing. i appreciate topps creating a few cards featuring dodgers in these duds in 2025 and i hope they make some in 2026 and beyond! here's the back of yamamoto's card

i found it interesting that they went with a straight "3" for his era below the photo of him on the back. era is always shown to two decimal places except here when the tenth and hundredth places are zeroes.

one of the other 2005 design cards belongs to orel hershiser

his card back is even more interesting

because i really don't know what's going on with the stat that shows up under his photo. i think it is supposed to be 204 to match his wins total (and the "w" above the .304). they just forgot to edit the number from a batting average and change the first digit. that's the best i can do in trying to figure it out.

those cards above all came from sportlots. i was able to find two of the three dodgers i was still missing at the february card show in those dig boxes i posted about previously. jackie robinson and sandy koufax

don't look too bad on these modern card designs.

i like the black foil parallels again this year, and picked up sandy's from an online seller

just like i did to obtain kershaw's 2007 all-star design insert

the other archives card i tracked down this year was barry larkin's

and that's because he is shown (finally) on the 2005 design, making this a final tribute. here are his complete career stats as they should have been presented 20 years ago

i don't have larkin in my hall of famer collection, but my final tribute collection is less restrictive.

all of this left me one card short of the dodger team set, and i should have that last card in hand soon. not that it's a big deal card (it's not) but it does provide fodder for a separate post. stay tuned!