look mother's, no legs!

bonus mother's day post!

i've mentioned before that i will occasionally check in on cards that i need for my various player collections, and i did so a few months ago with dusty baker. i found a couple of cards for cheap and pulled the trigger. the first one comes from the 1991 mother's cookies giants set, and features baker amongst the rest of roger craig's coaching staff

when i first saw the card, i thought that dusty might have been added to the photo at a later date because there are only eight legs visible among five men. a closer look revealed ten feet and the understanding that dusty's legs are positioned behind those of norm sherry and wendall kim.

the other baker card i added was his 2002 topps home team advantage parallel

not much to say about it as it is one of the weaker parallels of the era.

the seller of these cards included a freebie - this 1987 mother's cookies dodgers alejandro pena card

it's a duplicate, but i have added it to my dodger stadium collection. there aren't a lot of cards that feature both the diamond vision screen over the left field pavilion and the scoreboard over the right field pavilion, but this card does just that!

later, i added another card from the 1991 giants set.

i don't pc mark leonard; instead i was looking for a good example of the retired number placards at candlestick park. this card was the best i could find in terms of clarity and quantity of the placards. in the background we see christy mathewson, john mcgraw, bill terry, carl hubbell, and willie mays. mel ott's placard is behind leonard. i've added this card as a sort of header to my retired number collection, to go along with a couple others that show how other teams do it. i'd like to find cards showing the murals that the white sox and braves used to have, so if you know of any please help a blogger out!

cards made for this weekend

i was scrolling through my scanned folder last month and saw this card - technically the card back

it's a may 10th card!

actually, it's a 2017 topps archives snapshots gold parallel card featuring ron cey

and i am glad that the photo used finally made it to cardboard.

here's another card that is appropriate for this weeked

that's a 2016 topps dodgers team card mother's day pink parallel. it's numbered to 50 on the back:

i hope those who are able to celebrate their mothers this weekend do so.

and, since we are all day-to-day, i'll go ahead and share a father's day blue parallel card that i picked up recently, too. it's pedro baez and his 2019 topps card

i think i prefer the backsplash tile to the honeycomb design effects when it comes to these topps flagship designs, but i appreciate both of the patterned borders when it comes to these sorts of color parallels.

enjoy the weekend!

west coast meet up and east coast mets down

i went to a mets game a week or so ago. taking advantage of some travel plans that had me needing to be in boston, i scheduled a stopover in new york and flew to laguardia. from there (or from my airport adjacent hotel) i headed over to citi field. this all means that i've added this 2024 topps city to city pete alonso card

to my "meaningful and just because" mini-collection as this was the first time i've ever flown into laguardia. not sure why - it is a fantastic airport (at least the terminal i flew in and out of) but it could be due to a recent renovation. i'd always used jfk in the past, but with this visit strictly intended to facilitate a stadium visit, laguardia was the correct choice.

before i get into the game and stadium, let me flashback to the day before the game. that day, i was in california at the tail end of a long weekend visit for fun. being in the bay area, i met up with fuji (again) and talked about cards and life over some in-n-out burgers - fuji's treat! we commemorated our visit with a photo of our wallet cards:

as part of our visit, which saw the conversation cover topics from early bloggers like mario and gellman to insurance for collections to the price of toploaders and to collectibles inspired by posts by others, i was able to hand over a stack of cards that i had been accumulating for mark, including this one - a 1997 bowman hideo nomo bowman's best international preview refractor

it was one of his most wanted, and one that i didn't have in my collection, either. however, i found a couple on comc for better than ebay prices and bought them both - one for me and one for fuji. it's a pretty nice card in hand, and i can see why he had targeted it.

the day after meeting with fuji, i continued on my trip and landed in new york in time to get to citi field. it was my first visit, and i took some time to walk around before going inside. the first gate i passed was the bullpen gate

which had emblems marking the club's two world series titles, three other pennants, and other various divisional achievements above it. i wonder how many teams celebrate wild card berths.

moving on, i turned the corner to head towards the jackie robinson rotunda that stands at the home plate part of the stadium. walking along what would be the right field line, the mets had light pole banners showing players from teams past and present. the past players were all ones who have had their numbers retired, such as gil hodges and jerry koosman

here's mike piazza and willie mays

and now jackie robinson and koosman again

the last one i saw had tom seaver paired with david wright

technically, wright's number 5 isn't officially retired at the moment, but it is scheduled to be later this season.

hanging off the stadium, they had other banners showing exciting moments from throughout mets' history. 

in the foreground there is twins legend johan santana who threw the first no-hitter in mets history, and you can see the endy chavez catch a few banners later.

hodges also has a gate named after him

and seaver has a statue 

between the stadium and the number 7 train platform. the home run apple

is next to the statue. this is the original one from shea, and there is a newer, larger one inside citi field as we will see shortly.

the rotunda

is a callback to ebbett's field, and it is full of jackie robinson references. you can see the images of robinson on either side of the interior

teamwork

makes the dream work, as they say. the los angeles coliseum makes an appearance along with jackie from his ucla days

which was nice to see. the famous photo of robinson and branch rickey is used for persistence, and courage shows jackie standing in front of ebbett's field, and you can definitely see the design influence that stadium had on this part of citi field.

i should have walked over to the other side to take a closer look at those photos, but i didn't. once i got up the escalators, the stadium concourse closed in pretty quickly, and i was greeted by the unmistakable scent of body odor. it seemed right.  i checked out the view from my seat

and took a closer look at the retired numbers hanging high above left field

there are numbers for darryl strawberry, dwight gooden, mays, keith hernandez, koosman, piazza, seaver, hodges, and casey stengel. the microphones are for broadcasters bob murphy and ralph kiner. the "shea" is for bill shea, who spearheaded the effort to bring an expansion team to new york after the dodgers and giants left for the west coast. and, of course, 42 is for jackie robinson. i sure hope the mets tend to these older numbers and spruce them up a bit before david wright's ceremony in august. or maybe it was just the way the light was hitting them?

there was still a fair amount of time before the game was to begin, so i decided to walk around a bit more before settling in.  my ticket

provided me access to a couple of lounges, so i made my way to one that was behind home plate (metro) in one of the upper sections. from there i could look out and see the billie jean king (partial dodger owner!) national tennis center complex, 

complete with arthur ashe stadium and louis armstrong stadium. in the foreground you can also see the seaver statue and the apple.

a few minutes after i arrived in this particular lounge, john franco showed up for a meet and greet.

i watched him interact with fans - signing, talking, and taking photos - but didn't pony up the fifty bucks to participate. i did talk to his "handler" a bit and told him that i did not think that rafael landestoy was worth the dodgers trading franco to cincinnati back in the early 1980s.

i made it back down to my seat a little bit before the game started. for some reason, john mayer threw out the first pitch.

i guess he and francisco lindor are friends. in other celebrity news, tom hanks was at the game, too. 

as i usually do, i took a photo of the first pitch

that didn't work, so here's the second pitch

what the heck. finally, i was able to get a photo of the fourth pitch of the game

david petersen faced off against eduardo rodriguez for the diamondbacks, with geraldo perdomo leading off for arizona. here's juan soto about to strike out in the bottom of the first.

francisco lindor took rodriguez deep in the bottom of the second, and i was late to capture video of the apple in action. here's the first part of what i got

pete alonso and starling marte also homered in the early innings, so the apple got some use! after a bit, i walked to a different part of the stadium, passing an area where the team recognized its hall of famers, including this foursome of rusty staub, jerry koosman, tom seaver, and ed kranepool who passed away late in the 2024 season. 

the team is wearing a memorial patch for kranepool this year (you could see it on lindor's left sleeve in the video above). the next lounge i went to was the hudson market which was in the left field corner. this reminded me of the stadium club at dodger stadium, but it was bigger and had more food options. it also had tiered seating areas. 

there were a lot of people in here watching the knicks game on tv.

in the end, the mets won 8-3. nothing too spectacular happened, so there were no topps now cards to be chased down - at least on the following day. i did see this card

added to the site two days later, so i ordered one for the games i've seen mini-collection. it's too bad that there were no topps now cards for other first pitches or pre-game appearances i've witnessed including ronald reagan, kenny rogers (the singer, not the pitcher), barry manilow, and debbie gibson.

i did like the stadium, although it felt really crowded when i was in my seat. i suppose that comes down to who you are sitting near. it was fun to hear the crowd continue to sing "my girl" (lindor's walk up song) after his at bats began and the recorded music had stopped, and the early (and often) scoring had the fans in to the game almost from the get go. overall, it would most likely rank in the top half of stadium visits i've made.

and, if all that weren't enough, after a couple of days in boston for work, i made it to fenway to see the twins take on the red sox. it wasn't my first visit to fenway, so i won't show a bunch of photos. i did take a picture of the retired numbers

as there have been some additions since my last visit 21 years ago. i believe the numbers are in order of their retirement (other than jackie robinson's number), with david ortiz (34) being the most recent. the others are ted williams, joe cronin, bobby doerr, carl yastrzemski, carlton fisk, johnny pesky, jim rice, pedro martinez, and wade boggs. dwight evans isn't up there, but he was at the game and was given a nice video tribute. i have a dewey post in the hopper a couple of months from now. one more note about numbers - i appreciate the guy wearing the josh beckett jersey, but why add the name to the back? same with yankee fans wearing jeter jerseys that have his name on the back. beckett is a deeper pull than jeter, but adding the name when the teams don't wear names has a lack of authenticity and makes me think that you might be actually less of a fan. i've seen some dodger 42 jerseys with "robinson" on the back which makes me cringe. let me get down off of my high horse now.

the red sox are not wearing patches for the late luis tiant, but they do have a memorial placard for "el tiante" up below one of the light standards on the green monster

in the same design as the patch they wore for tim wakefield last year.

finally, here's the first pitch from brayan bello to trevor larnach.

the twins lost 6-1 when their bullpen faltered in the late innings. unfortunately, the most notable thing that happened in the game was a (likely) season ending knee injury to triston casas.

here's a 2019 topps citi field card (gold parallel)

that i've added to my "stadiums i've seen games in" mini-collection to represent my visit to flushing. i am now down to just five teams that i have yet to see at their home stadium - the tigers, yankees, pirates, phillies, and marlins. there are more than five stadiums to get to however, as the cardinals, a's, padres, and rangers all (permanently) play in a different facility than the ones that i saw them in previously.

i also bought a box of 2025 topps heritage at one of san jose's local card shops during my trip, but that will have to wait for a separate post.

thanks for the time and the burgers mark!

eighty lopes

today is davey lopes' 80th birthday. he is the oldest of the infield foursome that featured steve garvey, ron cey, and bill russell alongside lopes himself. the three other guys were all born in 1948, by the way. it's a big number for lopes, and reminds me that time waits for no man. here's my newest davey lopes card - his 2004 topps all-time fan favorites autograph

here's the back:

i've been somewhat focused on dodger archives and atff autos over the past few months after finding a ron cey auto at a card show for 3 bucks.

i am reminded that i missed another 80th birthday about a month ago. that would be lopes' teammates reggie smith and (the late) don sutton. they were both born on april 2, 1945 and so a belated happy birthday to "my" reggie.

i added a couple of items for those birthday buddies in a recent comc order:

those are their 1982 fleer stamps, and they are decent additions to my post-dodger collections of the two former dodger all-stars.

i think the oldest member of the 1978 topps dodgers is manny mota, who turned 87 in february, and i believe that rick monday will be the next to hit 80 - in november. today, however, belongs to lopes, and so happy birthday to the second baseman of the team of my youth!

1955 bowman complete through 184!

i'm back again with another update on my 1955 bowman set progress. three more sheets to share this time as we kick off the second half of the set.

sheet 21, cards 161-168

we are back on track with the side-by-side teammates, including yankees bob grim and larry "yogi" berra. yes, i know his name is lawrence, but the card back just calls him larry. here are the backs:

there is some good info on those backs. matt batts reveals that his childhood idol was lou gehrig, and charlie maxell relives the home run that he hit off of satchel paige. jim busby relives his near-cycle that beat the yankees, and bob grim shares that he always wanted to wear the pinstripes as a major leaguer. finally, we are reminded that berra, "one of baseball's best catchers", was the reigning american league most valuable player.

sheet 22, cards 169-176

four more teammate pairs, starting with the dodgers' carls - furillo and erskine.  here are the backs:

erskine tells us about a couple of world series games between the dodgers and yankees, including the one where he set the strikeout record for a single game. hall of famer robin roberts is not the first player in the set to vote for duke snider as the player who made the best fielding play they've seen. billy shantz also makes an appearance on his solo card after being featured on a card with his brother earlier in the set.

sheet 23, cards 177-184

what's going on here? this sheet isn't complete. well, it is - just wait for it. here are the backs:

johnny logan's card back is the highlight for me here, as i learned something by reading it. apparently there was a day when the braves finished a game against the reds and then played the cubs later that same day. the card doesn't give the date, but this was september 24, 1954.

as for those blank spots on the sheet, they are filled by a couple of players who maintain the teammate pairings. here's johnny logan's teammate hank aaron

aaron is card number 179. his was the first of the big four from the set that i picked up, and a psa 2 with a mark is good enough for me. here's the back:

not sure what the circled "3" means on the back, but it doesn't bother me in the least. having a second year hank aaron card is a trip.

here's card 184 featuring ray katt's new york giants teammate willie mays

say hey! for mays i went with a sgc graded card. it looks nice even though it's just a 1.5. here's the back:

mays truly was a five tool player to the max, and the card back outlines just how talented he was on offense and defense.

it's worth noting that there are 12 different teams represented here among these 24 cards, and with two of baseball's all-time greats, this is probably my favorite set post yet. let's see what the next post brings - stay tuned!