smooth sailing out of los angeles

as a team collector, i don't typically avoid dodger cards in bargain bins unless i am certain that i already own them. i do pause, however, when i find parallels of guys like dennis santana, which was the case at a show last year. i wound up bringing home these 2019 panini donruss optic and 2019 topps parallels

but i would have preferred them to be of a current dodger. 

santana seems to have found his groove in pittsburgh which makes me happy. the dodgers in recent years have been quick to jettison young talent that they have developed in exchange for other teams' talent. in santana's case, they dealt him to the rangers for a minor league pitcher who toiled in the dodgers' minor league system through last season, and is now a free agent. i get that they are dealing from a surplus, but i still appreciate the older dodger way that allows me to collect and cheer for "homegrown" players for an extended period of time, as with clayton kershaw or will smith.

other dodgers whose departures i understood but to some degree regretted include joc pederson 

that's a 2016 topps update 500 home run futures club insert. spoiler alert - joc won't get close to 500 homers, but he hit some big ones for the dodgers and i am glad he is no longer in the national league west so i can root for him a little more.

cody bellinger, seen here on a 2022 panini prizm illumination insert

and a 2022 topps 1987 insert black parallel

was another one that was tough to see move on in free agency even though his performance with the dodgers in his last years had not warranted a big contract. i hope he has a nice season for the yankees but is at home in october. i do think the game is more fun when the yankees are good, but i really want the blue jays to get another crack at a title.

i was ready to be a ryan pepiot fan, but adding a proven starter in tyler glasnow was a deal too good for the dodgers to pass up. pepiot's 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor

was the last one i needed for that dodger team set of parallels.

just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced by the rays that pepiot was headed to the il and replaced on the 40 man roster by michael grove, seen here on a 2023 topps chrome sepia parallel

grove is also injured at the moment. i was ready to be a fan of his as well, but now all i will have are random cards to find at shows.

another example of a short time dodger that had a lot of cards available for me to collect is miguel vargas. this is his 2024 topps yellow parallel

and i am sure i will be finding vargas dodger cards in bargain boxes for years to come. will i buy them? time will tell. adding tommy edman and michael kopech in the trade that sent vargas to the white sox was a great move by the dodger front office, so i hope that vargas finds his way in chicago and lives up to a bit of the hype that surrounded him in his earliest dodger days to pay back that championship level deal that is currently a bust for the sox.

gavin stone, seen here on his 2023 topps chrome update refractor

and landon knack, shown on his 2025 topps gold parallel

are still dodgers as of now. they are both on the injured list, and who knows what will happen once they are healthy. there's not a lot of room on the pitching staff at the moment, so it's possible that these two become trade bait once they prove themselves healthy. i hope not, especially knack who i like, but i get it if it is the case.

and then there are guys like dalton rushing. 

his 2025 panini donruss card is one of many that i already have of him, and who knows how long he will be a dodger? blocked by his fellow university of louisville alum will smith, who is signed to a long-term deal, and too good to be in triple-a, he's not getting a lot of playing time. so far this year he is playing very well when he does play, but is it just enough to entice another team to make an offer that fills a different dodger need later in the season?

we will have to wait and find out who will join the likes of santana in the former dodger makes good elsewhere camp, and then subsequently haunts the bargain boxes and collections of team collectors like me.

51 retired again

the seattle mariners are retiring number 51, again, tonight. it was retired last year for ichiro, and now they are going to recognize the "other" 51 in franchise history, randy johnson. i've had his 2022 topps stadium club chrome xfractor

at the ready for this event, and it is now tucked away in my retired number collection.

johnson was part of the mariners' core in the 1990s that secured the club's future (now present) in seattle when there was concern about the viability of the franchise in the pacific northwest. along with ken griffey jr, edgar martinez, and jay buhner, johnson led the team to their first postseason berth in 1995 and the funding for a new ballpark was committed shortly thereafter.

johnson sits at or close to the top of many mariner all-time franchise pitching leader lists, with felix hernandez the only one surpassing him in many of those categories. of course, hernandez made 145 more starts as a mariner than did johnson.

the mariners' number 51 is the latest number to be retired by a single franchise for multiple players, joining the yankees (number 8 for bill dickey and yogi berra), the expos (number 10 for rusty staub and andre dawson), the cubs (number 31 for greg maddux and fergie jenkins), and the a's (number 34 for rollie fingers and dave stewart). i would expect the angels' number 27 (mike trout and vladimir guerrero) to join that list someday.

rogers over and out

earlier in the year i posted about an update to my 1978 topps master set and the representative parallel variations from 2022 topps archives within. if you avoided the link, the gist was that i had added a trevor rogers parallel to replace one of mackenzie gore, and so my parallels were then all represented by either rogers or alex kirilloff. 

since then, i've gone full rogers by adding a red parallel

numbered to 75

a silver parallel

numbered to 99

and an orange foil parallel

numbered to 15

each card replacing a kirilloff example in my collection.

by going exclusively with rogers, i was able to also add a design/color variation (the border and team name text are flip flopped, and the rookie cup was added)

as well as a silver parallel of that variation

also numbered to 99

which were not available in kirilloff form. i did have a spencer torkelson design variation, but didn't have any of the design variation silver parallels. 

i continue to add to my 1978 topps master set when the opportunity arises, and i like having the same player being the subject of the parallel examples from 2022 topps archives. i will probably try to do the same next year with 2027 topps heritage.

i can make it make sense to a point

i learned a couple of weeks ago that the mets plan to retire number 15 in honor of carlos beltran later this season. i don't have any qualms about that, just as i have no issue with the reds retiring number 14 for pete rose. what i didn't quite get is how the mets decided to honor beltran after firing him as their manager following the disclosure of his major role in the astros' 2017 cheating scandal. he wasn't worthy of managing the club, but he is worthy of this recognition? 

well, it's actually not that different from rose's situation, as his managerial status (and his career with major league baseball) came to an end when he accepted his ban in august of 1989, and was later honored with his number retirement in 2016. i know that rose was consistently revered in cincinnati and not shunned by the reds despite breaking the cardinal rule of baseball. maybe it has been that way with beltran in queens. 

what is clear is that the honor, which includes induction into the team's hall of fame, recognizes beltran's stint as a player for the mets which were among the best seasons of his career. as i am sure you are also aware, beltran will be inducted into cooperstown this year and will wear a mets cap on his hall of fame plaque.

at any rate, it looks like it will happen so i am adding his 2008 topps card

to my retired number collection. or i will once the ceremony takes place in september. what i don't quite understand is how beltran will be in the national baseball hall of fame, while barry bonds, roger clemens, and alex rodriguez will not. make that make sense.

compelled to completion

i logged on to tcdb earlier in late march and took note, for the first time i believe, of the "oh,so close" section of the home page. what caught my eye was that it was a dodger card that was needed to complete the image database for 2017 topps chrome refractor parallel checklist, and it was that of andrew toles. i thought that maybe i could help out (i've uploaded a few images over the last couple of years) but as it turned out, i did not own the toles refractor card.

it was one of three chrome refractor parallels missing from my dodger collection, so off to sportlots i went. a few days later, voila!

by this time, another user had already uploaded the card image, but this was not for naught. accompanying toles was adrian gonzalez in refractor form

and a couple of days later, an ebay purchase of cody bellinger's refractor arrived

this completes my team set of the base refractors from 2017 topps chrome, and it's a good thing for my collection that bellinger has settled into a level of performance below his 2019 campaign. i can't imagine what this rookie refractor was going for back then.

over the last year or so, i've added a couple other bellinger rookies - 2017 bowman high tek

and 2017 bowman platinum rookie radar

but his 2017 bowman chrome base card remains one of my "nefarious 9" - my most wanted cards. 

i don't have all of the dodger refractor cards from 2017 topps chrome scanned, but i do have a bunch of joc pederson refractors to refer you back to! who knows where the inspiration to complete a team set will come from next? i sure don't, but i'll keep my eyes open.

i remain unsetisfied - 1978 topps signed edition

i have a saved search for 1978 topps signed cards. i have no intention of completing the set in autographed fashion, but there are a few cards that i wouldn't mind adding to my effort, and after the national last year where i failed to fully peruse one vendor's wares, i felt the itch to add to this collection.

over the course of the last few months, i've added 36 cards to the collection. this put me over the two-thirds mark for the set, as i now have 501 unique cards signed out of 726, and 547 total cards signed. anyway, here are the new cards to share:

ron guidry

i had tried to get guidry via ttm a couple of times with no success, so i went the third party route. once i added this card, i decided i wanted to get to 66.7% which meant at least 18 more cards to track down.

the next card i added was ken brett's

brett passed away in 2003 and i was surprised to see this card for a pretty low price. his '78 topps card was well known in my neighborhood because of the back

he was good for a dinger when we played the game using card backs.

rick rhoden

i have a rhoden ttm signed card as part of my dodger collection, but i didn't have a second one for the (semi) set build. the only other dodgers i need a second signed card of are johnny oates and ted martinez.

i'd like to get as many of the manager cards in the set as i can, so i added a few more in this endeavor. here's bobby cox

i guess that could be his signature. it's a leap of faith with many of these, and i was sure to not spend too much on this one in particular.

bob lemon

i am pretty confident about this one, which was one of the cards i most wanted to add.

gene mauch

danny ozark

earl weaver

i think the only managers i still need are vern rapp and darrell johnson. nope. i just checked and i also need herman franks, sparky anderson, chuck tanner, and billy martin.

mike flanagan

mark fidrych

two guys gone too soon

for some reason, the tigers featured a lot of players i either didn't try or don't sign ttm. so, here's chuck scrivener

and fernando arroyo

brian downing

doesn't sign at all these days from what i can tell. i have his certified auto from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams, but was glad to add this card.

amos otis

as with guidry up top, i had tried to get otis ttm but was unsuccessful. one of my favorite lines from ted lasso was "way to notice, amos otis".

jamie quirk

and jim slaton

represent the brew crew

with this bombo rivera card

i am just three cards away from having the full twins team set signed.

marty perez

is good to have, but the a's i really wanted were mitchell page

and manny sanguillen

i would be absolutely giddy if i were able to find a willie crawford signed 1978 topps card.

right after sandy alomar sr passed away, i picked up his signed card, along with three of his teammates

tom paciorek

the former dodger signed a 1974 topps card for me in a private signing, but i didn't send his '78 card, prioritizing a dodger card over this effort.

bill plummer

from what i can tell, plummer signed all of his 1978 cards the same way in the same place

pepe frias

love the shiny jacket that the then-future dodger was sporting

stan bahnsen

the former rookie of the year reminded me and my friends of lenny from laverne & shirley

bob davis

like plummer, all of the bob davis signed cards i've seen make use of his bat

pat scanlon

came from a seller who also sold me a dave freisleben signed 1978 topps card, except he sent a 1976 card

by mistake. i was refunded so no harm no foul

freddie patek

was one i really wanted for the set, and he doesn't sign. i also added the stolen bases league leader card

but have no path i am aware of to have frank taveras sign it. i did find taveras' individual card

which features one of the more eclectic photos in the set. colors and stripes and netting, oh my!

tony perez

and fergie jenkins

were high on my list of players to add. i have a 1978 topps perez buyback auto from one of the archives releases, but am happy to have this loose version in my set.

finally, one of the cards i really wanted to add the most was that of bobby bonds

i settled for this one that is made out "to bill". there were a couple of authenticated bonds cards i came across, but the prices were high and the autos maybe not as bold. i have a couple of things signed by bonds, and the auto looked good to me with a reasonable price. besides, i figure if it's a fake, it wouldn't have the endorsement.

i wish that young gcrl had taken some 1978 topps cards to the hot stove events i attended as a kid instead of a ball that has now almost completely faded or an autograph book that is not as fun to flip through as a binder of cards.

i haven't added any new cards to this collection for a bit, but i am sure i will eventually get that itch again. stay tuned!