sportlots filler

you may well be familiar with the "four if by sportlots" ongoing series of posts at sportscards from the dollar store although i think shipping woes may have dented his 4-card pwe pursuits as there hasn't been a fibs post in about a year. if you have ordered from sportlots, you know that four cards ship for the same price as two, and some sellers even charge less for shipping if you buy more than one card. i don't intend for this to be an ongoing post topic, but i figured i would share some cards that i have received over the last few months that helped me optimize shipping per card costs while also filling a need while not being the primary driver for any particular order.

perhaps the best card to demonstrate this fact is this 2001 topps chrome tampa bay devil rays team card

it may have become, someday, a specific target of an order, but this time i added it to an order because i had run out of other obvious options. the reason i wanted this card in my collection is due to the fact that former dodger bill russell is sitting in the front row, above the manta ray. he was a coach for the team for a couple of seasons. i have this card, and others like it, in my bill russell post-dodger collection.

sometime last year, sportlots partially revamped their website and added more image capabilities to the inventory hosted on the site. that improvement allowed me to find the next three tatooine cards while perusing "shopping cart seller" inventories for cards to add - 2010 bowman chrome jason kubel

2022 topps stadium club chrome paul molitor

2025 topps stadium club joe mauer

these next two are name/number on the back collection pick-ups - 2025 topps heritage danny jansen

and 2024 topps update willie mays autumn tales

i specifically searched for the jansen (i had a chrome sparkle refractor parallel but preferred the base) but found the mays by perusing willie mays cards by image. i am always interested in cards showing "the catch".

one of my go-to searches to fill out orders is fleer ultra gold medallion parallels. sometimes that gets me to add a base version, like this 2004 zach day card

day is pitching in dodger stadium, and his right hand is situated in front of the mural that recognized the long running dodger infield that i am so fond of. another go to within ultra is the 2004 preston wilson card

because it includes the steve garvey image from that mural. i want as many copies of this card as i can obtain. i believe i am up to a dozen now.

but, like i said, it's usually the gold medallion parallels that i add. in this case, i added a pair of dodgers from 2003

and one each from 1999

and 2004

i will also see if there are some new-to-me vladimir guerrero cards available from these sellers, and i recently picked up a 2025 topps archives black foil parallel

as a result.

usually, though, it's other dodgers that become filler. i am working on a post that i wanted to have some new-to-me dodger cards to use, so i sought out some topps tiffany cards. i needed to add a few more cards to the order, so i added fernando valenzuela's 1989 topps tiffany card

to help me get there. that post in question is scheduled for early july.

raul mondesi is a good source for order filler, as he has so many cards from the late 1990's that i don't own yet. here are a couple that i do own now - 1997 fleer metal

and 1998 upper deck special f/x

i also check out sets that i largely ignored in the past, like 1997 fleer circa. i've added greg gagne

and chan ho park

cards from that set in recent orders.

1999 fleer ex century is another one i've searched for cards from, and one shopping cart seller had todd hundley's card

available.

some other random dodgers i've added are a couple of black & white variations from 2004 bowman heritage

and a 2005 upper deck pros & prospects brad penny card

new hall of famer jeff kent's 2006 fleer ultra diamond producers insert 

was added to an order just after his election was announced, and this 2016 topps allen & ginter x alex wood card

was part of that same order. ginter x is another set that i will search since i don't see these cards anywhere other than on sportlots.

here's a 2020 topps heritage sticker preview insert of clayton kershaw

that was a random inventory find.

sometimes i will notice that a seller has some of the online only sets in their inventory and i will add some of those cards. these cards are from a couple of different 2022 topps x collaborations with bobby witt

and derek jeter

and then there is the 2024 chris berman collab.

i bought bert blyleven's card when the set was first issued because i liked that nickname, but i passed on the dodger cards in the set. well, when a seller has them for cheap and i can add a card or cards without increasing shipping costs, i will bite on even the silliest of cards. here are freddie freeman

and mookie betts 

from that set. these guys have nothing to do with berman or his baseball announcing, and the card backs make that pretty obvious

still, they are dodger cards.

one seller had some cards from the 2024 topps chrome lids mitchell & ness promotional set, so i bought the freeman card

that looks just like a 2024 topps chrome card. the back does designate it as a "lids" card

sometimes the cards are more basic, like this 2025 topps insert of teoscar hernandez

and this 2025 topps 1990 35th anniversary insert of betts

these are cards that i would have expected to find in a dime box at a show, but hadn't to that point so i paid slightly more to add them to an order.

the last card i will show is from 2025 topps chrome cosmic and it's kershaw's

thank goodness for secondary market sellers, otherwise i would never see this stuff.

one seller recently went above and beyond and included a vinyl sticker of ol' number 22

that is now on my water bottle.

it takes some effort to fill out orders, but it's much easier these days with the different filters that sportlots has made available. just be sure to have your want lists handy!

cey hey hey

after finding some cards from the jack brickhouse cubs playing card set at a card show earlier in the year, i made a point to seek out the one card from the set that i really wanted - ron cey's.

in a confusion of batman arch-enemies, the penguin was slotted in the set as a joker.

this was listed as one of my most wanted non-dodger cards, so i am happy to have it in the collection now. most of the oddball cey cards i still need are oversized or less interesting to me.  here's the back

which, of course, matches the backs of the rest of the cards in the set with jack brickhouse's signature exclamation. brickhouse's career did not overlap with cey's time with the cubs, as he retired in 1981.

with this one in hand, i've added davey lopes' 1987 topps sticker (also featuring kirk mckaskill) to the list. the pursuit doesn't end!

clubhouse presence

the theme of many of my posts over the last few months has been "focus". there are certain sets or inserts that i am paying closer attention to, given the fact that there are too many to acquire and a scattershot approach doesn't really resonate with me at the moment.

one of the inserts that i have chosen to focus on more is the "clubhouse collection" relics found in topps heritage releases. in recent years, steve garvey has been on the checklist, which got me thinking about other dodgers throughout the years. i already had some of these cards in my collection, but have spent some time over the last year or so to purposefully add a few more.

this is (obviously) an auto/relic clubhouse collection card featuring garvey

that comes from 2025 topps heritage high number. it is hand numbered (as clubhouse collection cards are) on the back

that is 1/25, as topps puts a line through the 7. i don't know anyone who writes the number 1 that way, but whatever. also, note the cartoon on the back:

looks like an early version of tcdb at work there.

2001 was the first year of heritage, and there were only a few relic cards included. the dodgers were represented, with shawn green being the subject

here's the back:

nice to see wes parker's name there! topps abandoned the writeups sometime in the 2010's as we will see in a bit. they also went away from the hologram stickers pretty quickly.

jumping to 2004, here's another shawn green relic

with the back:

with another cartoon related to baseball card collecting

the relics were pretty small in 2007, and while the green above was identified as "uniform", this duke snider

is more specifically "pants". here's the back

with a generic cartoon.

from that same year, we were treated to a rafael furcal bat card

that has the same generic cartoon on the back

he had a really good year for the dodgers in 2006, setting or matching career highs in several categories, but i guess topps felt that his previous history was more important.

here's a card from 2012 heritage - it's should-have-been 2011 mvp matt kemp

at this point, things are just referred to as "memorabilia". here's the back:

he really did have a monster year in 2011. i don't quite get the cartoon. 

i picked up another kemp card, this one from 2015.

and now we see the backs

having a very minimalist approach.

fast forward to 2023 topps heritage high numbers for this miguel vargas card

i do like that topps used the 1974 traded design for those cards. of all the ones in this post, this is the first one that i could easily identify the year that it belongs to.

same goes for this 2024 topps heritage high number dual relic of garvey and freddie freeman

it's numbered to 75 on the back

and, applying what we've learned, it's number 14/75. i don't know what the book of "relics" is that the cartoon is showing. is that someone's card binder that contains only relics? does anyone store their collection that way? i suppose there are some that do - my relics are contained within my year-by-year team collection or various player or mini-collections.

here's another dual relic card of the dodger first basemen of then and now.

it's from 2025 topps heritage high number and is numbered there on the front. the back is pretty generic

with no cartoon whatsoever!

this year, i've managed to pick up will smith's clubhouse collection card

with an even more boring back

while i could see the 1976 design elements on the 2025 heritage cards, these don't say 1977 to me other than the full white borders. the text is giving 1960's or early 70's vibes.

garvey has another dual relic in this release, and this time he shares space with smith and not freeman. here's the one i've been able to secure

now numbered to 77 to match the year. the back is as you would expect

i probably should have scanned or reposted other examples i have from other years of heritage, but i think this is enough. i'll continue to focus on these cards (i'd love to pick up one of the triple relic dodger cards out there) and am really looking forward to next year. i hope the design of the clubhouse collection cards then is more obviously showcasing the 1978 set design. stay tuned!