the rickey henderson memorial patch

it still seems very surreal that rickey henderson is no longer with us. 

rickey passed away on december 20, 2024 - just a few days shy of his 66th birthday. it was no surprise that the a's - the team that rickey was most closely associated with - announced that they would wear a memorial patch in his honor during the 2025 season. and, as some of the later-year card releases came out last year, i kept my eyes open for cards featuring the patch (a gold circular patch surrounded in green with "rickey 24" in green text).

one of the first cards i saw was nick kurtz's 2025 topps heritage high number card. the image used on his chrome parallels was a bit better, so i set aside this light blue sparkle refractor

the card also features the sacramento patch that the team (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly?) wore.

once 2026 topps heritage was released, however, i decided to put this jacob wilson dark gray parallel 

in the memorials collection. there's a lot going on on this card for sure, but the rickey patch is in a prominent spot on the card.

in related news, i pulled this insert from 2026 topps chrome

i am a fan of cards featuring a "past to present" type theme, and the fact that this card features rickey along with lawrence butler who is wearing the rickey memorial patch makes it a winner in my book. it's not going to replace the wilson card in the memorials collection, but it might find its way into my collection somewhere else.

i would also gladly add this 2026 topps dynasty kurtz card

to my collection, but i could not afford it even if the person who pulled it put it up for sale. i saw the image on a post by topps a couple of months ago. the only similar card i have is an orel hershiser relic from leaf that features part of the rangers' memorial patch for johnny oates (hershiser was a pitching coach for the rangers for a spell). it would be cool to have a card featuring a full memorial relic like this one.

anyway, rickey is missed.

i didn't pay for these cards at the card show

i posted about the july card show i attended a few posts back, and i mentioned that brian from highly subjective, completely arbitrary handed over some great cards to me that day. today is the day that i share some of what he had stockpiled for me and my collection.

in a surprise move, here's a non-dodger card to kick things off!

that is a 1994 ud collector's choice chris gomez gold signature parallel card. it goes in the double play collection, although it would also fit in the tatooine collection. i now have the trifecta of this card in the dp collection - base, silver signature, and gold signature.

a couple of 2023 topps big league cards - miguel vargas uncommon foil and tony gonsolin electric orange

only the gonsolin is a parallel, however, thanks to the dumb tiers topps put on a low end product. save that nonsense for topps finest if you must do it at all.

2025 topps allen & ginter kirk gibson mini

that is an allen & ginter back parallel

how about a roki sasaki 2025 topps chrome sepia refractor parallel? 

yes please and thank you very much!

i don't pay any attention really to bowman these days, so it's nice to see these cards in a trade package

these are the first 2026 bowman inserts that i have received and it will be a while before we know if either of these players make it to the majors.

brian claims to have some good dodger mojo when opening packs, and he handed over a "hit" in this 2026 topps alex freeland relic

as well as this 2026 topps heritage dalton rushing blue chrome refractor parallel

i was reminded by seeing brian again that he had also sent cards to me back in may, cards that were languishing in my scanned and unposted folder.

i'll start that round of cards with another blue refractor parallel, although this one has 125 fewer versions than the rushing above

that's a 2023 bowman sterling diego cartaya card numbered to 25. at one point, cartaya was ahead of rushing on the catching depth chart for the dodgers. these days, cartaya is in the giant organization and just turned 25 a couple of weeks ago. maybe he will make it to the show at some point down the road.

between brian and madding, i have a number of topps holiday oversized ornament die-cut inserts, with sasaki being the latest one from brian

that's from 2025 topps holiday, as is this mookie betts variation

and this hyeseong kim parallel

from 2025 topps stadium club, brian provided this kim insert

along with a concentration insert of world series mvp yoshinobu yamamoto

brian also went into the way back machine and produced this 2005 upper deck artifacts russell martin card

that's actually a "rainbow red" parallel, numbered to 50. i don't have martin's base card from the set (it's numbered to 799) so was very pleased to see this card in the package.

brian didn't stop there, however, as he also included chrome black refractors of martin

and paco rodriguez

from 2005 topps chrome update & highlights and 2013 topps chrome, respectively. brian is collecting topps chrome black refractors and so i appreciate him passing these along. the martin is numbered to 250 and paco is at 100

note that topps, at one time, noted on the back that the black refractor was, in fact, a black refractor. by 2013, it was simply noted as a refractor. these days, topps doesn't label them at all.

i am hoping to see brian next week at one of the two shows happening in the twin cities, and i'll have some cards of my own to hand over. thanks brian!

shining that blue light special on the 1982 kmart box set

back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, my brother and i would typically spend a weekend a month at our grandma's. she lived in the same town as us so we saw her frequently, but spending this time with her was fun for us and i am sure it gave our parents a break.

she lived down the street from a small corner market that happened to sell baseball cards, so we'd walk down on saturday morning and i would be treated to a few packs. it's a core collecting memory for me, along with the trips we would take to the local kmart on those same weekends. kmart was for toys - usually a bag of plastic dinosaurs or a hot wheels car - but in 1982, something else caught my eye.

seeing this boxed set at kmart blew my mind. the set celebrates the american and national league most valuable players from 1962 through 1981. 1962 was the year that the first kmart branded store was opened, and 1981 was the most recent year for which mvps had been named. a true 20th anniversary set! i had to have it, and my grandma obliged. i was in my fifth year of card collecting, but i was seeing many of the images on these cards for the first time. 

over the course of my collecting years, i've owned several of these complete sets but discovered recently that i didn't have any of them currently - or at least i couldn't find one. so, i bought a couple (bubble gum not included). one to preserve in a binder and one to mine for my 1978 topps master set. i decided to run through the set here on the blog and share my thoughts for posterity.

1962 - mickey mantle and maury wills

this was the first mickey mantle card i ever owned, and i felt like a real collector with a mantle card in hand. i was also happy and proud to see a dodger so early in the set. my local card shop owner was the one who let me know that the image on wills' card was not a real card from 1962 (i wasn't collecting in 1975, so i didn't know about the mvp card in that set that used this same image). kudos to topps and kmart for making this happen, although it should have been pretty easy since the image already existed.

1963 - elston howard and sandy koufax

back-to-back yankee and dodger dominance. i believe that i had a sspc koufax by the time this set came around, and i certainly had his cramer legends card and his albuquerque dukes pitching coach card, but this was the first card of his that featured an actual vintage topps design that i owned. today, koufax's 1963 topps card is the first of these actual cards that i own.

1964 - brooks robinson and ken boyer

i did not know anything about ken boyer before i saw this card, but eventually i learned that he had been a dodger later in the 1960's. i knew a lot about brooks robinson, however, as he was featured in the 1978 topps set that i collected passionately and studied endlessly.

1965 - zoilo versalles and willie mays

versalles was the same to me as boyer - a guy i didn't know anything about who eventually became part of my dodger collection. i knew a lot about mays, though. i had read up on him and had heard some about him from my dad who had seen him play during his first years in california. i was such a fan of mays at an early age that i almost purchased his 1966 topps card at my very first card show in 1979. i own both of these actual 1965 cards as part of my 1965 topps complete set.

1966 - frank robinson and roberto clemente

by the time this set was released, i was aware of frank robinson's 1972 topps high number card showing him as a dodger. i didn't own it, but i was aware of it. i was also well aware of roberto clemente and his story as i had written an essay about him for school in 1979. i own the 1966 frank robinson card as part of my sampler sets (1966 sampler to be posted at some point in the future).

1967 - carl yastrzemski and orlando cepeda

this is the first year to not include a dodger or "future" dodger. i knew about yaz, as he was in the 1978 topps set (with an all-star shield) but i didn't know about cepeda. yaz is the first player featured in the set who was still active when the set was released.

1968 - denny mclain and bob gibson

i was aware of these two pitchers prior to owning this set, thanks to mclain being the last pitcher to win 30 games and gibson having that dominant 1968 season. i remember learning about don drysdale's scoreless streak from the 1968 season and then being amazed that gibson had an even better season.

1969 - harmon killebrew and willie mccovey

repeat teams from 1965! killebrew's 1974 topps card was one of the first "vintage" (for me, pre-1978) cards i ever owned, and i believe i owned it before this set was released. mccovey, of course, was in the 1978 topps set, and i saw him play in person more than once prior to this set being released. what i remember the most was watching him in batting practice. he hit the ball real hard.

from here on, i own the actual cards of the mvps as part of my topps flagship complete set run.

1970 - boog powell and johnny bench

my birth year mvps. i didn't know too much about boog (another "future" dodger following his mvp era years) but johnny bench was a big deal to me and my neighborhood friends. like yaz, he had the all-star shield on his 1978 topps card and the reds were a primary competitor of the dodgers in the nl west back then. 

1971 - vida blue and joe torre

this is the first year to feature players who were both in the 1978 topps set (although torre was featured as the mets' manager). i was in the midst of "billy ball" fever in 1982, and was collecting vida blue cards with a passion, along with those of sal bando, joe rudi, jim hunter, reggie jackson, and the rest of the a's back to 1965. while i completed the runs of most of those team sets, reggie's rookie card eluded me and really helped put an end to my efforts. i did have all of vida blue's cards, however, including this fantastic 1971 release. of all of the cards shown reproduced here, that 1971 card was the first one of which i owned the actual card.

i'll cover the next decade of cards in a future post. stay tuned!

seen your stadium

i have lived in the twin cities for almost 30 years, and in that time, i've been to the st. paul saints' stadium(s) four times. only three of those times were to see a baseball game - twice at their current ballpark (chs field in downtown st. paul) and once at their old home, midway stadium. 

that game at midway, in 2003, happened to feature minnie minoso leading off for the saints, making him the first player to appear in a professional baseball game in seven different decades. it was also lucky charms hat giveaway night, brought to you by local conglomerate, general mills.

a few months ago, i came across a card from the 2014 saint paul saints team set that featured midway (as it was in its final season), and i bought it as quickly as i could

here's the back

i've added it to my "stadiums i've seen games in" collection. i've mentioned being at that game with minoso in the lineup a couple of times . i thought that my dad might have some pictures of minoso from the game, but i haven't seen or found any. maybe some will turn up at some point.

the other time i went to midway stadium was for what turned out to be the final event held at the facility twelve years ago yesterday. 

the replacements, or at least original members paul westerberg (a noted twins fan) and tommy stinson, had reunited and this was their final hometown concert. the post title is a nod to their song "seen your video" which they did not play, but it was still a fantastic show - much different than the drunken show i saw the band play back in 1989 - and i was so happy that i had gone. they were my favorite band and probably still are today, although there are others that have always been around the top of that list as well. show openers lucero and the hold steady were great, too, with this being the second or third time i had seen the hold steady live.

in other stadium on card related news, i picked up a few more ticket stub cards from 2009 topps ticket to stardom. here's a chad billingsley ticket stub card

featuring a 2008 dodger game stub showcasing dodger stadium and one of its many parking lots. the dodgers were celebrating 50 years in los angeles with a variety of player accomplishments and events on their tickets, and this stub actually notes that the club was the first to have 3,000,000 fans attend during a single season

i am happy to say that i am a part of that number! here's the back:

i've been to dodger stadium a couple of times for non-baseball related activities. in the 1990s, i saw u2 perform during the zoo tv tour, and i also saw eric clapton and elton john when they toured together. for the clapton/john show, we were on the field and i took the opportunity to wander around the field and scoop up some dirt from the infield where guys like jim gilliam, jim lefebvre, davey lopes, and steve sax played. i still have that dirt in a film cannister.

i added another billingsley card, but this time it goes in my steve garvey collection rather than the dodger collection. see if you can figure out why

it's the same number, but obviously a different stub.

garvey had a pretty good season in 1974.

another card i bought is jake peavy's dual relic/ticket stub card

which also features a garvey stub from a different game. here's the back:

the last of these cards i bought is a todd helton card. i'll show the back first

it's another big ticket stub card, but instead of featuring the stadium or garvey, it has ron cey on it

and that's how a colorado rockies card made it into my dodger collection.

with the rangers having a new stadium (and the a's about to) since the last time stadiums got their own cards, i am hoping that topps does another round of stadium-themed cards. stay tuned, i guess.