where has all the panini gone

about a month ago, i stopped in at twin cities sportscards to peruse their wares. i was really hoping that they would have some 2025 topps chrome platinum anniversary in stock (and better yet, busted), but they did not. they still had the nickel boxes and team sorted quarter/fifty cent boxes, however, so i spent a bit of time looking through those cards.

usually, this is where i find the panini and bowman cards that i add to my collection. it turns out that they don't get topps product directly for some fanatics-related reason. so, they have a lot of panini. anyway, even those releases seemed to be in short supply in terms of singles. i did find a 2025 panini prizm gil hodges blue ice parallel

along with a couple of base cards (2025 panini prizm and 2025 panini select) of dodger farmhand james tibbs iii

of course, these aren't dodger cards of tibbs. one is a san francisco giants card (the prizm)

and the other (the select) is a boston red sox card

tibbs was sent by the giants to boston in the rafael devers trade. the dodgers then picked him up in the dustin may trade, and now tibbs is raking in the minors. i am guessing he is going to be dealt later this month to yet another team (the tigers?) in a deadline deal.

i found some other cards, but not as many as i had hoped. so, i'll take this opportunity to fill out the remainder of the post with bowman and panini cards from my scanned folder.

this 2026 bowman mookie betts card

was a recent throw-in from an ebay seller.

these next several cards are remnants from a trade with sluggo from a couple of years ago. 

going back to 2018, here's a donruss card of corey seager

which is actually the blank back version

also from 2018, this donruss optic year in review card of cody bellinger

completed the dodger team set for me (there are two bellinger cards in this insert set)

here's a 2021 bowman cody bellinger 1991 bowman refractor insert

along with a 2021 bowman's best albert pujols refractor parallel

more 2021 panini stuff with a chronicles sandy koufax revolution groove parallel

a mosic cody bellinger will to win insert

a couple of mosaic reactive orange mosaic parallels of mookie betts and seager

a mosaic koufax all-time greats insert

and a prizm koufax old school insert

2022 was also well represented, with a freddie freeman bowman heritage image variation

a diamond kings pee wee reese short print

recognizable by the card number being greater than 100

a dk artist's palette trea turner insert

and a donruss walker buehler holo orange parallel

along with a donruss max muncy trending insert

a diamond parallel of a donruss turner hit list insert

a mosaic bang! turner insert

and a select cody bellinger phenomenon insert

this next card, a 2024 panini prizm don sutton orange pulsar parallel

was one that i purchased on ebay. it's numbered on the back

and, speaking of numbers on the back, one card that i did find at the shop was this 2025 panini select mariano rivera numbers insert

other than jackie robinson, rivera is probably the most iconic 42 in baseball. i love the concept of this recurring insert set, but i would do it a bit differently. i did get a kick out of the back

as panini throws some shade at hall-of-fame voters who think protecting the first ballot status by not voting for players is a noble cause.

i hope that the next time i visit this shop they have a bit more to dig through, but it was still a positive visit and good use of my time.

ring that bell

today is a good day to show juan bell's 1993 leaf card. especially the back

there are two bells there, in fact, making the card pretty meta. the liberty bell, as fans of the national treasure movies will tell you, was kept in the house of pass and stow (the steeple of what is now known as independence hall). you can see "pass and" on the card, but the big item that draws your eye is the crack which occurred in the early 19th century, well after pass and stow recast the original bell.

anyway, it's independence day and there are other cards that make sense to post. over the past few months, i've picked up a couple of topps' independence day parallels.

2022 has perhaps the lamest design - here's andre jackson

design aside, this card appealed to me slightly because it is numbered 01 out of 76

and it pairs nicely with this 2025 topps heritage high numbers evan phillips "color of the year" parallel

that is bookended at 76/76.

of course, this year is 2026 which makes it the country's semiquincentennial. earlier in the year, i was looking for cards that showcased the memorial patch that the brewers wore in 2025 to honor bob uecker and came across this isaac collins gold parallel

it is very patriotically numbered 1776/2026 on the back

and, while it won't represent the uecker patch in my collection, it is unique enough to land in my "meaningful and just because" collection.

semiquincentennial means 250th, and this tommy edman purple rainbow foil parallel

is numbered to 250 as most purple parallels are these days. however, this particular one is 250/250

and so is a semiquincentennial card in and of itself. 

more traditional 4th of july appropriate cards celebrate the red, white & blue, like this 2021 panini prizm justin turner parallel

although perhaps i should have turned it upside down.

and, last but not least, here is an independence day parallel from 2026 topps featuring blake snell

in recent years, topps has put more 'merica in the design of these. here's the back

jackie robinson number!

happy birthday america! i hope you survive another 250 years, but at least get through these next couple in a recognizable fashion.

o canada

some true patriot love today for the great white north as they celebrate canada day.

here's a 2023 bowman chrome wbc flag blue refractor variation of quebec's own edouard julien

formerly one of my favorite twins, julien now plays for the rockies. here's the back
which includes the serial numbering of 71/75.

happy canada day to all who celebrate!

this will do for now

i know - this makes two topps now posts in a couple of weeks. 

this one features more current cards than the bobby abreu card i showed earlier in the month, as i've made some purchases of 2026 cards so far this season. the first one was from opening day when the dodgers unveiled their 2025 world series championship placard at chavez ravine.

here's the front

which features dave roberts and shoehei ohtani, along with the first appearance of kyle tucker as a dodger on cardboard. i was not as much of a fan of the dodgers "gold" jerseys (and the hats? ugh) this year as i was last year.

here's the back:

i wound up buying three of these cards so that i could feed the dodger collection and the dodger stadium collection. these placards don't ever show up on cards, so this is a unique view of a dodger stadium element. before 2024, these were actual pennant shaped placards and way back in the o'malley days, they only had banners that they would attach to the outfield wall on opening day to celebrate the team's titles.

the third copy of the card goes in my steve garvey collection, as that is the dodgers' first baseman of my youth unveiling the 2025 placard along with fellow legend of dodger baseball, jaime jarrin.

a couple of other topps now purchases i've made this year include an impulse buy of konnor griffin's first card

interesting that topps capitalized "baseball" in the middle of a sentence. as for the card, it was the first one i saw that showed the bill mazeroski memorial patch (the "9" on griffin's left sleeve) but i am sure there will be better cards for that purpose in this year's update. i'll stash this card away and watch it lose what little value it has over the years to come. 

finally, i made my annual jackie robinson day purchase(s). first up is the jrd card which features aaron judge and shohei ohtani on the front

and andy pages on the back

i bought two copies so that i could have one in the dodger binder and one in my "42" mini-collection. i thought about a third card for the dodger stadium collection, but even though that is the chavez ravine outfield grass with the 42 mowed into it, i decided not to go that route.

one other card caught my eye from april 15, and it features padre (boo) jackson merrill. he made a nice catch and then had a big hit or something. on the bright side, we wound up with a card featuring 42 on the front

 and back

i've been to a couple of major league games recently, so perhaps there will be another topps now update in the future. stay tuned.

a loaf of bread, a container of milk, a stick of butter, and a rehabbing pitcher

i was reminded recently about an experience i had thirty years ago or so when i was living in orange county. a grocery run to albertson's one day resulted in a quick interaction with big league pitcher steve ontiveros. he was with the angels at that time, working back from injury, and we wound up in the checkout line at the same time.

to be honest, i don't recall exactly why i recognized him. i think it had something to do with me following mlb transactions very closely at that time as i was manually updating rosters in my ea sports tony larussa baseball pc game. it helped that he was wearing an oakland a's sweatshirt at the time. a head nod and a "good luck" later, i was on my way.

he doesn't have any cards that i know of showing him as an angel, so i've added this 1996 upper deck collector's choice card of his

to my "meaningful and just because" collection. him being an athletic on the card in my collection actually makes more sense, if you think about it. bonus point if anyone remembers what influenced the title of this post!