some favorites on card autos

i decided at some point in 2024 to seek out autographed cards of my favorite non-dodgers of the year. i have a card for each player representing the season in which they were my favorite, and i already have autograph cards of my favorite dodgers scattered throughout my dodger and steve garvey collections, and some of my non-dodger favorites were already in my hall of famer collection with autographed cards or in a couple of cases, other parts of my collection. still, there were a couple of non-dodger favorites that i was missing and in the end, i decided to add a new autograph for each member of this group to keep with my year-to-year favorites card collection.

i've finally finished this effort, so without further ado, here are the cards that i added for all of my yearly non-dodger favorites, from don baylor to byron buxton.

don baylor (1978-1979): 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph

baylor had a monster year in 1979 and led the angels to the postseason for the first time. however, i was already a big fan of pete rose, and i switched my favoritism to him starting with the 1980 season.

pete rose (1980-1982): 2016 panini pantheon milestone scripts /25

rose was the first of my favorite players - dodger or non-dodger - to win the world series as a favorite of mine. i definitely wanted this card to be from rose's philly days, and i was happy to find it for a pretty decent price (this was before rose passed away). i can remember a lot about the phillies' win over the royals to this day. once my favorite dodger left los angeles, however, i dropped pete like a hot potato.

steve garvey (1983-1987): 1999 fleer sports illustrated autograph

i now have three of these particular autograph cards in my collection - one in this one, one in my garvey collection, and one in my collection of cards featuring games that i've attended in person. garvey took the padres to their first, and his last, fall classic during this stretch where he was my favorite non-dodger. i held out hope that he would return in 1988, but he went unsigned (collusion? he thought so) and accepted the padres' offer to retire his number early in the season. with rose also retired, i moved on to another longtime favorite, and elevated him to the top spot.

paul molitor (1988-1994): 2025 topps chrome world series champion autograph /100

like rose, molitor won a world series while he was my favorite non-dodger, and i was happy to be able to land this card celebrating his title with the blue jays in 1993. i followed molitor closely until he retired, but after the strike, i did a bit of a reset, and switched my favorite to a different blue jay.

shawn green (1995-1999): 1999 topps autograph

when green joined the dodgers, i turned to my favorite of the american league shortstop triumvirate.

nomar garciaparra (2000-2005): 2023 topps finest autograph

nomar joined the dodgers which was fun for me but meant i needed a new favorite non-dodger. vladimir guerrero (my son was becoming an angels fan at this time) answered the call.

vladimir guerrero (2006-2007): 2025 topps finest creators autograph

the hometown team won out in terms of my son's fandom, so i switched my non-dodger favoritism to local hero joe mauer.

joe mauer (2008-2018): 2022 topps museum collection archival autograph /50

with mauer retiring, a former favorite dodger took over.

matt kemp (2019-2020): 2019 topps heritage real one autograph

kemp retired after the 2020 season, and i decided to go younger with my favorite for 2021.

fernando tatis jr (2021-2022): 2020 topps tribute iconic perspectives autograph /99

i stuck with tatis through his suspension before i realized that i was really paying more attention to the twins' center fielder.

byron buxton (2023-present): 2021 topps five star autograph blue parallel /25

that buxton card is pretty cool - 25/25 and all that. plus he raised his name to the 25th power!

i don't see anyone unseating buxton in the near future unless he retires. when healthy, he is a beast and he is always fun to watch.

i'll note that i also picked up another dodger autograph of nomar garciaparra - a 2016 topps archives signature series /6

this 2006 topps updates & highlights card was nomar's first and last topps flagship card as a dodger. he was included in most other 2006 topps releases (plus 2007 topps cosigners), but i was eagerly anticipating his update card. it turned out to only be an all-star card which i thought was weird at the time - not giving him a base card as a dodger. anyway, here's the back:

nomar was my favorite dodger that year, but was supplanted by matt kemp in 2007. 

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.