cards for christmas, but not the ones i expected

it's late january, so i may as well get this post up. i've been holding off in hopes that my secret santa cards would eventually show up, but it looks like the grinch prevailed this year. this is not a reflection on jon, who courageously hosted this endeavor again in 2019, but rather on the person who signed up, assumedly accepted cards from another, but failed to do their part.

still, i did receive some cards around the holidays, including some nice ones from kerry at cards on cards

those are some target throwback parallels of casey blake and manny ramirez from 2009 topps. it is a little weird that it has been so long since manny tore up the national league for the dodgers.

here's a more recent card, a 2019 panini donruss optic corey seager illusions insert

with the dodgers having shown interest in francisco lindor this offseason, it will be interesting to see what kind of year seager has in 2020.

also from 2019 is this perennial all-stars card of clayton kershaw from topps update

the photo here is from the 2014 all-star game at target field.

last card i will show from kerry is this 2019 topps fire walker buehler flamethrowers blue chip parallel

i am showing this card because it fits in nicely with some other cards i received for christmas.

santa was nice enough to put a couple of packs in my stocking, including a 2019 topps fire pack.  i did pretty well for a dodger collector, as the pack yielded this clayton kershaw en fuego blue chip parallel

as well as this kershaw and sandy koufax lasting legacies blue chip parallel

see? pretty good pack for a dodger collector. that doesn't happen to me too often.

i also received a ttm return right around christmas.  former yankee george zeber was kind enough to sign and return my 1978 topps card

i had sent out four 1978 requests earlier in the fall. they were the first requests i had sent out in quite a while, as i've pretty much exhausted the list of 1978 topps subjects who sign.  every once in a while, however, i will check sportscardforum and find a recent success for a player from that set that i hadn't noticed before. such was the case with zeber. zeber had two at bats against the dodgers in the 1977 world series, but i didn't hold that against him.

finally, i will show the last card that i purchased in 2019. it showed up just before new year's.

so that is a 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia padres team quads single relic spectrum card.  it goes straight to the steve garvey collection.

i've picked up a few cards so far in 2020, but am focusing primarily on the garvey collection and trying to finish my 1965 topps set. happy belated new year, everybody!

gaylord perry is in my hall of famer collection

gaylord perry was a ranger in the 1978 topps set, which is how i first came across his existence.  as a result, i was looking for an autographed card showing him in texas gear for my hall of famer collection.  at some point, however, i found this card - a 2003 topps finest finest moments autograph:

and decided that it should be perry's representative card in my collection.  here's the back:

while perry was a ranger on 1978 topps cardboard, he was a padre during the actual 1978 season.  as such, i followed his national league exploits that season through the box scores in the la times, and watched (on tv) him pitch in the last game of the season - a sunday tilt against the dodgers.  i can recall perry in the padre home uniform, and i remembered the game having some significance.  it was the game wherein perry recorded his 3,000th career strikeout (courtesy of joe simpson, who also became victim number 3,001 a couple of innings later).  perry was just the third pitcher to reach that milestone, following walter johnson and bob gibson.

so, it makes sense to have an autographed perry card showing him in the padre uniform.  it is even better that the card references the 1978 season, which was the year perry became the first pitcher to win the cy young award in both leagues, having previously won the award as an american leaguer in 1974.

i never saw perry pitch in person, but i did see him at a card show in orange county circa 1995. he and tom seaver were signing autographs, but i just stood back and tried to picture that man in brown and yellow as i remembered him from my youth.

here's my hall of famer collection as its been documented so far:

babe ruth - 2003 topps tribute world series edition world series tribute relic 351/425

honus wagner - 2001 topps tribute relics

dizzy dean - 2001 topps tribute relics

bob feller - 2001 topps archives

jackie robinson - 2004 topps clubhouse collection clubhouse relics

roberto clemente - 2005 donruss greats hall of fame souvenirs relic

warren spahn - 1999 upper deck century legends epic signatures

mickey mantle - 2000 upper deck legends legendary game jerseys relic

willie mays - 1997 topps willie mays reprints autograph

al kaline - 2001 fleer greats of the game autographs

duke snider - 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography hall of famers 144/250

hank aaron - 2004 topps originals 1979 topps all-time record holders rbi 03/32

frank robinson - 1995 upper deck autographs

harmon killebrew - 2000 upper deck legends legendary signatures

pee wee reese - 2001 topps tribute relics

jim hunter - 1998 donruss signature series significant signatures 0736/2000

gaylord perry - 2003 topps finest finest moments autographs

rollie fingers - 2018 topps archives signature series 1978 topps buyback 1/3

reggie jackson - 2018 topps tier one tier one talent autographs 19/60

steve carlton - 2018 topps five star career year autographs

mike schmidt - 2002 topps archives autoproof 1980 topps buyback 048/147

don sutton - 2001 fleer greats of the game

tony perez - 2004 fleer national pastime 2002 fleer greats authentic autograph buyback 30/59

dave winfield - 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography hall of famers 121/350

gary carter - 1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game autograph collection

paul molitor - 2016 topps museum collection archival autographs 021/125

bruce sutter - 2003 topps all-time fan favorites

jim rice - 2005 upper deck past time pennants past time signatures

andre dawson - 2000 fleer greats of the game autographs

alan trammell - 2001 fleer greats of the game autographs

pete rose* - 2018 panini flawless legendary signatures 15/25

barry bonds* - 2001 bowman heritage autographs

you can find the full list of hall of famers (and some not - yet) that i aim to include in this collection at my want list site.

*not currently a member of the hall of fame

a blogger's impact

trading is not the only way for bloggers to impact another's collection. by simply doing what we do - posting about cards - we can increase other's awareness of the vast multitude of cards that exist.  case in point, nick at dime boxes recently showed a couple of cards as part of his second frankenset that i had not seen before.

one was this 2000 fleer impact edgar martinez card

and the other was this 2003 donruss team heroes mark ellis card

both cards were missing from my collection - the edgar is a sweet dodger stadium card, and the ellis is a double play turn - so i thanked nick and headed to sportlots to acquire these new found gems.

now, anyone who has shopped on sportlots knows that there is a temptation to maximize the return and add cards to the shopping cart to optimize the shipping costs.  even with the "box" option, many sellers offer decent shipping costs for multiple cards.  so, i decided to try to finish up a team set or two.

i settled on 1999 fleer tradition, and added the dodgers that i was missing from my setl

kevin brown

not a padre anymore.

antonio osuna

angel pena

jeff shaw

gary sheffield

and devon white

even with these cards, i still had room in my cart for a couple more without increasing the shipping cost.  so, i went to comc to browse images from the set, thinking that there may be a dodger stadium or double play card or two from another team that i could add.

one of the cards i came across was this charles johnson card

cj is an oriole in name only - he's wearing dodger blue, so i added it to the purchase.

i knew already that there were quite a few cards in the set that featured images taken in dodger stadium. because i needed a few dodgers, i filtered my search at comc by team to see if any of those cards featured a dodger stadium shot.  as a result, i picked up another copy of jeff shaw's card, but not gary sheffield's. that's because i didn't turn the card over until it arrived,

so it wasn't until then that i saw the '1965' behind him from the world championships mural. oh well.  i did pick up a second copy of eric gagne's update card for my dodger stadium collection

as well as a second card of eric weaver from the base set

i found a few other dodger stadium cards featuring players from visiting teams, like chris peters

masato yoshii

larry walker

the gagne card actually shows the 1999 murals in the background which were based on the heroes patches that the players wore that year. the weaver, peters, and yoshii cards show the 1959 championship in the background, with don drysdale appearing towards the edge of yoshii's card (the murals also included retired numbers). walker's card shows sandy koufax on the wall.

the murals weren't the only part of dodger stadium on display. here's jon lieber 

and jay powell

at the dugout rail. i always appreciate seeing a dodger usher in the background like on that lieber card.  interestingly enough, i already had the warning track parallel of the powell card in my collection, but not the base.

here's dante bichette

chillin' and maxin' in the golf cart he spent all day waxin', hanging out in front of the old dugout level seats.

and here's future dodger hitting coach turner ward

bringing good gum game to chavez ravine as a player.

i know that i will likely never have all of the dodger fleer ultra inserts, so that is a good place for me to look when i am adding cards to the collection. i wound up grabbing two copies of roger cedeno's 1996 golden prospects card.

one for the team set, and one for the dodger stadium mini-collection. i like the aerial view on the front.

so now we are getting to the double play portion of the post. 1999 fleer tradition did not disappoint as i was able to add a few new cards to my collection.

unfortunately, sportlots does not usually have images, especially for 20-year old base.  so, while i ordered a nm copy of abraham nunez's card, i received this jacked up version

it's miscut and suffers from offset printing. maybe i'll try to flip it and pick up a better version. i know some folks out there collect these sorts of printing errors.

other new-to-me double plays included this alex gonzalez card

plus a couple featuring miguel tejada - his card

and that of darren lewis

next up are a couple of tatooine cards - brant brown

and andres galarraga

i think galarraga's name is a good anagram for a star wars character.  how about sendar ralagraga? sounds right to me.

finally, i added this mark loretta card to my card.

the future dodger is shown in front of jackie robinson's retired number, which makes it a great add to my mini-collection.

in all, i picked up around 30 cards with this sportlots purchase that was spurred on by just a couple of cards nick posted. it was not the first time and won't be the last time that another blogger impacts my collection in this way, so thank you to everyone posting about their cards and collections! i never know what i might find to add to my collection as a result.