bringing garvey back

there was a glimmer of hope in late 2020 that topps was bringing steve garvey back in to the fold of their products. first, the garv was included as a "members' vote" autograph card in the 2020 montgomery 582 release:

this card was such a surprise to me. if the design looks familiar to you, it may be because cardsthatneverwere has been using the design (a mocked-up 1967 design proposal) to produce custom cards for the last year or so. garvey had been completely missing from topps products in 2018 and 2019, and was included in just a small number of releases in the years prior to that absence. i don't know the ins and outs of retired player licensing, but it seemed as though he had aligned himself with panini, who included him in a large number of their releases each year.

still, i thought that since it was a "members' vote" that maybe this new garvey topps card was a one-off. then came the 2020 topps x super 70's set that also featured garvey., and he was also one of ten dodgers included on a 2020 topps tribute deca-relic/auto card that had three versions with low print runs. now, with the 2021 topps series 1 checklist out, i see that garvey once again appears, although it is only one card - an autographed card (with parallels) in the 70 years of topps baseball insert set. i'm not sure if topps has an old sticker auto supply, or if garvey is signing new stickers, but knowing that they've come to some agreement gives me some hope for more licensed garvey cards in the future.