he's championship material

if you had told me back in 2005 that the dodgers would win the world series in 2020 and there would be world champion relic cards issued the following year, i would have told you that i would own several of those cards. the truth, however, is that i own none. a big part of that is how irrelevant i find most relic cards to be these days. back in 2005 i was still intrigued by them.

i used to buy a couple of boxes of each series of topps flagship each year, and my guaranteed hit in one of my 2005 series 2 boxes was this world champions bat card of dave roberts

roberts began the 2004 season as a dodger but was traded to the red sox at the july 31 deadline. he had stolen 33 bases up to that point of the season and been caught only once. he had worked with maury wills since becoming a dodger to improve his base stealing skills, and said that maury once told him that there would come a time where he would have to steal a base even though everyone in the stadium knew he was going to run.

that moment came for roberts in game 4 the 2004 alcs against the yankees.

the card back spills the beans, but roberts did, in fact, steal a base in that game. it came in the bottom of the 9th, with the red sox down 3 games to none and facing elimination. leading the red sox by a run, mariano rivera walked kevin millar to open the inning and roberts was sent in to pinch run. he stole second on rivera's first pitch to bill mueller and scored on mueller's single on the next pitch. that tied the game and set the stage for david ortiz to walk the yankees off in extra innings.

you know all that, of course, but i can't look at this card without reliving such an exciting half inning that gave lots of fans a glimmer of hope that the yankees would be denied another trip to the world series.

roberts, of course, was the dodger manager when they won it all in 2020, and even though he doesn't have a card in the 2021 topps world champions relic insert set, i suppose i should probably look for a card of a different dodger for the memories it would trigger down the road.