it's 2022 somewhere

i've looked the couple of times i've been inside target in the last month, but i haven't seen any 2022 topps product on the shelves. i went to the monthly card show this past saturday and didn't see much of it there, either. one guy had complete sets, but i didn't see any singles or inserts in his various boxes of singles. there was one dealer who had some, but i decided not to dig in.

i did order a few cards from sportlots, with the first to arrive being this max scherzer rainbow foil parallel:

i was happy to see scherzer in series 1 which meant we would get a dodger card of him rather than a met card. an extra bonus was getting him in the city alternate uniform. i didn't mind the all blue look - better than the outfits the club wore occasionally in the davey johnson era - but the hats aren't the best. still, i like that this card captures a thing that happened in 2021. i did get scherzer's base card from a different seller's inventory:

along with another card of scherzer in the traditional dodger home uniform

dodgers abound on league leader cards, which seven-year old gcrl would freak out about. from the moment i first saw league leader cards in 1978 until don sutton finally marked the dodgers' return to the subset in 1981, i was obsessive about the stats in the sunday paper and how dodger players stacked up against the league leaders. 

i figure i will eventually complete this team set, but i limited my dodger haul in these orders to justin turner's rainbow foil 

and base

and a couple of clayton kershaw cards. his base

and his welcome to the show insert

i am underwhelmed by this card. it is more about what he did prior to being called up 

than his actual debut, and maybe that is the same for all the cards. it does look like a photo from 2008, so maybe topps at least got that right. lord knows they still haven't fixed the card back orientation issues...