an update at the end of the season

well, congratulations to old friend dusty baker for adding a world series championship to his managerial resume. i am very happy for him!

with the astros' win, the 2022 baseball season comes to an end, but there are still a number of key baseball card releases (stadium club and allen & ginter to name a couple) coming up. one of the more recent issues was the annual update series that i have been looking forward to quite some time. the main reason for this is that the 2022 all-star game was held at dodger stadium and i was looking forward to some great looking cards as a result. i wasn't disappointed, although i will hold off on showing those cards for the time being.

when i looked at the checklist a week or so before my box arrived, i saw that clayton kershaw had a highlights card in the set. i was really hoping that the event that the card was focused on was his 7 perfect innings performance in minnesota back in april. that was not the case.

instead, the card celebrates his passing don sutton on the dodgers' all-time strikeout leaderboard. that's a big deal for dodger fans like myself who grew up with sutton as the ace of the staff. i do take some consolation in that this card uses a photo from kershaw's start against the twins, so i will for sure put a duplicate in my "cards featuring games i've attended in person" mini-collection.

similarly, these three twins cards

feature photos from the two games i went to that pitted the twins against the dodgers. i was hoping for a josh winder rookie debut card, since that occurred on april 12 against the dodgers, but topps used a photo from that game on his regular rookie card. chris archer was the twins' starter on april 12 and chirs paddack took the bump against kershaw on the 13th.

those three cards are what update is all about - veterans on new teams and a rookie who spent most of the season with a team. for the dodgers, it was nice to get a card of tyler anderson

even as i was surprised to not see trayce thompson included on the checklist. i guess his double dipper post will have to wait.  here are more of the dodger base cards

guys like dustin may and tony gonsolin have no business being in update. but, with the number of rookies topps puts in series 1 and 2, there isn't any room for the back end of the rotation guys.

combo cards are included, as always, and new dodger freddie freeman makes an appearance on one

as to the angels' mvp duo of shohei ohtani and mike trout

i feel like this has been an annual thing to see these two guys on a card in update since 2018

i showed freddie freeman's base dodger card up above, and i was quick to pick up two of his photo variation card

thanks to the dodger stadium background.  i also sought out his 1987 insert

because it wasn't one of the six in my box. instead, these were the ones that i found:

i am keeping a few base cards for myself, including this tyler mahle card

that shows him pitching in dodger stadium. in a perfect world, mahle would have been in this set as a twin since that's who he pitched for after the trade deadline. i guess the deadline for topps is right after the all-star game for this set.

i found a couple of double play cards, too

and, of course, the bigger name rookies

there were some interesting cards that i've paired up, like these two albert pujols cards:

that base card would have made a fine final tribute card in next year's flagship. i would be shocked if he were not a part of series 1, but stranger things have happened.

here are a couple of checklist/highlight cards in the same vein as the kershaw card up top

100 home runs for these guys.

i found two rainbow foil parallels

and two gold parallels

but no gold foil parallels.

i did get an orange foil parallel

and an independence day parallel 

looks like i got kerry's box.

here are the two black gold inserts i found

and here are the two diamond great die-cuts from my box

i only found one paragons of the postseason insert

there are no dodgers on the checklist for this insert set, although i see a dodger foot in the background behind arozarena.

here's the one generation now insert i found

roansy turns 23 tomorrow

i was promised one hit in the box, and this was it

i had been hoping for an all-star stitches jersey card if i were going to get just a relic card. obviously, that didn't work out.

here are the four cards that were in my silver pack

that black line must be from my scanner. i really hope it's not on the fritz.

i mentioned i was going to wait to show the all-star game cards. that's because i am going to complete the full insert set - or so i thought. there are a few cards, like this jose altuve card

that show all-stars but not at dodger stadium. altuve, yordan alvarez, nolan arenado, and bryce harper all withdrew from the rosters and so didn't show up in los angeles. i won't bother with those cards as a result, since i plan to put all of these in my dodger stadium binder. 

to show you what i mean i guess i will show one of those all-star cards.

it is glorious.