leaf me alone!

it's inevitable, really. 

each year, for the past few years, leaf has put out a couple of relic sets with very similar design and subset themes.  there are no logos. most of the photos are of the backs of jerseys, which i found interesting the first couple of years. i guess i still do, although it is starting to wear on me. and, for the last couple of years, i've figured i won't get sucked in by the repetitive designs and jersey backs.

well, a few months ago leaf released their 2022 lumber set, and i wound up buying some of the offerings. let's have a look.

steve garvey "game used lumber" red parallel #/3

that card is pretty much the "base" card for garvey. as usual, there are a number of parallels of each subset, and i had decided that if i were going to pick up some of these cards, i wouldn't go for the full parallel run.

i failed.

that is the purple parallel, numbered to 12. one of these had a very friendly buy-it-now which enticed me to add it to the collection.

i will say that i have stopped short of chasing multiple parallels of other cards, limiting myself  to just one example. so, this is the card that i have from the "historical home runs" subset featuring garvey:

it's the green parallel numbered to 4. i suppose garvey never hit a historical home run for the dodgers, so it's nice to see card companies recognizing his 1984 nlcs home run over the last couple of years.

there have been some historical dodger home runs, however, and leaf celebrated them thusly:

kirk gibson

rick monday

it's a coincidence that both of these are the purple parallels. i remember exactly where i was when each of these home runs were hit. for the gibson home run in the 1988 world series, i was in dodger stadium, standing in the right field pavilion. it was glorious.  for monday's home run, i was on the playground at my elementary school huddled in a group of kids surrounding one of the teachers who had a coke bottle transistor radio tuned in to the broadcast. we jumped around quite a bit when monday's homer was announced.

of course, i bought a second gibson card

for my "cards featuring games that i attended" mini-collection.

it was just last year when leaf included a "bat rack" card featuring the dodger infield of my youth. this year, they went with a trio of dodgers from that team, including garvey, monday, and ron cey

this is the platinum version, numbered to 6. i have successfully avoided buying any other versions.  i did purchase a similar card, however

although that one - featuring duke snider and roy campanella along with garvey and cey - comes with giants on the back

willie mays, willie mccovey, orlando cepeda, and barry bonds are the four featured. of the four, i am least familiar with cepeda as a "rival" to the dodgers, but that is on me since he was a giant from 1958 to 1966.

another familiar design is the "team 8's" and leaf included them again this year. garvey is on three cards - two dodger versions:

and a padre version. i haven't bothered with the padre version. i do like the two versions of the dodgers, though. the second card would be even better, in my opinion, if gibson and piazza were swapped out for reggie smith and steve yeager. at least the card features garvey, cey, russell, and lopes! both cey and lopes have other cards in the set, but i've not bothered to track any of those down.

seeing john roseboro represented on the first team 8's card is pretty cool, but i did see his bat knob card for sale and the number on the knob didn't match a jersey number that he wore during his career as far as i could find. it certainly didn't have number 8 on it. i guess we don't really know whose bat pieces these are and i am probably too trusting.

garvey is included in a couple of other subsets, including the "sultans of swing", of which i have one. 

4 hall of famers, one banned player worthy of the hall of fame, and my guy. also, i can't look at this card without hearing mark knopfler's voice in my head.

i have picked up versions of all 4 of the "the hit kings" cards that he is featured on, however, telling myself that it is ok because garvey's seasonal hit total was something that i always paid attention to during his career.  the seasons that leaf chose to recognize are 1974:

1975:

1977:

1979:

for some reason, the 1977 version was the toughest to come by at anything close to a reasonable price. as a result, i jumped on an affordable purple version rather than try to stick to the bronze theme i had established with the other three. it's kind of weird to see actual people on the 1975 and 1977 cards, but it breaks up the monotony.

the last card i've purchased from this release is the magenta printing plate of the game used lumber card

this thing showed up in my mailbox bent down the middle, and although i was largely able to roll it out using a rolling pin, you can see the remnants of the compressive stresses on the back

thankfully it was the front of the card that was in tension!

so that's that. leaf's subsequent release - pro set - is out and features one of the least attractive garvey solo autographs i have ever seen. actually, it looks a lot better in person!

an actual photo of garvey! with the red number remaining red (take that, panini!).

and now the next leaf set - in the game used (although it is a 2022 product) - is also out and is commanding crazy prices for the cards that i have been watching so far. i did manage to pick up one of the least scarce garvey cards

from the set. he appears in two subsets - one is called "memorabilia madness" and features small bat or jersey swatches from various players in a team vs. team matchup similar to what leaf does in their other releases. this one above is from the "hall of fame caliber" subset. it's numbered to 25 and i assume it is the red parallel, even though the official checklist says that red is numbered to "4 or less". at least leaf used a photo of garvey for the card and not the back of his jersey!

once again, i will tell myself that i will refrain from seeking out cards with the repetitive designs, but i have learned to never say never when it comes to me and this hobby.