something of an update

when topps update hits the street, i am reminded that thorzul is giving away cards for just about anything. this annual ritual has been going on for seventeen years, and i am happy to say i have participated in most of the offerings. this year, he pulled a number of dodger inserts, and i happily laid claim to this black gold mookie betts

a silver pack michael busch

a gold j.p. feyereisen

and a gold foil gavin stone

these cards accentuated the dodger goodness that i had found in my box purchases. i found four of the five dodger all-star game cards in those boxes, including will smith

mookie betts

freddie freeman

and j.d. martinez

i had to pick up the clayton kershaw card 

online to complete the team set.

as for the base, i decided to use my box purchases to complete two full sets of update, and i didn't have all the dodgers in triplicate so i chose to join a team break. that got me the full dodger team

along with a few inserts, such as david peralta's gold parallel

a gavin stone silver pack card

and a jackie robinson mvp commemorative patch card

that was nice, and i was happy to find a clayton kershaw commemorative patch in one of the boxes i opened, but what i really was after was one of these steve garvey world series manu patches

i had to find one online to add it to me garvey pc.

garvey also shows up on a time spanning tandem card with freddie freeman. it comes in base

blue

black

(numbered to 299)

and gold

(numbered to 75)

versions. it's nice to see the images of garvey that topps used on the manu patch and the time spanning tandems insert. they are different from the two or three images topps has been recycling this year.

i was disappointed not to find a don drysdale all aces card in my breaks, so i went and bought it

it will be interesting to see who shohei ohtani pushes off of topps' checklists in terms of dodgers. jackie robinson is safe, but guys like drysdale may be absent (again) for awhile.

two more cards that i targeted after not finding them in my breaks were james outman's 1988 topps insert

as well as his stars of mlb retail insert

picking this card up individually helped me ignore the urge to buy some update when i saw it on the target shelf last weekend. now, if heritage high numbers had been out, i would have caved, so it's not like i've kicked the retail habit just yet.