now the plan pays off

it's pretty much a given that i am going to pick up the annual topps now card featuring the celebration of jackie robinson day, and i fully intended to this year when it was released on april 16. however, i could find no ebay listing for a single card. usually there are a number of sellers who will advertise these cards in advance for about half the price that topps charges, but for whatever reason they weren't doing so with the card showing aaron judge and oneil cruz wearing 42 in their games the night before.

i waited almost until the card was no longer available for sale directly from topps and still didn't see it listed on ebay. so, i decided to buy from topps. what's more, i decided to buy five of the cards from topps hoping for a shot at a numbered parallel card. well, i did better than that.

topps sent me one of 42 ssp jackie robinson cards that were not available for sale. these were luck of the draw and i got lucky (for the third time - here's one and two).

here's the back:

written as if there were topps now cards in 1947

and here's the jackie robinson day card itself

no need for words on the back - number 42 speaks for itself.  it turns out that the print run of the card is 914 which is kind of low, but not that low compared to other cards offered this year. i put one of my dupes aside for nick as i know he also collects "42" cards. any others interested?

earlier in the year i did not hesitate to purchase a five-pack of 2024 topps now card #1 in hopes of finding a numbered parallel. that card is shohei ohtani's from the seoul series

here's the back:

it has a print run of over 44,000 and i did not receive anything other than the five cards i ordered.

while i was not in seoul to see ohtani and the dodgers, i did make it to all three games that they played in minnesota against the twins. these games took place in mid april and the dodgers won the first two. there were no topps now worthy events in the first game, but the second and third games resulted in me obtaining a couple of cards.

first, there were some ushers who were handing out 4"x5" cards to youngsters randomly during the third game. i saw a jim kaat card and a tony oliva card, but there could have been others. on the way out, someone had left their oliva card on the ground so i grabbed it

i am not sure if these are leftovers from the twins hall of fame induction game last year (joe mauer was inducted) or if they are just something the twins have going on. i will say that i sat in pretty much the same seats for the last two games and only saw ushers doing this in the third game which was also the only day game.

as for topps, they put out two cards featuring events from the second game of the series - tyler glasnow

and austin martin

glasnow struck out 14 twins without walking any, and did this while throwing fewer than 90 pitches which was apparently card worthy - here's the writeup on the back:

martin got his first big league hit which has been a topps now standard for quite some time.

i am very happy to have these cards in my collection, and i hope to see some more card worthy action later this season when i return to a ballpark. or two.

i didn't get my hopes up

i've been able to retire a couple of saved ebay searches in the last few weeks. this came after years of futility with both searches. to have them hit within a couple weeks of each other is crazy. it had long been a ritual for me to check the searches, and if there was something to review, i would not get my hopes up that the card the triggered the "new item" alert was actually what i was looking for.

imagine my surprise one day when i saw a new item on my "2015 buyback baker" search and saw this card:

that is dusty baker's 1978 topps card in 2015 "originals" buyback form. as i mentioned in this post last fall, i had never seen one in the last nine years. adding baker to my collection brought me one card closer to having the full dodger team in buybacks from 2015, but i was still short a few.

well, a couple of weeks later, another saved search hit. once again, i did not have high hopes as i clicked on the search to see the new items, but lo and behold this card was looking back at me

i couldn't buy it now fast enough. like baker, i had never seen a 1978 topps tommy john card with the 2015 originals stamp before. with john in hand, i am down to needing just terry forster, tommy lasorda, and elias sosa. technically i would also need lance rautzhan, but i am pretty sure there were no 4-in-1 rookie cards issued as buybacks from the set in 2015.

my luck continued, sort of, when i went to the april card show and found a bunch of buybacks in a 10 for $8 box. one of the cards i came across was the dodger team card

i already had one of these for the team set pursuit, so i put this one in my steve garvey collection. the back was unmarked

but i figured i would mark it (digitally) to show my progress:

i also have a couple of cards in the team set that aren't on the checklist, including the team card itself and the nlcs card featuring davey lopes. i have one more dodger-adjacent card for the 2015 buyback team set, and it's this one

yes, that is clearly an indians card, but jeff torborg is also shown as a dodger so i will allow it. picking up this manager card rather easily gives me hope that someday a my "2015 lasorda buyback" search will get a hit and i will be pleasantly surprised when i open the link. i dare to dream!

sarge pricing was not bad at all

i have on ongoing trading partner in sluggo, and every six months or so we exchange boxes of dodger cards for brave cards. as such i am always on the hunt for braves inserts, parallels, and hits at shows to add to the outgoing trade stack.

i came across this 2018 topps archives gary matthews fan favorites autograph card

just after i sent my most recent package to kevin. matthews, aka sarge, has an interesting signature to say the least. anyway, the price was good and when i looked more closely at the card i will admit i thought about keeping it. in a job well done by topps, matthews is shown with the 1979 topps design in a photo from the 1979 season when the braves wore a black armband for team executive bill lucas. i already had a matthews card representing the armband in my collection, however, so the auto will be on its way to sluggo next time i package up some cards. 

my return package from kevin is on its way, but i realized i have been slow to share the goodies from his most recent mailings. i'll try to do that over the next few weeks to do it justice, but in the meantime here are a couple of cards i've received:

2016 bowman inception corey seager auto-relic

and 2018 topps archives signature series joc pederson auto

solid stuff all around. thanks kevin!

the almost daily dodger - jose offerman

before dave roberts and after maury wills, jose offerman wore number 30 for the dodgers. of course, there were lots of other guys between wills and roberts, like derrel thomas and wilton guerrero. thomas, in fact, was the first dodger player to wear the number after wills, which leads me to think maybe the dodgers were thinking that wills had a shot at the hall of fame. anyway, i am getting way off topic.

i've added a couple of offerman parallels to my collection, and they've sat in my scanned folder just waiting for one of these "almost daily dodger posts" so here we go.

1994 upper deck collector's choice silver signature parallel

this is one of the craziest baseball cards out there in terms of three stooges scenarios. offerman, jody reed, and a met meet at second base. chaos ensues. nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

1992 leaf black gold parallel

this was the second to last card i needed for my team set, and i think i added ramon martinez to one of the orders sitting in my sportlots box at the moment. i like that offerman is shown bunting for a hit, as he was supposed to always be trying to put the ball on the ground. it was quite possibly a disservice to him and his career when he hit a home run off of dennis martinez in his first big league at bat, although he did put together some pretty decent offensive seasons in terms of batting average.

both cards give a glimpse of the number 30, which may well wind up retired by the franchise if roberts keeps his job and the dodgers win at least one more championship. maybe then they will pull a dual retirement and include wills, just like the cubs did with greg maddux and fergie jenkins.

color me back

when i posted the 2023 panini donruss duke snider cards the other day, i was reminded about another recent case where i had a parallel in hand well before i landed the base card. the card i am referring to is eric gagne's 2006 topps bazooka card, which i had in gold chunk parallel form

months before i picked up the base version. i actually added the base to my most wanted list, and wound up with two copies so i could put one in my names/numbers on the back collection. i was a fan of the no names on the backs of jerseys in the early 2000's, by the way.

putting this card away with the others, i noticed that topps took the time to color match the backs. here's derek lowe's gold chunk card

and the back

definitely a gold parallel all around.

here's hong-chih kuo's blue parallel

which is also blue all over the back

now here's gagne's base card with white borders

but a gray back

so close!

send in the crowd

space is at a premium on gary sheffield's 1998 upper deck ud3 card

which is actually the third of three different sheffield cards in the base set.

the photo used comes from camera day, which featured a pregame opportunity to get on the field at dodger stadium and take photos of players as they wandered by. i've been to this event a couple of times, although i don't believe it is still a thing.

it's nice to see matt luke, the kttv microphone, and the handheld tv camera in addition to the pavilion roof and the throngs of dodger fans. and speaking of throngs of people, i have found myself in texas this weekend and will be hitting up a card show. i am hoping to find lots of dodger cards in the bargain bins!

my retired number collection - 29

this is the 29th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here are the three people for whom number 29 has been retired:

rod carew (retired by the angels in 1986) 1983 topps

following the 1978 season, reigning back-to-back american league batting champ rod carew was dealt to the angels for, among others, future dodgers ken landreaux and brad havens. he spent seven seasons with the club, hitting .314 during that time and remaining a popular and high performing player, as his six all-star nods as an angel attest. he had three top-five finishes in the american league batting title race while playing in anaheim, and hit as high as .331 in 1980. even though carew was the american league's starter at first base in the 1983 and 1984 all-star games, his 1983 topps all-star subset card which serves as carew's angel card in this collection was the last one he received, with eddie murray getting the cardboard in both 1984 and 1985.

while with the angels, carew passed the 3,000 hit milestone and cemented his place in cooperstown and, i think, effectively ending his time with the angels. with that milestone out of the way near the end of the 1985 season, the angels were able to enjoy the attention that comes with a chase for 3,000 hits and still let him walk as a free agent at the end of the season, which they did. even though carew last played in 1985, he had hoped to continue playing but had no takers after becoming a free agent and so ultimately formally retired during the 1986 season.  as an aside, i recall hoping the dodgers would sign him, but they were committed to greg brock at the time.

just like in minnesota, carew was the last angel to wear number 29, and the angels formally retired the number on august 12, 1986 (per this upi article) shortly after his formal retirement announcement. this was largely seen as a pr move by the angels, but carew did have a good relationship with the owner, gene autry. autry at the time was the only other person for whom the angels had retired a number, making carew the first player to be so honored.

rod carew (retired by the twins in 1987) 1979 topps

carew was a twin for the first 12 years of his career, and he was an all-star in each of those seasons. he was the 1967 american league rookie of the year, and a seven time league batting champion. he hit .388 for the twins in 1977, which was the highest average among eligible batters since ted williams hit .406 in 1941. as a result of his performance that season, carew was named the league's most valuable player.

carew's tenure with the twins ended after the 1978 season (when he hit .333 to claim his sixth batting title) due to a rift in his relationship with club owner calvin griffith who had given an offensive and bigoted speech during the offseason which in turn prompted carew's request for a trade. even though carew was not a twin for as long as players like harmon killebrew (who was the only twin to have his number retired before carew) or joe mauer, he is the top position player on the franchise's all-time war leader board.  he also ranks highly in most offensive categories among non-washington senator players.

the twins retired carew's number on july 19, 1987, although they had kept it out of circulation since his departure after the 1978 season meaning he was fittingly the last twin to wear the number. his 1979 topps card is one of my favorite carew cards (behind only the 1978 topps and 1978 o-pee-chee cards), so i am happy to include it in this collection to represent carew's greatness with the twins.

john smoltz (retired by the braves in 2012) 1993 upper deck sp

smoltz spent all but one year (the last) of his 21 year career with the braves, piling up 210 wins, 154 saves, and 3011 strikeouts for atlanta. he won the 1996 national league cy young award as a starter, and later finished third in the cy young voting in 2002 in his first full year as a closer. smoltz spent two more years as the braves' closer before returning to starting, and wound up leading the league in wins and starts in 2006.

smoltz was the 1992 nlcs mvp, and pitched well in the 1992, 1996 and 1991 world series fot the braves. he was a member of the 1995 world championship team, although his pitching line in that series was not the best. overall, smoltz is the franchise's all-time leader in strikeouts. he is fourth in wins, second in saves, and fourth in war for pitchers (behind hall of famers kid nichols, warren spahn, and phil niekro).

the braves retired smoltz's number on june 8, 2012 as part of his induction into the franchise's hall of fame. three years later, in 2015, smoltz was voted into the national baseball hall of fame. he was the last brave to wear the number, which is shown almost in its entirety on his 1993 upper deck sp card.

adrian beltre (retired by the rangers in 2019) 2012 topps

beltre spent the last 8 years of his career with the rangers, earning three gold gloves and three silver sluggers in that time. he retired as the franchise's third best player in terms of war, which is an indication of his overall value on the field for a club that has had some solid long term players during the course of its history.

beltre retired following the 2018 season, and the rangers retired his number on june 8, 2019 so as to be able to hold the ceremony in globe life stadium where beltre spent his time with the club. he was the last ranger to wear 29, and i think the 2012 topps card above is a good one for this collection. beltre will be inducted into the hall of fame this summer as a first ballot inductee.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 29 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 42

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 28, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 42

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 23, 42

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 42

angels - 11, 26, 42

expos - 8, 10, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 42

rockies - 17, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

28 - retired by 1 team

29 - retired by 4 teams (retired by twins and angels for same person)

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 122

running total of non-hall of famers: 44

the almost daily dodger - todd hollandsworth

i recently added a 1995 select certified todd hollandsworth card to a sportlots order. it was the last card i needed to complete my dodger team set, and it looks like this:

that is actually the second 1995 select certified todd hollandsworth that the seller sent to me, because the first one looked like this:

i am not sure how you even put that one in the envelope. for 20 cents maybe i didn't need to ask for a refund (i didn't realize that the guy had another card, which makes me wonder even more why he pulled and sent the messed up card instead of the good one in the first place), but what i got at first wasn't close to acceptable filler material, even for a mid 1990's throwaway team set.

to the seller's credit, he spent more making it right than he needed to, as he could have just refunded me rather than slap another stamp on an envelope and send a second card out. 

trevor hoffman is in my hall of famer collection

i failed to get a post up this past weekend about the semi-annual show i went to recently at the st. paul rivercentre, but i will share today that i picked up an autograph card of trevor hofffman at the show to add him to my hall of famer collection:

that is a 2024 topps chrome black base autograph card. here is the back:

no bells or whistles on this puppy, that's for sure.

i had looked at hoffman autos in the past, but never pulled the trigger. i got this one from a seller who had it in a dollar (unless marked) box. the sticker on the back said $5 but i wound up with $40 worth of cards that he charged me $35 for, so you might say this was a freebee.

at the time of hoffman's retirement following the 2010 season, he was baseball's all-time leader in saves with 601 to his credit. mariano rivera passed him the following year, but he is still number 2 on the all-time list with kenley jansen the closest active pitcher to him, and he is 176 saves as of may 1, 2024 behind.

hoffman spent the vast majority of his career with the padres, and that is how i wanted him to be represented in this collection. he also pitched for the marlins to start his career and the brewers to end it, and for a while it seemed like the new hoffman autos hitting the secondary market were late career brewers cards. 

the main reason i was only going to go with a padres card is that i saw trevor hoffman pitch in person just twice. the first time was september 16, 1998 and the dodgers were playing the padres in san diego. heading into the 9th, the padres had a seven run lead, so it was definitely not a spot where i expected to hear hell's bells and see hoffman. the dodgers rallied, however, to close the gap to four runs, and with two on and two out, hoffman was summoned from the bullpen. he struck out jim eisenreich to end the game and earn career save number 156. i also saw him pick up a more traditional save on may 27, 2002 against the rockies (and their trio of todds - helton, zeile, and hollandsworth) in san diego when he set down terry shumpert, juan pierre, and juan uribe in order in the top of the 9th to complete the pads' 8-5 victory.  

hoffman made it into the hall of fame in 2018, his third year on the ballot. as a reminder, you can see hoffman and the other members of my hall of famer collection here!

disconnected

i am curious to see the changes (or is it a complete overhaul) that the dodgers are making to their city connect uniforms. they've already made tweaks over the years since they first debuted in 2021. max scherzer's 2022 topps card (this is the gold parallel)

shows the original uniform with the full blue outfit and the "los dodgers" script on the hat. 

at some point in 2022, the dodgers ditched the "los dodgers" hat and just wore their standard interlocking la hats as seen on freddie freeman's 2023 topps stadium club (red foil version)

they kept the full blue unis, which i actually didn't mind.

last year, as jason heyward's 2023 topps card (gold parallel) shows

the dodgers ditched the blue pants and went with white pants, but with piping along the sides to differentiate from their normal home whites.

obviously i have no idea what is in store this year with the city connect uniforms, but i hope they are not anything like the padres'.

buehler?

walker buehler is back on the bump for the dodgers tonight (assuming the game is played starting about 2.5 hours from when this post goes live). if the dodgers don't have a ben stein video on diamondvision before the game, what are they even doing?

here are some cards to mark the end of walker buehler's days off:

2020 topps chrome blue parallel

2021 bowman platinum ice foil parallel

2021 topps 1986 all-star relic

2021 topps chrome pink refractor parallel

2022 topps stars of mlb insert

2022 topps gypsy queen blue parallel

and here's his 2014 topps big league base card

that last card came from cards on cards, along with several more dodgers that hit my want lists on the nose.

this is a 2018 bowman alex verdugo chrome rookie of the year favorites insert

mojo box edition! verdugo did not rate in the roy voting in 2018 as he saw only limited playing time. in fact, he was still a rookie in 2019 when he hit .294 for the dodgers in just over 100 games, but didn't place in the roy voting that year either.

2021 topps uk edition luke raley

raley is playing in seattle now after two seasons in tampa following his 2021 season spent with the dodgers.

2023 topps stadium club mookie betts

and will smith

with these two cards in hand, my 2023 stadium club team set is missing only miguel vargas and jd martinez. 

2024 topps big league shohei ohtani

this might be the first ohtani dodger card i've received in trade. pretty sure it is, in fact, yes, it is.

2024 topps big league emmet sheehan

and emmet sheehan electric orange parallel

the borders of big league make the parallels look dirty and less electric, but i am happy to have an example of the orange parallels.

thanks kerry!

with buehler back in action, all eyes turn to the progression of clayton kershaw, whose 2024 topps big league card i recently picked up

it sounds like he threw off a mound the other day, and hopefully will be back in time to make a run at his 3,000th strikeout. the "k is for kershaw kountdown" will return!