greats pulls from the past

i was digging through a monster box in an effort to streamline some of the cards that don't really fit in my collection. my dodger collection, player collections, and mini-collections are pretty well organized. so are my complete sets. however, i have a few other boxes that include things like a bunch of o-pee-chee cards that are either duplicates or are singles from sets that i decided not to build. same story with a bunch of vintage cards (pre-1980). and then there are dodger duplicates and other cards from when i was buying boxes and packs of various products - mostly from the early 2000's. most of my base duplicates from 1980 on are listed on sportlots, but these boxes have been exempted from that fate for one reason or another, including laziness. it's time to fix that.

anyway, i came across a couple of autographs that i pulled from 2006 fleer greats of the game back in the day. gcrl favorites rod carew and bill buckner

i appreciate carew's pre-heart transplant signature. i have other autographs of these two players in other parts of my collection, but i like that these were pack pulled. 

this card

from 2004 fleer greats of the game is not the only certified fred lynn autograph i have, but it was pack pulled unlike the card of his i have in my 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams master set build (that will never be completed).

i no longer have (and don't intend to keep all of the ones i do still have) every pack pulled autograph i've, well, pulled, but these three are now in my "meaningful and just because" collection, joining other pack pulled autos from jim lonborg and don baylor. there are probably some others in these boxes that i will wind up adding, and i am thinking i should track down some more autographs of non-dodger favorites from my early fandom days for this purpose, too. guys who aren't already in my hall of famer collection like al oliver, joe rudi, sal bando, vida blue, and george foster. just because.

1955 bowman complete through 256!

it's time for the next installment in my sheet by sheet posting of my 1955 bowman set as i work to complete this 70 year old release.

sheet 31, cards 241-248

right away this sheet is prompting questions for me, like johnny pesky played for the orioles? and, why is there a blank spot? bear with me.

here are the backs:

none of the seven cards shown go with the non-bio text, but i am somewhat relieved to find that pesky did not, in fact, play for the orioles as i had no idea that he had. he signed with them after the 1954 season, but was released prior to the '55 campaign. i suppose this makes for a final tribute or one of nick's zero year cards. another card of note here is dutch leonard's card. this is the dutch leonard who pitched for the dodgers, senators, and cubs (primarily) and not the dutch leonard who had a 0.96 era for the red sox in 1914 and appeared on a 1979 topps card as a result. the leonard featured in this set was a knuckleballer turned pitching coach for the cubs after retiring from his playing career following the 1952 season. and no, i don't mind the small bit of writing on the back of his card. 

here's the reason for the blank spot on the page:

card number 242 belongs to ernie banks!

banks is one of the big four in the set (hank aaron, mickey mantle, and willie mays are the others) and i decided on graded versions for each of their cards. here's the back:

this one has a non-bio back, and banks gives another "vote" to robin roberts as the best pitcher. it's pretty exciting for me to have a second year banks card in my collection. i remember how happy i was when i landed his 1971 topps card back in 1984 while i was treating my cubs fever by completing topps team sets of the northsiders back to 1970. good times and ernie banks cards always make me smile.

sheet 32, cards 249-256

a couple of the roughest cards in my set on this page, with umpire larry napp and the senators' pete runnels bearing the brunt of previous ownership. 

here are the backs:

you can tell that with some of these later subjects there is less to say, and so the font is larger - particularly on billy gardner's and owen friend's cards. there are some interesting statements here - gardner is called "snappy" and jim wilson is noted to be "one of the most courageous fellows in baseball" but there is no explanation for either claim. a quick review of wilson's sabr bio reveals that he was hit in the head by a hank greenberg line drive early in his career and suffered a fractured skull. he returned to pitch in the big leagues for 11 more seasons after recovering from that injury. courageous, indeed.

napp is the lone umpire featured in this post. we are again presented with his ancestry (italian), plus some fun facts. he was also apparently a licensed boxing referee in the state of new york. seventy years later, we have some more intel on napp, including the fact that he was part of the umpiring crew for two perfect games (don larsen's and catfish hunter's), making him one of just seven umpires to see that feat twice. he also sat out two games during a 1972 series in detroit due to death threats stemming from an ongoing feud with tigers manager billy martin. 

more umpire stories to come - stay tuned!

he made a marc on my collection

i read the news yesterday that marc hill passed away on sunday. he never played for the dodgers, but i knew about him because he played for the giants when my fandom was beginning, and because he was featured prominently on steve garvey's 1979 topps card

my neighborhood friends and i were enamored with this card when we first pulled it from packs. the 1978 topps set (the first that i collected) had most of the dodger cards featuring candid, spring training, pre-game, or posed shots. this card featured some honest to goodness in-game action (sort of) and we loved it. we quickly identified the giants' catcher as hill, who caught the majority of the nocal's games in 1978.

garvey and hill don't look like they are looking at the same thing. hill seems to be looking into the giants' dugout (it was on the first base side at candlestick) for a sign. garvey seems to be looking further down the line. anyway, that card example is a bit worn; here's a nice 1979 o-pee-chee card

there was no baseball reference back then, so i don't think we ever even thought about when the photo might have been taken. today, i looked at the website and see that may 27, 1978 was a day game at candlestick (garvey is wearing the away grays) as was august 5, 1978. it could have been either one of those games. it's not spring training, as the giants trained in scottsdale while the dodgers were in vero beach back then.

hill was kind enough to sign one of his 1978 topps cards

for me through the mail many years ago. i wonder if he would have signed a 1979 garvey card, too.

rest in peace marc hill!

red and some other select cards

i noticed a lot of red in my scanned folder so figured i would create a corresponding post.

sometime last year, i completed my red parallel dodger team set of 2009 topps unique

thanks to chad billingsley, andre ethier, manny ramirez, and jim thome. those four fellows join matt kemp, clayton kershaw, and russell martin in my team binder. as an aside, this may be the most upper decky set topps has ever produced. i don't know why, but i always want to call it upper deck unique.

here's a 2013 topps mark ellis parallel

that was exclusive to target

2020 topps opening day justin turner red foil

i don't think that the red foil cards were exclusive to a retailer, but they might have been.

2025 topps heritage gavin stone

and the alcs/nlcs card

i think these are target exclusives?

panini does red, too. here's a 2022 panini mosaic mookie betts red mosaic parallel

and a 2022 panini donruss red parallel of kenley jansen

that one is numbered to 2022, and this 2023 panini donruss brooks lee red holo parallel

is numbered to 2023. i guess the red parallel (one of them, anyway) is/are panini's topps gold equivalent.

now here's a 2023 panini prizm jim gilliam ruby wave parallel

it's sort of red.

and this 2022 panini prizm walker buehler parallel

is one-third red, as it's a red white & blue parallel. more like red white & buehler!

finally, here's a red prizm parallel of steve garvey's 2024 panini select card.

it's numbered to 149 on the back

it was a nice surprise to see garvey included in that release, and i joined a couple of player breaks back when the cards first came out.  i wound up with mostly base

but did also get a holo prizm

i wound up buying some parallels on the secondary marker, like this orange flash prizm

this red white & blue prizm

and this tricolor prizm

this light blue prizm

numbered to 199 

arrived via one of my break entries.

back to the secondary market for this black and blue prizm

numbered to 49

and it's the bookend!

one of the breaks i joined really paid off when the seller pulled this tie dye prizm

that is numbered to just 25

very nice.

there are (of course) many more parallels out there, and i had one (white prizm) go missing in the mail. i don't have any others queued up for purchase, but never say never.

first home runs hit differently

alex freeland hit his first big league home run yesterday in the dodgers' loss to the padres. it came off of old friend yu darvish which is pretty cool. this is the only alex freeland card i have in my collection currently - his 2022 bowman draft chrome card

i am sure there will be more to come. i don't think topps will commemorate his first big league dinger, though.

10 years ago, however, they dedicated a full cross-release insert set to different players' first taters. it has taken me this long to complete the dodger team set, as i finally focused on getting each version from series 1, 2, and update.

series 1 base versions had a dark center background with silver foil (as modeled by mike piazza and paul konerko)

while series 2 and update base had a white center background with silver foil

jackie robinson's card was featured in the update set.

all three releases had silver background versions

(with yasiel puig being a series 1 example), and all three releases also had gold background parallels. 

you can't tell, but the series 2 (matt kemp and clayton kershaw) gold cards have silver foil, while the series 1 (piazza) and update (adrian beltre) gold cards have gold foil. 

in all, the dodger team set includes 21 cards featuring those seven subjects. there are also manufactured medallion cards but i'm in no rush to chase those.

the other dodger rookies to hit thier first big league bombs this year are dalton rushing, seen here on a 2023 panini chronicles luminance card

and hyeseong kim (not pictured). 

the first big knock is a major achievement and it's nice to recognize it on cardboard or otherwise. congrats to alex freeland!

my national experience

until just a couple of weeks before it began, i really didn't have any thought about heading to the national this year. chicago is an easy flight for me, but my collecting style is not one that i thought would play out well at the show as i am a focused player collector and team collector who is working on just one vintage set that is just two cards short of completion. it just didn't seem worth the time or expense.

however, i did consider attending the field of dreams event that pop fly pop shop was working to put together on thursday and friday of the national weekend because the guest of honor was to be steve garvey.

unfortunately, there were not enough tickets sold and the event was canceled. i was disappointed as the only in person interaction i'd had with garvey came when i was 12 and he signed my autograph book before the game in which he passed billy williams for the national league's all-time consecutive games played mark. since then, there have been a couple of near misses where we were in the same town at the same time, but i didn't get to the events he was attending.

at some point in july i realized that the dates for the field of dreams event overlapped with the national, so i looked at the lineup of people appearing in chicago, and there was garvey's name. he was going to be there on sunday, and so i floated the idea to my wife. i looked at it logistically and saw that i could redeem miles for my flight and points for my hotel room. it would be a quick trip - essentially 24 hours in rosemont, but i would be able to have the experience of meeting garvey. she's the best, so she understood.

i had not been to the nscc since it was last in anaheim (sometime in the mid or late 1990's), and i knew it was going to be almost completely different. i tried to time out what i needed to do - doors at 10, garvey signing at 1145, photos 15 minutes before. i wasn't sure about the crowds and didn't know if i would be able to do much until after the meet and greet was over. and then there was the text from the airline saying to get to o'hare three hours early because of all the events (such as lollapalooza) that were taking place in chicago that weekend. time became an annoyance.

at least the people were friendly. on saturday night, i arrived and went to my hotel and wound up chatting with a father/son duo from new orleans at the hotel restaurant. the father had been looking for a 1926 tris speaker item along with some other high end items. he found the speaker but not the michael jordan he was looking for. on sunday morning, i walked over from the hotel and got in line. i talked with a collector from ohio for about an hour as we waited in the non-vip line to gain entry. he had a 1979-80 topps wayne gretzky on him (psa 5) that he was looking to trade for some vintage football. i hope it worked out for him.

they wound up opening the doors at 930 or so, and it took me a little bit to get my bearings. i wanted to go to the autograph area right away to figure out the lay of the land, and after a bit of misdirection i found the space and picked up my will call tickets. 

even though that went quickly, i figured i would stay somewhat close to that part of the convention to keep it easy on myself.

i walked around a bit and found some "sunday special" quarter boxes that netted me $45 worth of cards. no haggling allowed - it was still too early on sunday, and these boxes were already marked down from dollar boxes on thursday. "replenished throughout the weekend" the sign said, and i don't doubt it. the boxes were pretty full and attracted a fair amount of attention. some examples of what i found include a lot of 2021 topps chrome sapphire edition dodgers

and a few other dodgers of interest to me.

2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary joe kelly aqua wave refractor

2020 topps corey seager gold parallel

2024 topps jason heyward blue holofoil parallel

2023 topps austin barnes red foil parallel

2013 panini father's day clayton kershaw studio

2021 panini donruss optic clayton kershaw and mookie betts

it wasn't all dodgers, though, as i found some other cards that spoke to me. this 2022 panini donruss ryne sandberg orange holo parallel 

fits in my double play collection, as does this 2021 topps carlos correa royal blue parallel

finding the sandberg card was nice since i was in chicago and he had recently passed away. there was a moment of silence in the convention center for him, dave parker, rickey henderson, and pete rose not too long after i found these cards.

i will typically not leave o-pee-chee cards behind, even when they aren't variations of any sort. case in point, these four specimens from 1982

it's not a card show if there aren't some broders thrown in, and this 1985 style will clark card

was a great example of a card that should have been.

how about a 2011 topps vintage chrome freddie freeman insert for a quarter?

yes, please. topps failed to slap the rookie card logo on this card so i am guessing it went unnoticed by people.

here's another decent find for a quarter box - a 2020 topps archives max scherzer san diego "nat'l lea" variation

finally, here's teddy ballgame in his minneapolis millers duds

courtesy of 2022 topps pro debut.

next stop was at a seller with several monster boxes of in person autographs. his booth was very well organized - he had printouts of his inventory on the table so you didn't have to blindly dig, and the cards were organized by team. i was very interested in his 1969 topps milton bradley jim lefebvre auto that was listed, but someone had beaten me to it. still, i was able to add a pair of signed 1978 o-pee-chee cards

of reggie smith and davey lopes, along with three more lopes topps cards

joe ferguson is largely unheralded in the hobby, although he did make an appearance in some recent leaf releases. i was happy to find a 1976 sspc card of his signed

as well as a 1985 opc card signed by the guy who took over as dodger catcher in the post-ferguson era, steve yeager

my topps dodger autograph project ended with the 2020 release, but i still picked up a 2024 topps jonny deluca signed card

as well as a 2022 topps update ryan pepiot signed card

this seller is from the tampa area, so it made sense that he had these guys in his inventory. i was checking my watch constantly and decided to not look through any more of his inventory so as to get to the autograph area with plenty of time to spare. i will say that i wish now that i had returned to this seller later on and looked for more 1978 topps signed cards that i don't already have.

anyway, i made my way to the autograph area for the photo op. jim kelly's group was first in our timeslot, and he was pretty engaging with his fans. it appears that he is healthy and he seemed to be in good spirits even as his family endures a different health crisis. i didn't know about his grandchild's condition until someone in the group asked him about it. hopefully things have improved.

there was one person in line ahead of me for garvey, and we chatted about a number of different things. he was getting a few different autographs that day but garvey was the only photo he wanted. it turns out that his first real baseball memory was garvey's 1984 nlcs home run off of lee smith. when it was time for the photos, he told garvey about it and garvey replied that he was walking down michigan avenue on saturday and people were still mad at him for hitting that homer.

after the photo, we went to the autograph area and waited to be called. it all went smoothly, and garvey was talkative and seemed to enjoy being there. he signed my dodger stadium seat back that i salvaged from a damaged seat i had purchased back when the mccourts redid the seating in the mid 2000's. he signed it big as i requested and it turned out great!

he added his jersey number at no additional cost (or specific request) which was a nice touch.

we exchanged some more pleasantries and that was that. certainly more impactful for me as a lifelong fan (i am reminded of rush's "limelight" lyrics) but he still made me feel welcome and seemed genuinely appreciative of his fans. i did try to take a photo of garvey signing the seat back with my wallet card in the frame but the photo came out super blurry and i wish i hadn't tried and instead chatted with him a bit more.

i had brought a 1975 mengler card 

with me in case i wanted a second item autographed, but i decided against that so this will go back in to my dodger collection (already have one in the garvey binders). 

walking around that area was a bit surreal - hey trevor hoffman how are you? - and it reminded me of a card show i went to in the early 1990s where i saw tom seaver and gaylord perry signing. i am probably too much of a fan sometimes but i was in awe of those guys growing up.

after a bit more wandering, i found a seller with boxes ranging from a quarter to two bucks. it was just a bunch of random stuff thrown together, but i found some cards to take.

2020 topps stickers cody bellinger

b/w shohei ohtani

i could use another of these cards as the belly photo is a nice dodger stadium shot that we don't see too often.

speaking of dodger stadium, here's the back of a 1990 fleer sticker insert with the stadium on the back

that i will put in my dodger stadium mini collection.

another oddball from these boxes - a 2022 topps spotlight 70 by andy friedman darryl strawberry card

featuring a watercolor take on his 1991 topps traded card.

from 2025 bowman, here's a hyeseong kim rockstar rookies insert

and here's another rookie insert - this one from 2013 panini select featuring yasiel puig

i added a few more panini cards from this seller, including inserts featuring duke snider 

and vladimir guerrero 

from 2023 prizm, plus a couple of inserts from 2022 panini mosaic featuring clayton kershaw and guerrero.

they are "men of mastery" i guess.

the last seller i stopped at had quarter boxes that were just a completely random mess of stuff. i quickly found four items of interest - this 2022 topps heritage high numbers tony oliva 1973 candy lid insert 

and three 1975 zoo's who stick ons from 2024 topps heritage

and that was enough. finding one more ryne "rhino" sandberg card seemed fitting, and i decided to not bother digging through any more of this seller's boxes.

i walked around a bit more, noticing a lot of interactive areas and large amounts of real estate dedicated to psa and breakers and that sort of thing. i saw a lot of vintage in cases, and i am sure there were some more bargain boxes around that i could have dug through. however, that text from the airline was weighing on me, so i decided to leave after spending just about 3.5 hours at the show. i had accomplished what i wanted to accomplish, even though i had sort of hoped to finish my '55 bowman set in person.

i headed back to the hotel and got my luggage out of storage and wound up talking with a couple of guys from north carolina as we waited for the hotel shuttle to take us back to o'hare. after i told them i skipped finding those two '55 bowmans and would probably just ebay it, they agreed that it was easier that way, but you miss out on meeting the people when you don't go to the shows. they were right. it's always fun to talk with fellow collectors about the hobby.

postscript - i was walking out of the delta sky club at o'hare to head to the gate for my flight when i ran into paul molitor. you may recall that molitor was, after garvey retired, my favorite non-dodger. he was nice enough to stop and say hello and shake my hand. turns out we were on the same flight back to the twin cities. once i got to the gate area, there was dave winfield waiting for boarding to begin. it's difficult for him to be inconspicuous but he had airbuds in and wasn't really looking around. he did look my way and i gave a subtle wave and asked if i could say hi. he nodded and gave me a thumbs up which was enough. 

so, not a bad day as i was able to shake the hands of two of my all-time favorite players, and say hello to another player whose career i followed closely. still, i probably won't go to the national again unless my friend who currently lives in detroit is around and wants to go to the 2028 event which will be in the motor city. time will tell!

postscript postscript - i decided after i got home to mark my visit to the national by adding this card to my "meaningful and just because" collection

it's a 2025 leaf nscc 15th anniversary paul molitor lazer card, numbered to 15. here's the back:

i wish garvey had been included in one of the nscc sets, but molitor is a nice substitute. i'm certainly glad i made the trip!