final four like none before

this year marks only the second time that three of the four teams remaining in the baseball postseason are expansion teams, and it is the first time that two of the teams are from the 1977 expansion. ten years ago, the toronto blue jays (1977) faced the kansas city royals (1969), while the new york mets (1962) faced the chicago cubs.  this year, we have the blue jays facing the seattle mariners (1977), while the milwaukee brewers (1969 as the seattle pilots) face the los angeles dodgers.

there aren't really too many connections between the dodgers and brewers this year, with only a handful of players left on either team from the 2018 squads that faced off in that year's nlcs. here's a 2022 topps meijer purple parallel featuring pitchers that were brewers and dodgers

but have since moved on. this matchup also makes me think of the late don sutton who pitched in the world series for both clubs as well as guys like lance rautzhan, al downing, greg brock, rick dempsey, and willie randolph who suited up for both teams as well.

speaking of moving on, i will admit i was rooting for the tigers to advance to the alcs, but instead zack mckinstry

and his teammates are moving on to the offseason. 

the alcs will feature the two teams that were added to the american league in 1977

and i am hoping for the canadian team to return to the fall classic for the first time since 1993. 

there is the possibility, however, that we will have only the second world series in the division era that guarantees a first-time champion should both the brewers and mariners advance (1980 was the first). what a series that would be, with ultimate seattle bragging rights at stake.

i know it's hard to root for the dodgers with the stories that the other three teams can write with a world series win this year, but i am going to do so anyway.

let's play hockey! and to the game?

i really do appreciate folks who trade cards through the mail. whether it's through tcdb (i have yet to complete a trade that way) or through email or blog posts, it's not a small effort these days to pull cards and get them on their way. it's even more difficult to send cards into this country at the moment, so angus of dawg day cards deserves a hearty thanks for sending me some items in return for my "almost free stuff friday" event.

plus, it is now hockey season (although it's still baseball season in my world), and the local club started out the season strong with a shutout in st. louis. i'll get to the hockey content in a moment...

i really should have held off on my post showing some of the other returns i received, as these items were en route at that time and they really do bring the international flair i alluded to in the post. first up is a near complete dodger team set of stickers from 1992 panini

however, these are the canadian version of the stickers as you could probably tell by the french position translations. it's always fun to see "premier but" on baseball cards or stickers.

missing from the set are the dodger team logo/header sticker and mike scioscia's sticker. i will for sure need to track those down. the backs of the stickers invite you to "au jeu!"

which is how they have translated "play ball". based on my rudimentary french knowledge, i would have thought that "au jeu" would be "to the game" (and not to be confused with "au jus" which is "with juice"). with these stickers printed in italy, were there some further language barriers in place? i would be interested to know how a french speaking umpire would say "play ball", and now that i think about it "to the game" sort of makes sense.

the other card that angus sent was one of my most wanted non-dodger cards - a 2013-14 o-pee-chee luc robitaille card

minimal french, even on the back

but it's understandable as there is not really any room for a bilingual bio. robitaille remains my favorite hockey player and i was happy each time he returned to the kings. i've replaced this robitaille card with a ron cey oddball on my most wanted non-dodger list, but i would think luuuuuuuuuuuuuc would reappear on that list at some point. i really need to get the rest of my collection (including my robitailles) entered into tcdb so i have better access to what i am missing.

thanks angus for the cards and for avoiding strikes and tariffs!

that's e1 way to advance

when andy pages (seen here on a 2025 topps sandglitter parallel)

came to bat in the bottom of the 11th inning last night with the bases loaded, i recited to myself most of the ways that the game could end with pages' at bat, including by wild pitch, balk, or passed ball. as for pages, i figured he could have ended the game and reached base safely by:

• getting a base hit (and i was for sure thinking about how the last extra inning postseason game the dodgers played ended, since it also featured a bases loaded at bat)
• being hit by a pitch
• getting a base on balls
• catcher's interference
• reaching on a fielder's choice coupled with an error

i didn't think about the other sorts of basepath interference, but that last one in the list above did come to mind. i just didn't expect it to actually happen. another one i didn't think of was the dropped third strike derivative of the passed ball or wild pitch, and this ending has to rank up there with mickey owen's dropped third strike in the 1941 world series in terms of postseason gaffes. however, that error didn't end the game or a series like this one did last night. it's not a merkle boner, but it is a terrible way to have a season end.

anyway, i feel for the phillies' pitcher and fans but am still happy that the dodgers advanced. now i am waiting to see if there will be a rematch of the 2017 nlcs or the 2018 nlcs starting on monday.

here are a couple of loosely associated cards - i am hoping that the dodgers will write some more autumn tales

as they advance to the league championship stage.

i'll see myself out.

breaking in a couple of new (to me) card shops

back in mid august, i visited a couple of card shops that i had never been to before thanks to some work related road trips. first, i ventured into wisconsin and found a shop not too far from the minnesota border. it's been open for just over a year and looked pretty promising once i entered the shop.

i told the owner that i was looking to dig through some cards, and he pointed me to a couple of racks featuring monster bargain boxes organized by team! this made things easy for me as i focused on the dodger cards. there was a lot of bowman related product, but also some nice finds. the belle of the ball was this 2020 topps heritage cody bellinger action image variation

but i came away with a bunch more dodgers, too.

2021 topps stadium club chrome cody bellinger beam team

2021 panini mosaic sandy koufax all-time greats orange reactive mosaic

2022 panini prizm albert pujols red prizm

2023 topps chrome update gavin stone youthquake

2024 topps chrome update james outman youthquake

2024 topps cosmic chrome mookie betts launched into orbit

2024 topps chrome mookie betts refractor

2024 topps chrome update gavin stone negative refractor

2024 topps pristine steve garvey squeaky clean

2024 topps jason heyward gold parallel

a quad of 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary dodger parallels

and an in person signed 1988 donruss matt young card

i also chose a card signed by the late joe beckwith

who was my dad's golfing partner in a tournament back in 1980.

i perused other loose singles on the counter, and grabbed a few including a couple of 2025 topps chrome parallels

i don't think either salvador perez or josh bell will get any mvp votes this year, but i didn't leave these refractor parallels behind. i also bought a blaster of chrome that was pretty much garbage with nothing really worth sharing here. meanwhile, a guy was busting a box of chrome at the counter, and i saw him pull a blake treinen world series champion gold refractor /50.

a few days later, i was returning from a work day trip, and stopped at a northern twin cities shop. gallery is more like it. they "don't do bulk" but instead had a small number of vertical cases set at $5, $10, $25, and "as priced". they had a big breaking area and a small office that was set up for online breaks, plus a ton of boxes of various product. someone was opening a box of some star wars release and apparently pulled a couple of decent cards based on the yelling and screaming that was taking place. acting on the collector's folly, he purchased a couple more boxes afterwards. i didn't stick around to see what the results were.

i was not immune to this siren song, however, as i bought a jumbo pack of 2025 topps chrome that was worthless. i figured that the next pack would pay off, and it sort of did with an autograph

but it was still money not well spent.

i should have stuck with sportlots which is where i have purchased almost all of the 2025 topps chrome dodgers that i own (i'll share in a separate post).

i did buy a single from one of the cases - a 2021 topps japan edition clayton kershaw jade green parallel

it's numbered to 75

with so much breaking happening in this store, i was hoping to find some discarded singles but they really did not mess with that end of the hobby.

i did make one other stop in early august at a hobby shop in superior, wisconsin. this was a shop that i had been to several years ago. unfortunately for me, they are now focused solely on upper deck hockey and pokemon as far as cards were concerned. of the three shops mentioned here, i think i will likely only return to the one in wisconsin. go figure.

three and two and two score and seven years ago

i was too young to know any better back during the 1978 baseball postseason. the dodgers were in the playoffs, again, and i figured that since they lost in the world series in 1977, they would prevail in '78. steve garvey's mvp performance in the nlcs only cemented my view.

i was excited to see panini release this "three and two" timeless moments autograph card last year.

or maybe it was in 2025 - it's a 2024 set but that doesn't mean much these days. usually when a postseason garvey home run is feted, it's his walk-off shot against the cubs in the 1984 nlcs.  here's the back with all the details about this particular homer

which took place 47 years ago, tonight. good golly.

these days, i am old enough to know that nothing is guaranteed in the postseason. 

the dodgers and phillies are at it again in the playoffs this year, with game 2 of the nlds taking place last night. the dodgers are heading back to los angeles with a two games to none lead. there were no garvey home runs, obviously, but teoscar hernandez hit a big 3-run bomb to turn the tide late in game 1.

hopefully there are more parallels between the two series and the dodgers advance later this week!

my mind is tiffany twisted

over the last few months, i've tried to fill out my sportlots orders with topps tiffany cards. it's tricky as there aren't a lot of sellers with these cards, but i've found a few that had other wares i was more interested in. as a result, i've added these cards to my collection:

1987 fernando valenzuela all-star

1987 steve sax

1989 dodgers team leaders

and 1985 terry whitfield

i remember whitfield's time with the dodgers as fleeting, but he actually was with them for 2+ seasons.

i flipped the script with these next cards - searching for a seller with all of them first before looking to fill out the order with something else. this is the complete dodger team set from the 1984 topps traded tiffany set

i was disappointed that orel hershiser wasn't featured in the set.

the backs are bright, of course, looking somewhat like the backs of traded sets in general. with the flagship "parallels"

that's ok because the card number is a differentiator. those 1984 traded backs are bright, too

but you will recall, however, that the 1984 traded set's normal backs were sort of gray.

so, what did i add to maximize my deal from this seller? this card

a 2025 topps sandy koufax call to the hall insert.

my sportlots purchasing has cooled a bit, but it's always a good spot to find those pesky base cards to fill out team sets. i will continue to try to add some tiffany cards when the opportunity presents itself. at least i don't have the mercedes "bends".

calm before the next round

the dodgers passed the first test of the 2025 postseason, as did the tigers, cubs, and yankees. they did so in not quite as exciting a fashion as the 2021 club who used a chris taylor walk-off home run to advance from the wild card (game, not round, back then). here's a 2022 topps green foil parallel that celebrates that moment

interestingly enough, taylor did not get a card of his own in flagship in 2022 - just this one which is actually a checklist. he did get a relic card though

and was featured in some of the other topps sets so he wasn't totally forgotten about. no chris taylor card in update this year, at least not that i saw when i perused the checklist.

the dodgers dispatched the reds in the first round, saying hello and goodbye to old friend gavin lux in the process. here's a 2021 topps big league rainbow foil parallel of lux

that i meant to post prior to the series.

now the dodgers go on to face a somewhat familiar postseason foe - the phillies. it's a matchup straight out of my childhood (as well as 2008 and 2009), although not in the nlcs this year. there are a couple of familiar faces on the other side of the matchup that we will see - trea turner

featured there on a 2022 topps significant statistics insert. today i learned what "bolts" are. i've had this card in my collection and my scanned folder (as well as the uk edition version) for a couple of years and never bothered to look at the stat that topps deemed significant. bottom line is that turner is fast and scores runs.

walker buehler is another phillie. here are his 2022 topps chrome refractor parallel

and his 2021 topps 1986 chrome silver pack 

cards. i wonder if he will get a playoff share from the red sox, too. i'll be honest; when the red sox released him i hoped that the dodgers would bring him back.

i mentioned that the tigers are moving on, and here's a 2024 topps heritage high number card of andre lipcius

i show it because lipcius' only major league experience came with the tigers in 2023. topps was highly speculative when they included him in the checklist for 2024 heritage high numbers, and it didn't match up with the dodgers' roster decisions. these days it looks like he is in the white sox organization. 

now i figure i should show some actual dodgers who will participate in the series against the phillies. here's mookie betts on a 2020 topps of the class card

freddie freeman on a 2022 topps 582 montgomery card, 

and shohei ohtani on a 2025 topps 2024 all topps team insert

ohtani will pitch in the series, and i am looking forward to seeing him match up against kyle schwarber among others. no baseball tonight but plenty of action starting tomorrow!