there's a new favorite in town

hey! the 2026 baseball season is upon us!

clayton kershaw's retirement brought an end to his run as my favorite active dodger. that means i needed to pick a new one for 2026, and it was a pretty easy decision. my new favorite active dodger is mookie betts.

there are a few reasons i chose betts, but it basically boils down to the fact that i really enjoy watching him play the game. as you can imagine, i have a number of his cards in my scanned/not posted folder, so here are a few:

2021 topps 582 montgomery

standard portrait and basic card design from a set that nobody really needed or asked for.

2023 topps favorite son insert

betts is the best player to come out of tennessee in the history of the game. his war surpasses hall of famer todd helton, and all other natives of that state. dodger fans might recall that jim gilliam is also from nashville, which seems fitting as he was also highly skilled at multiple positions.

2023 topps allen & ginter short print

betts had two cards in the 2023 ginter set for some reason. this is the one numbered in the 300-series.

2025 topps gameday drip insert

he cleans up pretty well, and still wears that plastic bat and ball necklace he got from a young fan several years ago when dressed to the nines.

2024 topps 2023 silver slugger winner manufactured relic

this card is not as thick nor as heavy as the manurelics had been in the past. likely because it was just inserted in packs rather than included as a bonus card to blaster packaging.

as for the card that represents betts in my favorite dodger collection, i didn't have a lot of choices at this point so i went with his 2026 topps flagship card of which i had a couple extras.

with the changing of the guard, i was thinking about kershaw and my fandom. i would say that he is firmly on my "mount rushmore" of favorite dodgers of all-time. this gives me an excuse to post more cards, like his 2021 topps yellow parallel

joining kersh in that quad of dodger greats is steve garvey, seen here on a 2021 panini donruss orange holo parallel

those are my two favorite dodgers of my lifetime. the third player on this list is sandy koufax, whose 2020 topps allen & ginter silver portrait parallel is shown below

including koufax is a nod to my dad and his fandom, but i would think most dodger fans in general consider koufax one of the four greatest dodgers of all-time.

the final player in the foursome is jackie robinson. this is his 2021 topps gallery printer proof parallel

it may sound dumb, but i am really proud to be a dodger fan because of jackie robinson. 

one thing with betts becoming my favorite dodger is his autograph. i have signed cards of each of my favorite dodgers through the years (and favorite non-dodgers, too - post forthcoming). i do not, as of yet, have an autographed card of betts. i did re-acquire a rookie card of his (i sold the couple of base rookies i had found in packs back in 2014). this time, i found a 2014 topps update gold parallel of his rookie debut card

it's not in the best shape, but that's why i was able to acquire it for a really low price. here's the back

i'll keep my eye out for an autographed card to add, but prices are pretty ridiculous even as he has begun signing a significant number of cards for topps in the last couple of years.

i'm looking forward to the season and following betts as he chases his fifth world series title!