clubhouse presence

the theme of many of my posts over the last few months has been "focus". there are certain sets or inserts that i am paying closer attention to, given the fact that there are too many to acquire and a scattershot approach doesn't really resonate with me at the moment.

one of the inserts that i have chosen to focus on more is the "clubhouse collection" relics found in topps heritage releases. in recent years, steve garvey has been on the checklist, which got me thinking about other dodgers throughout the years. i already had some of these cards in my collection, but have spent some time over the last year or so to purposefully add a few more.

this is (obviously) an auto/relic clubhouse collection card featuring garvey

that comes from 2025 topps heritage high number. it is hand numbered (as clubhouse collection cards are) on the back

that is 1/25, as topps puts a line through the 7. i don't know anyone who writes the number 1 that way, but whatever. also, note the cartoon on the back:

looks like an early version of tcdb at work there.

2001 was the first year of heritage, and there were only a few relic cards included. the dodgers were represented, with shawn green being the subject

here's the back:

nice to see wes parker's name there! topps abandoned the writeups sometime in the 2010's as we will see in a bit. they also went away from the hologram stickers pretty quickly.

jumping to 2004, here's another shawn green relic

with the back:

with another cartoon related to baseball card collecting

the relics were pretty small in 2007, and while the green above was identified as "uniform", this duke snider

is more specifically "pants". here's the back

with a generic cartoon.

from that same year, we were treated to a rafael furcal bat card

that has the same generic cartoon on the back

he had a really good year for the dodgers in 2006, setting or matching career highs in several categories, but i guess topps felt that his previous history was more important.

here's a card from 2012 heritage - it's should-have-been 2011 mvp matt kemp

at this point, things are just referred to as "memorabilia". here's the back:

he really did have a monster year in 2011. i don't quite get the cartoon. 

i picked up another kemp card, this one from 2015.

and now we see the backs

having a very minimalist approach.

fast forward to 2023 topps heritage high numbers for this miguel vargas card

i do like that topps used the 1974 traded design for those cards. of all the ones in this post, this is the first one that i could easily identify the year that it belongs to.

same goes for this 2024 topps heritage high number dual relic of garvey and freddie freeman

it's numbered to 75 on the back

and, applying what we've learned, it's number 14/75. i don't know what the book of "relics" is that the cartoon is showing. is that someone's card binder that contains only relics? does anyone store their collection that way? i suppose there are some that do - my relics are contained within my year-by-year team collection or various player or mini-collections.

here's another dual relic card of the dodger first basemen of then and now.

it's from 2025 topps heritage high number and is numbered there on the front. the back is pretty generic

with no cartoon whatsoever!

this year, i've managed to pick up will smith's clubhouse collection card

with an even more boring back

while i could see the 1976 design elements on the 2025 heritage cards, these don't say 1977 to me other than the full white borders. the text is giving 1960's or early 70's vibes.

garvey has another dual relic in this release, and this time he shares space with smith and not freeman. here's the one i've been able to secure

now numbered to 77 to match the year. the back is as you would expect

i probably should have scanned or reposted other examples i have from other years of heritage, but i think this is enough. i'll continue to focus on these cards (i'd love to pick up one of the triple relic dodger cards out there) and am really looking forward to next year. i hope the design of the clubhouse collection cards then is more obviously showcasing the 1978 set design. stay tuned!