i decided at some point in 2024 to seek out autographed cards of my favorite non-dodgers of the year. i have a card for each player representing the season in which they were my favorite, and i already have autograph cards of my favorite dodgers scattered throughout my dodger and steve garvey collections, and some of my non-dodger favorites were already in my hall of famer collection with autographed cards or in a couple of cases, other parts of my collection. still, there were a couple of non-dodger favorites that i was missing and in the end, i decided to add a new autograph for each member of this group to keep with my year-to-year favorites card collection.
i've finally finished this effort, so without further ado, here are the cards that i added for all of my yearly non-dodger favorites, from don baylor to byron buxton.
don baylor (1978-1979): 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph
baylor had a monster year in 1979 and led the angels to the postseason for the first time. however, i was already a big fan of pete rose, and i switched my favoritism to him starting with the 1980 season.
pete rose (1980-1982): 2016 panini pantheon milestone scripts /25
rose was the first of my favorite players - dodger or non-dodger - to win the world series as a favorite of mine. i definitely wanted this card to be from rose's philly days, and i was happy to find it for a pretty decent price (this was before rose passed away). i can remember a lot about the phillies' win over the royals to this day. once my favorite dodger left los angeles, however, i dropped pete like a hot potato.
steve garvey (1983-1987): 1999 fleer sports illustrated autograph
i now have three of these particular autograph cards in my collection - one in this one, one in my garvey collection, and one in my collection of cards featuring games that i've attended in person. garvey took the padres to their first, and his last, fall classic during this stretch where he was my favorite non-dodger. i held out hope that he would return in 1988, but he went unsigned (collusion? he thought so) and accepted the padres' offer to retire his number early in the season. with rose also retired, i moved on to another longtime favorite, and elevated him to the top spot.
like rose, molitor won a world series while he was my favorite non-dodger, and i was happy to be able to land this card celebrating his title with the blue jays in 1993. i followed molitor closely until he retired, but after the strike, i did a bit of a reset, and switched my favorite to a different blue jay.
when green joined the dodgers, i turned to my favorite of the american league shortstop triumvirate.
nomar garciaparra (2000-2005): 2023 topps finest autograph
nomar joined the dodgers which was fun for me but meant i needed a new favorite non-dodger. vladimir guerrero (my son was becoming an angels fan at this time) answered the call.
the hometown team won out in terms of my son's fandom, so i switched my non-dodger favoritism to local hero joe mauer.
joe mauer (2008-2018): 2022 topps museum collection archival autograph /50
with mauer retiring, a former favorite dodger took over.
kemp retired after the 2020 season, and i decided to go younger with my favorite for 2021.
i stuck with tatis through his suspension before i realized that i was really paying more attention to the twins' center fielder.
that buxton card is pretty cool - 25/25 and all that. plus he raised his name to the 25th power!
i don't see anyone unseating buxton in the near future unless he retires. when healthy, he is a beast and he is always fun to watch.
i'll note that i also picked up another dodger autograph of nomar garciaparra - a 2016 topps archives signature series /6
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