this will do for now

i know - this makes two topps now posts in a couple of weeks. 

this one features more current cards than the bobby abreu card i showed earlier in the month, as i've made some purchases of 2026 cards so far this season. the first one was from opening day when the dodgers unveiled their 2025 world series championship placard at chavez ravine.

here's the front

which features dave roberts and shoehei ohtani, along with the first appearance of kyle tucker as a dodger on cardboard. i was not as much of a fan of the dodgers "gold" jerseys (and the hats? ugh) this year as i was last year.

here's the back:

i wound up buying three of these cards so that i could feed the dodger collection and the dodger stadium collection. these placards don't ever show up on cards, so this is a unique view of a dodger stadium element. before 2024, these were actual pennant shaped placards and way back in the o'malley days, they only had banners that they would attach to the outfield wall on opening day to celebrate the team's titles.

the third copy of the card goes in my steve garvey collection, as that is the dodgers' first baseman of my youth unveiling the 2025 placard along with fellow legend of dodger baseball, jaime jarrin.

a couple of other topps now purchases i've made this year include an impulse buy of konnor griffin's first card

interesting that topps capitalized "baseball" in the middle of a sentence. as for the card, it was the first one i saw that showed the bill mazeroski memorial patch (the "9" on griffin's left sleeve) but i am sure there will be better cards for that purpose in this year's update. i'll stash this card away and watch it lose what little value it has over the years to come. 

finally, i made my annual jackie robinson day purchase(s). first up is the jrd card which features aaron judge and shohei ohtani on the front

and andy pages on the back

i bought two copies so that i could have one in the dodger binder and one in my "42" mini-collection. i thought about a third card for the dodger stadium collection, but even though that is the chavez ravine outfield grass with the 42 mowed into it, i decided not to go that route.

one other card caught my eye from april 15, and it features padre (boo) jackson merrill. he made a nice catch and then had a big hit or something. on the bright side, we wound up with a card featuring 42 on the front

 and back

i've been to a couple of major league games recently, so perhaps there will be another topps now update in the future. stay tuned.