christmas in august

like many of you, i was both surprised and excited to see an email from david at tribecards a few weeks ago. he let me know that my cards from his christmas 2020 giveaway were shipping! about a week later, i had a 660 count box in my mailbox!

now, i had forgotten about this giveaway, and so i went back to see what it was all about. after all, this was not the first time that david hosted a huge card giveaway. for this one, he had asked us to choose our top 3 teams and top 3 players. i didn't see any cards featuring the players that i most likely identified, but i recognized the three teams for sure.

the dodgers were team number one for me, of course, and while there weren't a lot of boys in blue, the best thing in the box related to them was this 1997 donruss vxp 1.0 mike piazza thing

that's the front of a booklet that contained this

which is a rectangular cd-rom. i did not know that donruss was in the cd-rom game, but they were. here are the instructions

i did not try the item out before putting it in my 1997 dodgers binder, so i don't know if it is windows 10 compatible or not. what a great oddball for my collection!

the other two teams i identified are represented by the oldest and newest cards in the box

a 1977 topps dan ford twins card and a 2024 topps heritage george springer blue jays card. the oldest blue jays card was this 1978 topps jesse jefferson

and holy smokes i love getting 1978 topps cards in the mail!

there were a couple of outliers in my box, including a 1980 topps rusty staub card

i certainly didn't mind seeing le grand orange, and this card and the other 1980 topps cards gave me some serious flashbacks to neighborhood pack ripping.

here are some of the other cards that caught my eye. 

from the dodger stack, this 1988 score mini great moments in baseball insert was new to me

it's all about the end of don drysdale's scoreless innings streak

i always knew drysdale's streak as 58 and two-thirds innings, but at some point, elias changed it to just 58 innings which is the number on the back of the card. i recall drysdale not being in favor of losing two outs from the streak (although that last out was a sac fly). it was all made moot when orel hershiser went 59 innings without allowing a run at the end of the 1988 season.

here's a 1982 topps derrel thomas card

that made me do a double take. it's not blackless as it has the border around the photo and the facsimile signature, but the color is definitely not all there.

another printer anomaly was this 1991 topps mike scioscia

which had some printing plates off register - but not as badly as some that jon shared recently!

another 1991 card david included was this jose gonzalez card

which really features a photo of billy bean. bean passed away recently, and will be remembered as a bit of a trailblazer in the sport.

not a dodger card, but here's the guy who was drafted immediately after alex rodriguez

little d had flashes of dominance, but it just didn't work out in the end.

most of the cards i received (like last time) were twins cards. i've no issue with that, as these cards included some gems like this 1995 topps embossed golden idols kirby puckett card

i had probably not thought of or looked at darrell jackson's 1981 fleer card

for over 40 years, but there it was in the box i received and i immediately thought back to me and my friends wondering why an american league pitcher was holding a bat.

the cards also reminded me that shane mack must have had a clause that his cards needed to show him sliding into third base

i don't think i had ever seen randy bush's 1989 fleer card before (i stopped set collecting fleer after 1987)

but his teammates were nicer to him than bill ripken's teammates were to ol' duckface. for what it's worth, i don't think that bush is holding his bat in the photo.

there were some recent twins cards, including these 2024 bowman inserts (paper and chrome)

of brooks lee. lee is from near where i grew up so he has potential to become my favorite non-dodger.

one more twins card - a 2021 topps allen & ginter ryan jeffers auto card

it's more like an initialed card, but it's still pretty sweet.

as for the blue jays, here's a roger clemens base card

from that donruss vxp 1.0 release.

i have a weird affinity for buybacks, and i received these two from 2017

the 1999 topps jose cruz jr is a silver foil version, while the 1988 topps jose nunez is bronze. i remember being shocked when the mariners traded cruz to the blue jays during his rookie campaign as he was a highly touted prospect.

speaking of prospects, here's a 2023 bowman sterling prospect autograph of manuel beltre

i think this one actually is just initialed, but with a star added for effect. beltre is currently 20 years old and with the blue jays single-a affiliate in dunedin.

my favorite blue jays card in the box was this black & white parallel

of vladimir guerrero jr's 2019 topps archives snapshots card.

by choosing the dodgers, twin, and blue jays, i was able to handle a lot of cards that i hadn't taken the time to look at for a long time. i was also able to do a comparison of ken landreaux cards from near-opposite ends of the 1980's

fun fact - for a brief time in 1987, the dodgers had half of the players that the angels sent to the twins for rod carew in landreaux and brad havens. i will always remember landreaux for the 1981 season and the fact that he caught the last out of the 1981 world series.

thank you david for your giveaway! your generosity is appreciated!

the last card

i saw a reference to a blog bat around initiated by john's big league baseball blog when i was preparing a different post, and figured i would contribute to the cause.

the last major release base card of steve garvey's career came in 1988 via score:

it was the only card issued that year for garvey, my favorite player, as donruss, fleer, and topps all left him off of their respective checklists. it's understandable, as garvey played in his last game in may of 1987 due to a biceps injury. he didn't formally retire until january of 1988, however, so i guess we know that score had a checklist deadline of sometime in the fall of '87 and that they were perhaps more optimistic than the other card manufacturers. while score could have also produced the last base card of ron cey if they had added him to this checklist instead of omitting him, they did come through again for dodger fans in 1989 with a card for don sutton.

as this is the only true final tribute of garvey's career, i am ever thankful to score for producing the card. i really enjoy seeing his full career stats on the back

even if he is wearing padre colors.

thanks for the bat around john!

double play progression

it's thanksgiving and hopefully everyone is full and with family and/or friends (if they so choose). here's a post of a bunch of double play cards i've added to the collection over the last several months. i've put them in a sort of order that shows the progression of the pivot at second base.

2003 topps traded damian jackson

1998 fleer tradition nomar garciparra

2000 upper deck gary disarcina

2021 topps trevor story

2021 topps heritage miguel rojas in action

2021 topps fernando tatis jr 1952 redux

2020 topps archives fan favorites autograph ray durham

2003 topps gallery jeff kent

2021 topps chrome carlos correa xfractor

1990 elite senior league sergio ferrer

1990 elite senior league tim ireland

2015 topps gypsy queen dustin pedroia

1988 score robby thompson young superstars (hello john shelby)

2006 fleer craig biggio (hello oscar robles)

2000 upper deck subway series edgardo alfonzo

now go have seconds!

a retired favorite

paul molitor reaches retirement age tomorrow. at least, what standard retirement age used to be: 65. i believe molitor has stated that he is, in fact, retired from managing, but with tony larussa returning to the dugout at the age of 76, who knows for sure whether or not molitor could be lured back to a uniformed position.

i followed molitor's career pretty closely from start to finish. he was a rookie in the 1978 topps set - the first set i ever saw and collected - and had enough early success that i quickly paid attention. he finished his career playing for his hometown team, and the timing of his return to minnesota pretty much coincided with my move to the land of 10,000 lakes.

once steve garvey's career ended, i anointed molitor as my favorite non-dodger. he remained so until the strike in 1994, after which i started paying attention to shawn green. here are the cards of molly that i have in my "favorite non-dodger of the year" mini-collection:

1988 score

1989 fleer

1990 donruss baseball's best

1991 topps

1992 upper deck

1993 fleer flair

1994 topps black gold

i tried for some variety amongst manufacturers to get some different designs in the collection, but there is only so much that can be done from this peak of the junk wax era. it's a little bit daunting to see people i followed as a youngster hit milestone ages, but time waits for no man. happy 65th molly!

top ten garveys

it is difficult for me to choose my 10 favorite cards of my favorite player, and so i will preface this post by saying that some of the following cards, while certainly ones that i appreciate, may not be as solidly in the top ten as the others.  i have a lot of steve garvey cards to choose from, and so there is always the possibility of deviating from this list should i ever put together a similar list in the future.  with that said, here is my entry into collecting cutch's contest. behold my current top ten steve garvey cards from my collection:

first up is a 2011 topps tier one steve garvey game used patch card, numbered to 10.

this card is similar to the 2008 topps sterling patch cards of which i have a few, but this one is special because it features a piece of the all-star game patch that the dodgers wore during the 1980 season.  it is hard to believe that 1980 was the last time the all-star game was played at dodger stadium, and there are no plans to be back there anytime soon.  this year, the asg will be in miami, followed by washington dc in 2018 and cleveland in 2019.  cleveland last hosted in 1997, so jacobs/progressive field will have hosted two all-star games (and cleveland will have hosted three) since dodger stadium hosted its only one.  that makes sense. and, although the traditional american league/national league alternating schedule has been abandoned in recent years (the nl will host from 2015-2018), my guess is that atlanta gets the 2020 game with their new stadium, with 2021 probably going to the rangers who are working on a new stadium of their own.  so, 2022 might be a possibility for dodger stadium, although the dbacks are crying for new digs so who knows.  anyway, i really really like this card and am stoked to have it in my garvey collection.

the other relic in the list is this 2001 leaf certified materials fabric of the game jersey number prime patch card numbered 6/6.

i remember the auction for this card ending while i was at work, and it was pretty stressful.  i really wanted this card for my collection for a number of reasons, and thankfully submitted the winning bid.  the red number patch that was used for this relic is from an early garvey jersey, as it is glorious fuzzy wool.

i have three autographed cards in the list, the first of which is from 2016 panini pantheon

i dubbed this my favorite card of 2016, and i stand by that claim.  it's a great on-card auto with a design and image that make me forget about the lack of the interlocking 'sd' that is supposed to be on garvey's helmet.

another auto i am including here is this 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography card

this is one of the parallels, and the on-card world series champs inscription puts this one ahead of the other versions in the set.  i was pretty happy when this set came out and featured so many of my favorite dodgers, including the entire infield.

the next card here is another auto. this is garvey's 1999 upper deck retro inkredible auto card

that is the first certified auto card of garvey that i owned, and it is also the first card i received as an ebay purchase.  i discovered ebay in 1999, and was specifically looking for a 1995 upper deck sp championship series kirk gibson card when i stumbled across this. i was dumbfounded and couldn't wait to win the auction.  18 years later, and i'm still a sucker for garvey cards on ebay.

the last five cards i've chosen are base cards which remain the backbone of my collection. first up is this card, also from 1999 upper deck retro

cards of garvey showing him in dodger stadium are not that common, and this card was also one of the first mainstream cards he received after his retirement.  sure, there were plenty of oddballs from 1989 through 1998, plus a couple of appearnces in upper deck products (1994 all-time heroes and 1995 sp championship), but this card and his 1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game card let me know that he was going to be a fixture in sets that would feature retired players.  i was a happy collector.  that fleer si card, by the way, could easily be in this list, too.

now we are down to cards from garvey's playing career.  his 1988 score card

is included here not only because it is a true final tribute card, but also because it is a great card, period.  i will always be thankful to score for producing this card, along with don sutton's 1989 card.

here's garvey's 1974 topps card

which is a favorite for obvious reasons. the card has always intrigued me - from the blurry fans in the background to garvey's posiiton in the foreground to the horizontal orientation that makes it stand out from most other cards in the set.  this is the card that i have in my wallet, and while it is not my favorite garvey card, it is fantastic.

garvey's 1981 donruss card, one of them, anyway, makes the countdown

due to the dodger stadium background and the game action.  topps produced a similar card for garvey in 1981 in that he is also shown leaving the batters box although it is from the view of someone along the first base line and he's in his away grays (at shea stadium, i believe). i actually like the 1981 donruss design, probably because it is very similar to the 1978 topps design.

speaking of which

you had to know that card was coming - it will always be a part of this list.