busted

i have a number of collections entered into tcdb, with many of my mini-collections separated out as individual collections. when it comes to my dodger collection, however, it doesn't stand alone. i made the decision to include my player collections as part of that particular entry for a couple of reasons. one, i had already entered most of my pc's before i realized that i could create separate collections. and two, i left it that way because not every steve garvey card that i own has a duplicate in the dodger collection, but not every steve garvey card is a dodger card. so, to know how many dodger cards i have, i needed to include all of my garveys with my dodgers. make sense?

the garvey cards that i own in singular are typically serial numbered or other rare-ish inserts, and once in a while i will pick one up specifically for the dodger collection. for example, a few months ago i picked up a second 2003 donruss team heroes statline steve garvey parallel numbered to 115

because the price was right. 

the garvey cards that donruss produced as part of this set are nice in that they show a pretty violently broken bat which is not all that common on cards, and certainly not on steve garvey cards. i definitely didn't mind seeing it again on the 2003 donruss dodger magazine exclusive card, either.

especially since it shows the garv fully within the photo.

around the same time that i added the statline parallel, i bought a 2004 donruss world series blue card of garvey for the dodger collection.

there's no broken bat in the photo, but it sure looked familiar to me. it didn't take any time at all to determine that the photos on these cards are from the same game at least, if not the same at bat. they aren't the same swing, but could be the same plate appearance.

as an aside, donruss used the same photo from the world series card on an insert in their 2004 throwback threads release, and they used it again in 2005 on garvey's team heroes and donruss greats cards. here's the latter card

that came in a sportlots order in which i completed the dodger team set from that release. accompanying garvey in that order were don sutton, maury wills, duke snider, and tommy john

anyway, back to the garvey at bat. it looks like the dodgers were playing the reds at dodger stadium. there's a fan in a with shirt with green sleeves in the stands near garvey's right shoulder in the broken bat photo, and there's a guy in the camera well in that image as well. in the second image, the green sleeves guy is more visible near the left side of the image, but the camera well guy has retreated.

to make things more interesting, another image from that game or at bat showed up on one of garvey's 1984 star cards

here we've got mr. greensleeves and the camera well guy in different positions as well. while i like the broken bat image, i also like the variety very much.

i did think about looking at some box scores from 1981 (garvey is wearing the city of los angeles bicentennial patch on his left sleeve - partially visible in the broken bat photo) but once i saw two day games against the reds around memorial day i figured it would be impossible to determine which game these images came from. i will just be content knowing they are all different but from the same game.

2005 - what a year that was

it was in 2001 when i finally realized that i would likely never own a copy of every steve garvey card. that was the year that fleer, in their platinum release, included steve garvey buyback autographed 1987 cards in their rack packs. the cards were numbered to just 15, and i don't think i have ever seen one for sale on ebay or anywhere else.  

so, it wasn't an issue for me in 2005 when i counted a total of 387 cards issued for garvey by donruss, fleer, leaf, topps, and upper deck - many of which were low numbered parallels. still, i tried to find as many of them as i could, and i spent a lot of time and money in doing so. these days, the hunt continues (although it is fairly casual) as i have only added 128 of the available cards to my collection. that includes the cards i am going to show in this post; cards that i've added over the last year or so.

first up is a 2005 donruss greats souvenirs signature card

this card is not numbered, but carries a print run of 100. it's been a doozy to find. there are six total souvenirs cards of garvey from this release, and i now have them all. there is the base, the materials bat relic (print run of 1,200), the signature (shown above; print run of 100), the signature and materials jersey relic (print run of 250), the signature and materials bat relic (print run of 100), and the signature and materials combo jersey and bat relics (print run of 100). for whatever reason, this version with just the signature has eluded me for over fifteen years.

a whopping 56 cards of garvey in 2005 come from the donruss studio portraits release. these cards are all serial numbered from 60 all the way down to 5. i have 20 of them, including these four recent additions:

as you can see, the differences are in the borders and the color tone of the image. you might think that those middle two are from the same card, but you would be mistaken. that's because there are variations on the back! see for yourself:

the variations were based on different donruss products, and these four represent estrellas, leather & lumber, throwback threads, and zenith, respectively.  that means that those middle two are both "red" parallels, but one is the leather & lumber red and the other is the throwback threads red. make sense? it shouldn't really.

topps was not immune to parallel-itis back then, either, although they did not go to the extremes that donruss did.  here's a topps all-time fan favorites gold refractor of the garv

it's numbered to 25, as you can see on the back

there was a regular refractor that had a print run of 250, plus an autograph and an autograph parallel that is numbered to 10. of those i am only missing the autograph /10. and then there are the printing plates of which i have none.

note that i haven't shown any cards from donruss' diamond kings release which also included a huge number of garvey cards - 56 of them to be exact. i don't think there are enough colors, emojis, or foil variations that topps or donruss could come up with to top the number of parallels that they churned out in 2005, but i suspect i will be asked to "hold their beer" in the next couple of years.

roberto clemente is in my hall of famer collection

brian from collecting cutch sent me a card a couple of years ago that, when i look back, was an impetus for this formalization of my hall of famer collection:

that's a 2005 donruss greats roberto clemente hall of fame souvenirs relic card.  here's the back:

what can i say about roberto clemente that will do him justice?  he passed away before i was aware of baseball, but he was an iconic enough figure that i learned about him very early on in my fandom. i even wrote a report on him in elementary school, focusing on the relief efforts that led to his untimely passing.  when pete rose got his 3000th hit in the 1978 season, i learned how special that number is to baseball, and was immediately thankful that clemente had reached that milestone with his final career hit. his 1973 card - a true 'final tribute' - is one of my favorite cards ever produced.

i had placed this card with some other 'favorite' cards that otherwise didn't really fit in my collection - a marcel dionne relic card, a jack youngblood autograph card, and a cool cesar cedeno relic card to name a few other misfits that i want to hold on to.  now it sits with a bunch of other hall of famers in a more organized part of my collection.

here's my hall of famer collection as its been documented so far:

babe ruth - 2003 topps tribute world series edition world series tribute relic 351/425:

bob feller - 2001 topps archives

jackie robinson - 2004 topps clubhouse collection clubhouse relics

roberto clemente - 2005 donruss greats hall of fame souvenirs relic

warren spahn - 1999 upper deck century legends epic signatures

hank aaron - 2004 topps originals 1979 topps all-time record holders rbi 03/32:

bruce sutter - 2003 topps all-time fan favorites

pete rose* - 2018 panini flawless legendary signatures 15/25

you can find the full list of hall of famers (and some not - yet) that i aim to include in this collection at my want list site.

*not currently a member of the hall of fame