who's been fifteen?

just 15 days to go until the dodgers kick off the 2024 season against the padres in seoul. here are some cards appropriate for the day.

2005 playoff absolute memorabilia shawn green tools of the trade red parallel

15 shows up twice on the card, which is one of a number of parallels from this release. red might be the "base". i don't know anymore.

15 shows up twice on this card as well

that is a 2003 fleer mystique shawn green card, and it is definitely the base version.  green is one of 31 dodgers to wear number 15 in the franchise's history. he had worn 15 with the blue jays before being traded to the dodgers, and he wore 15 with the diamondbacks following his departure from los angeles. with the mets, however, that was carlos beltran's number, so he switched to 20.

after green, scott erickson took the number (presumably because his preferred 19 was retired by the dodgers) and wore it for his lone season with the dodgers. the following year, rafael furcal came to town. here's a 2006 bowman heritage silver foil parallel of furcal

furcal had worn number 1 for the braves, but that number was retired for pee wee reese so he pivoted to 15 as a dodger. he continued to wear 15 for the remainder of his career which included stops with the cardinals and marlins. the cardinals, of course, retired number 1 for ozzie smith, but the number would have been available to furcal with the marlins. i guess by then he was set with 15 - at least for the nine games that his tenure with the marlins lasted.

after furcal, number 15 wasn't worn by any player until austin barnes came along. here's his 2021 topps blue star parallel card

that offers a glimpse of his number thanks to his backwards helmet.

for me, however, there is but one person i identify with number 15, and that is davey lopes, seen here on a 2001 upper deck prospect premieres heroes of baseball bat card

who's your favorite 15?

the almost daily dodger - nomar garciaparra

here's a card i've had in my scanned folder for awhile that will finally be shared - a 2006 bowman heritage nomar garciaparra silver foil parallel

nomar had a number of dodger cards in 2006 which made me happy. he was my favorite non-dodger and then my favorite dodger and i tried to add as many cards of his that i could. 

come 2007, he was absent from every topps (and bowman) product except for co-signers, and even then he was in the background of jeff kent's card variants. i am just realizing that i don't have any of those cards. some nomar fan i am.

more adventures in team collecting

i've had my share of card purchases gone awry as far as picking up a card i didn't need thanks to faulty memory or an updated want list. these purchases frustrate me a bit, but it's my own fault so i don't get too worked up about it. as a team collector, there are other things to be frustrated about, especially with so many card sets and the reliance on online checklists. wrigley wax noted recently that he was duped by an online checklist into purchasing a couple of non-cub cards, and i've had the same experience with a few cards of players like rick monday and gary sheffield.

conversely, sometimes i will find cards not on the dodger checklist that belong in the dodger collection. many of these are o-pee-chee-esque cards as i call them - dodgers in all but team name only. case in point, this 2004 playoff prestige kevin brown card

it is assigned to the yankees as far as the official checklist goes which makes sense. i looked it up because the cards in this set are numbered sequentially by team and there was a gap in the dodger numbering. i like to have these cards in the dodger collection, too. this is just my preference and i don't blame the checklist makers.

similarly, i recently added this greg gagne card to finish off my 1996 fleer team set

gagne is shown as a royal, but identified as a dodger on the card, so the fleer checklist lists him as such. this was an easy card to target as a result.

and then there are the cards that are on the team checklist that arrive from sportlots sight unseen and leave me wondering why they are on my dodger checklist.  like this 2006 bowman heritage greg maddux card:

it looks like a cubs card, but it turns out that it's only because it is replicating a design from 1949. turn the card over, and you will see that it is, in fact, a dodger card

however, i do get frustrated with all of the parallels issued these days. i found this 2018 topps cody bellinger highlights card

in my dupes box. turns out it's a blue parallel and not a duplicate at all. check another one off the team checklist.

these days, even though i will never give up on the dodger collecting, i am more focused on my steve garvey collection which has challenges of its own, but at least i don't need to think about his team affiliation.

still hunting heritage

many of the sentiments that i saw after the announcement of topps losing its licensing from mlb and the players association centered on the future of topps heritage. we should have a couple more years of the brand, but for folks like me who were looking forward to seeing late 1970's design (especially the too often ignored 1978 topps design) the ramifications are potentially disappointing. we will see if fanatics buys old topps designs as many have surmised.

in the meantime, i am still slowly pecking away at my 2001 topps heritage set build. i usually buy these to fill out sportlots orders, although i have had some good luck at recent card shows digging through 5/$1 boxes. and then, of course, there are the other sets from which i still have team needs.

here are some recent 2001 topps heritage additions, starting with adam kennedy and the disney angel uniforms:

kennedy's card is not a low number short print, but it is one of the mid-series cards that was for whatever reason only printed as a black back. i believe most of the mid-series cards are red back only. whatever. shenanigans abound with this set, with the first 80 cards shortprinted and printed in both red and black backs, and the last 97 cards also shortprinted. here are some more, some of which are short prints and some are not.

adrian gonzalez was three years and one team away from making his debut as a padre in 2004.

i also took steps to get closer to a team set from 2021 topps heritage

the hernandez card is a short print. i still have some work to do to finish this team set, however.

hands down, my favorite insert set from heritage is then and now. probably due to the fact that dodger players feature regularly. here are a couple new additions for my team set:

those are from 2006 heritage. cool that clem labine and johnny podres were featured - labine for the second year in a row!

i still have some other dodger team sets in progress, and this 2007 heritage andre ethier

means that i am down to needing just three (all sp) cards.

of course, topps also issued bowman heritage cards in the early to mid 2000's. here's a 2002 bowman heritage kazuhisa ishii card

i like the printed name - there were some cards like that in 1954 bowman.

here's a 2005 bowman heritage russell martin mahogany parallel

and a 2006 chrome parallel of martin's bowman heritage card

as well

remember wilson betemit? well, here's his base 2006 bowman heritage card

the last card in this post did not come from sportlots, but rather a dodger lot i purchased on ebay

that's a chuck essegian real one autograph card from 2008 topps heritage. i purchased that lot on a whim based on a couple of cards shown in the images - this was one of them. i'll have a separate post about some other cards i found as a result. stay tuned!

cards on cards sends cards and cards and cards and cards

it's going to take me a while to show off as many of the cards that kerry from cards on cards has sent me over the last few months. i figure i had better get started before the next batch arrives...

if i recall correctly, kerry busted a box of 2006 bowman heritage a long time ago and offered up dupes to folks. i received some nice cards for the collection, including a card of one prospect named clayton kershaw!

chad billingsley rookie, too

and when is the last time you saw a julio lugo card on a blog? well, here you go

i must have received these cards early in the pandemic, as they arrived with a 2020 topps cody bellinger rainbow foil parallel

and a will smith card from 2020 topps heritage.

kerry was also kind enough to acknowledge one of my more obscure player collections by sending me a card of the current qb coach for the detroit lions, mark brunell

nice.

while these cards were still new to my collections, i received another envelope from kerry.

i am pretty sure i specifically claimed these first two cards - a 2001 topps heritage joe randa card

for my set build (20 years and still working on it!) - and a 1990 topps magazine card featuring barry larkin, eric davis, and chris sabo

hanging out in dodger stadium. you know i appreciate a good pun, and "battin' rouge" delivers.

i also claimed the twins in a 2019 topps "topps of the class" break, and received a couple of jose berrios cards 

as a result. kerry and the person who claimed the dodgers were kind enough to share the wealth, and so i also received cards of walker buehler and cody bellinger

as well. just missing kershaw for the team set. speaking of whom, kerry sent me this purple holo parallel 

of the future hall of famer along with the base version and a couple of other dodgers from 2020 panini donruss

which was great because i never did see these cards on any retail shelf.

the last cards i will share from kerry (for now) are these 2020 panini diamond king cards of walt alston

tony gonsolin

and vladimir guerrero

the vladdy all-time diamond king insert is a great addition to my vladdy pc, but all of these cards were appreciated!  trust me when i say i have only scratched the surface of what kerry has sent my way over the past year - more to come!

thanks kerry!