thankful for penny sleeves

it was great to hear from jon and then receive some cards from him shortly before thanksgiving. he's always been a supporter of my collection and blogs and he provided me with some great content for both!

first up is a 2011 topps lineage diamond anniversary parallel of an out of place vladimir guerrero

i think we are in for a host of parallels - even more than last year - with topps celebrating its diamond anniversary (again?) this year. 75 years since the 1951 set was released. in 2011 they were celebrating their 60th and i guess both 60 and 75 are diamond anniversaries. go figure.

here are some reprint cards of some dodger greats

to be exact, these are reprints of 1948 swell sport thrills cards of pete reiser, jackie robinson, pee wee reese, and carl furillo. the set was at one time included in tcdb, but it has since been removed for some reason.

at first i thought maybe jon had sent doubles - a mini-bipping! - of this zack wheat 2013 panini cooperstown lumberjacks insert

but those are two different cards with different numbers on the back. a closer look reveals plenty of difference between the two cards. and, there is a third one to be tracked down, which is very similar to the second and has "consistently great" text in place of the "1959" text

on to los angeles now, with a couple of mike piazza cards

that's his sparkly 1995 score summit nth degree parallel and this is a 1997 fleer ultra season crowns insert

that i would have sworn to be a pacific card.

thank you jon and wishing you all the best in 2026!

2025 brings balance to the franchise

i was pondering the upcoming 2025 baseball season last winter and did some quick math in my head regarding some dodger milestones. it will be the 70th anniversary of the team's first world series title and the 60th anniversary of their fourth. it will also be the 135th anniversary of their inaugural season as a member of the national league. as you likely already know, while the team existed for a few years prior, brooklyn officially joined the national league in 1890 and later moved to los angeles following the 1957 season. 

partly inspired by the fact that the a's were heading to sacramento after having been in oakland longer than they were in philadelphia, i pondered the dodgers' multi-city status and realized that with this being their 136th season in the major leagues, 2025 will mark their 68th season as the los angeles dodgers, matching the 68 that they played in brooklyn. franchise symmetry! (note that the giants still have seven years to go to reach this franchise fulcrum, as they began play as a national league team in 1883).

in 1957, topps gave us this team card of the brooklyn dodgers

but despite '57 being their final season in brooklyn, we got one more brooklyn dodger team card in 1958

since these were always "last year's" team photos. topps left off the city for the dodgers (and the giants) which was out of step with the other team cards. seeing roy campanella on the card makes me even more disappointed that topps did not give him a proper final tribute. finally, it's worth noting that topps not being able to color the numbers on the front of the dodger jerseys correctly is not a new phenomenon.

in 1959, topps gave us the first los angeles dodgers team card

and they got the red numbers right!

the last single player brooklyn dodger topps card belonged to don elston in 1957

and the first los angeles dodger topps card belonged to charley neal in 1958

around the first of the year, i took the opportunity to complete a couple of sets that span both cities. first, the 1980 tcma all-time dodgers

which features more brooklyn folks than los angeles ones. this 1991 line drive set

reverses that trend. i had a few of the tcma cards previously, as well as the garvey from the line drive set, but found it easier to buy the sets than piecemeal the missing cards.

i have plenty of other cards from my scanned folder to show today that play on this theme, including a couple gil hodges cards

that's a 1949 bowman reprint (chromified) from 2001 bowman chrome, and this is a 2002 topps 1952 world series insert

while hodges played for the dodgers in both brooklyn and los angeles, he's representing brooklyn in each of his cards in this post.

here's hodges' teammate in both brooklyn and la, duke snider, on a 2005 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary lineage insert

duke has his brooklyn hat on here, but is repping los angeles in the all-time dodger set above.

another dodger who played in both cities is jim gilliam, seen on a 2023 panini donruss pennants insert

his helmet has no logo, but the card makes it obvious that he is representing the brooklyn dodgers here. the brooklyn dodgers won nine pennants, but just one world series.

one great who didn't make the trip to los angeles with the club is jackie robinson. here he is on a few cards - 2024 topps mega box 1989 all-star

2024 topps allen & ginter mini chrome parallel

and 2023 topps archives 1969 single player foil insert

that really makes the case for brooklyn.

don drysdale, seen here on a 2008 donruss threads baseball americana insert

pitches for brooklyn, but the big d shown here on a 2022 topps gypsy queen short print

pitches for los angeles.

here's another sandy koufax card, this one from 2024 topps

it's another mega box exclusive parallel. koufax, of course, also spanned the franchise's time in brooklyn and los angeles, and he's wearing the latter on his chest here. he led the club to three world series titles in the first 10 years of their existence on the west coast and is still revered by the dodger faithful today.

once the 1970's arrived (represented here on a 2020 topps update decades' best blue parallel)

the club won three pennants, but lost each of the world series in which they played. the card above features a photo from the 1978 world series, which was especially heartbreaking for young gcrl who assumed that the dodgers would win since they lost in 1977. it was their turn!

the 1978 season did cement steve garvey as my favorite player, and i was far from alone in that regard. here's the garv on a 2024 topps allen & ginter gold mini parallel

while the perennial all-star didn't lead the dodgers back to the postseason in 1979, the 1980's brought two pennants and two championships to los angeles, represented by this 1989 mother's dodgers card

but then came some lean years. there were some bright spots, as a number of rookies of the year, including mike piazza seen on a 1994 ultra pro card

gave us hope. that hope petered out with two postseason sweepings in the middle of the 1990s. then came the jim tracy years. here's tracy on a 2004 topps gold parallel

his tenure included the dodgers' only postseason single game win since 1988, but also included a number of interesting player personnel decisions. one solid player who was there for part of the tracy era was shawn green, seen here on a 2005 donruss classics team colors insert

that is most decidedly "la".

another highlight of those years was "game over". eric gagne's prowess at saving games was highlighted on this 2006 upper deck epic epic events insert

gagne won the cy young award in 2003, and the dodgers didn't have a pitcher win another until clayton kershaw came along.

here's kershaw on a 2009 topps unique red parallel card

kershaw's arrival coincided with a run of team success. in fact, in kershaw's 17 seasons, the dodgers have missed the postseason only three times. here's a 2015 topps limited edition dodger team card

showing the 2014 squad celebrating their regular season success.

it wasn't until the dodgers added mookie betts, however, that their postseason fortunes changed. here's betts on a 2021 topps 70 years of topps insert

betts led the dodgers to the world series title in 2020, and he was aided four years later by freddie freeman and shohei ohtani (shown on his 2024 topps archives card)

who went 50/50 during the regular season.

of course, perhaps the greatest dodger and the real bridge between the franchise's time in brooklyn and los angeles, was vin scully. here's a 2013 panini cooperstown matrix parallel

of the longtime broadcaster.

i am excited to watch this team as it reaches its equilibrium this year and as it tips the scales to los angeles in years to come. i am very happy that the stateside opening day is tomorrow!

time to harvest the wheat

according to google, now is the time that wheat can typically begin to be harvested - in california at least. here in minnesota, it's july before the grain is dry enough to harvest. i didn't want to wait another month to show off these cards, however, since i received them from jon at pennysleeves back in january.

jon sent a "bushel" of zack wheat cards from panini cooperstown - both 2012

and 2013

i have those listed as "crystal" and "gold crystal" respectively. jon also included the green crystal

and red crystal 

cards from 2013.

zack wheat is the greatest player of the dodgers' pre-war era. he is still the franchise's all-time leader in hits, singles, doubles, triples, total bases, and games played. i have felt, for the last 40 years since i first saw the "ny" placards the giant had in their outfield for players like christy mathewson, that the dodgers should have a big "b" among their retired numbers for wheat.

wheat didn't travel alone - jon also sent the 2013 green and red crystal cards of roy campanella and pee wee reese

although campy's card is technically not a dodger card, i keep them in my dodger collection. note that i am still waiting for topps to put the image from roy campanella night at the l.a. coliseum featuring campy and reese and 100,000 candles on a card.

a couple more cooperstown cards from 2013 were included, such as don sutton's red crystal parallel

and jackie robinson's gold crystal card

this was all just amazing to receive. but wait, jon included some more cards!

1998 ud spx eric young (radiance)

and hideo nomo (spectrum)

plus a couple of 2017 topps high tek blackout cards of sandy koufax

and clayton kershaw

as roy hobbs said, "there's nothing like being in the field with the corn and the winter wheat", and there's not much better than receiving some great cards from a fellow collector. many thanks jon!

who's coming to dinner?

i recall reading back during the second bush administration that the president arranged for a lunch or dinner at the white house that included a number of baseball hall of famers. i believe he made it an annual event and so was able to spend time with a large number of the greatest baseball players from the 1950s through the 1990s. there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that i would do the exact same thing if i were ever in a position to do so.

it's a play on the old question of who you would invite to dinner if you could invite anyone. sometimes, the "dead or alive" option is granted, and i think i will apply that to this exercise.

like michael scott, let's say that i only have six wine glasses so here are the five baseball dignitaries i would invite to join me for dinner.

vin scully

this is a no-brainer. scully would serve as the emcee - keeping the conversation going while staying quiet when others are carrying the conversation. and, he had stories for days about the game.

pete rose

i was at a couple of hot stove dinners that rose attended back in the late 70s and early 80s, and i remember him commenting at one of them that it had turned in to a mild roast. the other players were sharing some benign stories about rose, and i would love to hear his side of those stories as well as others that probably weren't fit for a hot stove crowd. one of my favorite pete rose quotes comes from george will's "men at work" where pete says during a moment of severe turbulence on a team flight something along the lines of "we're going down but at least i have a .300 lifetime average - what do you have?" it would be a blast, i think, to hear more stories from rose.

steve garvey

another no-brainer for me as a fan, although they say never meet your heroes. i would definitely run the risk with the garv. i would love to ask him about a few things and maybe even bring up don sutton or the 1981 world series mvp announcement that initially had him as a co-winner and not steve yeager.

jackie robinson

robinson would bring some gravitas to the dinner, i think, but i would want to focus on the on-field activities and hear about playing in the 1950's. sometimes i wonder if because of who he was and what he represented, jackie's playing experience and record lacks the level of respect it deserves.

lou gehrig

gehrig would bring the pre-war perspective to the party. i've been a fan of him since reading a biography back in elementary school. he may turn out to be a boring guest, but i would take that chance.

others i thought of in the first minute or so of this exercise

dusty baker

rickey henderson

old ross hadbourn

joe jackson

ty cobb

sandy koufax

tommy lasorda

and did i consider inviting jim tracy

just to ask him what the heck he was thinking with his lineups back in 2005? yes i did. these days, i don't care so much about tracy and his band of ja(y)sons, but 18 years ago he may have made the invite list.

not sure if this is "bat around" material, but i'd be interested in hearing your ideas for baseball dinner party guests. happy thanksgiving no matter who your dinner guests are!