the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - cleveland matinee edition!

clayton kershaw made his third appearance of the 2025 season wednesday aftternoon against the guardians at the jake progressive field. kershaw was coming off a rain shortened appearance against the mets, but there was no delay for this start. so, i am pleased to be able to post another edition of the k is for kershaw kountdown as we track his progress to the 3,000 strikeout milestone.

kershaw pitched five innings and threw 74 pitches, allowing just 1 run on 6 hits. he walked 2 and struck out 3, bringing his season total to six strikeouts. those three guardians he k'd raised his career strikeout total to 2,974. 

in honor of his performance, here are three cards (not seen on this blog before) from my collection to represent strikeouts number 2,972 though 2,974.

2,972 - 2017 topps stadium club gold foil

2,973 - 2019 topps stadium club red foil

2,974 - 2023 topps black & white

kershaw's third strikeout came against jose ramirez to close out the fifth inning and it put him in line for his first win of the season. unfortunately, tanner scott blew the lead in the 8th inning and so kershaw will need to wait to notch that first w of the year.

here's a non-kershaw card - it's a 2021 topps stadium club chrome alex vesia card

vesia relieved tanner scott in the 8th inning of the game with the score tied and two guardians on base. he promptly gave up a 3-run home run.

from the same set, here's zach mckinstry

mckinstry is currently playing for the detroit tigers - the owners of the best record in baseball at the time i penned this post. now, back to kershaw.

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there until he passes zack greinke. greinke has a career strikeout total of 2,979, and so kershaw is now 5 k's behind greinke and 26 away from the 3,000 milestone. 

kershaw should be back on the mound next week to get another crack at the mets (he will miss the yankee series coming up this weekend). know that when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned! 

ranger danger

at the card show in houston i posted about recently, i picked up this 2022 topps heritage high numbers card of corey seager

it's a 1973 topps comic insert, and to be honest, i didn't register the fact that he was a ranger on the card until later. still, i decided to put the card in my dodger collection because in half the panels seager is representing the dodgers, and is shown in his dodger uniform in the fifth panel. that's good enough for me!

it is clearly meant to be a ranger card, and if it were produced today, i don't think there would be anything dodger about it other than maybe a reference to his being a two-time world series mvp. he certainly fulfilled the purpose that topps laid out for him in the second and last panels.

here are some honest to goodness dodger cards featuring seager that have joined my collection in recent months.

that one is a 2019 topps manupatch card that is numbered to 150. i got it for a couple of bucks.

this is a 2017 topps stadium club gold parallel

that helped fill out a sportlots order for two bits, and here is a 2021 topps 70 years of topps insert

i was trying to complete the dodger set of these inserts a couple of months ago, but i didn't quite make it. with archives, seeing current players on older designs is less of a thrill, but i did enjoy the variety of the 70 years of topps inserts. i wonder if they will do the same thing in 2026 as they get to 75 years.

42 for everyone

no surprises today, as i am posting some of the jackie robinson cards that i've added to my collection over the last few months, starting with this 2016 topps mlb debut insert

celebrating that event that occurred 77 years ago today!

2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts when it was a game insert /550

2006 upper deck all-time legends insert

2014 topps triple threads

2015 topps 1st home run gold parallel insert

four of a kind there. i am happy to report that the rest of the cards in this post have unique photos, starting with 2017 topps stadium club black foil parallel

topps' acceptance of black and white photos (for some releases, anyway) has opened the door for some "new" images of jackie to be used. some, like this one in stadium club, works really well. sometimes topps goes for colorization of black & white photos and comes up short as we've seen in another stadium club release where they colored the number on the back of his jersey red instead of blue.

2021 topps 70 years of topps inserts - base

and chrome

the chrome version is really more of a foil, i think. it's interesting to me how difficult it was to find these two cards at a low price, but i managed it.

2022 topps stadium club chrome

i believe that someone, somewhere, figured out what jackie is doing with that paper, but i can't find the post. one of the headlines above where he is holding the pencil says "contest deadlines" so maybe it's some sort of entry form and not the ponies!

2018 topps gallery hall of fame gallery insert

not a bad painting of jackie on that card

2023 topps archives 1979 comics insert

unbelievable here that the "inside baseball" inset shows the date of jackie's debut as april 15, 1945. yes, the text is correct below, but then why was the text above allowed to remain? i mean it looks like someone tried to add some red to the uniform number on the front of his jersey, so why couldn't they have corrected the text? it just boggles my mind at how poorly topps does sometimes.

in other news, the dodgers have issued a comic book about jackie robinson in the past. i think it was in 1997. i used to have one - maybe i still do!

2023 topps 1988 all-star insert

at some point i wonder if topps will leave jackie out of these insert sets. 

2024 topps grand gamers insert

this one finished my team set

2023 panini chronicles - pinnacle

i don't really chase any panini products, but i had wanted this particular card for a while. it's simple, but the design and black and white photo creates a pretty appealing card in my opinion. you almost don't miss the absence of the "b" on his hat.

today all players will wear jackie's number, just like carlos correa here on a 2018 topps salute insert

i haven't picked up any other 42 cards lately, but i'll be checking out topps now releases tomorrow to see what's available.

finally, i want to once again share the story of how i first learned of the meaning of jackie robinson's debut. i was listening to a dodger broadcast with my dad in the late 1970's and one of the announcers (vin scully, jerry doggett, or ross porter) mentioned the fact that jackie broke the color barrier and became the first black player allowed to play major league baseball. i asked my dad if that were true, and to further clarify, asked if there were really a time when dusty baker wouldn't have been able to play in the major leagues. it blew my mind when he said yes.

i wonder if there is a young fan out there that is thinking the same thing today, but about mookie betts

42 really is for everyone.

leave no trayce

i have been waiting over a year to post this post! here's a 2017 topps stadium club gold foil parallel of trayce thompson

that followed a somewhat breakout sort of season for the dodgers in 2016, and here is his card from 2022 topps

showing him with the cubs, for whom he played in 2021.

thompson rejoined the dodgers in june of 2022, but i had to wait until now to find a card that documented his return. here's his 2023 topps dodgers factory team set card

that shows him back in dodger blue.  yes, trayce thompson is a dodger double dipper!

here's the back of the card:

i like that it addresses the fact that this is thompson's second stint with the dodgers. he is also a white sox double dipper!

the back also notes that thompson has changed organizations 10 times. let's see if i have it all covered:

he was drafted by the white sox and played for them in 2015. the dodgers (that's one change) traded for him in the frankie montas deal, and he stayed in la through the 2017 season. the yankees (that's two) picked him up off of waivers at the start of the 2018 season, and two days later, the a's (that's three) claimed him from new york. he did not ever appear in a game for the yankees. two weeks after the a's picked him up, they traded him to the white sox (that's four) where he spent the rest of the 2018 season before becoming a free agent. once on the open market, cleveland (that's five) signed him. he didn't make it to the big leagues with them, and they released him late in the 2019 season. he was then signed by the diamondbacks (that's six) in february of 2020. he did not appear in the bigs with them, but had his contract purchased by the cubs (that's seven) in may of 2021. the padres (that's eight) signed him as a free agent in march of 2022, and then the tigers (that's nine) did the same two months later. after three weeks or so with the tiger organization, the dodgers (that's ten) purchased his contract and he wound up being a key contributor for the remainder of the season. so far in 2023, not so much.  

by my count, the dodgers hadn't had a double dipper since alex wood in 2020. i don't consider thompson's 2022 teammate andrew heaney to have been a dodger double dipper because he never played for the dodgers during his 3-day stint on the roster in december of 2014. however, thompson isn't the only dodger dipper on the 2023 roster - miguel rojas played for the dodgers in 2014 before being sent to miami in that same trade that netted the dodgers heaney. he's back this year, but i don't think there were any cards issued of him during his first stint in los angeles. he is featured in series 2, however, so i should be able to finally get a card of him in dodger blue.

head over heels for junior

ken griffey jr is 52 years old today. happy birthday to the guy formerly known as "the kid". i've said it many times - time waits for no man.

anyway, i used to have a pc of griffey, and i recently moved this 2001 fleer ultra card

from that defunct collection in to my lurker mini-collection. it wasn't until about a year ago that i noticed that the other player on the card was a dodger, and so it qualified for that collection. i am pretty sure that it is mark grudzielanek who is upside down on the card, with this photo coming after a hard slide by junior breaking up a double play attempt on april 23, 2000. here's a photo of the play from a different angle. 

at some point in the last year or two, gavin at baseball card breakdown showed this 2000 pacific omega card on his blog

and so i tracked a copy down for the dodger stadium collection. that's the "e" in "dodgers" behind griffey as part of the murals that used to adorn the outfield wall at chavez ravine in the late 1990's and early 2000's.

not to be outdone, brian at highly subjective completely arbitrary showed this 2007 upper deck scott hatteberg card

at some point which had me hunting down a copy for the aforementioned lurker collection. that's griffey with the backwards hat (of course) at the right of the card.

i also added a couple of other cards featuring an uncredited griffey - this 1997 donruss mariners team set jay buhner card

and this 2017 topps stadium club roy oswalt card

griffey is a foreground lurker on this card that is reminiscent of the 1976 topps tom seaver record breaker card. 

the last card in this post is another one that i salvaged from the pc. it's griffey's 1996 select card

and it's been installed in my "meaningful and just because" mini-collection. this was one of my favorite cards back in '96 and i still enjoy looking at it. not only does it remind me of the mariners' run to the alcs in 1995, but griffey in that moment exuded pure joy and happiness. that game helped bring me fully back in to my fandom, and griffey's style and attitude was a big part of it.

happy birthday junior!

my favorite cards of the year - 2017 edition

i recently introduced my mini collection focusing on my favorite cards from each year that i've been a collector. the basic gist is that i wanted to create a space for the cards that i most appreciated having in my collection in the year that they were released. these were cards that i acquired in the year that they were issued, and that i considered to be my favorites at the time. i have disallowed (most) cards that are already in other mini collections in order to avoid having a mini collection consisting of more steve garvey, double plays, and dodger stadium cards.

favorite non-dodger card: topps stadium club jameson taillon

fitting that this card is posted tonight when mlb is celebrating roberto clemente day. you can see the painted grass in the foreground of this card referencing a tribute to clemente, and of course, clemente's number 21 is visible on the right field scoreboard. i've not been to pnc park yet, but cards like this push it to the top of the list of stadiums to visit.

favorite dodger card: topps update sandy koufax variation

sure, the colorization is not the best, but this card that featured a new koufax image on cardboard celebrating his second no-hitter was such a surprise and became an instant favorite. using a photo from may of 1963 means that this is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) dodger stadium photo to wind up on a baseball card. the scoreboard shows the line score of koufax's second no-hitter which came against willie mays and the giants. an 8th inning walk ended the perfect game, and koufax issued another walk in the 9th. thanks to a double play in the 8th, he only faced one over the minimum. harvey kuenn made the last out, and two years later kuenn would again make the last out in a koufax no-hitter, although that would be a perfect game. anyway, i really liked this card and anointed it my favorite card of the year.

today, i think i prefer one of the runners up a bit more - that would be the 2017 topps dodger team card

which shows the team saluting vin scully after their division clinching, walk-off win in the final home game of the season. however, these posts and this collection are about the real-time favorites, so koufax remains.

up next, 1999. stay tuned!

they came in 2 by 2 from 2 x 3 heroes

some other folks took the title 'return of the jedi', so i'm going in a different direction to show some cards that jedi jeff from 2x3 heroes sent my way recently.  there were a few pairs that go great together, such as these 2017 topps stadium club sandy koufax gold and black foil parallels:

and these black and gold 2017 topps allen & ginter justin turner mini parallels:

and these 2017 topps gallery corey seager artist proof paralle and base card:

that's a nice trio of duos!

there were other cards, too, including a big lot of some 2008 upper deck goudey and 2017 topps heritage high numbers that i had requested in one of his giveaways a while back.  there were more dodgers, as well.

here's a blank back from 2018 panini donruss:

you can't tell, but i assure you that on the front of the card is cody bellinger's 1984 design card from the set. in fact, it's the photo variation version of his 1984 design card. so that means that this card is a photo variation and a blank back variation at the same time. that's some panini hijinks right there!

one more card - it's a 1990 topps ray searage card!

i've got to believe that this is the first time this card has been shown on a blog, right?

thanks jeff!