bet your bottom dollar

i am really looking forward to tomorrow. one day closer to the weekend, sure, but it's also going to be the season debut of clayton kershaw.

the future hall of famer is back from his offseason shoulder surgery and subsequent rehab and will be on the bump against the giants. my expectations are tempered, but i am hoping that he doesn't suffer any setbacks and is able to pitch for the remainder of the season on a regular basis.

kershaw is just 56 strikeouts away from 3,000 and if he stays healthy over the next 10 weeks, he has a real shot at achieving the milestone this season. of course, that depends on his stuff. anyway, here are 17 kershaw cards to share in honor of his 17th season kicking off tomorrow.

2024 topps grand gamers

2024 topps superstar blueprints

2020 topps choice black parallel /299

2016 topps chrome sepia refractor

2017 topps triple threads

2019 bowman's best

2019 topps allen & ginter x

2020 bowman platinum

2013 panini hometown heroes zip code parallel

2015 topps tribute

2017 bowman chrome

2019 panini prizm blue prizm parallel

2020 panini prizm stargazing white wave prizm parallel

2021 panini donruss photo variation holo pink parallel

2022 panini capstone summit

2023 topps favorite sons black parallel /299

2024 topps silver pack chrome 1989 35th anniversary

once he gets on the mound, the "k is for kershaw kountdown" will continue! stay tuned!

a quarter century for 42

a month from today marks the 75th anniversary of jackie robinson's major league debut. that means it will also be the 25th anniversary of major league baseball retiring number 42 in perpetuity to honor the trailblazer. it's one of my favorite days of the baseball calendar. 

on what would have been jackie's 102nd birthday back in january of 2021, the mlb network replayed the april 15, 1997 game between the dodgers and mets at which bud selig made the announcement of the number retirement. it was interesting to watch and listen to the speeches that selig, jackie's widow rachel robinson, and president bill clinton made about jackie, baseball, and the progress (and lack thereof) made since that day in 1947.  twentyfive years later, there is still work to be done. and yes, i started this post back in january of 2021.   

here are a few jackie cards that i've had in my scanned folder for a while

1993 topps archives ultimate 1953

crazy that i owned jackie's real 1953 topps card before i had this reprint. i am happy to have this one as it completed the dodger team set for me - something i doubt i will ever achieve with the actual 1953 dodgers.

2001 fleer greats of the game

i toyed with the idea of dedicating a blog to this set. it's my favorite retired players set, although my first thought about another set-focused blog was 1999 upper deck century legends. i decided against that one because the set itself tells the story with the sporting news player rankings. as for the gotg set, i am probably not going to follow through with the blog idea.

2009 topps heritage american heroes

jackie had those two cards in the base set, and then another in the heroes of sport insert set

there is a relic version of this card as well.

2010 topps chrome wrapper redemption refractor

i received this card through the wrapper redemption along with a couple other cards - one of which was a buster posey rookie. i think i sent the posey to a giant blog back then.

2017 topps triple threads

this is a gold parallel which looks pretty nice. completely unnecessary, but nice.

i am sure there will be a bevy of jackie robinson cards to find in 2022 and i am looking forward to obtaining some of them!

f(ph)rankenset project and another payoff

there are many frankensets within the blogosphere's collective collections - mine is a dodger frankenset with cards numbered from 1 to 726 - and the latest has been rod's padres focused endeavor. he's been asking for help in picking cards for his set over at his blog, with prizes awarded to randomly selected commenters/voters. i was lucky enough to be able to choose several prizes as a result of the first 99 cards being voted in to his set.

the prizes featured a number of autographed cards and topps project 2020 cards. i stayed true to my dodger roots and chose three dodger project 2020 cards

and three other project 2020 cards:

the koufax is by naturel, and the jackie robinson cards are by joshua vides and fucci, respectively.  i had considered purchasing vides' version when it was released, but ultimately decided against it for some reason. i'm glad to have had another shot at it, even if it is a fairly minimal transformation of jackie's 1952 topps card.

the ken griffey jr card is by don c, and it is easily the most unique of the cards i chose. the water doesn't look much like the pacific in seattle, but that's ok. perhaps the next time i travel to the caribbean, i will try to recreate this image.

the bob gibson card is by ermsy, and i like it because gibson looks so darn happy. the george brett card is by keith shore. it's got a pilgrim kilroy guy looking over the fence, with an evil looking royals mascot lurking back there, too. actually, the mascot is more like mr. met wearing a crown. not sure why he looks so sinister.

thanks rod for offering up some great prizes! 

i also won a card over at the diamond king in his "cwick contest for commenters"

that's a 2017 topps triple threads julio urias sapphire parallel, numbered to 25. not a bad card of the world series champion. thanks kevin!

be sure to check out my post from yesterday - it's not a contest, but it is my first (almost) giveaway of 2021!

i grabbed some bench

i think you all know that daniel from it's like having my own card shop hosted a contest over the summer with some pretty nice prizes. i entered and won, and thanks to matt at diamond jesters, i had the second pick.  with the 1956 topps hank aaron already off the board, i went for a 1968 topps johnny bench/ron tompkins rookie card:

that's some good vintage!

daniel included some other cards in the package he sent, including a 1998 topps minted in cooperstown parallel of jose vizcaino

a 2014 topps allen & ginter don sutton black bordered mini parallel

and a 2017 topps triple threads kenta maeda card

among others.

around the same time as the contest, i was able to meet daniel in person at a diamondbacks game. i was in phoenix for a night and luckily the dbacks were in town as well, facing bryce harper and the phillies. as luck would have it, daniel was also planning to attend the game.  it was stadium number 21 for me, and in person blogger meet number 7. we were able to chat following the game until the ushers told us to leave. guess they had to vacuum the fake turf in private.  anyway, it's always fun to put a face to a blog.

i hope to get to most of the other 9 stadiums in the next couple of years.  so, if you are near pittsburgh, cleveland, detroit, philadelphia, flushing meadows, the bronx, miami, atlanta, or tampa, and up for a meet up, let me know!

thanks for the contest and your time daniel!

when topps now was really topps then (a memorial patch for jacob wetterling)

contrary to many of you, i checked out the topps now site every day during the season, and wound up collecting the entire dodger set (minus the auto and relic parallels).  i was holding out hope for a vin scully card at some point and was ultimately disappointed on that front, but topps now to me turned out to be what upper deck documentary failed at - providing actual game photos for the game/event that the card represented.  that is not to say that the cards all used iconic photos from their game or event, but a quick getty search could verify that the photo was indeed from the game topps said it was from.

that was not the case, however, with this particular card

that purports to show the indians celebrating their first american league central title since 2007 on september 26th.  the indians were in detroit that night, but the photo topps used comes from their september 9th game in minneapolis against the twins.  i know this, not only because my getty search confirms it, but also because of the jacob wetterling number 11 patch that the clevelend player is wearing on his chest.

jacob wetterling, who wore the number 11 in youth hockey, was an 11-year old boy from a town near st. cloud, minnesota who was kidnapped in 1989 after riding his bike with some friends to a store to rent a video.  his fate was unknown for almost 27 years until september 2016, when his abductor confessed to assaulting and killing jacob that same night that he was abducted.  following the confirmation of the confession, the twins, as evidenced by this getty images photo of joe mauer

along with the visiting indians, wore a number 11 patch with jacob's name beneath the number in jacob's honor.  jacob's parents, who like all minnesotans hoped for a different end to the story, had started the jacob wetterling resource center in 1990 to assist other families in similar missing children situations, and to help end child exploitation of any kind.  following the game against the indians, the twins auctioned off many of the jerseys worn by the players that night, and donated the proceeds to the foundation.

[edit: topps featured a photo of byron buxton wearing the patch on this 2017 topps triple threads relic card

that i was able to add to my collection.]

i have to say that was a pretty crappy week here in minnesota.