summer blockbuster card show

in addition to catching up with brian and receiving a nice grouping of cards from him, i spent some money at the june club card show. it was a pretty warm day, and the building that houses this show doesn't have air conditioning. there were some large fans set up throughout the space, and i was happy to see that it wasn't too crowded at the opening bell. 

i mentioned in that previous post that included my meet up with brian that i began my day with the same seller that i typically seek out first. he always has some fun stuff to go through and i am always willing to take a large number of cards off of his hands, even if they don't really fit into my collection. case in point: 

this time he had quarter and dollar boxes, but always discounts when you buy in bulk. from the quarter boxes, i grabbed the jaws card up top and some allen & ginter n43 box toppers, like these four from 2007 and 2008

and these movie poster cards from 2021 topps archives

plus my usual assortment of other inserts and parallels.

as for dodgers, i did ok with a 2025 topps clayton kershaw silver cracked foil parallel

a 2022 topps heritage joe kelly red border

and some 2024 topps heritage white border cards

among a host of other dodger cards.  i still think it's crazy that topps went and used yogi berra's actual 1951 card (they didn't do that in 1975) but for roy campanella, they just scanned the 1975 mvp card and didn't even bother to get rid of the black horizontal lines when fitting to the window. lazy.

the dollar boxes had some good stuff in them as well. i know there aren't many marlins card collectors, but i will take a 2025 topps team color border 

of any team for less than a buck.

those aren't serial numbered, but they seem to be relatively scarce. there were plenty of numbered cards in the boxes, however, including a 2023 topps update teoscar hernandez vintage stock parallel

and some 2025 gold foil parallels of different border treatments

numbered to 50 and other various types.

there was a lot to go through, and i wound up leaving one of the boxes unsearched. i did snag a healthy dose of dodger needs, including a 2025 topps heritage clayton kershaw through the years insert

a 2021 topps pedro martinez double header insert

that has his 2008 topps card on the back

and completely ignores his 2009 topps update card documenting his arrival in philadelphia.

here's a 2021 topps brusdar graterol significant statistics insert i needed

but thought was more of a quarter box sort of card. there were more, but the inserts were vastly outnumbered by the parallels. i was happy to find a 2016 topps update corey seager rainbow foil parallel

as well as a whole host of dodger variety

that 2025 topps heritage mookie betts parallel was especially nice to see in the dollar box. in the end, i think my cost per card from ed was about sixty cents per.

i did grab a couple of cards from my minicollections from the dollar boxes - a 2024 topps holiday carlos correa blue foil parallel

and a pair of manu-relics from 2018 topps update for the "42" collection

when they are shown wearing 42, i don't discriminate and will happily buy an astros card. it boggles my mind still that topps will produce jackie robinson day themed cards that don't show the number 42 in the photo used, and there were some of those cards mixed in with the two that i've shown above.

my next stop was at another regular's table because he always has dime boxes. i would up with 114 cards from him, including a 2017 panini donruss corey seager name variation 

a 2019 topps update hyun-jin ryu rainbow foil parallel

a 2022 topps gold label cody bellinger card

2024 topps tony gonsolin yellow parallel

2024 topps chrome cosmic mookie betts base card

2024 topps pristine freddie freeman (all-star) base

2024 topps stadium club tyler glasnow red foil parallel

and some more mini collection stuff in the way of a 2014 topps juickson profar red foil parallel

a 2017 panini donruss jose altuve name variation

and a 2022 topps chrome update owen miller purple refractor parallel

i also went off script and snagged some cards that appealed to me for no particular reason, including a 2009 upper deck 1975 o-pee-chee mini insert of mark teixeira

a trio of 2023 topps archives 1954 tarzan 3d inserts

a 2024 topps heritage high numbers reggie jackson perfectly programmed insert

and, my favorite dime box find of the day, a 2022 topps archives andrew mccutchen background swap variation

this is the guy who also has a dime box that he hosts for a friend. you have to keep the cards separate! so, i settled up with him on the cards from his box, and he rounded down to 11 bucks rather than fish for sixty cents of change.

after i waited for another person to clear out, i wound up pulling 35 cards from the other box including a 2017 topps chrome jason kipnis black refractor of jason kipnis

i wonder why topps didn't bother to number these that year. anyway, i told the guy i had 35 more cards and he said 3 bucks was fine, but i think he was a bit annoyed that i paid separately and cost him 90 cents that i am sure i would have been charged had i bundled them together. sorry not sorry.

next i pulled two bucks worth of 25-cent vintage from a seller who always makes me wish i were working on another vintage set. i couldn't let bill russell's 1971 topps card go unclaimed

and this 1974 topps dodgers team card

was pretty sharp for a quarter

i am still disappointed that 2023 topps heritage didn't give us an updated list of team records via team cards in that set.

the other vintage i grabbed were miscuts - a 1971 topps john cumberland

that is bottom-left justified, a 1972 topps vida blue in action

that has vida looking up instead of to the right where his space is being encroached upon, and a trio of 1973 topps cards

that are kind of all over the place. here are their backs

which makes things a bit easier to see.

the best miscut of the bunch was a 1976 topps traded dock ellis card

because he looks rightfully annoyed at the card creeping into his space.

it was at this point in my time at the show that it started to really smell like a card show and i knew it was time to get going. i made one more lap and found a seller with a $2 autos/relics box. i grabbed three cards

a 2000 ud spx auto numbered 1500/1500 isn't something you see every day, and i remembered someone was looking for one of the triple play relics, but couldn't recall who or which one. i later recalled it was madding, but he's looking for the pants and not the bat. 

i talked that seller down to $5 fpr the trio even though i had six bucks loose in my pocket, and he seemed annoyed with me. whatever. that allowed me to use the other dollar on a card from a seller who had a singular dollar box and everything else in cases. this 2024 topps update alex vesia red crackle foil

just happened to be in the front of one of the rows in that dollar box, so it was an easy grab.

there is usually not a club show in july, but in a couple of weeks, the show migrates to my town for some reason (although it will be smaller than normal). hopefully some of these sellers show up - at least there will be air conditioning!

my retired number collection - 14

this is (appropriately) the 14th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here are the nine people for whom the number 14 has been retired (by ten teams):

gil hodges (retired by the mets in 1973) 1971 topps

gil hodges was the first met to wear number 14. he took his number that he had worn previously as a dodger and wore it as an inaugural member of the national league expansion team in 1962. he later reclaimed the number when he returned to manage the club in 1968. following a losing season that year, he led the amazin' mets to the pennant and world series title in 1969, cementing his place in new york met history and his status as a mets' legend. his 1971 topps card shows off both his number and his striking blue eyes!

hodges had the mets above .500 in each of the next two seasons, but passed away of a heart attack during spring training in 1972. the following year, on june 9, 1973, the team retired his number. the dodgers were in town that day, and it was also old-timers' day in queens, featuring a matchup between former mets and former dodgers, so lots of people with connections to hodges were able to participate. while a couple of mets wore number 14 after hodges retired from his playing career (including a guy who appears later in this post), no met wore it after he took it back in 1968. 

ernie banks (retired by the cubs in 1982) 2018 topps update silver pack 1983 35th anniversary

let's play 2! the cubs retired banks' number on august 22, 1982 making him the first in team history to be so honored. he had retired after the 1971 season and was voted in to the hall of fame on his first ballot in 1977. he was a coach for the cubs for a couple of seasons after he retired and remained affiliated with the club in the years after that, so i am not sure why it took the team so long to recognize banks in this way.

a member of the 500 home run club and a two-time national league mvp, banks is arguably mostly remembered today for never making the postseason during his 19 seasons in the majors. he spent that entire time with the cubs, and eventually became known as "mr. cub". it was more difficult than you might think to find a card showing his number, but i think it turned out ok thanks to 2018 topps update. 

ken boyer (retired by the cardinals in 1984) 1993 action packed

boyer was one of the two players (ron swoboda is the other) who wore number 14 for the mets. boyer wore it for the white sox as well, but when he went to the dodgers at the end of his career he shifted to 45 and let len gabrielson keep the number. for most of his career, however, he wore 14 for the cardinals.

boyer held down the hot corner for the cardinals for 11 years starting in 1955, winning five gold gloves and the 1964 national league mvp award. he was a big part of the cardinals' success that season as they beat the yankees in the world series. boyer became a coach and manager following his playing career, finally taking the helm of the cardinals' major league club in 1978. while many others he led the team until he was replaced by whitey herzog during the 1980 season. 

sadly, boyer passed away in 1982 at the age of 51. at some point after that, the cardinals made the decision to retire his number, making september 1983 callup jim adduci the last cardinal to wear 14. the number was officially retired on may 20, 1984, making boyer the only person in franchise history to have his number retired but not be enshrined in cooperstown.

larry doby (retired by the guardians in 1994) 2005 upper deck mini jersey collection

i really have no idea what this set is or why there is a regular sized card in a set called "mini jersey collection" but it was the only one i could find showing doby in a cleveland uniform with 14 on his back (the number also appears as part of the card design).  doby, of course, was the first black player in the american league (and second in the majors), debuting about two and a half months after robinsion first took the field for the dodgers.

doby joined cleveland from the newark eagles, but struggled in that first season. the next year, he hit over .300 in the regular season and .318 in the fall classic as he helped cleveland win the world series championship. in 1954, he led the american league in home runs and rbi and helped cleveland win the pennant. he left cleveland after the 1955 season, but returned for the 1957 and 1958 campaigns. in his 10 years with the club, he hit 215 home runs and had a 

his number was retired on july 3, 1994 in front of a sellout crowd at jacobs field, and four years later he was enshrine in the hall of fame via the veterans' committee. the retirement of number 14 in cleveland made jesse levis the last player to wear the number.

kent hrbek (retired by the twins in 1995) 1984 topps

twin cities native and fan favorite kent hrbek had his number 14 retired by the club on august 13, 1995. he spent his entire playing career with the twins - a career that ended in august of 1994 with the strike. by the time his number retirement ceremony came about a year later, the twins had started 10 different players at first base.

hrbek, of course, was a big part of the twins' 1987 and 1991 world series championship teams, but he was also the runner up to cal ripken jr in the 1982 american league rookie of the year race, as well as the runner up to guillermo hernandez in the 1984 american league mvp voting. it's just a coincidence that i used his 1984 topps card for this collection, however. during his rookie year, he was a write-in all-star which turned out to be the only way he ever made it to the midsummer classic.

the last twin to wear 14, hrbek was gifted with an assortment of items at the number retirement ceremony. these included golf clubs from the visiting california angels, plus a couple of atvs, a pig, a cow, and a shotgun according to the los angeles times. hrbek is a big outdoors guy who has shown up at several events around the twin cities and greater minnesota. and, while he is not in the hall of fame, he is in the twins' hall of fame, and has a statue outside gate 14 at target field.

jim bunning (retired by the phillies in 2001) 2001 fleer greats of the game

it's appropriate to use this 2001 fleer greats of the game card for bunning, as his number (which had been most recently worn by gary bennett in 2000) was retired by the phillies on april 16, 2001 which was opening day. he was only a phillie for six seasons (over two different stints) but did have some of his best years in philadelphia. his first run with the club lasted from 1964 through 1967. he won 19 games in each of the first three seasons of that run, with a cumulative era of 2.48 during that time. in 1967 he won 17 and (wrongfully) finished second in the cy young voting to mike mccormick. mccormick won 22 games, but trailed bunning in every other pitching category that matters. in fact, bunning led the league in innings pitched, shutouts, and strikeouts, and was second to phil niekro in era.

perhaps the highlight of his phillies tenure was the perfect game he threw on june 21, 1964 (father's day) against the mets in queens, but i would guess overall his biggest accomplishment was being voted in to the hall of fame by the veterans' committee in 1996. his body of work, which included nine seasons with the tigers and two seasons split between the pirates and dodgers, included 2,855 strikeouts. at the time of his retirement, that was the second highest strikeout total of all time! 

jim rice (retired by the red sox in 2009) 1986 fleer

there's no missing rice's number 14 on that 1986 fleer card, and there was no missing rice in the box scores that i perused daily during the 1978 season. he was the american league mvp that season, leading the league in home runs, rbi, and triples! over the course of his 16 season career (all with the red sox), rice piled up 2,452 hits, 382 home runs, and a .298 batting average.

it took rice all 15 years of eligibility on the writers' ballot to make the hall of fame, but he was elected in 2009. as a result, on july 28 of that same year, the red sox (who had kept his number out of circulation since his playing career ended) officially retired his number.

paul konerko (retired by the white sox in 2015) 2008 topps

i think 2008 topps works for some teams better than others, and the white sox are a team that it definitely works for. anyway, former dodger prospect paul konerko found a home on the south side of chicago after short stints as a dodger and a red. he spent 16 seasons playing for the white sox, during which time he hit 432 home runs and drove in 1,383 runs. in 2005, he hit 40 home runs for the second straight season and helped the white sox to the pennant and world series championship. he was the mvp of the alcs and hit a grand slam in game 2 of the world series.

he retired at the end of the 2014 season, and the club retired his number on may 23, 2015 making him the last to wear the number. while he is not a hall of famer (he was one ballot and done), he is a big presence in white sox history. in the entire run of the franchise, only luke appling appeared in more games for the white sox. he is also second (to frank thomas) among all white sox players in home runs, rbi, and total bases.

pete rose (retired by the reds in 2016) 1979 topps

you can smell the action on this 1979 topps card of the all-time hit king with his swing complete, back foot pivoting, mouth open and number 14 showing below his left arm. every time i see a 1979 topps card i am taken back to opening packs with my neighborhood friends. i have memories of opening packs from 1978 as well, but for some reason (maybe the fact that the 1979 set is more colorful?) the '79 memories seem stronger.

anyway, the reds finally retired rose's number in a ceremony on june 26, 2016 that also saw him inducted into the team's hall of fame. that is probably the only baseball hall of fame he has a chance for thanks to his betting on baseball while managing the club in the late 1980's. still, he owns the all-time records for games played and hits and was considered a lock for cooperstown until the betting allegations hit. the only person to wear number 14 for the reds following rose's dismissal as their manager in 1989 was his son, pete rose jr, who had a short stint with the club in 1997.

gil hodges (retired by the dodgers in 2022) 2002 topps tribute

gil hodges bookends this post, thanks to his status of being the first and the most recent person for whom number 14 was retired. the dodgers have a well known policy of not retiring numbers for players or managers who are not in cooperstown (with the only exception at the time of hodges' number retirement being jim gilliam) and so hodges, despite his presence as a key member of the brooklyn era boys of summer did not have his number on display next to teammates gilliam, pee wee reese, duke snider, jackie robinson, sandy koufax, roy campanella, and don drysdale, plus manager walter alston. no, hodges had to wait until june 4, 2022 to be so honored.

the dodgers announced plans to retire his number shortly after he was voted in to the hall of fame as a player by the golden eras committee late in 2021 for enshrinement in 2022. the ceremony took place prior to a game against the visiting mets which is a nice reversal of the mets' retirement ceremony mentioned at the top of this post.

hodges hit 361 home runs and drove in 1,254 runs as a dodger. he was an eight-time all-star as the club's first baseman, and led them to world series titles in brooklyn (1955) and los angeles (1959). in the latter series, he hit .391 and his home run in the bottom of the eighth inning was the difference in the pivotal game 4.

it took a long time for hodges to be voted in to the hall of fame, and the dodgers did not keep his number out of circulation like they did for fernando valenzuela (who, in 2023, became the second non-hall of famer to have his number retired by the dodgers) and so a litany of players wore number 14 over the years. the most notable was mike scioscia, but the last was fan favorite kiké hernandez in 2020. that means the last time a dodger wore number 14, they were celebrating a world series title which is a pretty good way to go out.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 14 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

giants - 3, 4, 11

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11

guardians - 3, 5, 14

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14

phillies - 1, 14

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14

braves - 3, 6, 10

astros - 5, 7

mets - 14

orioles - 4, 5, 8

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14

brewers - 1, 4

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11

cubs - 10, 14

royals - 5, 10

padres - 6

athletics - 9

angels - 11

expos - 8, 10

rangers - 7, 10

major league baseball

rays - 12

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies

mariners - 11

nationals - 11

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 81

running total of non-hall of famers: 20