you da real mvp

like most (i hope), i've spent the majority of the last week at home. in doing so, i like to think i am helping "flatten the curve", but i will admit that i don't have a lot of faith in people in general to follow cdc guidance without some sort of enforcement. see spring breakers for an example. 

at any rate, i want to salute those of you who are following the guidance (and not hoarding toilet paper). as kevin durant said (before he tested positive for covid-19), "you da real mvp".

to salute your performance here are some 2019 panini donruss optic steve garvey mvp signatures i've obtained over the last few months.  

"base"

prizm parallel

which is unnumbered

orange prizm parallel

numbered to 25

red prizm parallel

also numbered to 25

and gold prizm parallel

numbered to 10

keep on posting, and keep on keeping on!

cards for christmas, but not the ones i expected

it's late january, so i may as well get this post up. i've been holding off in hopes that my secret santa cards would eventually show up, but it looks like the grinch prevailed this year. this is not a reflection on jon, who courageously hosted this endeavor again in 2019, but rather on the person who signed up, assumedly accepted cards from another, but failed to do their part.

still, i did receive some cards around the holidays, including some nice ones from kerry at cards on cards

those are some target throwback parallels of casey blake and manny ramirez from 2009 topps. it is a little weird that it has been so long since manny tore up the national league for the dodgers.

here's a more recent card, a 2019 panini donruss optic corey seager illusions insert

with the dodgers having shown interest in francisco lindor this offseason, it will be interesting to see what kind of year seager has in 2020.

also from 2019 is this perennial all-stars card of clayton kershaw from topps update

the photo here is from the 2014 all-star game at target field.

last card i will show from kerry is this 2019 topps fire walker buehler flamethrowers blue chip parallel

i am showing this card because it fits in nicely with some other cards i received for christmas.

santa was nice enough to put a couple of packs in my stocking, including a 2019 topps fire pack.  i did pretty well for a dodger collector, as the pack yielded this clayton kershaw en fuego blue chip parallel

as well as this kershaw and sandy koufax lasting legacies blue chip parallel

see? pretty good pack for a dodger collector. that doesn't happen to me too often.

i also received a ttm return right around christmas.  former yankee george zeber was kind enough to sign and return my 1978 topps card

i had sent out four 1978 requests earlier in the fall. they were the first requests i had sent out in quite a while, as i've pretty much exhausted the list of 1978 topps subjects who sign.  every once in a while, however, i will check sportscardforum and find a recent success for a player from that set that i hadn't noticed before. such was the case with zeber. zeber had two at bats against the dodgers in the 1977 world series, but i didn't hold that against him.

finally, i will show the last card that i purchased in 2019. it showed up just before new year's.

so that is a 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia padres team quads single relic spectrum card.  it goes straight to the steve garvey collection.

i've picked up a few cards so far in 2020, but am focusing primarily on the garvey collection and trying to finish my 1965 topps set. happy belated new year, everybody!

crackin' max

it had been several years since i had participated in one of topher's charity group breaks at crackin' wax, but i felt the urge to roll the dice again and try my luck.  i started out with a topps heritage break that netted me quite a few of the dodger short prints in this year's set.  i followed that up with a stadium club break, and was the recipient of a fantastic on-card autograph of max muncy:

the fun didn't end there, as the funky muncy was back with another auto for me in the 2019 panini leather & lumber break:

i had opened a few packs of retail l&l previously, but this was hobby and so had all the crazy inserts.  case in point, this roy campanella die-cut lumberjacks card

which reminds me a bit of a car air freshener. still awesome, though.

there was even more muncy to be had in the 2019 panini donruss optic break i joined, as evidenced by this pink velocity parallel:

most recently i joined a 2019 topps chrome break that didn't bring any muncy cards home, but did result in a dennis santana autographed card:

i even decided to try a higher end break with 2019 panini immaculate (steve garvey has some cards in that set) and came away with a caleb ferguson dual relic/auto card

for my entry.  good stuff.

if you haven't taken a gander at topher's breaks, it is worth a look.  thanks topher!