free cards for the taking

i am inspired by the giveaways that kevin at the diamond king hosted over the last few weeks - congrats to fuji, night owl, and gavin for winning some great cards! as part of those giveaways, i committed to sending out more card mailings than i normally would this time of year. my regular trading partners have dwindled over the years and so i figure a giveaway is the best way to fulfill my commitment.

i will be looking to generate a list from those who comment on this post from which i will randomly select three commenters to receive six inserts and/or parallels featuring players from that team. make sense?

these days, there are no shortages of inserts or parallels to choose from as both topps and panini have gone wild. i have a bunch of these cards languishing in my scanned folder, so here's a sampling of some dodger inserts and parallels that i've picked up but not yet posted about over the last few months.

1997 pinnacle mike piazza/greg maddux cardfrontation

2007 topps finest matt kemp rookie finest moment black parallel

2012 topps gypsy queen matt kemp framed gold parallel

2019 topps update gil hodges iconic card

2020 topps tony gonsolin purple parallel

2020 topps allen & ginter tom lasorda foil parallel

2021 panini chronicles mookie betts revolution fractal parallel

2021 panini donruss mookie betts livestream

2021 topps mookie betts zero to sixty

2022 topps mookie betts sweet shades

2022 topps dodgers foilboard parallel

2022 topps andre jackson 1987 silver pack chrome

2022 topps mini freddie freeman 1987 

2022 topps update freddie freeman 1987 35th anniversary black parallel

2022 topps update mike piazza 1987 silver pack chrome

2023 topps allen & ginter tony gonsolin silver portrait

2023 topps allen & ginter will smith mini gold parallel

2023 topps chrome jp feyereisen refractor parallel

2023 topps chrome miguel vargas sepia refractor parallel

2023 topps chrome update miguel vargas prism refractor parallel

2023 topps update david peralta orange foil parallel

2023 topps update gavin stone royal blue parallel

2024 topps mookie betts rainbow foil parallel

2024 topps chrome mookie betts 1989 35th anniversary

2024 topps heritage high numbers mookie betts perfectly programmed

2025 topps austin barnes (series 2) holiday parallel

2025 topps teoscar hernandez ops leaders

2025 topps michael kopech gold parallel

you get the idea - there are lots of inserts and parallels out there.

those cards are not ones that i necessarily have duplicates of, but i have plenty of similar dodgers for this effort, as well as similar cards for every current major league team. 

leave a comment that includes the name of a current major league baseball team before 11:59 pm on thursday december 18, and if your name is randomly selected, i will send you six non-base cards of said team. i will likely run the randomization on friday morning because i plan to check out a mall show that day and i will be on the lookout for inserts and parallels to supplement my current supply. i will post the results on saturday and connect with the winners via email.

this is not an "almost free friday" scenario - no return is required so have at it. thanks for the inspiration kevin, and happy holidays!

it was the only option

it’s weird to be in the postseason and not see clayton kershaw on the mound. bone spurs on his toe derailed his season after he returned from shoulder surgery and he was ruled out of the playoffs prior to the nlds. 

he is still with the club and i was happy to hear that he announced he would exercise his player option for 2025 during an interview prior to the start of the nlcs. that means his assault on the 3000 strikeout milestone will continue next year. he’s only 32 away from becoming the second pitcher to ever reach that mark as a dodger and the only one to do so solely as a dodger. in fact, he would be only the third member of the 3,000 k club to have recorded all of his strikeouts with one team, and the first since the club consisted of only two members (walter johnson and bob gibson). the dodgers would also become just the fifth franchise whose all-time strikeout leader had more than 3,000 punchouts, joining johnson's senators, gibson's cardinals, and the phillies (steve carlton), and braves (john smoltz).

anyway, with an 18th season on the horizon for kershaw, here are 18 cards from my collection that haven't been shown here before:

2017 topps chrome prism refractor parallel

2019 topps mini update

2019 topps update black gold insert

2020 panini contenders base and purple parallel

2020 panini donruss orange holo parallel

2020 topps warriors of the diamond insert

2020 topps gypsy queen

2022 panini 3 and 2

2022 topps no hit club insert

2023 topps 1988 all-star blue parallel 

2023 topps cosmic chrome

2024 bowman

2024 topps rainbow foil parallel 

2024 topps chrome all-etch insert

2024 topps chrome refractor parallel 

2024 topps chrome prism refractor parallel 

2024 topps chrome sepia refractor parallel 

the dodgers have unfinished business yet this season, but i will be happy to see 2025 roll around with kershaw on the mound again!

no national for me, but some card show and shop experiences nonetheless!

even though i am not too far from chicago, i haven't been to a national since the 1990's when it was held in anaheim. i am ok with that, although i did look in to a proxy shopper this year. what i asked this attendee to be on the lookout for were cheap dodger inserts and parallels (assuming dime and quarter boxes still exist at the national) plus a couple of specific vintage items. i exerted no pressure, of course, so have no expectations surrounding the request. i'll just wait and see!

i saw fuji post about a bba started by matt at cards over coffee and figured i would share some cards of my own as part of the exercise. i noticed in fuji's post that he showed off some autograph cards, so i'll show one that has been in my scanned folder for a while - 2022 topps archives pedro guerrero fan favorites

topps hit the nail on the head last year by including petey in the checklist. he has an attractive autograph and truly was a fan favorite for many dodger fans back in the early and mid-1980's. here's the back of the card:

his 1985 season was monstrous.

back to the card show angle, i did attend the local monthly club show back near the end of june. one of the regular dealers who has had some tremendous bargain boxes was there again, and i spent most of my time digging through his stuff. it wasn't nearly as fun as previous shows have been, as it seemed a bit picked over as far as inserts and parallels were concerned. there were a lot of clumps of cards featuring certain stars - frank thomas, ichiro, mike piazza, ken griffey jr, vladimir guerrero, etc - and i picked up a few vladdys for my collection, including these six:

it was nice to find the 2011 topps heritage all-star short print for a quarter, and the two 2007 topps cards weren't regular old base...

...they were the red text back variations

remember that lame deal?

i kept digging and found some 2006 topps rookie of the week cards

i remember getting a couple of these in real-time from a cards/magazine shop in downtown minneapolis back in '06. the brooks robinson is the worst of the bunch since they used old man brooks on his rookie 1957 card design.

it is quite possible that i have passed over this card in dime boxes many times.

it's a 1997 fleer mike piazza goudey greats insert. i always thought these were from 1998, and so there is a good chance i thought that piazza was shown as a met here. this time, i saw the "la" on his helmet and realized his blue jersey was not that of a metropolitan at all!

i did find a bunch of cards similar to those that i was hoping for my proxy to find in chicago - dodger inserts and parallels - and here is a taste

it's sort of weird to me that a.j. pollock was featured in some insert sets, but i guess that's good?

i enjoyed finding a few walgreens yellow parallels from 2019 topps update

and i continue to think it is shameful that russell martin didn't get a true final tribute in 2020.

my favorite find from the show was picked out of one of those ichiro card "clumps"

name/number on the back photo variation from 2015 topps for a quarter? yes please!

fast forward a few weeks, and i stopped at one of the lcs in a twin cities suburb one morning to dig through their bargain boxes and maybe find a pack of 2023 topps chrome. i struck out on the latter, but found a few interesting cards while looking through card singles.

the best one, in my opinion, was this 2021 topps gallery modern artists mookie betts blue parallel

it's not too often you see teeth like that on a baseball card. it's numbered to 99 and i paid $2 for it.

most of the cards i grabbed were from the nickel boxes, including a dodger stadium card - 2019 topps chrome lorenzo cain

and a 2022 topps chrome ben baller josh donaldson

those ben baller cards from 2022 are pretty sharp, but i only found donaldson and one other twin in the box. not sure what i am going to do with it - maybe send it to brian if he's still collecting - but i couldn't leave it behind for a nickel.

the second most interesting card (well, cards, really) i picked up were some sga cards featuring various kansas city royals. this one is going in my name/number on the back collection

here's the back:

i knew the cards weren't from 2012 despite the design because of the inclusion of whit merrifield as well as the reference to the 2015 world series title there on the back. it turns out these are from 2018 and are kcp&l (kansas city power & light) police cards. decent oddball.

while i was in the store, no fewer than five individuals came in to have someone look at their cards and potentially make an offer. three were pretty much turned away, while one guy said he was just looking to see if the store was interested in what he brought in because he had a bunch more at home and was looking to reduce his collection. he noted that he started rebuilding his collection after returning from vietnam and finding that his cards had been thrown out. i inferred that he had a lot of vintage - i think what he brought in were a couple of complete sets of topps football cards from the late sixties plus one from 1970.

the other guy was quickly ushered in to the shop's back office which shares a wall with where i was digging through boxes. i could hear the shop owner explaining the current market and talking about vintage - and then he started talking about a 1952 mickey mantle. the guy had either walked in to the shop with a 1952 topps mantle or a 1952 bowman mantle, but i am assuming topps because that is the definitive "'52 mantle", right? anyway, the shop owner came out of the office a few minutes later and told the other guy working that he had just bought a '52 mantle.

and to think, i didn't have to go to the national to be in the presence of the holy grail!