there's a new favorite in town

hey! the 2026 baseball season is upon us!

clayton kershaw's retirement brought an end to his run as my favorite active dodger. that means i needed to pick a new one for 2026, and it was a pretty easy decision. my new favorite active dodger is mookie betts.

there are a few reasons i chose betts, but it basically boils down to the fact that i really enjoy watching him play the game. as you can imagine, i have a number of his cards in my scanned/not posted folder, so here are a few:

2021 topps 582 montgomery

standard portrait and basic card design from a set that nobody really needed or asked for.

2023 topps favorite son insert

betts is the best player to come out of tennessee in the history of the game. his war surpasses hall of famer todd helton, and all other natives of that state. dodger fans might recall that jim gilliam is also from nashville, which seems fitting as he was also highly skilled at multiple positions.

2023 topps allen & ginter short print

betts had two cards in the 2023 ginter set for some reason. this is the one numbered in the 300-series.

2025 topps gameday drip insert

he cleans up pretty well, and still wears that plastic bat and ball necklace he got from a young fan several years ago when dressed to the nines.

2024 topps 2023 silver slugger winner manufactured relic

this card is not as thick nor as heavy as the manurelics had been in the past. likely because it was just inserted in packs rather than included as a bonus card to blaster packaging.

as for the card that represents betts in my favorite dodger collection, i didn't have a lot of choices at this point so i went with his 2026 topps flagship card of which i had a couple extras.

with the changing of the guard, i was thinking about kershaw and my fandom. i would say that he is firmly on my "mount rushmore" of favorite dodgers of all-time. this gives me an excuse to post more cards, like his 2021 topps yellow parallel

joining kersh in that quad of dodger greats is steve garvey, seen here on a 2021 panini donruss orange holo parallel

those are my two favorite dodgers of my lifetime. the third player on this list is sandy koufax, whose 2020 topps allen & ginter silver portrait parallel is shown below

including koufax is a nod to my dad and his fandom, but i would think most dodger fans in general consider koufax one of the four greatest dodgers of all-time.

the final player in the foursome is jackie robinson. this is his 2021 topps gallery printer proof parallel

it may sound dumb, but i am really proud to be a dodger fan because of jackie robinson. 

one thing with betts becoming my favorite dodger is his autograph. i have signed cards of each of my favorite dodgers through the years (and favorite non-dodgers, too - post forthcoming). i do not, as of yet, have an autographed card of betts. i did re-acquire a rookie card of his (i sold the couple of base rookies i had found in packs back in 2014). this time, i found a 2014 topps update gold parallel of his rookie debut card

it's not in the best shape, but that's why i was able to acquire it for a really low price. here's the back

i'll keep my eye out for an autographed card to add, but prices are pretty ridiculous even as he has begun signing a significant number of cards for topps in the last couple of years.

i'm looking forward to the season and following betts as he chases his fifth world series title!

the triumphant return of the mall show

i don't recall all of the details as it's been about four months, but back in february i went to a card show held in one of the many suburban twin cities malls. these locations have largely become depressing shells of their past glory, so i don't get to malls too often. the last time i was in a mall before this show, it was the mall of america in october for dinner at the twin city grill. that's good stuff and i highly recommend it if you ever venture to bloomington and the site of the twins' former ballpark.

i had been to shows at this particular mall before over the years, including recent incarnations even though the last few years have been disappointing as there seems to be more of a focus on other types of collectables (sport and non-sport) from the vendors who set up. this time, it was like the days of yore with a lot of card dealers from near and far. i recognized a couple of them and they admitted that they hadn't been to this location for a while, but they thought timing was right and they had hoped that the current status of the hobby would bring out the customers. 

one of these sellers i recognized had a nickel box of vintage-ish commons, including a bunch of miscuts. i remember buying a gloriously miscut 1977 topps davey lopes card from him several years ago. this time, i took this 1975 topps mini ken mcmullen card

that is slightly miscut and diamond cut. i will note that the mcmullen was the least miscut of the 15 miscuts i grabbed! 

the 1975 topps mini bob oliver

and 1975 topps (regular?) joe lis

are progressively worse, and then there is the star of the show - a 1980 topps larry biittner and kent tekulve mashup card

that is just ridiculous. i get vertigo just looking at that thing.

i even grabbed four football cards - three from 1973 and one from my lost love 1978 - that were fantastically miscut

the charley young card shares space with a checklist, while ed budde has the bills' dick cunningham encroaching in his neutral zone. bruce gossett's card features another kicker, or punter, actually, in bobby walden from the steelers. it's charlie harraway's card that really gets me, because that's jack younblood showing up. as a rams fan growing up, youngblood was one of my three favorite players. stud.

just before i found the seller with the miscuts, i visited a dealer who stuck to his guns and charged me $9 for 9 cards from his dollar box.

i asked him, "even austin barnes?", and he shrugged. i suggested that i should stop buying gavin lux cards and he agreed with me, but i persisted.

dollar boxes were the theme for the most part, but at least there was the opportunity to haggle, or in the case of one of the dealers the dollar (and two dollar) boxes were proactively marked as "50% off". i found some decent dodger parallels including a prism refractor

and a regular refractor

of mookie betts from the two most recent topps chrome platinum anniversary releases. i wonder if topps decided to take a break in 2024 and restart this set in 2025 with a true 70 year anniversary for the 1955 design.

these shows are a good way to pick up cards left over (i assume?) from card shop activities, like a couple of hobby rip night dodgers - yoshinobu yamamoto and shohei ohtani

this would have been one of ohtani's first dodger cards? or maybe these were series 2 rip night cards. i don't follow these sorts of things anymore.

my favorite pick up from this dealer was this 2008 upper deck yankee stadium legacy card

it's not just a roger maris 1961 season card from that expansive set, it's from his 61st home run game!

imagine the odds of pulling the card for this specific game from a pack. and then throwing the card in a $2 box and selling it for a buck.

the next seller was a guy whose tables were straining under the weight of a massive number of monster boxes with all sorts of cards jammed in them. i grabbed mostly cheap autos and relics like these four dodger autos

(that came from 2017 bowman high tek, 2017 topps finest, 2020 panini prizm, and 2023 bowman platinum, respectively), and this yankee relic from 2021 topps allen & ginter

yankee relics with a pinstripe will always make me take notice. as for luke voit, he's currently playing in mexico.

now we've made our way to cards from the first dealer i stopped at (and spent most of my time with). he had a couple of 1 and 2 dollar boxes in a corner of the second level walkway. the boxes had some good variety, and i wound up buying my very first 1965 topps embossed insert.

is that tommy davis? who knows. i had always avoided these things, even as i built the 1965 set. i may now look to track down the other dodgers now that i have a start.

2020 topps chrome dustin may refractor parallels

are sort of boring, but team collectors are slaves to the machine.

i like seeing shiny cards of players from my youth, so i picked out this 2022 panini mosaic george brett

green mosaic prizm and this 2023 panini prizm green ice prizm card

of willie stargell.

i will also happily purchase legend variation cards, such as this 2022 topps update christy mathewson

i tell you what, i would collect the heck out of a set that looked like this in its entirety. the simple 2022 flagship design works really well with tobacco card type images.

from clean and sharp to cluttered and nonsense, here are some 2024 topps parallels that i bought. this first one is the aforementioned (and recently released) austin barnes

he's got beach chairs and umbrellas behind him (reminds me of a day i spent at siesta key a couple of years ago). this series 2 holiday foil design is numbered to 50. here's the back:

jackie robinson number sighting!

i found three other, non-numbered holiday parallels, too

hot dog!

beach chairs and umbrellas, plus hot dogs? sounds like a summer cookout, and with the fourth of july in a couple of days now is the time!

happy (2021 panini donruss bo jackson) independence day (parallel)!

be safe!

definitely some dodgers on cards for the permanent collection

here's another group of cards sent my way by madding/cards on cards, who is one of the handful of regular trade partners i have at the moment.

my favorite card from this installment is this 2021 panini donruss don sutton card

not only is it old man sutton with the glorious perm showing lots of gray, it's a season stat line parallel numbered to 91 as in his whip from 1972 (which was 0.91 but that is less than 1 so wouldn't work for card numbering). as a bonus, it's a jersey number match as it is number 20 in the print run! a perfect card for the number 1 don sutton collector on tcdb!

there was one other dodger pitcher included in the envelope, and it was yoshinobu yamamoto on his 2024 bowman card

kerry also included future dodger pitcher shohei ohtani's 2024 bowman card, and i showed that card off in a post about his 50/50 achievement.

not too long before these cards arrived, i had been perusing the 2024 panini donruss checklist and determined that the only card i was really interested in was jackie robinson's. well, kerry delivered for me without even knowing!

here's a licensed robinson card from 2024 topps

2024 marks 75 years from jackie's first all-star game appearance for what it's worth.

kerry also sent some 2024 topps chrome cards - a mookie betts base

and a freddie freeman refractor

and if he pulled any ohtanis i hope he kept them to trade in at the local card shop.

here's one more card from the envelope - a 2022 panini chronicles mookie betts card

it is a vertex card, and these days i am not sure whether or not that is a base card subset or an insert. at least with topps fusion back in the day i knew what was what. panini has me so confused.

thanks for another round of trading kerry!

the k is for kershaw kountdown continues

clayton kershaw was on the mound for the dodgers last night in los angeles against the tampa bay rays, and so the k is for kershaw kountdown is back.

kershaw pitched five innings and struck out 5 batters to give him 24 strikeouts for the 2024 season. those 5 rays that he k'd increased his career total to 2,968.

in honor of his performance, here are 5 not seen on this blog before cards from my collection to represent strikeouts 2,964 through 2,968.

2,964 - 2017 topps walmart exclusive electricity

2,965 - 2019 panini donruss holo blue parallel

2,966 - 2020 panini donruss optic

2,967 - 2021 panini donruss red/white parallel #/2021

2,968 - 2022 topps cosmic chrome refractor

kershaw allowed five straight batters to reach base in the first inning, allowing four runs in the process. however, he regained control and held the rays to just one run in the four innings following. kershaw struck out two batters in both the third and fouth innings, and was in line for the win until the dodger bullpen surrendered the lead in the late innings.

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there until he passes zack greinke. greinke, who hasn't formally retired but hasn't joined a team so far in 2024, has a career strikeout total of 2,979. kershaw is now 11 k's behind greinke and 32 away from the 3,000 milestone. kershaw could have as many as six starts remaining in the regular season, but he will need to average just over five k's per inning to get to 3,000 this year.

kershaw should be back on the mound this weekend against the diamondbacks which should be interesting given how disastrous his last outing against them was. know that when kershaw makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!