smooth sailing out of los angeles

as a team collector, i don't typically avoid dodger cards in bargain bins unless i am certain that i already own them. i do pause, however, when i find parallels of guys like dennis santana, which was the case at a show last year. i wound up bringing home these 2019 panini donruss optic and 2019 topps parallels

but i would have preferred them to be of a current dodger. 

santana seems to have found his groove in pittsburgh which makes me happy. the dodgers in recent years have been quick to jettison young talent that they have developed in exchange for other teams' talent. in santana's case, they dealt him to the rangers for a minor league pitcher who toiled in the dodgers' minor league system through last season, and is now a free agent. i get that they are dealing from a surplus, but i still appreciate the older dodger way that allows me to collect and cheer for "homegrown" players for an extended period of time, as with clayton kershaw or will smith.

other dodgers whose departures i understood but to some degree regretted include joc pederson 

that's a 2016 topps update 500 home run futures club insert. spoiler alert - joc won't get close to 500 homers, but he hit some big ones for the dodgers and i am glad he is no longer in the national league west so i can root for him a little more.

cody bellinger, seen here on a 2022 panini prizm illumination insert

and a 2022 topps 1987 insert black parallel

was another one that was tough to see move on in free agency even though his performance with the dodgers in his last years had not warranted a big contract. i hope he has a nice season for the yankees but is at home in october. i do think the game is more fun when the yankees are good, but i really want the blue jays to get another crack at a title.

i was ready to be a ryan pepiot fan, but adding a proven starter in tyler glasnow was a deal too good for the dodgers to pass up. pepiot's 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor

was the last one i needed for that dodger team set of parallels.

just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced by the rays that pepiot was headed to the il and replaced on the 40 man roster by michael grove, seen here on a 2023 topps chrome sepia parallel

grove is also injured at the moment. i was ready to be a fan of his as well, but now all i will have are random cards to find at shows.

another example of a short time dodger that had a lot of cards available for me to collect is miguel vargas. this is his 2024 topps yellow parallel

and i am sure i will be finding vargas dodger cards in bargain boxes for years to come. will i buy them? time will tell. adding tommy edman and michael kopech in the trade that sent vargas to the white sox was a great move by the dodger front office, so i hope that vargas finds his way in chicago and lives up to a bit of the hype that surrounded him in his earliest dodger days to pay back that championship level deal that is currently a bust for the sox.

gavin stone, seen here on his 2023 topps chrome update refractor

and landon knack, shown on his 2025 topps gold parallel

are still dodgers as of now. they are both on the injured list, and who knows what will happen once they are healthy. there's not a lot of room on the pitching staff at the moment, so it's possible that these two become trade bait once they prove themselves healthy. i hope not, especially knack who i like, but i get it if it is the case.

and then there are guys like dalton rushing. 

his 2025 panini donruss card is one of many that i already have of him, and who knows how long he will be a dodger? blocked by his fellow university of louisville alum will smith, who is signed to a long-term deal, and too good to be in triple-a, he's not getting a lot of playing time. so far this year he is playing very well when he does play, but is it just enough to entice another team to make an offer that fills a different dodger need later in the season?

we will have to wait and find out who will join the likes of santana in the former dodger makes good elsewhere camp, and then subsequently haunts the bargain boxes and collections of team collectors like me.

talkin' about which generation, now?

i realized after going through some 2009 cards recently that there aren't too many new ideas when it comes to card inserts. back in 2007, topps issued some "generation now" inserts in flagship

and chrome

and they also put a "generation now arrives" insert in flagship with a totally different design

for some reason. these inserts are all seared in to my brain.

what i didn't recall was that in 2009, upper deck released a "generation now" insert set and i actually had the josh hamilton card

in a monster box of other forgotten cards. i quickly sought out some dodgers, including russell martin

who also appeared in the 2007 topps insert set as seen up top, and manny ramirez

who was really from a different generation but was still "now" i guess. he could be in any insert set any company wanted him to be in after his 2008 partial season with the dodgers. my goodness. there are at least a dozen players, including martin, who appear in both the 2007 topps and 2009 upper deck sets.

last year topps took another shot at a "generation now" insert set, again in flagship 

and chrome

and update as well. in fact, that bo bichette card is from 2022 topps chrome update.

at least topps waited 15 years before redoing the set - that's a decent amount of time between generations in baseball terms. looking forward to 2037 topps and a new crop of generation now players!

hey jesse! now chrome!

there is no jessie, but as far as chrome goes, every "time" it is released, i am resigned to purchasing a box or some packs because "i think i want to know ya".  that was the case this year, although i was once again reminded that there is not much new there. i like the refractors fine, but it gets repetitive. anyway, before i show some 2023 stuff i realized that i didn't say much about 2022 topps chrome last year (which probably says all you need to know), but i scanned a bunch of the cards and "i need to show ya" so "check it out".

i'll start off with some of the non-parallel inserts, like this mookie betts "pinstriped" card

i have no idea why this insert set is call "pinstriped". the dodgers, of course, do not have a pinstriped uniform.

max muncy "heart of the city"

i am a bit turned around with the photo of downtown los angeles, but it looks like the photo was taken from the east looking west, perhaps somewhere between the 1st street viaduct and the 101. this would put giant max muncy in westlake, a bit north of macarthur park.

trea turner "new classics"

the back of the card compares turner to hall of famer tim raines, who i guess would then be considered an "old classic", or i suppose just "classic"

here's turner's base card

which is his base and not the chrome sonic base, even thought the topps chrome logo is on the left.

as i mentioned, i still go for refractors, so here are some base refractors - andre jackson

and justin turner

plus muncy paired with his sepia refractor

i have sepia refractors of clayton kershaw

and julio urias

as well.

pink refractors are still provided in retail stuff (blasters, i think), and here's justin turner's

and kershaw's

here's a prism refractor of mookie betts

and the xfractor of kershaw

there are, of course, way more refractor parallels out there, including a large number of numbered parallels.

chrome update is also still a thing, with their exclusive purple refractors like freddie freeman's here

and this nice josh rojas double play turn here

and then there are the extra chrome sets, like chrome sapphire edition

which is a true parallel set to flagship - series 1, 2, and update. i only have a few, including will smith's card, which features a whole lot of blue!

another chrome set issued the last couple of years has been chrome black. i have a couple base cards that i've picked up, but mostly what i've added from these releases are more steve garvey autograph cards. here are the ones from 2022 that i've picked up

"base"

refractor /199

green refractor /99

gold refractor /50

the "wormhole" background shows up pretty well on the refractors. i always wonder about chrome cards that don't look very appealing in their non-refractor format - like what is the point?

aside from chome sonic (and, i suppose, chrome ben baller) perhaps the most useless chrome release in 2022 was "logofractor". i found a kershaw card cheap 

i think the seller got it confused with an xfractor. topps is just a step away from the panini-esque emoji parallels. in fact, i wonder if this is them flaunting their license in panini's face.

as for 2023 topps chrome, here's kershaw's base card

which is just the chrome-ified version of his base card. i picked up a base dodger team set, and didn't see any differences between the other cards and their flagship versions, either. however, i also picked up a couple of packs and did notice that michael harris ii got a different photo in chrome

so at least that is different.  i really do hope fanatics is going to pull back on some of the chrome releases in 2023 - only (the) "time" will tell.

the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - 3k minus 124!

yes, the kountdown to 3,000 strikeouts for clayton kershaw continues (previous posts here and here) as he pitched against the cardinals on sunday. he struck out 6 batters in just 3 and two-thirds innings to give him 69 strikeouts on the season. those 6 cardinals that he k'd increased his career total to 2,876.

in honor of his performance, here are 6 cards to represent strikouts 2,871 through 2,876.

2,871 - 2021 topps chrome update black gold

2,872 - 2021 topps update black gold

2,873 - 2022 topps diamond greats die-cut

2,874 - 2022 topps allen & ginter

2,875 - 2022 topps allen & ginter hot box silver portrait

2,876 - 2022 topps chrome update diamond greats

some repetition here with these six cards, which are really just three cards and three parallels of a sort.

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and will remain there until he passes zack greinke, who struck out 4 earlier in the week to increase his strikeout total to 2,918. kershaw is now 42 k's behind greinke and 124 behind the 3,000 milestone. 

it would seem that kershaw's next start would come this weekend in tampa bay. regardless of when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!

once upon a time in echo park

at the start of the 2020 pre-season, one of the things i was looking forward to the most was the return of the mlb all-star game to dodger stadium, forty years after the first and only time it had been held there. of course, stuff happened, and the game wasn't played. dodger stadium was given the 2022 game and so i had to wait for what i knew would be an onslaught of dodger stadium cards to collect.

before we get to the all-star themed part of the post, i will share a couple other cards i picked up last year showing the stadium in the background. these two cards 

come from a 2021 release in conjunction with espn's 30 for 30 episode "once upon a time in queens". strange that they used a photo of gary carter almost as far away from queens as can be for this card, and stranger still that black and white parallels were deemed necessary.  i will also take this moment to remind you that one of my custom card creations was used in the glenn burke 30 for 30 a few years ago.

and now on to all-star stuff.

here's a 1982 all-star game program "insert" of robin yount

that features the brewer shortstop in action during the 1980 midsummer classic. pretty sure it is a double play turn, too, but i only have the one copy and it goes in the dodger stadium collection. it is likely that the lower left corner shows a minute amount of keith hernandez sliding in.

the beauty of modern cards is that there are a lot more cards to count on, and update will probably always pad its checklist with all-star game cards. in 2022, we had both topps update and chrome update provide all-star game inserts. i decided only to collect the ones that show the all-stars in dodger stadium, as there were a few cards of players who wound up not appearing at the game, such as bryce harper and nolan arenado. i will still list those players as i go through the full 50 card set(s).

here we go:

1. mike trout

2. mookie betts

3. vladimir guerrero jr

4. shohei ohtani (batter)

5. willson contreras

6. alejandro kirk

7. paul goldschmidt

8. jazz chisholm jr

9. jose altuve - not an all-star game card

10. albert pujols

11. miguel cabrera

12. manny machado

13. rafael devers

14. trea turner

15. tim anderson

16. shohei ohtani

17. ronald acuna jr

18. joc pederson

19. aaron judge

20. giancarlo stanton

21. xander bogaerts

22. jose ramirez

23. george springer - not an all-star game card

24. byron buxton

25. kyle tucker

26. julio rodriguez

27. yordan alvarez - not an all-star game card

28. freddie freeman

29. nolan arenado - not an all-star game card

30. pete alonso

31. dansby swanson

32. kyle schwarber

33. juan soto

34. starling marte

35. shane mclanahan

36. nestor cortes

37. alek manoah

38. clayton kershaw

39. sandy alcantara

40. corbin burnes

41. luis castillo

42. corey seager

43. tony gonsolin

44. joe musgrove

45. justin verlander

46. gerrit cole

47. bryce harper - not an all-star game card

48. ian happ

49. william contreras

50. austin riley

there are some real dodger stadium beauties in there for sure.

i also picked up a couple of examples of the all-star stitches cards - liam hendriks

and manny machado

because those cards also feature the pavilion in the background. here's mookie betts' card

for good measure.

one of the packs i bought back when update came out included a blue parallel of gerrit cole's card

and i decided to keep it even though dodger stadium is all blurry in the background.

topps also issued a "now" card of the national league's starting pitcher that i picked up

seeing as how it was clayton kershaw.

unfortunately, i was not in socal to attend the game. back in 1980, some friends of the family went to the game and they regaled me with tales of all of the stars of the game back then and ken griffey's home run off of tommy john. i was pretty jealous.

i was jealous, too, of fans who attended fanfest and received some all-star game themed cards like this mookie betts

i was able to find the betts card for cheap, but jackie robinson's card hasn't come down to a price i am willing to pay yet.  and, i have only seen one version of steve garvey's fanfest autograph card 

come up for sale

it would be nice to have, though!

i also wish topps would print some of their digital only cards for us old school hard copy collectors. they issued quite a few 1980 all-star game themed cards last summer, including one of the garv

topps did, of course, issue a factory set again in 2022 with the all-star game logo foil stamped on the cards, and i picked up kershaw's card

plus the factory bonus mookie betts card

i will wait to find others in repacks or on sportlots. however, those last few cards aren't dodger stadium cards, so let me get back to the point of the post.

speaking of repacks, i found a couple of new to me dodger stadium cards recently after a stop at walgreens, and they are both braves.

1989 fleer tom glavine

and a 1990 woolworth's dale murphy

complete with dodger personnel hanging over the railing.

another braves card i have added to my collection also features a photo from dodger stadium and it's this 1998 donruss signature series javy lopez autograph card

but i have this card in my lurker collection thanks to todd zeile there in the background.

i have picked up some actual dodger cards for my collection, as well as some duplicates for the dodger stadium collection, including this 1997 upper deck home team heroes card of hideo nomo and mike piazza

it's oversized like a lot of upper deck stuff was in the late 1990's, but provides a bird's eye view of the stadium and right field pavilion in particular.

i will always want to add cards to my collection, and hopefully also the dodger stadium collection, that show the murals in the background, and i've done that with cards like this 1999 topps chrome darren dreifort refractor

and these 2000 bowman chrome kevin brown cards

base and refractor, as well as a nice 2000 topps stadium club chrome refractor card of devon white

great stuff.

dodger team cards are a good source for dodger stadium cards, and the 2001 topps 

and 2004 topps

gold parallels are good examples of that. i also grabbed a second 2009 bowman clayton kershaw card

for the dodger stadium collection. it captures the short amount of time that the bullpen doors had yellow padding on them.

i have been paying less and less attention to topps now in recent years, but i did take a look at some cards last year and bought this mookie betts card

which also netted me a nice blue parallel

but the main reason i wanted it was for the back

because it shows some of the retired numbers up on the dodger stadium facade, including the newest number of the bunch - gil hodges' number 14. hello to don sutton's 20 as well.

i also decided to pick up albert pujols' card

celebrating his 700th career home run

which happened at dodger stadium, although the card is in my name/number on the back mini-collection. with some of these topps now purchases, i qualified for the september card of the month

which celebrated aaron judge and pujols and their home run exploits.

here's a 1998 upper deck special fx card that i've added to my vladimir guerrero collection

that features a dodger stadium background, although it is obscured by the "fx" treatment. and here's one from 2003 topps stadium club

that i bought in duplicate so i could put one with my vladdys and one with my dodger stadium cards. it shows eric karros' mural behind the hall of fame outfielder.

just one more card to go in this post, and it's this 1989 topps baseball talk card

that celebrates the greatest moment in the history of dodger stadium, but features the cover of the 1988 world series program on the front, rather than a photo of the event.

not a dodger stadium card, per se, but one that belongs in my dodger collection and my "games i attended in person" collection, too.

i know i am biased but i really do consider dodger stadium to be the best baseball stadium in the game, and my visit there earlier this week confirmed that stance. stay tuned for tales from those games!