card shop chain stop

a couple of weeks ago i made a stop at one of the local card shops. it had been a while since i had made it to a card show, and the big show that i was looking forward to in april was going to be a miss for me as well due to some last minute travel. this particular shop i've written about before, but this was the first time i visited this particular location. 

they had two brick and mortar shops in the twin cities pre-pandemic, but were down to one at one point soon thereafter. they've since opened up a new second location in the north metro near where their closed location was, and while i was there i heard them say that they were going to open a third location in the west suburbs. not since shinders have the cities seen a multi-location hobby shop, and this one focuses solely on cards where shinders was really an overgrown newstand that had branched out into comics and cards. and adult magazines.

anyway, this shop had a few bargain boxes sitting out which was nice to see given their penchant for online card inventory in the past. i took a look at the quarter box and found just a few cards to take. i moved on to the pricier boxes and began building a stack.

i wasn't going to pass on a blue parallel of tommy lasorda

that one comes from 2022 topps chrome platinum anniversary, and is the blue mini diamond parallel numbered to 199.

my favorite card of the day was this 2024 topps stadium club gold foil jackie robinson parallel

that i thought was underpriced but i went with it

there were quite a few autographs in the boxes, and i took this 2017 topps 1987 30th anniversary rob segedin one

home with me. as you will recall, topps reset the anniversary inserts the following year, so in 2022 we got 1987 all over again. this is evidenced by the shawn green 1987 35th anniversary autograph black parallel card

that i purchased. being the black parallel, it is numbered to 199 on the back

although i believe that non-auto black parallels are numbered to 299. at least currently.

that wasn't the only shawn green auto i snagged - here's a 2023 topps finest blue parallel auto 

it's numbered to 150 up in the left hand corner.

there were two other autograph cards that i set aside, but i only wound up buying one of them. the one i put back was a 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams chet lemon card. you just don't see those out in the wild, but i already owned one of them and didn't see a reason to pick up a second. i did wind up buying this 2022 topps gypsy queen steve garvey autograph

even though i already have one in the pc. it's the missing nameplate version, so it's not as common as the regular version. here's the back

this one will go in my dodger collection.

another 2022 topps gypsy queen card for the team collection is this albert pujols sepia parallel

numbered to 99.

i hemmed and hawed about this next one - a 2022 sportkings volume 3 dusty baker relic card

because i've avoided it a few times in the past. the price was right on this occasion, and i have another johnnie b. baker card in my collection.

one more dodger to show - it's a 2021 topps chrome will smith negative refractor

and it's probably the least favorite card i picked up on this visit.

after finishing with the boxes, i asked for a couple of packs of the newly released 2024 topps heritage high numbers. they were nice enough to break open a box (juan soto oversized box topper) and hand me a couple. i found a nick lodolo short print

a rangers combo insert

and two base dodgers - landon knack

and teoscar hernandez

the cards looked a lot better to me than the first heritage release, and so i decided to buy a blaster as well. i picked wisely, as the dodgers were frequent in the blaster packs. in all, i found six more

including a cavan biggio dodger card which i was not expecting at all.

i also found two of the key rookies

with their complementary lemon-lime borders.

a couple more short prints - eloy jimenez

and ben brown

plus a bob gibson insert

interesting to note that he made his big league debut exactly 12 years after jackie robinson first played for the dodgers. that wasn't long ago at all. i will say that i appreciate topps recognizing gibson, harmon killebrew, and juan marichal as all-time greats who retired during or following the 1975 season, but i would rather see them get cards with the 1976 design.

i found one chrome parallel, and it's a refractor to boot. 

but it's brayan bello.

the blaster advertised three exclusive green parallels which confused me since many of the regular borders are green  i think what they meant was white letter name parallels. here are the three that i found

another dodger success with james paxton, plus tanner scott who is now a dodger.

i found one more parallel, and it was forrest whitley's aqua border parallel. it's shown here with his base card

that was also in the blaster. i have to say, i've seen forrest whitley cards for so long i can't believe that 2024 was his rookie year designation.

one more card from the blaster, and it's the padres quad insert

i was really happy to see this because i knew someone who was looking for it. i shipped it off to rod at padrographs, and it should be in his collection by the time this posts. 

the last card i took from the store was a 2023 topps international trading day adley rutschman card

they had a stack at the register so these aren't rare, but it serves as a reminder to get to the card shop once in a while. it's easier to do when they have multiple locations!

2025 brings balance to the franchise

i was pondering the upcoming 2025 baseball season last winter and did some quick math in my head regarding some dodger milestones. it will be the 70th anniversary of the team's first world series title and the 60th anniversary of their fourth. it will also be the 135th anniversary of their inaugural season as a member of the national league. as you likely already know, while the team existed for a few years prior, brooklyn officially joined the national league in 1890 and later moved to los angeles following the 1957 season. 

partly inspired by the fact that the a's were heading to sacramento after having been in oakland longer than they were in philadelphia, i pondered the dodgers' multi-city status and realized that with this being their 136th season in the major leagues, 2025 will mark their 68th season as the los angeles dodgers, matching the 68 that they played in brooklyn. franchise symmetry! (note that the giants still have seven years to go to reach this franchise fulcrum, as they began play as a national league team in 1883).

in 1957, topps gave us this team card of the brooklyn dodgers

but despite '57 being their final season in brooklyn, we got one more brooklyn dodger team card in 1958

since these were always "last year's" team photos. topps left off the city for the dodgers (and the giants) which was out of step with the other team cards. seeing roy campanella on the card makes me even more disappointed that topps did not give him a proper final tribute. finally, it's worth noting that topps not being able to color the numbers on the front of the dodger jerseys correctly is not a new phenomenon.

in 1959, topps gave us the first los angeles dodgers team card

and they got the red numbers right!

the last single player brooklyn dodger topps card belonged to don elston in 1957

and the first los angeles dodger topps card belonged to charley neal in 1958

around the first of the year, i took the opportunity to complete a couple of sets that span both cities. first, the 1980 tcma all-time dodgers

which features more brooklyn folks than los angeles ones. this 1991 line drive set

reverses that trend. i had a few of the tcma cards previously, as well as the garvey from the line drive set, but found it easier to buy the sets than piecemeal the missing cards.

i have plenty of other cards from my scanned folder to show today that play on this theme, including a couple gil hodges cards

that's a 1949 bowman reprint (chromified) from 2001 bowman chrome, and this is a 2002 topps 1952 world series insert

while hodges played for the dodgers in both brooklyn and los angeles, he's representing brooklyn in each of his cards in this post.

here's hodges' teammate in both brooklyn and la, duke snider, on a 2005 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary lineage insert

duke has his brooklyn hat on here, but is repping los angeles in the all-time dodger set above.

another dodger who played in both cities is jim gilliam, seen on a 2023 panini donruss pennants insert

his helmet has no logo, but the card makes it obvious that he is representing the brooklyn dodgers here. the brooklyn dodgers won nine pennants, but just one world series.

one great who didn't make the trip to los angeles with the club is jackie robinson. here he is on a few cards - 2024 topps mega box 1989 all-star

2024 topps allen & ginter mini chrome parallel

and 2023 topps archives 1969 single player foil insert

that really makes the case for brooklyn.

don drysdale, seen here on a 2008 donruss threads baseball americana insert

pitches for brooklyn, but the big d shown here on a 2022 topps gypsy queen short print

pitches for los angeles.

here's another sandy koufax card, this one from 2024 topps

it's another mega box exclusive parallel. koufax, of course, also spanned the franchise's time in brooklyn and los angeles, and he's wearing the latter on his chest here. he led the club to three world series titles in the first 10 years of their existence on the west coast and is still revered by the dodger faithful today.

once the 1970's arrived (represented here on a 2020 topps update decades' best blue parallel)

the club won three pennants, but lost each of the world series in which they played. the card above features a photo from the 1978 world series, which was especially heartbreaking for young gcrl who assumed that the dodgers would win since they lost in 1977. it was their turn!

the 1978 season did cement steve garvey as my favorite player, and i was far from alone in that regard. here's the garv on a 2024 topps allen & ginter gold mini parallel

while the perennial all-star didn't lead the dodgers back to the postseason in 1979, the 1980's brought two pennants and two championships to los angeles, represented by this 1989 mother's dodgers card

but then came some lean years. there were some bright spots, as a number of rookies of the year, including mike piazza seen on a 1994 ultra pro card

gave us hope. that hope petered out with two postseason sweepings in the middle of the 1990s. then came the jim tracy years. here's tracy on a 2004 topps gold parallel

his tenure included the dodgers' only postseason single game win since 1988, but also included a number of interesting player personnel decisions. one solid player who was there for part of the tracy era was shawn green, seen here on a 2005 donruss classics team colors insert

that is most decidedly "la".

another highlight of those years was "game over". eric gagne's prowess at saving games was highlighted on this 2006 upper deck epic epic events insert

gagne won the cy young award in 2003, and the dodgers didn't have a pitcher win another until clayton kershaw came along.

here's kershaw on a 2009 topps unique red parallel card

kershaw's arrival coincided with a run of team success. in fact, in kershaw's 17 seasons, the dodgers have missed the postseason only three times. here's a 2015 topps limited edition dodger team card

showing the 2014 squad celebrating their regular season success.

it wasn't until the dodgers added mookie betts, however, that their postseason fortunes changed. here's betts on a 2021 topps 70 years of topps insert

betts led the dodgers to the world series title in 2020, and he was aided four years later by freddie freeman and shohei ohtani (shown on his 2024 topps archives card)

who went 50/50 during the regular season.

of course, perhaps the greatest dodger and the real bridge between the franchise's time in brooklyn and los angeles, was vin scully. here's a 2013 panini cooperstown matrix parallel

of the longtime broadcaster.

i am excited to watch this team as it reaches its equilibrium this year and as it tips the scales to los angeles in years to come. i am very happy that the stateside opening day is tomorrow!