first home runs hit differently

alex freeland hit his first big league home run yesterday in the dodgers' loss to the padres. it came off of old friend yu darvish which is pretty cool. this is the only alex freeland card i have in my collection currently - his 2022 bowman draft chrome card

i am sure there will be more to come. i don't think topps will commemorate his first big league dinger, though.

10 years ago, however, they dedicated a full cross-release insert set to different players' first taters. it has taken me this long to complete the dodger team set, as i finally focused on getting each version from series 1, 2, and update.

series 1 base versions had a dark center background with silver foil (as modeled by mike piazza and paul konerko)

while series 2 and update base had a white center background with silver foil

jackie robinson's card was featured in the update set.

all three releases had silver background versions

(with yasiel puig being a series 1 example), and all three releases also had gold background parallels. 

you can't tell, but the series 2 (matt kemp and clayton kershaw) gold cards have silver foil, while the series 1 (piazza) and update (adrian beltre) gold cards have gold foil. 

in all, the dodger team set includes 21 cards featuring those seven subjects. there are also manufactured medallion cards but i'm in no rush to chase those.

the other dodger rookies to hit thier first big league bombs this year are dalton rushing, seen here on a 2023 panini chronicles luminance card

and hyeseong kim (not pictured). 

the first big knock is a major achievement and it's nice to recognize it on cardboard or otherwise. congrats to alex freeland!

there's a whole new meaning now

50/50 has always meant "a 1 in 2 chance" or "could go either way" or "even split". there is a new meaning to 50/50 now, thanks to shohei ohtani who surpassed the half century mark in both home runs and stolen bases last thursday.  he joins jose canseco as a trailblazer - canseco recorded the first 40/40 season in 1988, a feat commemorated by topps in 2023 with this card

now, ohtani has created his own club for players with 50 homers and 50 steals. here's his 2024 bowman card (thanks kerry!)

i was able to watch most of the game, in fact i opened the mlb.tv app just after ohtani hit home run number 49. to see him add numbers 50 and 51 was pretty great. his 6 for 6 performance was easily one of the greatest individual offensive games in the history of baseball, and better than the one i saw in person - shawn green's 4 homer game - thanks to the rbi total and the two steals he recorded.

ohtani also passed green to become the dodgers' all-time single season home run leader. he is obviously the dodgers' first 50/50 player, and also their first 40/40 player. as you saw in last night's post, matt kemp narrowly missed hitting that mark in 2011. so, what the heck, here's a 2023 panini chronicles certified blue parallel of green

and a 2013 topps finest green refractor parallel of kemp

just to clear out a couple more cards from my scanned folder.

what an amazing season each of these guys had, but ohtani's is something new entirely!

42 for everyone

no surprises today, as i am posting some of the jackie robinson cards that i've added to my collection over the last few months, starting with this 2016 topps mlb debut insert

celebrating that event that occurred 77 years ago today!

2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts when it was a game insert /550

2006 upper deck all-time legends insert

2014 topps triple threads

2015 topps 1st home run gold parallel insert

four of a kind there. i am happy to report that the rest of the cards in this post have unique photos, starting with 2017 topps stadium club black foil parallel

topps' acceptance of black and white photos (for some releases, anyway) has opened the door for some "new" images of jackie to be used. some, like this one in stadium club, works really well. sometimes topps goes for colorization of black & white photos and comes up short as we've seen in another stadium club release where they colored the number on the back of his jersey red instead of blue.

2021 topps 70 years of topps inserts - base

and chrome

the chrome version is really more of a foil, i think. it's interesting to me how difficult it was to find these two cards at a low price, but i managed it.

2022 topps stadium club chrome

i believe that someone, somewhere, figured out what jackie is doing with that paper, but i can't find the post. one of the headlines above where he is holding the pencil says "contest deadlines" so maybe it's some sort of entry form and not the ponies!

2018 topps gallery hall of fame gallery insert

not a bad painting of jackie on that card

2023 topps archives 1979 comics insert

unbelievable here that the "inside baseball" inset shows the date of jackie's debut as april 15, 1945. yes, the text is correct below, but then why was the text above allowed to remain? i mean it looks like someone tried to add some red to the uniform number on the front of his jersey, so why couldn't they have corrected the text? it just boggles my mind at how poorly topps does sometimes.

in other news, the dodgers have issued a comic book about jackie robinson in the past. i think it was in 1997. i used to have one - maybe i still do!

2023 topps 1988 all-star insert

at some point i wonder if topps will leave jackie out of these insert sets. 

2024 topps grand gamers insert

this one finished my team set

2023 panini chronicles - pinnacle

i don't really chase any panini products, but i had wanted this particular card for a while. it's simple, but the design and black and white photo creates a pretty appealing card in my opinion. you almost don't miss the absence of the "b" on his hat.

today all players will wear jackie's number, just like carlos correa here on a 2018 topps salute insert

i haven't picked up any other 42 cards lately, but i'll be checking out topps now releases tomorrow to see what's available.

finally, i want to once again share the story of how i first learned of the meaning of jackie robinson's debut. i was listening to a dodger broadcast with my dad in the late 1970's and one of the announcers (vin scully, jerry doggett, or ross porter) mentioned the fact that jackie broke the color barrier and became the first black player allowed to play major league baseball. i asked my dad if that were true, and to further clarify, asked if there were really a time when dusty baker wouldn't have been able to play in the major leagues. it blew my mind when he said yes.

i wonder if there is a young fan out there that is thinking the same thing today, but about mookie betts

42 really is for everyone.

dime box giving above and beyond

looks like mike piazza is striking a pose for the camera, and the card is giving all the glitz

just after christmas last year i received that glorious mike piazza parallel, a 1996 pinnacle summit above and beyond parallel to be exact, from nick at dime boxes. it's one of a few model-esque dodger cards that i would use to put on a baseball card fashion show if i were ever to do a post with that as its theme. anyway, dodger cards - especially parallels like that - are always welcome here, but the card i requested from nick as part of his anniversary giveaway was actually this 1986 scott cunningham broder steve garvey card

it wasn't a need, but i saw the garv sitting there unclaimed for awhile so i figured i would put in a request. it's not a bad card as far as things go - it's almost a mother's cookies card with a better photo - but it is a broder.

nick sent another garvey along for the ride - this 2005 donruss throwback threads century stars insert

you can tell donruss was running out of ideas here, as they signed off on a design that just repeated text over and over and over and over and over.

seven years earlier, in 1998, they confused the heck out of collectors by releasing parallels of (i believe) their entire line of products under the "donruss collections" banner. this is an eric young card from that set

to make things even more confusing, i believe this is the "prized collections" parallel of the "collections" parallel.

here's a 2017 topps chrome parallel of kenley jansen

it's a prism refractor to be clear. 

next card is not a parallel. its a 2023 panini chronicles gavin stone luminance

card from a set that encompasses even more designs than donruss collections did back in '98.

nick sent the only orange parallel card from 2023 topps big league that i've seen in person

it's former dodger ryan pepiot.

as for non-garvey non-dodgers, nick sent some of those, too. here's shawn green's 2023 panini donruss card

that fits in my nob collection.

i know that nick, as a fellow collector of vladimir guerrero cards, will always include some vladdys in his mailings and this time was no exception. i wound up with several new to me cards, including these six

another collection i have in common with nick are double play cards. he sent me a new one for my collection - 1996 upper deck mark loretta

that has somehow evaded my grasp for the last 18 years.

i've also recently picked up some double play cards from other sources, such as this 1997 pacific crown collection jose hernandez platinum blue parallel

this 1999 just minors ron belliard

and this 2021 topps chrome carlos correa pink refractor

thanks for your generosity nick!

chronicling another classic trade

one of the most consistent trading partners i have in the blogosphere is madding from cards on cards. we began trading in 2009, and are still sending cards back and forth here in 2024. i've even had the pleasure of meeting kerry in person a few years ago, along with some other portland based bloggers. it was a good time and i would love to do it again.

anyway, there is always some good variety when i see this particular return address and this was no different.

2023 panini chronicles pee wee reese "classics"

this is panini's retro subset within chronicles, and it is certainly my favorite. there was also a 2022 mookie betts card

from that year's version. in 2023 panini went full retro for the dodgers and only included reese, jim gilliam, and duke snider. still need the snider...

also from 2022 chronicles, here is freddie freeman

on a rookies & stars card that sort of looks like a 2023 chronicles vertex card

of michael busch. there is only so much that can be done with background designs, i guess.

there were some 2023 topps stadium club needs, including jackie robinson's card

topps cut off rachel robinson (that's her mint dress) which is too bad. this was a car that was gifted to jackie at some point (i'm too lazy to look the photo up on getty images again). i scanned the back

because the text got me thinking of who the other dodger player is to have 1,500 hits and a batting average of at least .310. i knew it wasn't reese or steve garvey (he hit .301 as a dodger), but willie davis' name came to mind. then i realized it was probably zack wheat. turns out, wheat ticks both of those boxes while davis does not.

here's clayton kershaw's triumvirates card from that same set

i completed the dodger team set last year but haven't made any progress on that front this year. jackie robinson is part of a triumvirate group with hank aaron and willie mays, so there are four dodgers to collect instead of the normal three.

2024 topps hadn't been out too long when i received these cards, but kerry managed to provide the chrome version of betts' stars of mlb insert

along with freeman's home run challenge card

and a purple holofoil parallel of freeman as well

it's numbered to 799 which may well be the number of cards i've received from kerry over the last 15 years.

thanks kerry!