the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - giant slayer edition!

clayton kershaw made his sixth appearance of the 2025 season saturday night against the giants at dodger stadium, so i am pleased to be able to post another edition of the k is for kershaw kountdown as we track his progress to the 3,000 strikeout milestone.

coming off his best start of the season, kershaw registered another solid outing, going seven innings without allowing a run (matching the best outing by a dodger starter this season) and striking out five giants in the process. those 5 nocal's he k'd bring his season strikeout total to 20, and his career total to 2,988.

in honor of his performance, here are five cards (not seen on this blog before) from my collection to represent strikeouts number 2,984 through 2,988.

2,984 - 2024 topps finest

2,985 - 2014 topps wins leaders walmart blue parallel

2,986 - 2018 topps big league nl whip leaders gold parallel

2,987 - 2019 topps heritage 1970 scratchoff

2,988 - 2019 topps high tek

kershaw's night included allowing only three hits and just one walk to go with his five strikeouts. he faced the minimum number of batters through the first two innings (thanks to a walk-canceling double play) and then registered a strikeout in each of his last five frames. it was a low stress outing, as the dodgers piled on the runs early, and the giants did not mount any sort of rally against kershaw whatsoever.

kershaw's performance saturday night also reclaimed solo possession of first place in the national league west for the dodgers after they lost the series opener to the giants on friday and fell into a tie with their division rivals. it's worth noting that kershaw has struck out more players pitching against the giants than any other team, although that's not really a surprise given the old unbalanced schedules that teams would play.

here are some non-kershaw cards - starting with a 2007 topps moments & milestones russell (russ) martin card

martin was the catcher for kershaw's debut back in 2008. i would like to see kershaw asked to name the starters who were behind him that day because i sure as heck didn't recall a dodger named luis maza who started that game at second base.

seeing the 2019 topps heritage insert above referring to kershaw as "team captain" got me thinking about austin barnes. i recently read a quote from mookie betts - it may have been on a card back - that barnes (who served as kershaw's unofficial personal catcher for a few seasons) was the team captain of late. of course, he was recently released by the club. here's a 2021 topps big league rainbow foil parallel that features barnes and company as they celebrate the 2020 world series win

that is barnes, of course, in the catcher's gear. he is part of a very short list of dodger catchers (john roseboro, rick dempsey, and will smith are the others) to catch the final out of a dodger world series victory.

of course, you can't mention dodger catchers and kershaw without thinking of a.j. ellis. here is his 2013 topps gold parallel card

that features kershaw prominently.

kershaw is still in 20th place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there unless he passes john smoltz (or is himself passed). smoltz has a career strikeout total of 3,084 and so kershaw is now 96 k's behind smoltz, but just 12 away from the 3,000 milestone. for what it's worth, he has moved past smoltz on the all-time wins leaderboard and is now tied with mark buehrle and rick reuschel with 214.

kershaw should be back on the mound later this week against the padres. know that when he makes his next start, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned! 

it's time for vin scully quotes on baseball cards

a couple of months ago, i picked up some cards from 2024 topps finest. i don't know where people find this stuff these days - my lcs doesn't order it - but i am thankful that people do open and sell the singles online.  the cards that i targeted were from the "finest timelines" set, and a couple of them featured quotes from vin scully.

here's a sandy koufax card that celebrates his perfect game

koufax has just struck out harvey kuenn to end the game and is being hugged by ron fairly (great to see fairly on a modern day card!). the bottom of the card features part of scully's call of the performance. if you haven't listened to the 9th inning of the game, i encourage you to do so. "2 and 2 to harvey kuenn, one strike away. sandy into his windup; here's the pitch. swung on and missed! a perfect game!" chills.

scully's words appear on another card in the set - hank aaron's

vin said those words after aaron crossed the plate and made his 715th career home run official.  he began by saying "what a marvelous moment for baseball" and also included atlanta and the state of georgia before getting to the country and the world. i don't know that the word marvelous has been uttered on a baseball broadcast since, let alone three times. joe davis did throw out an "atrocious" during the world series which was pretty nice to hear, especially since it was in reference to the yankees' 5th inning defense in game 5.

as luck would have it, it was the dodgers against whom aaron hit his record setting home run (that's the back of joe ferguson's head there on the card), and so scully was there to make the call. i appreciate topps using a line from scully's call instead of milo hamilton's, although his call is great, too. "it's gone! it's 715! there's a new home run champion of all-time, and it's henry aaron!" again, chills. 

the third card i picked up from this set is a card featuring willie mays as he makes "the catch"

this one doesn't feature a quote from scully (who was a giants fan), but rather jack brickhouse whose incredulous call is used. this card, like all cards featuring the catch, goes in my "name/number on the back" collection. aaron's card is in that same collection, but i would have found a home for it regardless thanks to the appearance of scully's call. well done topps!

the oren express delivers again!

i, like some others here in the blogosphere, have developed a good trading relationship with reader oren, and he recently sent me some fantastic dodger cards. have a look:

no use waiting to show this one - it's a 2015 panini national treasures rookie auto-relic of frankie montas

it's actually a base card in the set, which is shenanigans but then again i am not worried about completing that set at all.

from 2022 topps, here is a corey seager major league materials relic card

in black parallel fashion.

another parallel provided was this 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary roy campanella refractor

which is a green wave parallel i believe.

the other cards to show aren't refractors, but they are autographed! former dodger miguel vargas added his last name only to this 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary card

and james outman signed this 2024 topps finest card

with what looks like "jet". i am not knocking these guys - they have a lot of cards to sign - i am just thankful for folks like harmon killebrew.

finally, oren included this 2024 topps archives signature series tony gonsolin card

i wouldn't mind having more 2021 topps opening day cards in my collection if they were signed by dodgers!

thanks oren!

card shop pregaming

i had some time to kill before a work event one friday evening so i stopped at one of the local card shops to check out their bargain bins and nickel and quarter boxes. i considered the trip a warmup for the monthly card show which would take place the next day. the inventory was a little low, but i still found cards to take home with me.

i know that the shop doesn't typically bust product, so i am guessing they bought some cards from someone who went for a large 2024 topps chrome yankee team break. there was one aaron judge card to be had, although it was the all-etch insert

but i found a juan soto 1989 35th anniversary card, too

among a bunch of other yankee refractor parallels.

there was a random teoscar hernandez refractor parallel

so maybe it wasn't just a yankee thing.

i had not known that 2024 topps finest was out, but i found freddie freeman's base card

and a couple of "baseball's finest" inserts - shohei ohtani

and clayton kershaw

with yoshinobu yamamoto on the injured list, his cards haven't been as tough to find. these two inserts from 2024 topps finest

were a quarter apiece. as was kershaw's 2024 topps museum collection card

his copper parallel was fifty cents

i did grab some non-dodgers, including a 2010 topps factory set limited edition exclusive hanley ramirez card

for the name/number on the back collection. it was a nickel.

this 2022 topps 75 years of the roy nomar garciaparra card

was also a nickel. i recently completed the dodger team set from this release which would have been so much more of a priority if it had featured all 151 or so roys instead of just a handful.

here's a 2021 topps jack flaherty 70 years of topps chrome parallel insert

i am assuming we will see flaherty and his number 0 in update later this year.

i figured there was some sort of shenanigans when i found two different 2024 topps finest jung hoo lee cards

and it turns out one is the base and the other is a "rare" short print. ok topps.

i spent a total of 20 bucks on loose cards - about 90 in total - but couldn't resist picking up one of the blasters of 2024 topps chrome that was in the case. i should have left it alone. i did find a clayton kershaw base card

and a freddie freeman "strokes" insert

but the rest was pretty poor. i figured i would find some 2024 topps chrome at the show the next day, but i was wrong. still, i left with some cards and i will share some of them in a future post. stay tuned!