a dimebox dozen dodgers from nick

i am happy to report that nick from the dormant dime boxes blog is still participating in the blogosphere through trades. i received a package from him earlier this year, which was the second one he sent me following his "retirement" from active posting. as usual, there were plenty of new-to-me cards from a wide variety of releases. 

1978 dover hall of fame reprints zach wheat

this is a 1911 t205 reprint of the hall of famer, representing the franchise's "superbas" era. here's the back

1988 card collectors 1911 t205 reprints kaiser wilhelm

this is a different reprint set of the 1911 t205, and the card features another superba. here's the back:

you don't see typhoid referenced on a baseball card too often.

more old-timey guys via 1985 big league collectibles

stanley bordagaray was better knows as "frenchy", and clyde sukeforth is probably best known as the dodger manager when jackie robinson made his major league debut.

2025 panini donruss pee wee reese

i no longer add panini checklists to my want lists, but happily accept dodgers, such as reese.

1988 sportflics fernando valenzuela

i am always happy to add a fernando card to the collection! i am down to needing only mike scioscia for the team set. look for scioscia to show up on the nefarious nine at some point.

1991 classic update green travel edition eddie murray

this is the second classic murray card i've received in the mail this year, coming on the heels of one from mark z.

2017 panini diamond kings clayton kershaw

this one wasn't new to me, but i hadn't shown it on the blog before, so here you go.

2025 bowman chrome shohei ohtani

definitely appreciate those who send ohtani cards to me!

there was gold in that thar package - from 2003 topps, 2015 topps update, and 2020 topps

the adam liberatore card got me thinking about being more intentional with the 2015 gold parallels because of the unique border design. more on that in a future post.

in addition to those (and other) dodgers, there was the regular influx of vladimir guerrero cards. several were new-to-me, like this 2001 topps home team advantage parallel

and this smattering of cards

from 2002 donruss diamond kings, 2002 mlb showdown all-star game, and 2003 upper deck finite.

double play cards are something nick and i both collect, so there are always some of those, too. here's a 1997 bowman felix martinez international parallel

plus six others that were new-to-me

some nice cameos there from the likes of david ortiz and trea turner.

i'll finish by making it a baker's dozen of dodger cards - here's a 2025 topps ohtani and mookie betts dynamic duos insert

maybe someday at the national nick and i can recreate this card.

i still go to nick's blog regularly - mainly to use the blogroll to find new posts from other bloggers, but also just in case he's had the itch to start posting again. maybe someday. thanks nick!

remembering a legend

i was hoping against hope that i'd be able to include fernando valenzuela's election to the hall of fame in this post, but the eras committee didn't vote for him to be inducted. i was surprised that he was even considered to be honest, but once his name was on the ballot i thought that there might have been a path to selection. why else have his name added to this ballot if there weren't something beyond his hall of very good statistics?

what i do have is his topps living set card

that i bought sometime during the fall of 2025. i have a handful of these cards featuring various dodger subjects and should probably seek out some others. it's nice to see fernando included in the set and even better to see an image of him with his big hair and comparatvely small hat.

another card that i picked up later last year related to fernando was this 2025 bowman chrome yoshinobu yamamoto mojo refractor

i actually bought two copies of that card so that i could put one in my memorials collection. yamamoto is sporting the black patch that the dodgers wore in memory of fernando during the 2025 season. while they also wore the patch during the 2024 world series (i have blake treinen's card featured in this post in my collection to mark that occurrence) we know that this card features a photo from 2025 because of the gold adorned jersey and world series champion patch that yamamoto is sporting.

this is the first time that the dodgers have had a memorial span seasons. jim gilliam's patch was worn only during the 1978 world series as the team did not carry it over into 1979, but i am glad that they honored fernando for the entire 2025 season. the yankees did a similar thing for thurman munson in 1979 and 1980 and yogi berra in 2015 and 2016, as did the cardinals for august busch jr in 1989 and 1990 although i don't have any examples of the 1989 memorial. 

regardless of hall of fame status, fernando remains an icon of the sport. viva fernandomania!

just wow

game 7 was an absolute classic. it would have been perfect for either team to have won - i would have had no complaints if it had gone the other way, and i truly mean that.

up until last night, miguel rojas was probably going to be remembered as the guy who made a great play to preserve clayton kershaw's no-hitter back in 2014 during his first stint with the dodgers. he didn't even warrant a card when he was first with the team, and his subsequent years have seen him with only a small number of cards. here's a 2023 topps royal blue parallel

that i've shown before (i try really hard not to show cards more than once unless it's germane to the post). he's going to get a few more cards i would say after his game 7 performance. now he will be remembered for his unlikely home run in the top of the 9th to tie the game, as well as his the drawn in defensive play to preserve the tie in the bottom of the 9th. this all overshadowed his crazy short-hop pick to end game 6!

will smith, whose 2025 topps major league material card i picked up at a mall show in mid october,

will be celebrated for his game winning home run in the 11th inning, but he also gets credit for that force play at home in the bottom of the 9th - a play that could have been overturned on replay, it was that close.

and then there was max muncy

who made it a one run game in the 8th with his solo blast. i had been saving that 2022 topps photo variation card for a different post, but game 7 heroics warrant showing it now.

mookie betts (this is his 2023 topps flagship card)

struggled in the series, but he scored a run on a shallow sacrifice fly and then turned the game ending double play with one of my favorite plays to make - the 6-3 double play where you take the ball to the bag yourself. so fun.

i don't have a new card of andy pages to share, and the only kiké hernandez card i have in my scanned folder is this 2023 topps wbc card

but the defensive play pages made while knocking kiké down was incredible. then, they teamed up in the top of the 10th for some more drama, with pages hitting into a force play at home with the bases loaded and hernandez nearly reaching on an infield grounder when the pitcher got his feet turned around at first. just a crazy sequence of plays in the late innings.

the game also marked the official end to clayton kershaw's career. this is his 2025 topps confetti parallel

it was stressful to see kershaw warming up in the bullpen at one point. i had hoped for a blowout (either way) so that kersh might get into the game without any pressure. he delivered in game 3, but...

speaking of the pitching, shohei otani battled but wound up making one bad pitch too many. this is one of his three 2025 topps 2024 greatest hits inserts

we should get a bunch of pitcher ohtani cards in 2026.

justin wrobleski (2025 topps sandglitter parallel)

relieved ohtani and contributed to some drama and a surreal dugout/bullpen emptying hbp of the blue jays' number 9 batter. no way he was trying to hit andres gimenez but three pitches up and in were a bit curious. 

after wrobleski, dave roberts fully committed to "all hands on deck". he brought in tyler glasnow (2024 topps chrome refractor)

who had earned the save in game 6. glasnow gave up what seemed like an insurance run that the blue jays were going to cash in for a title courtesy of gimenez of all people. i was surprised that roberts left glasnow in to face dodger nemesis george springer after that happened, but he did and glasnow got springer and two more outs after that.

glasnow was relived by emmet sheehan, seen here on his 2024 topps gold parallel.

he left after getting the blue jays out in the 7th and issuing a lead off double in the 8th, and was relived by blake snell.

snell (here's his 2025 topps stars of mlb card)

hadn't replicated his playoff success in his two world series starts, but got the dodgers out of a jam thanks to muncy's quick reactions and two strikeouts. he left with two on and one out in the bottom of the 10th and was replaced by yoshinobu yamamoto.

before the game, i assumed that yamamoto would be the only dodger pitcher not available. i was clearly wrong. here's his 2025 bowman chrome card (which i was saving for a different post but oh well)

yamamoto created some drama of his own by hitting the first batter he faced to load the bases. that set up the force play at home from rojas to smith and then the deep flyball that pages caught over kiké's lifeless body. he then worked around the leadoff double by vladimir guerrero jr to start the bottom of the 11th and collected his third win of the series. just a classic, epic game regardless of who won.

as the later innings went on, i was less and less concerned with who would win and more concerned that it not end as the result of an error or some other sort of miscue. i suppose the only other thing that i really didn't want to see was george springer 

as the hero.

i tentatively have plans to head to toronto in april to catch the dodgers when they visit - plans that were begun back when the 2026 schedule was released. if these plans hold, i'll be sure to appreciate both teams just as i did throughout the entire series. i may never see another matchup of my favorite teams in the world series, but if i do, i hope that it is as entertaining as this one was. after all, that's the whole point of this as a fan. and wow was i ever entertained by game 7.