the memorial patch for ed kranepool

here's another post to document a 2025 memorial patch. this time, it's the patch that the mets wore for ed kranepool, a new york metropolitan lifer who passed away in september of 2024. the mets added a black rectangular patch with kranepool's number 7 in white to their jerseys for the entire season. it was a different design than what they used for the jerry grote and bud harrelson patches, but it served its purpose as a recognizable memorial better than either of those patches did, in my opinion.

i've seen the patch on several cards now, and i really wish that brett baty's 2025 topps heritage high number card (this is the blue border parallel)

were cropped just a little less tightly so that the full patch would be visible. this 2025 topps chrome update ryan helsley xfractor

also shows the patch, although it gets lost with the black jersey.

so, the card that i have in my collection to represent kranepool's patch is this 2026 topps 1991 35th anniversary insert of pete alonso

there is a lot going on here with the poppy patch worn on memorial day, but the kranepool patch shows well against the mets' home pinstriped whites. and, with alonso having played kranepool's old position, it makes even more sense.

kranepool debuted with the mets late in their inaugural season as a 17-year old, and retired from the game and team as a 34-year old at the conclusion of the 1979 campaign. he was 79 when he passed away, and the team had flowers on his mets' hall of fame plaque when i visited citi field last year. he is still the franchise's all-time leader in games played, although he has been passed on other team leaderboards by david wright and others.

to me, it's nice for the club to honor a player like kranepool (as they did with grote and harrelson) whose number is not retired but was still a franchise icon. the dodgers appear to do this for the "legends of dodger baseball" members, but not for folks like davey lopes, for example. i would have expected lopes to enter that "legends of dodger baseball" at some point, but they don't seem to do it posthumously. i'll have more on that in a future post. stay tuned!

the closer

i know that he is back in the starting rotation, but roki sasaki has proven to be a closer for me in the early goings of 2026. no fewer than three dodger team sets had sasaki as the last card i needed.

2025 topps allen & ginter

2025 topps archives

and 2025 topps chrome update

all waited for sasaki's card to show up.

i've completed a few more sets that didn't include sasaki recently, including 2016 topps gypsy queen.

that kenta maeda rookie card was the last card i needed. it's a short print so i guess it makes sense that i waited for maeda to return to japan before seeking it out. i'll show the penultimate card i needed for the team set in a different post.

a sportlots seller had the last three cards i needed for 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary

i understand that topps is planning to reintroduce this set in 2026, but they will call it 2025 so that using the 1955 topps design makes sense from a platinum anniversary standpoint. topps/fanatics just can't seem to get out of its own way sometimes.

another sportlots seller had this 2025 panini prizm pee wee reese card

that shut the door on my team set from that unlicensed release chock full of prospects and retired players and not much in between for licensing reasons.

2025 topps stadium club came down to two cards - hyeseong kim

and yoshinobu yamamoto

both of which came from a sportlots order

my 2026 topps series 1 dodger team set is also now complete, thanks to dalton rushing's card

showing up in my mailbox a few weeks ago.

i've got one other recently completed team set to visit. sasaki was the second to last card i needed to complete the 2025 topps all-star game dodger team set

with shohei ohtani being the closer in this instance

i've slowly been accumulating dodgers from this set via various sources, and now i'll show the cards i haven't shown before (which i believe is all but kim's).

mookie betts

freddie freeman

clayton kershaw

yoshinobu yamamoto

i also added a classic swings insert of betts

as well as kershaw's all-star game greats insert

the back

focuses on the 2022 midsummer classic which was held at dodger stadium and saw kershaw make the start for the national league. synchronicity at its finest.

you knew this was coming - i added another steve garvey parallel from the set. this is his black autograph parallel

numbered to 10. here's the back

interesting that these were exclusive to mega boxes. or is that the only way this set was distributed? i wonder if there will be a 2026 version? and will it include former greats like the inserts did in 2025? if so, get ready for a bunch of phillies. now that i think of it, i could use some new pete rose cards (or to fit in with the title of this post, tug mcgraw), so bring it on!

chrome doesn't like me much

it's not a rock in my trick or treating pillowcase, but it still stinks to get this "card"

in a pack of cards. specifically, this came from a pack of 2025 topps chrome update that was included in a mega box that i purchased directly from topps. just a blank refractor which i suppose you could use to create your own art card. i understand that these are printing blanks and are (obviously) not supposed to be sent out in the packs, but it has happened the last couple of years.

the mega box was the last bit of chrome update i purchased, but i had bought a lot of it prior to that order, and in all sorts of distribution methods. as a result, i wound up with a bunch of the different guaranteed parallels, like sepia

xfractor

and topps logo 

refractors. the nick kurtz sepia refractor is nice, and i would have preferred to find his xfractor and topps logo refractor instead of willie maciver's but here we are. overall, my purchases seemed to be american league west heavy. here are some of the other sepias i found:

ben williamson

gunner hoglund

and yusei kikuchi

i'll stick with the al west theme to share some of the other cards i found, such as all-star game inserts of brent rooker

and bobby witt jr

night terrors insert of cam smith

power players inserts of kurtz

wyatt langford

and cal raleigh

plus refractor parallels of jacob wilson

blaine crim

and eugenio suarez

suarez also appeared in raywave refractor form

as did ben williamson

while denzel clarke

was one of the prism refractors i found

i came across a very small number of numbered parallels, but one was a purple raywave refractor of hoglund

numbered to 250.

to complete the card type tour via the al west, here's a base card belonging to kurtz

the only other card types i found that i couldn't represent using a player from the angels, astros, rangers, mariners, or athletics were the fortune 15 inserts (here's rafael devers)

and the aqua wave refractor rookie auto card i found in a hanger pack. it's omar cruz

and i would have preferred a different nl west team be represented.

that cruz card is a sticker auto, but not all of the signed cards in this set are like that. the card i wanted most from this release sure isn't. a week or two before chrome update was released, steve garvey made this post on the socials

i am slowing down in my additions of new garvey cards, but a chrome auto is a must have!

sadly, this is the only dodger card i found in all of my sealed product purchases - hyeseong kim's rookie debut base card

to complete the team set, i went to sportlots and bought the cards of will smith

jack dreyer

and dalton rushing

which left me a roki sasaki card short of the team set.

i added some parallels and inserts to these orders as best (and cheaply) as i could. i wound up with a prism refractor of smith

plus his all-star game insert

as well as that of clayton kershaw

and freddie freeman 1990

and power players inserts

plus the mookie betts power players insert

as well.

it's no surprise that i had to go to ebay to find the garvey legends auto, and i was successful fairly early on. the "base" versions are numbered to 50, and that's what i have

on card beauty!  here's the back:

i've seen some other variations sell for silly prices, including the 1/1. i am content to have this singular version. in fact, i would likely purchase one of orel hershiser's cards from this release before i targeted a garvey parallel.

in all, i would have had more success for my collection had i purchased a team break slot for the dodgers and seek out the garvey card as i did rather than buy as much sealed product. but where's the fun in that?