another lucky 13

the astros are retiring billy wagner's number 13 tonight. the brand new hall of famer spent eight seasons plus 1 appearance with houston, so it makes sense. i have gone ahead and added this 1998 upper deck card

to my retired numbers mini-collection in wagner's honor. 

wagner is the second player to have the number 13 retired in their honor, joining the reds' dave concepcion. 

in other number retirement news, the mariners retired ichiro's 51 last weekend. i had already shared my plans to include this 2012 topps chrome orange refractor

in the mini-collection in anticipation of the number retirement, but now it's official so i'll show the card again. ichiro is the fourth player for whom 51 has been retired, joining trevor hoffman (padres), randy johnson (diamondbacks), and bernie williams (yankees). in related news, the mariners announced that they will add randy johnson to the retirement of 51 in 2026. in my post from last year i had assumed that they would retire the number for both players together, so i already have my card for the big unit picked out.

no word yet on whether or not the yankees will retire cc sabathia's number, and the same with the pirates and dave parker's number. i assumed that both would happen shortly after the hall of fame ceremony but goes to show what i know. i hope it happens for both at some point in the near future.

name games

i was intrigued enough to buy a card from the 2024 topps x chris berman set sight unseen. regardless of what chris berman became in his later broadcasting years, he was fun to watch on sportscenter during my youth and into my teenage years in the 1980's. he was known for his nicknames, and my favorite was bert "be home" blyleven. it was creative and smart and not so obvious. so, i ordered the card and it showed up at the end of january.

bert has a strong stirrups game! here's the back

really nondescript as we should all expect from topps these days, but to be fair there is not too much to say about nicknames. for the record, my next two favorites were john "tonight let it be" lowenstein, and mike "enough" aldrete. you younger readers may have to read up on the basis of the lowenstein nickname. unfortunately neither of those guys were included in the set.

nicknames on cards aren't anything new, really. here's a 2003 upper deck play ball card of ted williams

that includes his "splendid splinter" moniker. on the original 1941 play ball cards, ted was presented in quotes as a nickname derived from theodore, just like on these 1941 reprints from the 2003 set

do we still consider joe and/or hank nicknames? hank from henry is not as straightforward as joe from joseph.

here's juan gonzalez' mini parallel from that 2003 set

that presents his nickname derived from his home run hitting prowess. i appreciate that upper deck makes it clear that his nickname was, in fact, "juan gone" and not just "gone".

in other name related collecting topics, sometime last summer, i picked up a few 1988 topps big foil insert cards from 2022 topps archives. i set them aside and finally got around to dealing with them over the winter. two of the cards i added were ken griffey jr and rickey henderson. the backs made me scratch my head a bit.

i have many questions, particularly regarding the griffey card.

i know that he doesn't have two "ken"s in his name, and the fact that he is a junior means his name mirrors that of his dad. here's ken griffey sr's 1988 topps big card back

topps could have deleted the first "ken" on junior's card and fit the full "kenneth" in the middle. not sure who typed up that nameplate and thought it looked good with two "ken"s.

as for rickey, i can't say i knew he had two middle names, but according to baseball reference the "nelson henley" is correct. here's the back of his 1988 topps big card

that only used one of the names, and it is the one i was familiar with. 

also worth noting is the addition of nicknames. the original cards from 1988 did not include nicknames, but did have some names in parantheses. these would have been the mothers' maiden names of some latin players, such as fernando valenzuela

another player who was included in both sets was nolan ryan. topps got his name right in 1988

but not in 2022

not only is topps reinventing the wheel, they aren't checking to see if the wheel rotates before shipping it out!

here are a couple more cards that i want to share. first, don sutton's 2021 topps archives 1989 topps big foil insert

here's the back

while sutton's nickname of "black and decker" is given, i am showing this card because it is in a 1989 design and shows sutton's complete career stats on the back. even though it's not year by year stats, it still qualifies as a final tribute in my book.

finally, i found this pair of bailey ober cards in a 2024 topps heritage high numbers blaster.

that's his base card on the left, and the green border exclusive parallel on the right. sure, both cards have green borders but the parallel is a different sort of green. makes total topps sense. the applicability of these cards to this post is revealed on the backs:

on the left, we have the parallel (mistakenly identified as a white border above the number) and on the right, the base. for the parallel, topps decided to add ober's full name. not sure why they didn't have it on the base as that is the standard for 1975 topps cards as well as the vast majority of 2024 topps heritage cards i have looked at.

looking at the back of the parallel, it would appear that his parents found his name so nice, they named him twice! well, that's not the case, as his name is john bailey ober.

any other name games out there to share?

42 for everyone

happy jackie robinson day!

i continue to enjoy seeing and collecting cards featuring the 1947 rookie of the year.

and today is one of the best days to share some new-to-me cards.

it's one of my favorite days of the baseball calendar, and i have a couple new "42" cards to show in addition to the 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary (which completed my dodger team set), the 2022 panini diamond kings art of hitting insert, and the 2012 panini golden age headlines insert card above, whose text continues on the back:

there are still a lot of people who were alive when jackie debuted in the major leagues which blows my mind. just a reminder how recently this actually happened.

these two cards are jackie robinson day variations from 2019 topps gypsy queen, and they feature carlos correa

and whit merrifield

wearing robinson's number 42, and they've been added to my "42" collection. 

i really do like seeing today's players wearing 42 on cardboard, but these cards from 2023 topps archives 

and 2023 topps update

are better at capturing the meaning of his legacy to a fan like me. without jackie robinson and his peers, there is no three-time world series champion mookie betts. 

a true legend.

thank you jackie robinson.

more 2025 topps to share

after my first post about 2025 topps, i received a couple more of my pre-orders of pack delivery systems. i believe it was the hanger boxes that yielded the diamente parallels, of which i found a james wood

and i know for certain that it was the fanatics box that had the topps logo parallels

here's a closer look at tyler glasnow's card

i wonder how long until they add the topps throwback logo to a foil parallel set?

regular foil parallels still exist, as in rainbow foil like matt olson here

and there are now even more of the holofoil parallels like jacob degrom's here

i believe in the past few years that these sorts of holofoil cards, in a variety of colors, were all numbered. these are not. here's a fortuitous find for me - an aqua holo parallel

of the dodgers' team card.

here are some more inserts to share. first, 2024 all-topps team paul skenes

and emmanuel clase

the clase card is a pink (unnumbered) parallel

2024 greatest hits showed up in the form of mike tauchman

and james wood

whose stars of mlb card

was also in a pack.

i mentioned last time that i am intrigued by brock lee, so i actually purchased his training ground insert

from a third party seller.

as for dodgers, i found both mookie betts

and shohei ohtani

in their stars of mlb state, and a new jackie robinson insert, in this case it's call to the hall,

is always welcome.

i was very happy to see my silver pack in the hobby box i purchased yield this beauty

and i was equally pleased to find betts' regular 1990 insert

along with yoshinobu yamamoto's

as well.

i added vladimir guerrero's 

to a third party order, along with this card

35 years in the making, we finally have a mike schmidt card on the 1990 topps design. this qualifies as a final tribute in my book.  here's a look at the back with his complete major league stats:

retiring in the middle of the 1989 season kept him off the original 1990 topps checklist (except for a turn back the clock card that had nothing to do with his retirement). donruss and upper deck kept him in their sets, and after missing out on a 2020 (1985) jim palmer card, a 2023 (1988) steve garvey card, and a 2024 (1989) don sutton card, i am quite pleased to have this 2025 (1990) mike schmidt card.

 

speaking of garvey, i added his gold parallel 1990 autograph card

which is numbered to 50

i expect it will end there, however. anything below 50 seems to be incredibly overpriced right now.

three new double plays for the collection - bryson stott, aaron schunk, and xander bogaerts

these cards show a pretty decent sequencing of the ball transfer at the keystone. one of my favorite plays to make on the diamond. 

i set a justin verlander card aside 

for my retired number collection as it shows some of the retired numbers (and no number, in ty cobb's case) on the brick wall beyond the outfield seating. i don't think i had seen it on cardboard like this before, and i have a couple of similar cards as "headers" to the aforementioned mini-collection.

however, i decided that the card would look better in its "true photo" version, so i waited and found one

that was won by a reasonable amount. kudos to topps for getting all of willie horton's and hank greenberg's names within the crop.

and, with the base series 1 set expanded to 350, i was able to knock off that annual get with fernando lindor's card

lindor is the sixth met to hold that number on the topps flagship checklist. only the astros (7) and cardinals (8) have been featured at number 350 more than the metropolitans, and they weren't even a team for the first few years of the deal.

here's the back:

i've updated my flagship #350 have list at my want site as well. the 350 collection is an easy one, but i haven't quite decided on which card will represent 2025 in my topps flagship through the years collection.

i figured i might as well show the series 1 dodger team set, so here goes. first the 12 position players

there are two landscape cards - a checklist and the team card

and then there are the league leader cards. the dodgers, world champs mind you, did not have a pitcher throw enough innings to qualify for the era title. they had no pitcher rank in the top ten in wins or strikeouts, either. they did, however, have a player that fell just .004 short of a triple crown

2024 was only the third time a los angeles dodger had led the national league in home runs, with shohei ohtani joining adrian beltre (2004) and matt kemp (2011). perhaps the oddest dodger card i found in a pack was this one

it uses cards from 2024 to encourage support of your lcs. funnily enough, one guy who works at one of the local shops is under the impression that fanatics would just as soon drive them out of business.

most recently, i picked up an easter egg and a celebration mega box, which seems to be taking the place of big league this year. the eggs are the only place you'll find the holiday foil parallels, like this corbin carroll card

which is much more obvious than last year in having the "base" parallels be leaf patterns. the eggs also have an all-in-one easter parallel - i got marcell ozuna

interesting that they are not in order of scarcity (watering cans, for example, are more scarce than umbrellas, but the eggs are not scarce enough to be numbered at all).

the mega box was probably something i should have avoided, but i did do well with a couple exclusive dodger inserts, such as a mookie betts 8-bit ballers

and a freddie freeman power players

i missed out on dodger gameday drip inserts, but found a few including elly de la cruz

similarly, i found quite a few mascots (no chance for a dodger related card there) including mr. met

these boxes also had exclusive "confetti" parallels, and i found a mike trout version

among all the normal 2025 parallels.

to wrap things up, let's take a closer look at will smith's card

it's not too bad - he's crouching a bit to stay within the frame, but i like the photo that's on the front of the card with this back

a lot more. that is his golden mirror parallel, and as soon as i saw the photo topps used, i knew i would be adding the card to my collection. i waited a bit but still paid a fair amount for the card. here it is:

totally worth it.

with walker buehler joining the red sox, we probably won't get this final out image on any other release (other than perhaps heritage in the world series/postseason subset) and i am glad it made its way to cardboard even if it is a short printed parallel.

i haven't picked up any more 2025 topps cards in bulk, but with some shows coming up i may work on adding some more dodger inserts. hopefully it won't be too long before series 2 hits the market.