the patron saint of card shops

i don't really think there is such a thing as a patron saint for card shops, but after a semi-recent work related visit to st. cloud, i think ol' clodoald for whom the minnesota city is named might fit the bill. a few times over the last couple of years i have driven through and seen the "sports cards - cafe" sign from the highway, but i've never stopped in. this time, i had about fifteen minutes to spare and so made the stop. i am glad i did.

note that the shop "the fan zone" is not also a cafe, and it is actually in waite park and not st. cloud, but it's close enough. it's in an enclosed strip mall (minnesota has many of these for obvious reasons) and there is a cafe within the strip mall as well, hence the sign. there's also a quilting shop. anyway, this particular card shop is huge. it's the biggest shop i've been in for quite some time. and, for a shop that size, it is really well organized. sure, there are random dig boxes throughout, but it's not a mess.

there was a table right when i walked in that had a large amount of 2026 topps product, and the further i ventured there were long glass cases, more tables and cases with a variety of stuff, and then shelves of monster dig boxes. so many shelves and so many boxes. all sports by sport, plus some labeled as "miscellaneous". it looked like most were fifty cent boxes, with some "as priced". as i mentioned, i did not have much time, so i looked at one of the "as priced" boxes that had cards in toploaders.

i wound up taking three cards from the box. first, a 2026 topps shohei ohtani profiles insert

which includes a quote attributed to ken griffey jr on the back

the kid is not as verbose as tony gwynn was back in 1996

the second card was a 2008 topps moment & milestones gary sheffield black parallel numbered to 25

and the third was a 2023 topps cody bellinger 1988 relic card

the most interesting thing i saw in this box was this

that's a business card from hall of famer harmon killebrew, complete with his home address and a phone number. i would love to know who he gave this card to - i can't imagine he handed them out willy-nilly. if it had been signed, i might have gone for it (of course the price would have been higher). i do have a bob watson mlb business card signed by the former astro back from when he worked in the league offices. this would have made a nice counterpart.

after leaving harmon behind, i decided to look at one of the vintage dig boxes closer to the entrance to the store, and found a 1965 topps don drysdale embossed insert

i guess i am collecting these now, as big d gives me half of the dodger team set (i picked up the tommy davis at a mall show last year) with only ron fairly and sandy koufax left to obtain.

there were a couple of other cards that interested me, but the condition was not quite where i wanted it to be.

it's been a bit since i opened any new product, so i looked at a couple of items on the bargain table, which were mostly 2025 topps holiday (christmas) balls and boxes. instead, i went for a 2025 topps series 1 holiday egg that was listed at $14.99 but rang up at $12.99. in fact, the four singles i picked also showed up at a reduced price once rang up. in all, i spent $24.09. not bad for a brick and mortar setting.

the egg wasn't too interesting until i got to the end where the parallels and inserts are, and even then there is just one card i will show

i guess i picked the proper egg for a dodger collector. i don't pick up too many ohtani parallels on the secondary market, so finding this holiday foil parallel in a "pack" was a nice surprise.

i was sort of hoping to find a 2026 topps celebration mega box, but didn't see any (i didn't look at the product behind the counters, nor did i ask). instead, i bought some of those inserts from sportlots around the same time as this visit.

mookie betts game day drip

mookie betts perennial all-stars

and alex freeland 8 bit ballers

those inserts came along with some other "regular" series 1 inserts from sportlots

stars of mlb mookie betts

2025 greatest hits freddie freeman

clayton kershaw rainbow foil

and jackie robinson profiles

with another succinct statement from ken griffey jr

which says it all, really.

i think i am ready for series 2 as well as another trip to that card shop!

got yer ginter?

i already shared the 2025 topps allen & ginter cards that i found in a hanger pack courtesy of a nearby lcs, but i also picked up some cards from that release from other sources.

i had preordered a couple of blasters directly from topps, and they arrived shortly after the official release date. i'll show some of the more interesting (to me) cards, including the livvy dunne base card

it's reminiscent of years gone by when kate upton made an a&g appearance. it's nice to see topps expanding the checklist a bit to include players like cesar tovar

who haven't been seen in modern releases for a while. i sort of understand orel hershiser reappearing in card sets this year as he has a hobby connection, but to see the late tovar included was a very welcome surprise. he has a ssp card in 2025 topps series 2 that celebrates his feat of playing an inning at every position in a single game, so perhaps having him in more sets is tied to that appearance.

old stalwarts remain on the checklist, of course, including mr. cub, whom i found in miniature variety

along with george brett

complete with that particularly overused image.

there were more minis to be found - here's one of the other non-baseball subjects

it's actress emma roberts, and it's an a&g back

i understand that she is a collector? or at least a breaker?

caden dana is a baseball player, and this is his gold border mini parallel

some of the insert sets are minis, as usual. here is the new mexico state bird

beep beep.

and here is a jellyfish

i found some high numbers, including a vladimir guerrero 

for my player collection

as for dodgers, i found hyeseong kim

and river ryan

ryan's card seems to be more yellowed than kim's. i noticed this with a few of the cards but i don't think it's a thing.

i had good dodger mini success - finding mookie betts' black border parallel

plus a kirk gibson chrome parallel

and a shohei ohtani 1889 n22 mini

the omnipresent wicked curves inserts including don drysdale 

and yoshinobu yamamoto

while i found freddie freeman and the rest of the 2024 dodgers celebrating their sweet victory

over the yankees in 2024.

that wasn't enough for me, so i bought a couple of lots of ginter off of ebay. with the first lot, i wound up with more dodgers

i included the duplicate of ryan to show how different his card stock looks. gary sheffield was a bit of a surprise to me but i'm always glad to see cards like his show up assigned to the dodgers.

i also found hideo nomo's mini parallel

plus a black border of kim's.

i now know that kentucky's state bird is the cardinal

is it missouri's? well, i don't have that card but it is not.

the other lot i purchased was focused on the full size inserts, and i added the sandy koufax and don sutton wicked curve cards to my collection

i spy jim gilliam behind koufax and i am pretty certain that steve garvey is the player behind sutton. so certain, in fact, that i've added a second sutton card to my collection to document the nl iron man in the background.

as for the sweet victory cards, i added the kirk gibson dodger card celebrating game 1 of the 1988 world series and the mookie betts (with an uncredited cody bellinger appearance) card that celebrates the dodgers' 2020 title

here's the back of gibby's card

of which i have added a duplicate to my "games i attended in person" mini-collection.

gibson also got a card for his 1984 world series title

and, to show that i can have non-dodger related content, here's scott rolen celebrating the cardinals' world series title

in 2006.

not all of the cards were world series victory celebrations. this andruw jones card

celebrates the 1999 nlcs. most are world series focused, however, and this chris sale card

lives in my name/number on the back collection even though he's standing in dodger stadium celebrating the 2018 dodger loss

a couple of wicked curves cards that struck my fancy were bert blyleven's

he's got good stirrup game, and catfish hunter's

i miss the oakland a's.

once i got through those lots, there were still some cards i wanted, so i went to sportlots. i bought orel hershiser's wicked curves card

and blake snell's

as well as that of clayton kershaw

along with his silver portrait parallel

i also needed kershaw's base card

plus several more dodgers, like mookie betts

and gibson

and these four

and these three, too.

and, if you think i have brian cranston's card in my dodger collection...

...you're gd right.

finally, i used ebay again to pick up some of my primary targets from this set. steve garvey has both a mini framed relic and a full sized relic, so here they are

along with the gold filigree parallel of the full sized relic

one of the lots i bought inlcuded one of the garvey full size relics, so i was able to add one to the dodger collection which doesn't happen often. buying multiples of the same card to feed different collections may seem strange to some, and i would expect there are a lot of folks looking at me like this

but my enthusiasm for doing so is not curbed. keep on collectin'!