now let's relive october

no burying the lede here - the dodgers were crowned as world series champions last october. the first franchise to repeat since the 2000 yankees. that fact was captured on one of the topps now cards following the classic game 7

which was the best game i've watched in a long, long time. 

like last year, i started slowly with my topps now purchases during the postseason. i skipped the wild card series and only purchased one card from the nlds

that is a terrible card for phillie fans, but it's what topps went with to document the dodgers' series win. it's the worst/best card depicting an error since any card showing the ball getting through buckner (if there even is a card showing that play). if not, dick green's 1974 topps card? the cover of the dodgers' 1975 yearbook? errors don't get a lot of play on cards.

here's the back

i bought two of these so that i could put one in my dodger stadium collection. i also like this card because the legendary billie jean king is easily visible at the far left of the photo. she's a part-owner of the club if you weren't aware.

i would up with a couple more cards from the nlcs than i had for the division series. here's shohei ohtani sliding into third on tatooine

seems like topps was stretching for a reason to make another ohtani card, but that's life

and yes, i bought two so that one could go in my tatooine collection.

i also bought this two-way ohtani card

his game 4 performance was epic. here's the back:

and so i also bought the series recap card

mainly because of the back

which again, was a two-card purchase so i could feed the dodger stadium collection. interesting that topps took a different angle on the photo for this one.

unlike last year, i bought most of the dodger world series cards in real time - i didn't wait for the game 7 victory. let's begin

game 2 - topps kept the cards for each game exclusive to the victor, so there were no game 1 dodger cards. in game 2, will smith 

got the dodgers on the board in the first inning and then broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the 7th with a home run. he added another rbi in the 8th to get to his 3 rbi night noted on the card.

max muncy 

homered a couple of batters after smith went deep to give the dodgers a two run lead. 

yoshinobu yamamoto

pitched a complete game to secure the win.

topps took note of yamamoto's postseason performance up to that point, and paired him with orel hershiser

to celebrate each of them having thrown back-to-back postseason complete games

game 3 was a classic, with the dodgers winning in exciting fashion after 18 innings.

tommy edman

whose error early in the game led to a couple of unearned blue jays runs, made a nice defensive play to preserve the tie in the top of the 12th inning. with the bases loaded, he charged a slow grounder by nathan lukes and flipped the ball to freddie freeman to end the inning.

clayton kershaw

was the pitcher at the time, having been brought in to face lukes with two outs and those bases loaded. this card represents his last appearance as a dodger in a major league game.

will klein

followed kershaw's replacement, edgardo henriquez (who threw two solid innings), and wound up completing four clutch innings, allowing just one infield single and a couple of walks. he was high energy and kept the scored tied through the top of the 18th so that...

freddie freeman

could lead off the bottom of the 18th with a walk-off home run

ohtani did some things in the game, too. he hit two homers, resulting in this card

and he reached base all nine times he came to the plate. he was 4 for 4 with five walks, and earned this card

showing him after hitting one of his two doubles on the night.

the dodgers dropped game 4, but i did purchase this vladimir guerrero jr card

vladdy's home run gave the blue jays the lead for good as well as giving him the jays' all-time record for postseason dingers. i bought the card because ohtani is lurking in the foreground, but mainly because dodger superfan mary hart has finally made a card. she's there on the right, squished between the world series logo and the card design element swiping by her face. i watched a fair amount of entertainment tonight back in the day and have been waiting for her to make her way on to a card given her season ticket seats she's held for the last decade at least.

it was do or die for the dodgers in game 6, and mookie betts

came through with a 2 run single to put the dodgers up 3-0 in the third inning. it was 3-1 dodgers with one out and a runner on second in the bottom of the ninth when...

kiké hernandez

ran in to catch a slow liner and relay the ball to second to complete a game ending double play. the back of the card has no words

just some celebration with mookie and miguel rojas who made a fantastic pick of the throw.

tyler glasnow

relieved roki sasaki in the bottom of the ninth with two on and no outs, but induced a pop out and then the game ending liner. his appearance was reminiscent of hershiser, kershaw, randy johnson, madison bumgarner, and so many other starters who turned to relievers in a postseason series in which they had also started a game. and, he wasn't the last person we would see in that capacity!

i watched most of game 6 on a plane, and then saw the ending while we were waiting to exit the car rental ramp at the airport. i was able to watch game 7 at a family member's house which was nice. the dodgers pecked away at an early blue jays lead, with max muncy

going deep in the top of the 8th inning to cut the jays' lead to one. that enabled...

miguel rojas

to tie the game in the top of the 9th with his unlikely solo blast. i thought that the jays had won it in the bottom of the 9th when daulton varsho hit a one out, bases loaded grounder to rojas and he stumbled before throwing home where...

will smith

got his foot down on home plate just in time to force pinch runner isiah kiner-falefa. i also thought that the jays won it when the next batter, ernie clement, hit a ball to the gap in left-center field, but...

andy pages

took control and made the catch despite running into kiké hernandez. this is a fantastic card. at this point, i really didn't care who won - i just didn't want it to end on an error or by some george springer heroics.

will smith

put the dodgers on top with a solo blast in the 11th inning, and

yoshinobu yamamoto

who had relieved blake snell in the bottom of the 9th with two on and one out and immediately loaded the bases before inducing that grounder to rojas, closed it out by getting alejandro kirk to hit into a double play started by...

mookie betts

whose 6-3 turn was a joy to behold, and then...

the celebration ensued

as you might expect, ohtani did some things. he was the starting pitcher, but he also had two hits

which made him the second pitcher in history to have multiple hits in a game 7 in which he pitched (dizzy dean is the other, in 1934). both ohtani and dean were 2 for 5 in their game 7s, but dean pitched a shutout in his.

yamamoto was named the series mvp

and...

clayton kershaw

got to go out as a champion

speaking of kersh, i bought a couple of his regular season topps now cards back in september. this one marks his final start at dodger stadium

and this one covers his final regular season start, period

i also bought the topps now world series champions 15 card set like the dutiful (gullible?) fan that i am. i will present those cards with little commentary:

most of the photos are nondescript, which allows topps to keep those better photos for future releases, or short prints within this set. each 15 card set was guaranteed to have a chase card - a numbered parallel, short print (or ssp), or auto/auto-relic. my set came with an ohtani short print

which features a fairly nondescript photo. still decent, though.

2025 was a fun year to be a dodger fan, and mookie's 2022 topps stadium club card says it all

does pat riley still own the copyright to "threepeat"?!

heritage high apple pie in the sky hopes

i was looking forward to busting my 2025 topps heritage high numbers box that i ordered directly from topps because we are heading into the era of baseball that i began following, and i was hoping for some cards that featured some of the players of my youth - preferably dodgers. i was also hoping to see some cards in the "traded" design.

i found the former (not dodgers) but not the latter. i don't understand how topps ignored the "traded" cards with 2021 heritage (they did have some in the minor league version) and now again in 2025 after remembering about them in 2023 (but as super short prints). anyway, i still really enjoyed opening these packs! here's my take:

cards like trevor story's

give me hope for the upcoming heritage releases. tightly cropped candids were all over the place heading into the later 1970s. josh rojas' card

goes full profile a la bobby bonds, steve braun, and george brett in 1978. i can't wait for 2027. i also like how the rojas card captures the white sox' 125 year anniversary patch. to me, baseball cards work best when they document the individuality of each season in terms of players and uniforms.

kiké hernandez' card is another good unposed candid example

and i was lucky enough to find it in chrome, too

for what it's worth, kiké has a nice photo variation in the set, showing him in one of his mop up pitching appearances with his pitching helmet on his head. it's a bit pricey at the moment so i am hoping that things settle at some point in the future and i can find one for my collection.

the other dodger chrome card in my box was alex call's blue chrome refractor

call is a guy that could have had a "traded" card, but i am glad to see him in the set in any fashion. fourth outfielders don't see a lot of checklists these days.

harrison bader, whose light blue sparkle chrome refractor is shown below

is an interesting case in this year's heritage high. he's a phillie there, as he finished the season in philly. he began the season here in minnesota, and he actually has another card in the set showing him as a twin

that's the chrome parallel of his short print card. here are the backs:

the backs are pretty similar, with the acquired text being updated along with the birth and home states for some reason. the bullet text at the bottom is different, too. i am guessing that topps was too far along with printing to remove bader's twins card? not sure how that would be the case though since they printed phillie cards of him, too. 

time out for some dodger base cards. their team checklist is mostly rookies, including a guy who was a real headscratcher for me. more on him in a bit. here's jack dreyer

and kirby yates

you can see the tried and true heritage backgrounds for both of those guys courtesy of the camelback spring training complex. inserted backgrounds still abound - check out omar cruz

for example. i sure do hope these go by the wayside in the future but photo day will likely remain indoors so they are likely to remain.

i came across these four cards back-to-back-to-back-to-back in a pack

overexposed or washed out? they were the only four cards in the pack like that so i am guessing this is how all of their cards look.

let me show a few packs as they were when i opened them to give you a better feel for the product, starting with the first pack i ripped.

pack 1

good luck for me with the dreyer chrome refractor. the "perfect 10" insert (hello mike trout) might be a replacement for the "now and then" insert? the design (top border, at least) seems more 50's than 70's but that's just me.

pack 2

the jose quintana is a short print, and it's really the only straight up "base" short print i got in the box.

the others were all varieties of some sort. another dodger base card and a logan vanwey chrome refractor.

pack 3

the nootbaar card is also a short print

but it features the "cartoon" variation which is the position icon. i like how his glove is color coordinated with the card. the yoshinobu yamamoto perfect 10 card is appreciated, as is the matt gorski base card. gorski was the headscratcher i mentioned earlier. he made his big league debut with the pirates early in 2025 and then was released and signed by the dodgers. he hasn't appeared in any games for any team in the dodger organization, as he was injured for the majority of the season. cool that he has a card though.

pack 4

one more dodger base card with evan phillips and a nice action shot of mike yastrzemski (they spelled it correctly) to break up the posed monotony. the christian koss (double play second base icon!) card is a chrome parallel (i'll revisit that card in a future post) and rich hill's card is another light blue sparkle chrome refractor, the back of which confused me initially

topps decided to truncate hill's big league record in favor of legibility and single team line items rather than smaller text and combined team stats for each year. that's fair, but when i saw that he had a nickname variation, i went looking for the "dick mountain" card. instead, topps says his nickname is "field of genes". i hadn't heard that one before.

here are some of the other parallels that came my way - the dark blue borders

more light blue sparkle refractors

a couple more chrome parallels

and another blue refractor chrome parallel

justin turner's card 

is a standout for me because it's not posed, and it features the tokyo series patch.

there were quite a few second basemen in my box, so i pulled their cards for the double play icon

i especially appreciate the luke keaschall card.

these late season sets are always ones that i scour for other mini-collection cards, such as memorial patches. the ke'bryan hayes and craig yoho cards

both show patches that the reds and brewers wore for pete rose and bob uecker, respectively. the hayes is a great example, with the yoho image not being a strong contender for my collection. i'll hope for better with 2026 flagship.

brett baty's card

would have been a perfect option for ed kranepool's patch, but the image is cropped just a bit too closely.

two more base cards that i took note of - travis d'arnaud

and robert hassell the third

the d'arnaud card gives us a good look at the pitchcom system earpiece which i haven't noticed on cardbaoard before, and hassell sees and raises nootbaar's glove game.

inserts! inserts! inserts! i really was looking forward to finding some bicentennial stars, and i wound up with steve carlton

whom i considered to be the best pitcher in the national league back then. i also found one of hank aaron's "76 retirees" inserts

from early in his career. the other players in this set are tony oliva and billy williams. no frank robinson?!

the award winners inserts still exist - here's chris sale

as do the rookie performers (my find was james wood)

but i think the combo cards are gone.

i did find a pair of cards from the "undefeated" insert set - both joe morgan

one "base" and one holo parallel. these are the cards that resulted in me learning about pete rose's card that i posted about last week.

i will wrap up this long and winding post with the last two packs of the box

pack 23

hey now! there's my guaranteed auto or relic, and it's both! plus a dark blue short print parallel of nick kurtz! here's a closer look at the auto relic

this is a great pull for the release - a through the years autograph relic of ronald acuna jr numbered to 25. here's the back:

funny enough, my mega box of the regular heritage also netted an acuna hit.

pack 24

and we finish with another blue chrome refractor of a red (old friend connor joe) and a light blue sparkle chrome refractor of kurtz.

all in all, i am very pleased with this box. so much so that i've pre-ordered my 2026 series 1 stuff to keep the good mojo going!