that's the holiday spirit!

we are currently six months out from christmas, and i am finally getting around to posting some cards that came my way shortly after santa wrapped up his 2024 tour and baby new year ushered in 2025. this is an oversized shohei ohtani ornament

from 2024 topps holiday, and this is a yoshinobu yamamoto christmas light necklace short print variation

from the same set.

the yamamoto came from brian at highly subjective and completely arbitrary at the january club show. he handed over some other yamamoto rookies, including a 2024 topps update duo of foil parallels

plus a "let him cook" insert

which is actually a blue parallel of the insert. i am not familiar with the turn of phrase, but i can guess as to what it means. i also didn't know what "drip" was until big league included some inserts a few years ago. i am old and not hip to these terms.

here's a gold foil parallel of landon knack

and a purple holo foil kyle hurt parallel

which are also from topps update last year.

i was happy to see this 2024 topps rip night mookie betts card

in the stack as i didn't have any of these and really didn't know of any local rip nights. not that i would have participated, but i do like to get oddballs like these. 

to top things off, brian exorcised some of my 2024 topps stadium club demons by giving me six pink parallels!

some big names there, too.

a week or so later, i was inspired by brian's luck to try my hand again at a hanger pack of stadium club, now located on an endcap in the toy section of my target. finally, i found a dodger pack with three needed pink foils!

yay for my collection.

as for the ohtani up top, that was sent by madding of cards on cards around the same time as i was meeting brian at the card show. kerry also sent some 2024 topps archives needs

they were needs and new back then, but old hat now.

here's a 2021 panini contenders zack mckinstry rookie of the year contenders insert

and a 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary bobby miller refractor

that were needs as well.

i generally steer away from buying bowman product, and i didn't buy any in 2023, so this mairoshendrick martinus green pattern border parallel

was new to me. hailing from curacao, martinus is currently playing third base for the dodgers in a-ball. i suppose his name may bring to mind key & peele college football bits, but in baseball players don't introduce themselves that way.

to bring this post full circle, i ran into brian at the june club show last weekend. rather, he found me at what has become my traditional first stop, the bargain boxes set out by one of the regular sellers at these shows. this time, we had the presence of mind to document the meetup with a photo of our wallet cards

that's twins world champion junior ortiz for brian, and one-time twins draft pick steve garvey for me (he didn't sign). brian told me that he's been running an instagram account in lieu of blogging - check out tradingcardoftheday on insta if you are so inclined - and that his dodger luck in opening packs is still strong. to prove his point, he handed over more cards, including a host of 2025 topps dodger parallels.

austin barnes rainbow foil

will smith confetti

chris taylor holofoil

yoshinobu yamamoto fanatics topps logo foil

teoscar hernandez diamante foil

james outman holiday (sun)

not to mention a freddie freeman ops leaders insert

and a clayton kershaw 1990 35th anniversary insert

that is some good dodger luck, indeed.

brian also gave me a 1997 leaf todd hollandsworth banner seasons insert

a 2023 topps trea turner major league material relic card

a 2024 topps brusdar graterol blue holofoil parallel

and my first look at 2024 topps japan edition with a freddie freeman base

and a yoshinobu yamamoto strikezone heroes insert

brian even hit my tatooine minicollection with a 2019 bowman draft conner capel

and a brand spanking new 2025 topps barry larkin 1990 35th anniversary insert

i gave brian a small team bag of twins that i had been stockpiling and we went about our card show business. i stayed at those bargain boxes for a while but ran into brian again near the exit. i gave him a couple of cards i had found in a dime box and pulled for him, and he handed over another card that he found for me at the show (a 2004 topps brady clark gold parallel)

and then mentioned that he had an oversized card that he had forgotten to give me earlier - it was a 2024 topps holiday mookie betts ornament!

i love it when a post comes together!

thanks brian and kerry! and, only about 182 shopping days until christmas!

that was a good team break

here's "where it's at" with the 2024 topps series 2 team break i joined. i chose the dodgers, of course, and wound up with a couple of team sets - all 20 cards:

i'll come back to the jason heyward card in a bit.

kiké continues to get decent cards. i like that he and rojas got cards showing them as fielders. we don't need more at bats on cards

see what i mean? i feel like i am missing some candids these days.

especially with pitchers, who do nothing but pitch in today's game. 

we could also use more bat flip cards like teoscar there. 

back to heyward's card

it was obvious to me as soon as i saw the card that his number was photoshopped. it was also obvious that the background is dodger stadium. i was confused and couldn't believe that topps didn't use a photo of heyward as a dodger. it turns out that they used a photo from jackie robinson day when the dodgers were wearing a pre-1952 jersey style that didn't have the red numbers on the front. here's the original photo. i am not sure why topps felt they needed to add the red number at all, but they did. just add that to the list of headscratching decisions they make with seemingly every release.

unfortunately, the photo doesn't show the 42 on heyward's back, so even though i know it is a card from an april 15 game, it doesn't go in the 42 mini-collection. i did get the gold foil parallel

in the break, however, so that's nice.

one more note on one of the base cards (at least in this post). kyle hurt got a card! i mentioned this possibility in an earlier post about dodgers who got cards despite appearing in only one game with the team. hurt only appeared in one game for the dodgers in 2023 as the back of his card attests

so kudos to topps for using a photo from his big league debut and not photoshopping a minor league image. this season, hurt has pitched in three games for the dodgers, and was just activated from the 60-day il yesterday so will likely add to that total, leaving guys from that earlier post in the dust.

i netted two gold parallels - clayton kershaw

and dustin may

but no other parallels. i appreciate the photo topps used for may's card. it's one of the few pitcher cards that doesn't show a windup or delivery.

i did ok for inserts though, picking up both the shohei ohtani

and freddie freeman

1989 all-star inserts. freeman was the player my break landed the most as it turned out with both his covering the field

and fantasy favorites

inserts being pulled.

as for the silver packs, i got a bobby miller card

which was a bonus, really.

i did notice that the price for the dodgers in these breaks has increased with ohtani on the team, but it's still a good way to get a good number of cards to kickstart the team collection. i'll probably hold off on any more team breaks until update, however.