is this heaven?

no. it's dodger stadium. and, since today was the dodgers' home opener, let's see some cards featuring dodger stadium.

chavez ravine hosted a stadium series hockey game between the ducks and the kings a couple of years ago, and i was able to track down some cards that show dodger stadium in the background.  unfortunately, they were all ducks cards.  i was a pretty big kings fan, even prior to the gretzky era, and attended several games (including the 1980 all-star game) at the fabulous forum in inglewood.  it would have been a trip to see hockey at dodger stadium.  anyway, here are the cards - a 2014-15 upper deck canvas cam fowler card

baseball, hockey, and soccer all represented.  also, seeing the fan in the number 11 kings sweater made me think of charlie simmer and mike donnelly.  i don't know who wears 11 for the kings these days.

here's jakob silfverberg on a 2014-15 upper deck card

i was about as young as his kid when i first visited dodger stadium.

finally, here's ryan getzlaf

walking with every level of seating visible behind him.

dodger stadium recently hosted the wbc semi-finals and finals, and i decided to pick up the topps now cards from those games, too.  i followed through with my decision, although there were a couple of cards i did not buy.  those won't make it to me for a while, so i'll show them later.  in the meantime, here are some more dodger stadium cards i've obtained recently.

1989 woolworth's rick honeycutt

the current dodger pitching coach is seen here throwing in game 2 of the 1988 world series.  he retired all three dodgers he faced, two by strikeout, but orel hershiser and the dodgers still won the game 6-0.  honeycutt picked up the win in game 3 in oakland (which is the reason he is featured in this set), but i'm glad topps used a photo from a game in dodger stadium.

i also picked up this 1993 cracker jack prize card featuring my favorite stadium

complete with team trivia and an appearance by the garv.

poor hank webb. they had to pick someone so obviously not in the hall of fame that they went with a guy who spent all but 5 games of his career with the mets.  still, webb was a member of the 1977 dodger team, and so he is a respected member of the franchise on my blogs.

oscar at all trade bait all the time also sent over some dodger stadium cards for my collection.

2000 upper deck angel pena

i miss the old light bulb field level scoreboards.

2012 bowman ted lilly

which is not as nice as his 2013 topps card (this being the target red parallel version)

nick punto's 2013 topps update card (also the target red parallel version)

includes a nice double play turn and the always welcome union 76 logo ball.

it doesn't snow in la, but there's snow on josh reddick's 2016 topps holiday card

this photo must be from early in the game as there are a lot of empty seats.

last but not least, here's a 1987 donruss ron darling card

with the left field pavilion and its distinctive awning nicely matching the mets' color scheme.

thanks oscar for being on the lookout for dodger stadium!

two card bloggers meet in an office lobby...

last fall i found myself in the pacific northwest on a work related trip, and i reached out to gavin from baseball card breakdown to see if he was up for a quick meet and greet.  i had ulterior motives, as i was hoping for his help in printing a bunch of the custom cards i had created over the past several years.  gavin was amenable to both requests, and that is how, on a sunny afternoon in the city of portland, two card bloggers met in person.

i've now met three - paul from carl crawford cards, brian from highly subjective completely aribitrary (twice), and now gavin.  we had a short chat, and exchanged a few cards.

gavin gave me this 1999 skybox premium todd hollandsworth autographics card

as well as a couple of his more recent customs - this 1990 fleer-ish yasiel puig/madison bumgarner card

and this 1989 upper deck-ish vin scully card

when we met, i had mentioned that i saw the scully on his blog a few days prior, and was hoping i would be able to get my hands on one. a few moments later, i opened the package and there it was!

after we met, gavin went to work on printing many of my custom cards - particularly the 1978 topps update/burger king dodgers that i had created.  he sent them to me just after the new year, along with several other cards, one of which was this 2016 topps archives corey seager card

if this were fifteen years ago, i would have pc's of seager and clayton kershaw.  as it is, i am content to have as many of their cards in my dodger collection and trade off the rest.  this one completes my archives base set from last year.

i never had a pc going for kevin brown, but i do have a ton of his cards as his tenure as a dodger coincided with a ridiculous amount of sets and inserts being printed.  this is a 2004 leaf certified materials mirror red parallel

and it makes me feel ornery just looking at it.

here's a black bordered mini justin turner card from 2016 topps allen & ginter.

who knew that turner would turn out to be such a good player. i wonder if the mets would rather have him back than continue with the annual david wright ambulance brigade.

josh reddick has more dodger cards than he should, given how little time he spent with the team and how poorly he played during that time.  this is one of those 2016 topps holiday cards

it's even one of the metallic snowflake inserts.  yay.

you may have noticed based on recent posts at baseball card breakdown that i sent a bunch of 1965 topps cards to gavin in return for his work.  he also sent some to help me with my set quest, like dan osinski

i wonder if he and gil hodges ever got into a staring contest, and if so, who won.

i am also slowly working on my 1972 topps set, and gavin included a few towards that effort, including one clarence "cito" gaston in action card

by the time this card was issued, the giants' catcher on the card (dick dietz) was playing for the dodgers.  i had to tie this back to the dodgers somehow...

thanks gavin!