still scratching that 17 year itch

it wasn't too long after i had completed the 2007 topps chrome dodger team set that i decided to go after the blue refractor parallels. the base chrome cards seemed pretty lackluster, and with the chunky borders, the blue refractors were fantastically blue! it took me a while, but i got there, and i recently finished off the regular refractor and white refractor team sets, too.

here's the base dodger team set for comparison purposes later on.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young  

the black borders don't do the base chrome any favors, and shame on topps (and other companies at the time) for including autographs as base cards.

now here is the blue refractor team set - note that there was no delwyn young card in the blue refractor style

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux  

having the blue refractors but not the regular refractors gnawed on me a bit, so i got that job done.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young                

much, much brighter, of course. the young card is numbered to 500 in refractor form.

now for the white border refractors

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young    

the "pop" on these is largely background dependent. speaking of backgrounds, there was no nomar garciaparra chrome card in 2007, but he is in the background of chad billingsley's card.

the white refractors are numbered to 660 - hard to see on the scanned card back

but the delwyn young auto is only numbered to 200

interestingly enough, i have no xfractors in my collection. maybe that's next. or, the red refractor parallels. there is always something to chase!

this may be the most padre-ish card that i own

and it's not even a padres card.

i opened an envelope a while back and was at first confused. i knew i had ordered a 1999 pacific aurora kevin brown card in an attempt to complete my dodger team set (mission not yet accomplished as i still need eric karros' card - a nefarious 9 want!), but i didn't expect to see this:

i shouldn't have been surprised as there are some other 1999 kevin brown cards that show him as a dodger in friar's clothing, but it took me longer than it should have to find the dodger logo on here.  what with the interlocking sd on two hats, the logo on the turtleneck, the padres jersey, and the sleeve patch, along with the blue background, that dodger logo gets lost in the shuffle.

the back wasn't much better

seeing as how it's tinted in padres brown. i suppose the logo is more discernible here.

regardless of the high level of padres-ness, i am happy to have this card in my collection, and i'm hoping that the eric karros card joins it soon. at least i can count on that card being nothing but dodger.

i've also recently acquired three more partial dodger cards for my collection, each lacking much dodgerness in their own right.  first, there's this 1988 pinnacle plus bobby bonilla card:

these pinnacle cards don't scan too well, but you can see part of the "traded" text on bobby's left shin. this is less of a dodger card than the kevin brown up top, as it has the marlins logo on the back.  here's another one - 2000 upper deck ionix shawn green

just like the bonilla card, there is the "traded to dodgers" text, but no dodger logo to be seen. funny enough, the bonilla was on my master dodger team set checklist, but the green was not.

this last card is much more dodger-ish - it's a 2007 upper deck spectrum jason schmidt card

it's got the full team affiliation on the front and back (not shown), which is a good thing as i try to limit the giant cards in my collection.