k is for kershaw

on the last day of the 2022 season, the photo tile accompanying the all-time career strikeout leader page at baseball reference looked like this:

the day after the last day of the 2022 season, it looked like this:

so long, cy young - clayton kershaw is now 24th all-time in career strikeouts with 2,807.

at this point, i would say it's safe to assume that both justin verlander and max scherzer will pass phil niekro and greg maddux in 2023, and they may well get past walter johnson and the 3500 k mark if they pitch beyond this year. and, with kershaw returning for 2023, he should pass mike mussina, mickey lolich, and jim bunning. greinke is back, but kershaw may pass him as well given the low strikeout rate greinke showed last year. i hope both of those guys stick it out to reach 3,000 strikeouts, but we will have to see. for almost all of my life, jim bunning was the guy i knew as the pitcher who had the most strikeouts without getting to the 3,000 milestone, but now it looks like it could well be either greinke or kershaw. 

kershaw remains my favorite dodger, and will be until he no longer wears their uniform. i have a habit of adding his cards to my collection every chance i get, and so i have many cards that have arrived over the last year that i haven't shown off before. there are a lot!

this 2011 topps target hanger pack exclusive 

is one of my favorite cards i've picked up in the last year. these are fairly tough to find at this point and i was happy to see one pop up with a decent price.

this is the 2011 topps lineage venezuelan variation

as you may be able to discern from the card back.

here's a 2015 panini black friday panini collection card

that conveniently rounded out my last comc order

this 2021 panini donruss holo red

was sent courtesy of the diamond king

and now for an obscene amount of kershaw cards with or without comment:

2008 bowman draft picks & prospects gold parallel

2009 bowman chrome

2010 bowman chrome refractor

2010 topps walmart black

2014 topps update all-star stitches

2015 topps black parallel

2016 topps mlb debut

2018 topps archives snapshots black & white

2018 topps heritage new age performers

2018 topps high tek - three different patterns!

2018 topps on demand postseason

2019 panini prizm red prizm

2019 topps chrome pink refractor

2020 topps factory set gold star parallel

2020 topps heritage photo variation

2020 topps heritage clubhouse collection

2020 topps on demand black and white

2020 topps opening day blue and red parallels

2021 panini chronicles america's pastime

2021 topps chrome refractor/pink refractor/sepia refractor

2021 topps royal blue

2021 topps factory set gold star

2021 topps factory set foil board

2021 topps factory set gold star (base)

2021 topps project 70

2021 topps triple threads aqua marine

2022 topps 1987 and 1987 silver pack

2022 topps chrome refractor

2022 topps factory set gold star

2022 topps holiday

2022 topps holiday ornament

2022 topps opening day

2022 topps pristine

2022 topps throwback thursday 1967-68 hockey design

2022 topps tribute

2022 topps update royal blue

ok now for some non-licensed stuff

and even more non-licensed stuff:

how about some minis and other non-standard sized cards:

so many parallels to chase!

multi-player cards count, too!

now for some solo landscape parallels

this is a 2016 topps throwback thursday card

as is this one:

both use designs from the 1950s - 1955 bowman and 1958 topps tv westerns.

i went for even more tbt cards:

and now for some inserts/parallels using older topps designs that are not throwback thursday cards:

whew.

that's 123 cards of kersh that were new to me last year. and, i still have quite a few in my scanned folder that i will hold off on sharing for now even though i am tempted to add 70 more so that the number of cards in this post matches the number of strikeouts kershaw needs to get to 3,000. 

instead, however, i will show just one more card. it's my latest kershaw card purchase, although i don't have it in hand yet. 

it's a 2020 topps clearly authentic autographed card, numbered to 30. this is my 12th certified kershaw auto and immediately one of my favorites. can't wait to see it in person once comc clears their queue!

after entering all of my kershaw cards at tcdb, my total stands at 1,117 unique which is good enough to place 5th among collectors on the site - at least as of last weekend when i last checked. i have a few more on the way (including the clearly authentic card above), so maybe i will get to 4th place for a spell. and, maybe someday, i will get to the point where i have one of his cards for every two of his career strikeouts - and i hope that means that i need at least 1,500 cards.

it's great to know that kershaw should already be in camp, and the dodgers' non-world baseball classic participating pitchers and catchers report tomorrow! rejoice!

i was ready for some football

the big game is on! i don't follow football as closely as i once did, but i still pay attention a bit.

back in 1978, i was a big rams fan, and we neighborhood kids turned our attention fully to the gridiron after the world series that fall. our collecting shifted, too, as we began buying packs of football cards. i liked the design, and, because 1978 was my first year of collecting, i thought that maybe the 1979 topps baseball set would look like those cards. of course, they did not, and i should have known better since i had bought a pack of 1977-78 basketball cards that year, too, and so knew that the card designs varied  by sport. still, it blew my mind how different the 1978 football design was from the baseball design of the same year.

anyway, that is a long lead-in to say that i was disappointed to know that i would not find a steve garvey all-star card with the 1978 topps football design in 1979.  i did, however, find one in 2023

that's a custom card by roselle avenue that i bought on ebay. i will very rarely purchase a custom made by someone else, but given my history with this card i just had to pull the trigger.  here's the back

which is a bit disappointing, but i get it. the card is printed on decent stock and looks professionally done.

in 1979, i began to familiarize myself with older football card designs as i continued to purchase packs of the current release, and even considered going back and completing older ram team sets. i lost interest in buying football cards sometime in 1980 as i remember having very few cards with that design. i did, however, pick up a few cards from years like 1973, 1977, and 1976.

speaking of which - another baseball card with a football card design that i've added to my collection is this 2022 topps throwback thursday mookie betts card

that uses the 1976 football design.  when i saw 1981 fleer hit the shelves, i thought of this design. fleer had the common sense to make the baseball white, even if they made it smaller. this ball on betts' card looks like a softball.

i was not familiar with the 1971 topps football set, but i am now thanks to a couple other throwback thursday cards i've picked up recently:

the pink one is a poster design, or so i am told.

as for that 1978 topps football set, i fell just short of completing the set - hollywood henderson eluded my grasp - and i believe the near set, along with my other football cards, was thrown away sometime around 1981. i kept the 1978 tony dorsett rookie and 1979 earl campbell record breaker cards, but none of the others. i was down on the nfl then, as the rams failed to re-sign vince ferragamo after they lost the super bowl to the steelers. i was bummed and started paying attention to the raiders, who had a local tie to my hometown. ferragamo eventually returned to the rams, but it wasn't the same, and when he left after the 1984 season, i dropped the rams altogether.

sure they've won a couple of super bowls since then, but i've never looked back. i do wish i still had those 1978 cards though.

why yes, i do know the way to san jose

this is old news to most, but i recently met up with fuji in san jose. we went to a card shop together and while there, snapped photos of our wallet cards together:

i've often thought about switching my wallet card from a 1974 topps steve garvey card to a 1978 topps steve garvey card, but this is the only wallet card i've ever had and when i first wanted to put one in my wallet (back after mickey mantle passed away) i didn't have a double of the '78 card. so, i think it will be this '74 masterpiece until it (or i) disintegrates.

this was not the first time i've taken a wallet card photo at a meet-up, but i sure wish that the idea had come to me sooner so that the portland cardcon nw i was a part of in 2018 were documented in a similar fashion.

i browsed for a bit in the shop and asked if they had any bargain boxes to dig through. unfortunately, they did not. they had a bunch of supplies and wax and singles under glass, however. i mentioned to mark that i hadn't busted a box of anything in a while, and that the last time i bought a box at a shop was january of 2019 when i bought a box of tier one and clearly authentic. i decided to roll the dice again and bought a box of the 2022 version of the latter. 

one card and done:

here's a better photo:

it's a tek auto of one-time dodger farmhand yordan alvarez, numbered to 50. not a bad card to have - i told mark better than a phil hughes pull - and so i am going to hang on to this one for a while.

after leaving the shop we headed to in-n-out and talked about the hobby. it was a great visit.  of course, mark and i traded packages, and i opened mine when i returned home. i'll share a few of the items, all of which are somewhat oddball in nature.

how about some hockey?!

i don't really publicize it, but i have kept my luc robitaille and wayne gretzky player collections that i began in the late 1980's. i bought a bunch of hockey cards from 1989 through 1994 or so. i still have most of the cards that once populated my player collections but am planning to get rid of them one way or another this year.

those cards are from 1997-98 pinnacle zenith, and this one is from 1998 pinnacle zenith

they are all 5x7 cards, and all are "ripped" meaning that there used to be cards inside of these things. thankfully, whomever owned these cards didn't actually rip them, but rather discreetly sliced the cards open on the back.

slightly smaller in size is this 1985 coke dodgers postcard of manager tommy lasorda

the only one of these i had seen before was bob bailor's, and he sent that one to me when i asked him to sign some cards through the mail. actually, his was from 1984, so this is the first 1985 postcard i've seen.

another postcard in the package was this john roseboro beauty

the roseboro is from 1962 based on the numbering on the back (50322), even though the person who originally bought the postcard wrote 1965 on it. 

that mystery is solved by the other postcard fuji gave me

i wish there were one of these for the 1981 world championship team (if there is i haven't seen it). the 1963 dodgers swept the yankees in the fall classic and won their second title in los angeles. the purchaser of this postcard, and i assume it's the same person who purchased the roseboro, wrote some notes on the back

and for that i am extremely grateful. they bought this postcard at the stadium in 1965 - either on friday july 23 or saturday july 24 as the dodgers dropped both of those games to the cardinals. that also means that they either saw don drysdale or sandy koufax pitch, as big d started (and homered) on friday night and sandy started (and pitched 9 innings) on saturday. both games went in to extras with neither drysdale nor koufax figuring in the decisions, by the way.

last item was this oddball - a 1968 pinco pennant and emblems pack

still sealed after 55 years! looks like this at one time belonged to tyler, and kudos to him for not opening it! here's the fifth emblem:

i couldn't find any information about these but having a sealed, complete pack is pretty much all i need to know!

mark is the 8th blogger and 9th blogosphere personality that i have met in person, and i am happy to add him to this list:

paul from carl crawford cards

brian from highly subjective and completely arbitrary (several times)

gavin from baseball card breakdown (twice)

madding from cards on cards

rod from padrographs

ken from cardboard hogs

daniel from it's like having my own card shop

mr. haverkamp

fuji from the chronicles of fuji

it would be great to add to this list, so please let me know if you are ever in the twin cities.

thanks for a great afternoon fuji!

34ever

the dodgers dropped some big news yesterday as part of their fanfest celebrations - the franchise will officially retire fernando valenzuela's number in a ceremony during the 2023 season! this is great news for fans like me that felt the dodgers should relax their tradition of only retiring numbers of hall of famers (with the lone exception of jim gilliam) for iconic franchise players like fernando. the truth is, fernando's number 34 has been unofficially retired since he was released by the club just prior to the 1991 season - no player or coach has worn the number since. this will make it official and we will see number 34 up on the facade of the stadium along with the other numbers and microphones.

his number 34 is one of the few numbers that was in use by a player on the 1977 and/or 1978 dodger team (lee lacy) that i do not associate with that player. for example, i still think of jerry grote as #9 rather than mickey hatcher (in his second dodger stint) and rick monday as #16 instead of andre ethier or will smith, but 34 is fernando.

here is the newest fernando card to enter my collection:

it's a 1987 hostess card/sticker that i had no idea existed until i stumbled on an ebay listing. it brought me to 247 (245 unique) fernando dodger cards, according to tcdb. that puts fernando at number 21 on my "top names" list and number 5 among all collectors, although i have a few more of his cards (non-dodger variety) in a couple of mini-collections that i haven't entered in to tcdb.

here's a card that shows his number a bit better, from 2002 topps archives reserve

a few years ago, i culled my player collections to just consist of steve garvey, vladimir guerrero, jimmie hall, and the post-dodger cards of the other starting 8 from the 1977 dodgers. shawn green, steve sax and fernando were the last to be cut, but i've since thought about reinstating fernando. in fact, i mentioned it in a post a while back, and even talked about it with fuji when he and i met up in san jose recently.  well, this number retirement news has helped me make the decision to add fernando to my list of player collections.

unfortunately, i traded away many of his cards to oriole, phillie, padre, and cardinal collectors over the past few years so i don't have many in hand. i do have a few, including this 1995 upper deck electric diamond parallel

and this 1996 pacific crown collection card

plus a few more.

my want list is up, but i haven't finished going through all of my monster boxes of cards that may yield a few more from my past pc. still, i am looking for help! you will be rewarded!

fernando was inducted in to the "legends of dodger baseball" a few years ago, which seemed to me to be the franchise's way of recognizing a tier of player that wasn't going to get to cooperstown and therefore have their number retired. this announcement has me thinking that some other members of that group, such as maury wills

don newcombe

and steve garvey

might join the likes of roy campanella

with their numbers retired, too.

and then there was manny mota, who seemed like someone who could follow the gilliam rule as a longtime dodger player and coach, but they were quick to redistribute his number 11 after he finally retired. i figured if they didn't do it for mota, they probably weren't going to do it for anyone else. i am glad i was wrong.

viva fernandomania!

they won one for the baker

it is hard for me to believe that it is already february and that pitchers and catchers will be reporting in just a couple of weeks. it seems like just a month ago (it's been just under three) that the astros won the world series and topps fully engaged in the dusty baker love.

i was there for it, picking up his topps now card that was released the day after the clinching game

along with the one issued the day after the parade in houston

i also picked up his entry in the topps living set

which came out that same week. it makes sense to show baker as the astros manager given the milestones he achieved in 2022, but i will say i was a bit disappointed that topps put tommy john in the set around the same time as a yankee. it is looking like his appearance in the 2021 topps chrome platinum set as a dodger is a one-off as he was also featured as a yankee in 2022 topps archives and chrome black.

enough about john - this post is about johnnie b!  all three of those cards above are welcome additions to my post-dodger dusty baker collection for sure. however, they are not the only baker cards i've added since the end of the world series.

friend of blogs mr. haverkamp sent me an unannounced envelope containing this gem:

which is known as a 1994 san francisco chronicle giants card on the checklist. it's actually the card backing for a pin - you can see where the pin was under the newspaper's phone number.  here's the back:

i am happy to have the card without the pin, to be honest. it's much easier to store!

with all of the attention baker received in 2022, wouldn't it be great if topps gave him a card in 2023 heritage? with his coaching staff? yes, it would be great. i'm not holding my breath though.

mr. haverkamp included a couple more baker goodies for me - these ticket stubs 

from 2001 and 2000 (i put them on the scanner wrong and didn't bother to correct them in post editing). i am a big fan of ticket stubs as souvenirs and like when teams featured players or managers on them. these are also a great addition to my baker collection.

the other item mr. haverkamp sent was one that he wasn't too sure about:

it's dusty's old teammate and first base coach (with the nationals) davey lopes. thankfully, i knew exactly what it was - a "panel" from the 1977 dodgers photo album. it's paper thin and has a bio and stats on the back. it never occurred to me to separate these out from my album, but they are perforated for that purpose. who knew?

in between baker's managerial stints in san francisco and houston, he managed the cubs, reds, and nationals. here's a 2005 topps gold parallel card from his cubs tenure that i added recently

and here's one more dusty baker card that is new-ish to my collection. 

it's baker's card from 2005 topps all-time fan favorites in refractor form! seeing a shiny version of the 1978 design was a trip for me back then.  i am definitely looking forward to 2027 topps heritage and the chrome parallels! of course, this card goes in the dodger collection not the baker post-dodger collection.

many thanks to mr. haverkamp, one of a handful blogosphere mainstays that i have met in person (i recently added to that list, by the way) and a person who has contributed mightily to my dusty baker collection over the years. it is much appreciated, and i'm hoping he continues to keep an eye out for those hard to find regional releases! and to topps, keep making those dusty baker cards!