disconnected

i am curious to see the changes (or is it a complete overhaul) that the dodgers are making to their city connect uniforms. they've already made tweaks over the years since they first debuted in 2021. max scherzer's 2022 topps card (this is the gold parallel)

shows the original uniform with the full blue outfit and the "los dodgers" script on the hat. 

at some point in 2022, the dodgers ditched the "los dodgers" hat and just wore their standard interlocking la hats as seen on freddie freeman's 2023 topps stadium club (red foil version)

they kept the full blue unis, which i actually didn't mind.

last year, as jason heyward's 2023 topps card (gold parallel) shows

the dodgers ditched the blue pants and went with white pants, but with piping along the sides to differentiate from their normal home whites.

obviously i have no idea what is in store this year with the city connect uniforms, but i hope they are not anything like the padres'.

buehler?

walker buehler is back on the bump for the dodgers tonight (assuming the game is played starting about 2.5 hours from when this post goes live). if the dodgers don't have a ben stein video on diamondvision before the game, what are they even doing?

here are some cards to mark the end of walker buehler's days off:

2020 topps chrome blue parallel

2021 bowman platinum ice foil parallel

2021 topps 1986 all-star relic

2021 topps chrome pink refractor parallel

2022 topps stars of mlb insert

2022 topps gypsy queen blue parallel

and here's his 2014 topps big league base card

that last card came from cards on cards, along with several more dodgers that hit my want lists on the nose.

this is a 2018 bowman alex verdugo chrome rookie of the year favorites insert

mojo box edition! verdugo did not rate in the roy voting in 2018 as he saw only limited playing time. in fact, he was still a rookie in 2019 when he hit .294 for the dodgers in just over 100 games, but didn't place in the roy voting that year either.

2021 topps uk edition luke raley

raley is playing in seattle now after two seasons in tampa following his 2021 season spent with the dodgers.

2023 topps stadium club mookie betts

and will smith

with these two cards in hand, my 2023 stadium club team set is missing only miguel vargas and jd martinez. 

2024 topps big league shohei ohtani

this might be the first ohtani dodger card i've received in trade. pretty sure it is, in fact, yes, it is.

2024 topps big league emmet sheehan

and emmet sheehan electric orange parallel

the borders of big league make the parallels look dirty and less electric, but i am happy to have an example of the orange parallels.

thanks kerry!

with buehler back in action, all eyes turn to the progression of clayton kershaw, whose 2024 topps big league card i recently picked up

it sounds like he threw off a mound the other day, and hopefully will be back in time to make a run at his 3,000th strikeout. the "k is for kershaw kountdown" will return!

the almost daily dodger - mike piazza

the last one of these posts featured eric karros, so it only makes sense to follow up with mike piazza. piazza followed in karros' footsteps, winning the national league rookie of the year award in 1993 after karros took home the hardware in 1992.

this is piazza's 1996 panini sticker

his 1996 topps classic confrontations insert

his 1997 upper deck memorable moments die-cut insert

and his 1996 fleer update soaring star insert

things are looking up!

all of these cards were languishing in my scanned folder, which was the impetus for this "almost daily dodger" series. piazza remains the player in third place in my tcdb collection, behind steve garvey and clayton kershaw with 722 cards in the collection (710 unique). that's just outside the top 20 of all collectors on the site. looks like i have some work to do, and there seems to be no end to the piazza dodger cards from the 90's.

where's the puzzle?

i recently picked up one of my "most wanted" cards - a 2023 panini donruss duke snider card

from the diamond kings subset. it was on my nefarious nine list because it was a card that i had a parallel of (holo purple)

but not the base which is an annoyance to me.

the card reminds me of the first time donruss included snider in a set, way back in 1984

when he was the subject of their puzzle insert as well. no puzzle this time, and no logo on the hat, either.

my retired numbers collection - 28

this is the 28th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here is the one person for whom number 28 has been retired:

bert blyleven (retired by the twins in 2011) 1986 o-pee-chee

i was confused when it took bert blyleven 14 years to be voted into the hall of fame. he retired as the pitcher with the third most strikeouts in the history of the game, and yet he languished on the ballot until he received 79.7% of the vote in 2011. i was of the mind that 3,000 strikeouts for a pitcher was a no-brainer hall of fame threshold, and blyleven racked up 3,701 strikeouts over the course of his career. with the twins, he recorded 2,035 of them over ten-plus seasons in two separate stints with the club.

the knock on blyleven, i guess, was that he played for a lot of different teams and didn't reach 300 wins (he had 287, of which 149 came as a twin). it's not his fault that he played for some not-so-good teams, although he did help the 1987 twins (and the 1979 pirates) win a world series title. at any rate, the baseball writers voted him in, and the twins retired his number on july 16, 2011 as a result. jesse crain, who had been wearing the number from 2004 through 2010 became the last twin to do so.

he remains the all-time top minnesota twin (walter johnson is technically the all-time franchise leader) in terms of strikeouts, and the 1986 o-pee-chee card gives us a glimpse of blyleven's number on the front of the baby blue uniforms that the twins would retire after the '86 season due to a complete overhaul of their branding. given the success that blyleven and the twins had in 1987, i would say the rebranding paid off!

while blyleven is the only person to have number 28 retired in their honor, it is a safe bet that buster posey will join him at some point. the giants have kept posey's number out of circulation since he retired a couple of years ago, and are probably just waiting to see what happens his first year on the hall of fame ballot.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 28 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 42

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 28, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 42

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 23, 42

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 42

angels - 11, 26, 42

expos - 8, 10, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 42

rockies - 17, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

28 - retired by 1 team

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 119

running total of non-hall of famers: 44

what are you selling?

the sets released so far in 2024 are really giving collectors our best look at the advertising patches that some teams began wearing in 2023. more teams have added them this year, and for some franchises i am left to wonder what they are trying to sell.

the dodgers this year began sporting an ad on their jerseys, and it is for the guggenheim group which owns the dodgers but is an investment and advisory firm at its core. they serve insurance companies, corporate and public pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, wealth managers, and high-net worth investors. not your average baseball tv viewer.

i am not sure how it all works, but it seems weird that the dodgers would add a patch of the company that owns the team as it is not completely clear how the team makes money off of the deal, or at least how it is a benefit to the advertiser. anyway, the dodgers aren't alone.

when i saw this 2024 topps heritage patrick bailey card

with the cruise advertising patch, i was curious enough to finally look them up. they are a self-driving technology firm that eventually (they hope) will be offering driverless rides and deliveries in cities all over the country. they had some safety issues late last year which i assume has delayed their deployment. still, they were a ways away from being "open" for business, so i wonder why they chose to advertise in this way last year. it's worth noting that this year, the giants are sporting chevrolet ad patches. in truth, perhaps general motors is the company buying the patches, as they own both cruise and chevy.

most teams seem to have more mainstream advertisers that baseball fans might actually use like motorola, adt, meijer, marathon oil, quik trip, and quikrete. i will say that the heritage card design and coloring of bailey's card in particular complements the cruise patch really well, and at least we don't have to see ftx patches all over the umpires anymore.

1955 bowman complete through 32!

a month ago i announced my intent to complete the 1955 bowman set. since then, i've added a couple of cards, including one that was the final piece needed to have the first 32 cards of the set in hand. that card was al kaline's

which is number 23 in the set. since i want to show the set in order through these posts (here's the first one), even though i had a complete sheet of cards 25-32, i wanted to wait until kaline filled his spot on the 17-24 sheet. and here's that sheet now!

and the backs

not sure what is up with the coloring of bobby avila's card. in addition to kaline, that sheet features another hall of famer in roy campanella, and his brooklyn dodger buddy is don hoak. hoak's card, to me, is one of the most iconic cards i have in my collection (and i have three of them) because it was the first card from the 1950's that i owned and it came to me by way of a trade with a man who lived adjacent to my neighborhood. i've told the story before, but one of my friends told us that a guy down the street from him collected cards, and so we knocked on his door one day in 1979 and asked if he wanted to trade. he said he didn't have any new cards and so took some 1979 topps giants from me and gave me the hoak in return. good times for an eight year old.

here's the next page:

love the minnie minoso card. it features an unorthodox bunting approach in contrast to what johnny temple is displaying. here's the backs

red schoendienst means there are two hall of famers on that page, too.

i hope it won't be too long before i am back with the next page in the set, although i am missing three cards between 33 and 40 right now.

stay tuned!