the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - slightly delayed editon

yes, the kountdown to 3,000 strikeouts for clayton kershaw continues as he took the mound against the mariners on saturday night in seattle. he struck out 4 batters to give him 127 strikeouts on the season. those 4 mariners that he k'd increased his career total to 2,934.

in honor of his performance, here are 4 cards from my collection to represent strikeouts 2,931 through 2,934.

2,931 - 2017 topps fire flame parallel

2,932 - 2018 topps fire flame parallel

2,933 - 2020 topps fire gold minted parallel

2,934 - 2021 topps fire flame parallel

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there until he passes zack greinke. greinke, who struck out 4 blue jays and 1 astro in his appearances since the last countdown post, has a career strikeout total of 2,967. kershaw is now 33 k's behind greinke and 66 away from the 3,000 milestone. 

kershaw's start was delayed, not due to injury (according to dave roberts), but rather as a way of lining things up for him as the dodgers approach the postseason (again, according to roberts). he went only four innings, and again didn't have his best stuff - at least in the first couple of innings. with the rag tag starting rotation that the dodgers have in place right now, it seems like a healthy kershaw would get the game 1 nlds start although he is following bobby miller in the rotation so it could be the rookie. time is marching on...

it looks like kershaw's next start will come at home later in the week against the giants. regardless of when he makes his next start or how many k's he posts, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!

lee smith is in my hall of famer collection

when i first put my list of players together that would make up my hall of famer collection, i had the idea of limiting myself to a certain number of entrants. that made no sense to an older version of myself, especially since some of the players i chose aren't in cooperstown. lee smith was one of the guys that i overlooked the first time around, but he's in the collection now with this card as his entry:

that's a 2023 topps archives signature series 1985 topps buyback autograph numbered 14/18

here's the back:

smith was the first pitcher to reach 400 saves for his career, and he was the all-time saves leader when he retired with 478. i think that when you retire atop an all-time leader board of one of, if not the most, significant statistics for your player category, you should be in the hall of fame. maybe there's a ray guy allegory to be made here, and, now that i think about it, i am sure that correlation was made in many debates about smith's worthiness of the hall.

i didn't get to see smith pitch in person during his prime, but i did see him a couple of times in his later years.  first time was on april 2, 1996 which was opening night at angel stadium. smith pitched the 9th inning for the halos, but they were down by nine so it didn't matter that smith gave up a hit and no runs, striking out one. he wasn't in line for the save.

i next saw him pitch in his final season, as an expo, against the dodgers on may 11, 1997. with the expos down a run, he pitched a flawless 8th inning, striking out eric karros to end the frame.

of course, my main recollection of smith is seeing him as a cub surrender a walk-off home run to steve garvey in the 1984 nlcs. even though garvey was still my guy, i had caught cubs fever and was going to be happy with a cubbie win. things just didn't work out that way, but that home run doesn't diminish smith's achievements, or his worthiness as a hall of famer.

you can see smith with the rest of my hall of famer collection here!

with the afro, 6'9"

it wasn't free junk like fat sam was getting; no, i actually had to purchase this card for my "meaningful and just because" mini-collection

and i couldn't put it on the underhill's tab.

it's a chevy chase sticker auto from 2022-23 leaf optichrome basketball. this is a kaleidescope green parallel, numbered to 3 and has a mediocre autograph. with all of the different designs and parallels, there have been a bunch of these on the secondary market - some with better signatures and some with a lot worse. i believe i saw one that chase snuck in with an expletive.  

anyway, fans of the movie "fletch" will recognize the image of chase in a lakers jersey which was part of a dream sequence in which he actually took the floor for the team. of course, fletch also wore a lakers jersey outside of dream sequences - including a magic johnson jersey because "kareem's in the wash". i believe the image used on the card comes from when fletch was, in the words of the legendary chick hearn, shaking off defenders "with ease".

"fletch" is such a quotable movie with a ton of great lines. when i was in college, a fellow student explained his tardiness to a writing class one day by saying that "a manure spreader jack-knifed on the santa ana. god awful mess". i, of course, muttered under my breath "you should see my shoes".  being in southern california, this was a somewhat realistic excuse, unlike say, "my car hit a water buffalo". 

as if to prove my point about how quotable the movies is, on an espn baseball telecast from dodger stadium earlier this year, eduardo perez actually said "it's all ball bearings nowadays" which was a treat. no mention of fetzer valves, though.

my take on the warhol rose infinite parallel project

it's been about five months since gavin posted about the "warhol rose infinite parallel project" and i am just now getting around to posting my contribution.

for those of you not familiar - click on the link above to catch up. i'll wait.

so, here is the "base" card design that gavin provided

it's a different take on rose's 1985 topps card, with plenty of blank space to play with.

my parallel was inspired by hit number 4192 which came against eric show and the padres 38 years ago tomorrow. this was such a big deal, for those of you who don't recall or weren't around, that the major tv networks cut in to show rose's at bats live.

anyway, there are a couple of cards in my collection that show the aftermath of that historic hit, including this 1991 the shanks collection broder

and this 1994 upper deck the american epic card

i even whipped up a custom of my own a long time ago to create one of the "missing" cards from the 1999 upper deck century legends set

each of those cards are in my collection because they show steve garvey in the background. so, i had to do something similar for gavin's project - behold:

sure, i left some of it unfinished, but for me the background is the focus.

there are two things that i think about every time i see the photo of rose pointing to the sky with garvey in the background:

1. how cool is it that garvey was on the field to see both babe ruth's career home run record and ty cobb's career hits record fall?
2. garvey smiling makes me think that he was happy for rose's success. i try to be that way with others, too.

i wish there were more cards that featured that particular photo, but i am thankful for the few that do - including broders and customs.

thanks for the inspiration and template gavin!

the k is for kershaw kountdown continues - gone fishin' edition

yes, the kountdown to 3,000 strikeouts for clayton kershaw continues as he took the mound against the marlins on tuesday night in miami. he struck out 3 batters to give him 123 strikeouts on the season. those 3 marlins that he k'd increased his career total to 2,930.

in honor of his performance, here are 3 cards from my collection to represent strikeouts 2,928 through 2,930.

2,928 - 2020 panini diamond kings

2,929 - 2020 topps stickers

2,930 - 2021 bowman platinum

kershaw remains in 21st place on the all-time leader board, and he will remain there until he passes zack greinke. greinke, who failed to strike out any red sox in his appearance on sunday, has a career strikeout total of 2,962. kershaw is now 32 k's behind greinke and 70 away from the 3,000 milestone. 

kershaw struggled against the marlins, getting bailed out by the pitcher's best friend (the double play) in two of his five innings. he gave up 5 hits and walked 5 as well, which is uncharacteristic for sure. his whip, while still a nice 1.065, is the highest it's been at this stage of a season since 2010.

it looks like kershaw's next start will come on sunday in washington against the nationals. regardless of when he makes his next start or how many k's he posts, i will be back to update the kountdown soon thereafter. stay tuned!

the bell can't be unrung

the dodgers have produced 18 rookies of the year. of the first 17, only jackie robinson, jim gilliam, and jim lefebvre spent their entire mlb playing careers with the franchise, so it was pretty much inevitable that the club's most recent winner of the award, cody bellinger, would wind up playing somewhere else. in fact, it wasn't even a surprise that the dodgers did not sign him after the 2022 season, given how poorly he had fared at the plate since his 2019 mvp campaign even though he was heading in to his year 27 season. and, now that the decision was made and the dust has settled a bit, there is bound to be some second guessing as bellinger is playing well for the cubs. however, there is no going back - you can't unring that bell(inger).

i recently added a 2022 topps allen & ginter chrome gold parallel bellinger autograph card

to my collection. i picked up the card because i realized that i did not have a bellinger auto in my collection, and even though this one is on card and numbered to 50, it wasn't very expensive. that surprised me a bit given the resurgence bellinger is experiencing in 2023 with the cubs, but i am not complaining.

i assume that the dodgers struggled with the decision last offseason to sign or not sign bellinger, but even now as he is playing well, i don't disagree with the decision that they made. here's a comparison from august 21 between james outman - the guy who has, for the most part, taken over for bellinger in center field - and bellinger:

you can see how well bellinger is playing (when he plays) in 2023. in fact, at this point in the season, bellinger could have gone 0 for 4 in each of the cubs' remaining 40 games and he would have still hit what he hit for the dodgers in 2022. however, what is not shown are the salaries - $722,500 for outman in 2023 and $17,500,000 for bellinger in 2023. sure, bellinger has the better statistics (in fewer games played), but over $16,000,000 for another 1.7 war isn't worth it, especially with the dodgers once again running away in the nl west. besides, there will be a bigger payday for bellinger on the other side of this season which carries a bit of a risk.

anyway, i have some bellinger cards that have been languishing in my scanned folder for a while, so here you go:

his status as an elite player on a high profile team meant that bellinger was included in a bunch of online sets, like topps' throwback thursday line. this one is from 2020

i would say it is about time that topps included an mvp subset in flagship again.

here's a 2022 topps 582 montgomery card

from "set 2". it gives off some 1992 topps vibes to me.

this is easily one of the oddest bellinger cards i have in my collection

it's from the 2019 topps direct 360 gary vee set, and is a "wine pairings" card. i guess cannibalizing bellinger would best be paired with a german wine.

he was also included in a bunch of insert sets, like this 2020 topps warriors of the diamond card

that celebrates his 2019 mvp campaign - 9.0 war. wow.

and here's a 2020 topps gypsy queen tarot of the diamond insert

which anoints bellinger as "the star"

he also got some prime real estate on team cards, like this 2022 topps factory set gold star parallel

not the most flattering photo.

panini didn't avoid bellinger either, as evidenced by this "eyes on the prize" mosaic parallel insert form 2021 mosaic

giving some screen time to aj pollock as well

and then there are the regular old base cards, like this 2021 topps gallery card

i am guessing that we will see a boatload of bellinger cards in the near future as the cubs are likely going to return to the postseason. i'm not sure what uniform bellinger will be wearing in 2024, but we will definitely see plenty of it on cardboard.

this situation reminds me a bit of what happened with adrian beltre after the 2004 season. however, the circumstances were completely opposite. while bellinger struggled in his walk year, beltre put together a career year for the ages, leading the national league in home runs, as noted by this 2005 playoff prestige card

the dodgers decided not to resign him, and he went on to create for himself a hall of fame career while the third base turnstyle continued to spin at dodger stadium. i get it - it's tough being a gm.

as for bellinger, i am guessing that we will see a boatload of his cards in the near future as the cubs are likely going to return to the postseason. i'm not sure what uniform bellinger will be wearing in 2024, but we will definitely see plenty of it on cardboard. i will tip my cap to him, just like he is doing on this 2018 topps 1983 all-star card

and be happy for his success, as long as he still swings at those back foot breaking balls against the dodgers in the postseason.

sparky lyle, time traveler?

i continue to keep a lookout for 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams parallels to add to my collection, and had some good success late last year adding a few autographs. one of them was this sparky lyle card

showing him in old yankee stadium. here's the back, showing the newer-old yankee stadium

something was off about the card, however, and i quickly figured it out when i put the card in my binder. the front shows sparky as part of the 1985 yankee team (check out the shield underneath the autograph), 

but the back correctly id's him as a member of the 1978 squad. as you know if you followed my timeless teams blog, the team sets are numbered in chronological order, so his card sticks out among the other autographs i have from the members of the bronx zoo. besides, lyle wasn't even with the yankees in 1985 - he threw the final pitch of his career in 1982 as a member of the white sox.

it's a pretty weird error, especially when you realize that his base card has the year correct on the front

and back

i haven't noticed any other cards like this in the set, but i only have 183 of the 300 autographed cards in the set so there may be another time traveler out there. i did also pick up lyle's other yankee auto card from the set

which gets the year right on both sides of the cardboard. overall, lyle has four cards in the set (he is also featured as a member of the 1967 red sox and the 1980 phillies), and i have all four in autograph form. none are as interesting as the 1985/1978 card, however.

bonus content!

the concert last night was really great! as i mentioned in my post yesterday, craig finn is a twins fan, and for the encore he came out sporting a game worn baby blue twins hosken powell jersey

he said the jersey was from 1979, but since powell's topps card from that year shows him in the home whites, here's his 1980 topps card instead

and, they did play "carlos is crying".