my mind is tiffany twisted

over the last few months, i've tried to fill out my sportlots orders with topps tiffany cards. it's tricky as there aren't a lot of sellers with these cards, but i've found a few that had other wares i was more interested in. as a result, i've added these cards to my collection:

1987 fernando valenzuela all-star

1987 steve sax

1989 dodgers team leaders

and 1985 terry whitfield

i remember whitfield's time with the dodgers as fleeting, but he actually was with them for 2+ seasons.

i flipped the script with these next cards - searching for a seller with all of them first before looking to fill out the order with something else. this is the complete dodger team set from the 1984 topps traded tiffany set

i was disappointed that orel hershiser wasn't featured in the set.

the backs are bright, of course, looking somewhat like the backs of traded sets in general. with the flagship "parallels"

that's ok because the card number is a differentiator. those 1984 traded backs are bright, too

but you will recall, however, that the 1984 traded set's normal backs were sort of gray.

so, what did i add to maximize my deal from this seller? this card

a 2025 topps sandy koufax call to the hall insert.

my sportlots purchasing has cooled a bit, but it's always a good spot to find those pesky base cards to fill out team sets. i will continue to try to add some tiffany cards when the opportunity presents itself. at least i don't have the mercedes "bends".

base set bs

even with the proliferation of sets, it's always nice as a team collector to complete a team set. that's why it is so frustrating when card companies make it difficult to do so thanks to short printing or other shenanigans. 

i get that high numbers are scarce in many vintage sets, but there were no separate series in topps sets during the latter part of the 1970's, so why are short prints still a thing in topps heritage sets? sure, scarcity drives some collectors, but in a set like heritage it is just annoying. here's a 2024 topps heritage short print of freddie freeman

that i bought from a third party meaning topps gained no advantage from me by making this card and most of the other first 100 cards short prints. the freeman completes my team set and that makes me happy.

topps big league is another current set that uses short prints, thanks to its tiered checklist. i only have the foil and the "rare" blue foil cards in terms of upper tiered dodgers, including max muncy

and will smith

what makes this tiered system even more bs is that shohei ohtani has a regular base card but is also featured in the "super rare" red foil part of the checklist. nonsense.

back in the early 2000's, every card company was playing along with short prints as part of base sets. in some cases, like with 2002 upper deck diamond connection, these cards were numbered as seen on the danny mota and jose diaz cards below

there are a bunch of these and i am nowhere near a complete dodger team set for this release. i am somewhat closer with 2002 upper deck sp authentic now that i have this jose diaz card

but being three cards closer isn't really enough to make me go out and track down the other three cards. two of those cards are autographed which is a whole other level to base set abuse.

bowman and topps chrome were some of the notable offenders of this trend, along with other upper deck sets like 2007 spx which included this delwyn young rookie signatures card 

as a base card.

and, it hasn't just affected me as a team collector. i've only attempted to complete one topps heritage set - 2001 - and i consider it complete even though i don't have many of the high number short prints. and then there is the case of 2003 upper deck vintage. i've long considered my set to be complete as i have all the regular cards and short prints, other than the super short printed 3-d sluggers. i have several of them, but not all. 

most recently, i was able to add carlos delgado's card

but most of the others are usually priced beyond my interest level. these should have been inserts!

i like shiny cards and i like numbered cards and i like autographed cards. i just don't like them as base cards.

2023 topps, part deux

i have added some 2023 topps series 2 cards to my collection, and somewhat appropriately for today, one of the cards i found in my packs was this father's day manu patch of cub rookie christopher morel:

happy father's day to you, whomever and wherever you may be. i'll be seeing my dad later this month which will be nice.

i found a jordan walker card

which was also nice, and i thought it was good of topps to create and distribute this thairo estrada card

that features an image from pride night last year (notice the patch on his sleeve). i was at the rays game last year that made news for player protests against such a patch, and i know pride night in other sports has recently been downplayed or even wiped from the schedules. the dodgers have had their own controversy over the pride night they hosted earlier this weekend. still, representation matters and i was pleased to see the patch make it on to some cardboard.

i had previously joined a team break, so i had all of the dodgers in hand - here are nine of the ten dodger series 2 base cards:

and here's the tenth:

we've seen that trayce thompson card before - sort of - in his double dipper post, and we will see most of those other dodger cards again in a future post wherein i compare the factory team set to the flagship cards. 

the only parallel i received was a rainbow foil version of thompson's card

i think it would be nice if topps put out a fully horizontal set for a change. it's unlikely, but i think it would work.

a couple of notes about two of the base cards. first, miguel rojas gets his first dodger card ever

even though it's a photoshop job. rojas, like thompson, is a dodger double dipper, but i won't do a separate post since there is no card of rojas in dodger blue from his stint in 2014. what i don't like about the card is that topps put the number 17 on his jersey. when i first saw the card, i wondered why miguel vargas had a second 2023 topps base card. rojas wore 11 for the marlins, and he is wearing 11 for the dodgers. i have no idea what topps does when they photoshop cards like this. it seems like they pick a random number. however, they got the number right for j.d. martinez on his 2023 bowman card. it just boggles the mind.

the other card that had me shaking my head was yusniel diaz'

diaz, like rojas, is in his second stint as part of the dodger organization as he was part of the trade that netted the dodgers manny machado back in 2018. he re-signed with the dodgers in early 2023 and is currently playing at oklahoma city. he has never played in the majors for the dodgers - he only has one career big league at bat - and so the image on his card is an obvious photoshop job. according to baseball reference, diaz wore 84 for the orioles when he made his big league debut so i don't know how topps decided to stick joe beimel's number on him as a dodger. he is even wearing number 93 as an oriole on his 2023 heritage card that was produced by topps. again, the mind is boggled.

i also assumed that the background on diaz' card was not original to the image of him jogging, and made reference to my assumption in that post about the aforementioned 2023 bowman j.d. martinez card. well, i was wrong. i had assumed that topps used a photo of diaz from his time with the orioles, but they used a photo from his 2021 minor league season, and there really is a tree up there in right center field at surprise stadium in peoria, az. 

on to some inserts! here are a couple of geographically oriented freddie freeman cards. first he is a "favorite son" of californiz

and then he also suited up for canada as a "world baseball classic star"

freeman's status regarding california and canada is identical to mine, except for his professional baseball success.

there is, of course, more 1988 to find in series two, and here is mookie betts' card

along with that of miguel vargas

betts had a 1988 card in series 1, but vargas was only included in the silver pack parallels

tony gonsolin is included in the series 2 all aces set

as the lone dodger representative. strangely enough, i think sonny gray is featured in the series 2 set even though he was already in series 1.

a new insert set for series 2 is the "legends of the game", and the dodger rep is jackie robinson

always nice to add a new jackie card to the collection.

i was in luck with my break as i netted two manu patch cards - one celebrating trea turner's silver slugger award

and one marking clayton kershaw's 2011 pitching triple crown as a "crowning achievement"

so that's what i have to share from series 2. i am waiting on card #350 (alex bregman) to add to that mini-collection, but otherwise i don't think there are other cards to seek out.

while i was waiting for series 2, i did add a few more cards from series 1, including some betts manu patch things - city connect

and team patch

in both base and gold versions. of course, topps didn't bother to match the photos of betts to either the city connect uniform (his hat would have been different) or the brooklyn logo (which the team has historically worn on jackie robinson day).

here's a blue parallel of betts' 2022 greatest hits card

that does show him in the city connect uniform, although they don't have corresponding helmets. this year, the city connect unis have featured white pants with blue piping which looks worse than the all blue in my opinion.

finally, i stumbled upon a couple of cracked ice parallels of kershaw

and vargas

that are only available in special boxes, i guess. i thought they were the standard numbered versions found in series 1 packs, but they are not. they say "collector's box" on the back, and i am guessing this is one way that fanatics keeps people interested between the longer time between releases.

bring on update!

not so serious about series 2

with little confidence in the local box store shelves, i went ahead and ordered a box of 2020 topps series 2 a couple of weeks ago. it arrived last week, and, fresh off of my 2020 topps big league pack ripping experience, went to work on discovering the cardboard that lay within.  here's the first pack that greeted me:

14 cards per pack, so it took two scans. first dodger of series 2 for me is edwin rios. i scanned the back of the salvador perez card, and here's a better look at it:

reminds me of when i first saw the back of tommy john's 1978 topps card, although that one said "on disabled list" on the 1975 season's row.

here's a better look at the josh naylor card from that pack

it features naylor in dodger stadium in an actual padres uniform (more on that to come).

here's pack 2:

two packs, two dodgers. not bad. unfortunately, the box did not maintain that pace. here are the other dodgers i found in my box - ross stripling:

the dodgers tried to trade stripling to the angels in the offseason, but that deal fell through so he remains a dodger. with the shortened season and david price's opt-out, he should get a fair amount of work.

kyle garlick:

strange to see garlick as a dodger in this release, since he was traded to the phillies in february and topps has photoshopped a whole host of other players in to their new team's uniforms.

matt beaty:

that's a nice application of the horizontal 2020 design.

brusdar graterol:

topps resorted to photoshopping graterol in to a dodger uniform, even though there was plenty of time to use an actual photo of graterol as a dodger from spring training. how do i know, well, i found one variation in my box, and it was this one:

because the season hasn't started yet, there is way more photoshop in series 2 than there otherwise might have been.  here's a jonathan schoop card

that shows him as a tiger, but that's a twins uniform underneath the photoshop. side note - schoop's 2020 topps big league card features him wearing an actual tigers uniform. oh well, at least topps did well to select this photo, as schoop's glove covers up what would be the tell-tale nike logo. topps did the same for the luis urias card and they dropped him in to one of the brewers' new uniforms to boot.

not so much for jurickson profar's card 

profar played for the a's when the 2019 season ended, but now he is with the padres, who are bringing back the brown in 2020. profar got the photoshop treatment, which is made even more obvious with the lack of the 'swoosh'.  same goes for corey dickerson

he's actually a phillie in this photo, not a marlin.  one of the worst is gerritt cole's card

this is the same image that was used on his opening day card. topps has issued cards of cole featuring him in a real yankee jersey, but went the photoshop route for his base card here. it also looks like they gave him a haircut. he had a photoshopped variation card in series 1, but of course, his variation card in series 2 features an untouched photo. more on variations in a bit.

i was happy to see a chad wallach card in one of the packs i opened.

he's played in the majors in each of the last 3 seasons without any cardboard to show for it, but topps continues to "bowman-ize" the backs of rookie cards

so you wouldn't know that by flipping the card over. it would be nice to see his major league stats, meager as they may be.

some other cards that i took notice of include former dodger farmhand willie calhoun's

i had read somewhere that one of the reasons there was only one ranger in series 1 was that topps was waiting for a new logo to use. i didn't think they meant the logo of the rangers' new stadium! you can see that calhoun is wearing a commemorative patch bidding adieu to their old stadium last year, but 2019 topps didn't feature that logo on ranger cards. i would be interested to know why the new stadium logo was added to cards this year.

i found four more double play cards to add to my collection - here's domingo leyba

according to getty images, that photo used on leyba's card comes from the marathon game between the diamondbacks and cardinals that was played on 9/24/19. while it doesn't look like leyba is in a position to throw to first, baseball reference does score this play as a 6-3 double play. i am guessing that goldschmidt was running with the pitch (it was a 3-2 count), leyba was covering the bag, and marcell ozuna hit a grounder right to leyba who touched the bag, jumped, set, and threw to first. or maybe ozuna fell down on the way to first. either way, it's in the binder even if it is not a conventional dp turn.

kevin newman

jon berti

and a gleyber torres/francisco lindor checklist

yoenis cespedes got one of the most interesting cards in series 2, in my opinion

it reminds me a bit of the 2017 topps joc pederson card that, at first, looks oddly cropped, but then you see the ball and it makes sense.  topps missed an opportunity to do the same thing with teoscar hernandez's card

a different cropping would have, i think, made this card a bit more interesting.

one of the best things about the 2019 season was the number of different uniforms that the reds wore to mark their 150th anniversary as a club. i was a bit disappointed when i attended a game in cincinnati and they were wearing their regular home unis. however, there have been plenty of the throwbacks featured on cards this year, including trevor mahle's series 2 card

the 1950's mr. redlegs jerseys are not seen as much as some of the other ones, so i appreciate this card.

for the most part, i felt like there was a lot of monotony with the series 2 cards as i opened all of the packs. it seems that topps saved most of the personality for photo variations. why photoshop when you can use real photos from spring training? i get why there are variations, but it would be nice if they didn't come at the expense of a decent regular base card.

one of the most highly publicized variation is andrew mccutchen's (and it is really great), but his base card is not bad, either

still, i would prefer flagship to be variant free.

i thought that i might find more than one photo variation, but as far as i can tell, the graterol was the only one in the box. the insert ratio did play out as planned for me, and i had decent success with the player selection.  i was happy to see that the 2030 insert set was not a rehash of the 2010 topps 2020 inserts (as cardboardconnection had initially shown)

the design borrows some shimmer from 2019 topps and also 1994 pacific. i found more mike trout, thanks to the 'player of the decade' insert set

in a similar vein, i found a few 'decades best' cards and 1985 design cards. one of the latter was of carl yastrzemski

now, yaz's card is in the all-star format, but there were some 1985 base styled cards in these packs. i was really hoping for a jim palmer card, as he last played in 1984 but was not featured in any 1985 product. no dice there (in update hopefully?), and seeing yaz reminded me of how disappointed i was last year when topps included him in the 1984 design, but as an all-star instead of on a regular 1984 design card. i really had hoped to see his full career stats on the back of a 1984 topps card, but all we got back then was a highlight card (a la al kaline and brooks robinson). another miss for topps. seriously, how tough is it to give some thought to this sort of thing when putting together a checklist, especially when the player is already featured in the set! speaking of which, topps is using the 1974 design in this year's archives release. do you think there will be a willie mays card showing him as a met? i certainly hope that there will be, but am not holding my breath. 

ok, rant over. here is the guaranteed auto or relic from the box:

i know relics aren't what they used to be, but i was pretty pleased to see the player of the decade here, even if he plays for the other los angeles team (that isn't really in los angeles).

with that, i am done with series 2 outside of a couple of specific cards that i've purchased online. i'll be interested to see what comes of update this year without an all-star game (more on that in a couple of days).