clubhouse presence

the theme of many of my posts over the last few months has been "focus". there are certain sets or inserts that i am paying closer attention to, given the fact that there are too many to acquire and a scattershot approach doesn't really resonate with me at the moment.

one of the inserts that i have chosen to focus on more is the "clubhouse collection" relics found in topps heritage releases. in recent years, steve garvey has been on the checklist, which got me thinking about other dodgers throughout the years. i already had some of these cards in my collection, but have spent some time over the last year or so to purposefully add a few more.

this is (obviously) an auto/relic clubhouse collection card featuring garvey

that comes from 2025 topps heritage high number. it is hand numbered (as clubhouse collection cards are) on the back

that is 1/25, as topps puts a line through the 7. i don't know anyone who writes the number 1 that way, but whatever. also, note the cartoon on the back:

looks like an early version of tcdb at work there.

2001 was the first year of heritage, and there were only a few relic cards included. the dodgers were represented, with shawn green being the subject

here's the back:

nice to see wes parker's name there! topps abandoned the writeups sometime in the 2010's as we will see in a bit. they also went away from the hologram stickers pretty quickly.

jumping to 2004, here's another shawn green relic

with the back:

with another cartoon related to baseball card collecting

the relics were pretty small in 2007, and while the green above was identified as "uniform", this duke snider

is more specifically "pants". here's the back

with a generic cartoon.

from that same year, we were treated to a rafael furcal bat card

that has the same generic cartoon on the back

he had a really good year for the dodgers in 2006, setting or matching career highs in several categories, but i guess topps felt that his previous history was more important.

here's a card from 2012 heritage - it's should-have-been 2011 mvp matt kemp

at this point, things are just referred to as "memorabilia". here's the back:

he really did have a monster year in 2011. i don't quite get the cartoon. 

i picked up another kemp card, this one from 2015.

and now we see the backs

having a very minimalist approach.

fast forward to 2023 topps heritage high numbers for this miguel vargas card

i do like that topps used the 1974 traded design for those cards. of all the ones in this post, this is the first one that i could easily identify the year that it belongs to.

same goes for this 2024 topps heritage high number dual relic of garvey and freddie freeman

it's numbered to 75 on the back

and, applying what we've learned, it's number 14/75. i don't know what the book of "relics" is that the cartoon is showing. is that someone's card binder that contains only relics? does anyone store their collection that way? i suppose there are some that do - my relics are contained within my year-by-year team collection or various player or mini-collections.

here's another dual relic card of the dodger first basemen of then and now.

it's from 2025 topps heritage high number and is numbered there on the front. the back is pretty generic

with no cartoon whatsoever!

this year, i've managed to pick up will smith's clubhouse collection card

with an even more boring back

while i could see the 1976 design elements on the 2025 heritage cards, these don't say 1977 to me other than the full white borders. the text is giving 1960's or early 70's vibes.

garvey has another dual relic in this release, and this time he shares space with smith and not freeman. here's the one i've been able to secure

now numbered to 77 to match the year. the back is as you would expect

i probably should have scanned or reposted other examples i have from other years of heritage, but i think this is enough. i'll continue to focus on these cards (i'd love to pick up one of the triple relic dodger cards out there) and am really looking forward to next year. i hope the design of the clubhouse collection cards then is more obviously showcasing the 1978 set design. stay tuned!

mail call

i've received a couple of envelopes from longtime bloggers and trade partners recently. first, jon of penny sleeves fame reached out (again!) asking if i was in need of a particular card. this time, it was a signed card that carl erskine would send out to fans. i said yes, and soon this card was in my mailbox.

i told jon that i thought is was a different hue than the one that i already had, but it turned out i was confusing the ink color with the filter of the image. here's the one that oisk sent me back in 2009

the backs are the same as well. 

thanks jon - i am happy to have another example of this card in my collection, and please let me (and the rest of the blogging community) know if there is anything specific you are chasing these days.

the other envelope came from rod of padrographs, who seemingly continues to rip packs and then distribute the cards among his trading partners. he sent me some mega box mojo refractors of prospects inserts from 2023 bowman chrome.  

brooks lee

is a name i recognized, but yasser mercedes and hendry chivilli

are a couple that i haven't heard of.  it looks like mercedes is playing for the twins in fort myers, and chivilli has been converted from an infielder to a pitcher although he doesn't have any 2026 stats yet. they are 21 and 20, respectively, so perhaps they will advance to the show in the future.

the other card rod sent was a nice black & white parallel of luke keaschall's 2025 topps stadium club card

you can't contain the flow!

thanks jon and rod - the cards and thoughtfulness are much appreciated!

a dimebox dozen dodgers from nick

i am happy to report that nick from the dormant dime boxes blog is still participating in the blogosphere through trades. i received a package from him earlier this year, which was the second one he sent me following his "retirement" from active posting. as usual, there were plenty of new-to-me cards from a wide variety of releases. 

1978 dover hall of fame reprints zach wheat

this is a 1911 t205 reprint of the hall of famer, representing the franchise's "superbas" era. here's the back

1988 card collectors 1911 t205 reprints kaiser wilhelm

this is a different reprint set of the 1911 t205, and the card features another superba. here's the back:

you don't see typhoid referenced on a baseball card too often.

more old-timey guys via 1985 big league collectibles

stanley bordagaray was better knows as "frenchy", and clyde sukeforth is probably best known as the dodger manager when jackie robinson made his major league debut.

2025 panini donruss pee wee reese

i no longer add panini checklists to my want lists, but happily accept dodgers, such as reese.

1988 sportflics fernando valenzuela

i am always happy to add a fernando card to the collection! i am down to needing only mike scioscia for the team set. look for scioscia to show up on the nefarious nine at some point.

1991 classic update green travel edition eddie murray

this is the second classic murray card i've received in the mail this year, coming on the heels of one from mark z.

2017 panini diamond kings clayton kershaw

this one wasn't new to me, but i hadn't shown it on the blog before, so here you go.

2025 bowman chrome shohei ohtani

definitely appreciate those who send ohtani cards to me!

there was gold in that thar package - from 2003 topps, 2015 topps update, and 2020 topps

the adam liberatore card got me thinking about being more intentional with the 2015 gold parallels because of the unique border design. more on that in a future post.

in addition to those (and other) dodgers, there was the regular influx of vladimir guerrero cards. several were new-to-me, like this 2001 topps home team advantage parallel

and this smattering of cards

from 2002 donruss diamond kings, 2002 mlb showdown all-star game, and 2003 upper deck finite.

double play cards are something nick and i both collect, so there are always some of those, too. here's a 1997 bowman felix martinez international parallel

plus six others that were new-to-me

some nice cameos there from the likes of david ortiz and trea turner.

i'll finish by making it a baker's dozen of dodger cards - here's a 2025 topps ohtani and mookie betts dynamic duos insert

maybe someday at the national nick and i can recreate this card.

i still go to nick's blog regularly - mainly to use the blogroll to find new posts from other bloggers, but also just in case he's had the itch to start posting again. maybe someday. thanks nick!

triple crowning achievements

a couple of decades ago, as i began assembling my topps "sampler sets", i paused to admire the 1967 league leader cards. my m.o. in regards to my sampler sets was to have at least one example of a league leader card for each year, but the '67 set piqued my interest for a couple of reasons.

first, they represented sandy koufax's only appearances in the set. second, frank robinson's 1966 triple crown meant that he was in the first position on the three american league offensive leader cards. similarly, koufax ended his career with a triple crown feat of his own and was likewise placed on the national league pitching leader cards.

i made the decision back then to complete the league leader card subsets that celebrated these triple crown achievements to include in my sampler set. when i disassembled those sets around 2014 to focus on completing my topps dodger team sets from the 1950's (still working on '52 and '53) and 1960's, the koufax cards went into my dodger collection and the robinson cards languished in a monster box.

sometime last year, i made the decision to reinstate the sampler sets. having completed the 1955 bowman set and realizing that it would be the last vintage set i would complete, i wanted to have the cards from the topps sets i didn't have completed represented in my collection. so, i dusted off what i had kept from 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. when i got to the 1967 cards, i again paused at the sight of the league leader cards.

after thinking about it for a bit, i decided to complete the full league leader subset and keep it with some other subsets of cards i have completed. so, let's (finally) see some cards!

here is sandy koufax's triple crown in card form

and the backs:

i've always wondered why it was "pitching leaders" on the front and "victory leaders" on the back of these cards. anyway, sandy's line was 27 wins, a 1.73 era, and 317 strikeouts. it was a runaway triple crown, really. koufax won the cy young award unanimously, and remember, this was when there was just one award for all of major league baseball. he also received more first place votes for the national league mvp award than the winner, roberto clemente, just missing his second such accolade.

not to be undone, here is frank robinson's triple crown in card form:

and the backs:

the twins gave robby a good challenge, but he also ran away with the triple crown with a .316 average, 49 home runs, and 122 rbi. robinson unanimously won the mvp as you would have expected with a season like that, leading the orioles to the pennant to boot. and yes, i know that they won the world series, too, but that wouldn't have factored in to the mvp voting.

here are the american league pitching leader cards

and their backs

interesting to me to not see many oriole pitchers place highly in these categories.

here are the national league batting leader cards

and their backs

clemente had a great year, and so did richie allen, hank aaron, and the alou brothers. felipe alou actually received two first place votes in the mvp voting, with allen getting one of his own.

after all that, i picked up a couple more of these cards because i reinstated my sampler sets late last year. i'll have some posts up at some point this summer to share them. i've also added some more modern league leader cards to my dodger collection recently.

2023 topps national league batting leaders gold parallel

2024 topps national league batting leaders royal blue parallel

2022 topps national league pitching leaders gold star parallels

lots of dodger representation there. note that i am still a fan of a single league leader card that shows the leader for each league on the same card, but that's because i grew up on the 1978 topps set and that's how it was that year.  i'll also note that i decided not to pick up all of the league leader cards for carl yastrzemski's triple crown (nor miguel cabrera's for that matter), but i do have clayton kershaw's in my dodger team set.