still scratching that 17 year itch

it wasn't too long after i had completed the 2007 topps chrome dodger team set that i decided to go after the blue refractor parallels. the base chrome cards seemed pretty lackluster, and with the chunky borders, the blue refractors were fantastically blue! it took me a while, but i got there, and i recently finished off the regular refractor and white refractor team sets, too.

here's the base dodger team set for comparison purposes later on.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young  

the black borders don't do the base chrome any favors, and shame on topps (and other companies at the time) for including autographs as base cards.

now here is the blue refractor team set - note that there was no delwyn young card in the blue refractor style

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux  

having the blue refractors but not the regular refractors gnawed on me a bit, so i got that job done.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young                

much, much brighter, of course. the young card is numbered to 500 in refractor form.

now for the white border refractors

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young    

the "pop" on these is largely background dependent. speaking of backgrounds, there was no nomar garciaparra chrome card in 2007, but he is in the background of chad billingsley's card.

the white refractors are numbered to 660 - hard to see on the scanned card back

but the delwyn young auto is only numbered to 200

interestingly enough, i have no xfractors in my collection. maybe that's next. or, the red refractor parallels. there is always something to chase!

the 17 year itch

after completing the 1992, 1993, and 1994 topps dodgers gold parallel team sets (and seeing night owl's complete 2008 topps series 1 and 2 dodgers gold parallel team set), i figured that it was time to complete a numbered gold parallel team set, and i decided that it would be 2007 topps. i chose that set mainly because it has big, chunky borders that allow for a lot of color, but also it does not include any rookie or early career clayton kershaw cards that i missed out on in real time!

i had maybe a third of the team set when i started, and it took me a few months to pull it all together, but i managed.  so, here is the complete 2007 topps gold parallel dodger team set

j.d. drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, james loney, jonathan broxton

brad penny, grady little, delwyn young

greg maddux, juan pierre, jason schmidt

matt kemp, randy wolf, luis gonzalez

takashi saito, russell martin, wilson betemit

derek lowe, chad billingsley, ramon martinez

dodger team card

 

but that's not all - i also completed the update team set

brady clark, david wells, mark hendrickson

olmaedo saenz, hong-chih kuo, tony abreu

andy laroche, russell martin, brad penny

takashi saito, russell martin (alex rodriguez) combo, russell martin (cole hamels) combo

scott proctor

the proctor card was the last of these that i acquired. there weren't too many options when it came to purchasing the vagabond reliever's card, but thankfully one of the two sellers who had high hopes with their buy-it-now prices sent an offer that was pretty reasonable and i was able to complete the set.

there are a lot of "let's remember some guys" up there, but i remember being pretty happy with kemp and martin and ethier showing up. luis gonzalez not so much. and, as you can see, there are definitely some differences in the pigmentation of the gold across the collection.

another difference is the numbering on the back. topps switched the orientation of the serial numbering between flagship series 1 and 2 and update. ramon martinez is from series 2 and olmedo saenz is from update

ok, so it's hard to see, but on the flagship card, the 2007 is closest to the topps logo, and in update it's closest to the player inset photo. and, how great is it that topps noted each of these as "gold parallel" on the back?!

with the black borders, topps was in need of a different treatment for the other-colored border parallels (this was before camo /25 and all that). they went with copper

which was numbered to 56

the low print run black border parallels debuted in 2003 and were numbered to 52 copies. since then they have increased in production by one to match the "years of collecting" on the front. as far as i can tell, 2007 is the only year that the border for these cards hasn't been black.

i have no plans to chase the copper parallel set, but i do have more 17 year itch to scratch. stay tuned!

the almost daily dodger - ronald belisario

this is a bit of a throwaway post (as these "almost daily dodger" posts are meant to be in that they are helping me clear my scanned folder of random dodger cards) as i am not sure there is much of interest regarding ronald belisario and his 2009 topps chrome refractor parallel

belisario won 20 games as a dodger during his four seasons with the club, but some of those resulted from his 17 blown saves during that same stretch. he pitched pretty well in 2012 though - 8-1 with a 2.54 era and 1.07 whip. he had 1 save and only 1 blown save in 68 appearances that year.

his refractor was the last one i needed to complete the dodger team set of base refractors from 2009 topps chrome, which is why i scanned it in the first place. it arrived at the same time as rafael furcal's

but for the sake of set completion i considered belisario's the last. 

who's been fifteen?

just 15 days to go until the dodgers kick off the 2024 season against the padres in seoul. here are some cards appropriate for the day.

2005 playoff absolute memorabilia shawn green tools of the trade red parallel

15 shows up twice on the card, which is one of a number of parallels from this release. red might be the "base". i don't know anymore.

15 shows up twice on this card as well

that is a 2003 fleer mystique shawn green card, and it is definitely the base version.  green is one of 31 dodgers to wear number 15 in the franchise's history. he had worn 15 with the blue jays before being traded to the dodgers, and he wore 15 with the diamondbacks following his departure from los angeles. with the mets, however, that was carlos beltran's number, so he switched to 20.

after green, scott erickson took the number (presumably because his preferred 19 was retired by the dodgers) and wore it for his lone season with the dodgers. the following year, rafael furcal came to town. here's a 2006 bowman heritage silver foil parallel of furcal

furcal had worn number 1 for the braves, but that number was retired for pee wee reese so he pivoted to 15 as a dodger. he continued to wear 15 for the remainder of his career which included stops with the cardinals and marlins. the cardinals, of course, retired number 1 for ozzie smith, but the number would have been available to furcal with the marlins. i guess by then he was set with 15 - at least for the nine games that his tenure with the marlins lasted.

after furcal, number 15 wasn't worn by any player until austin barnes came along. here's his 2021 topps blue star parallel card

that offers a glimpse of his number thanks to his backwards helmet.

for me, however, there is but one person i identify with number 15, and that is davey lopes, seen here on a 2001 upper deck prospect premieres heroes of baseball bat card

who's your favorite 15?

fetch...the comfy chair!

when panini lost their license from the mlbpa, my first thought was that they would not issue any more baseball products. that was a pretty naive thought, and when i saw that a donruss release was on the calendar for 2023 (with a few mock-ups), i figured it would feature a bunch of retired players and steeled myself for a boatload of steve garvey parallels to hit the market a la 2021.

when i first saw the checklist, i was surprised to see the garv not included, and when i saw that rafael furcal was getting a dodger card in the set, my reaction was "i did not expect that!". then, of course, my mind went immediately to "nobody expects the spanish inquisition!". it's not a direct parallel to the monty python sketch, but that is how my mind tends to work.

i found a cheap team break to join, and sure enough, i was sent a 2023 card featuring rafael furcal as a dodger

the best thing about this release is that, apparently, panini no longer feels the need to color the dodgers' front-of-the-jersey number blue. i was pretty happy to see the red numbers on these cards!

the other dodger to get the 1990-ish design treatment as a "retro" subset subject is duke snider

who is also subject to some shenanigans with a reverse image parallel, as two of these next three cards attest

the middle card is the independence day parallel, and the holo reds are numbered again this year. parallels of variations are dumb, but i guess they expand the checklist so more cards can be printed.

the 2023 donruss set is broken up in to diamond kings, rated prospects, retired guys, and retired guys in a retro design.  here are some of the other dodger retired guys

babe herman

this guy hit .393 for the brooklyn robins in 1930, but that happened to be the year that bill terry hit .401. stupid giants players.

great to see jim gilliam get a card in 2023 that isn't the same old diamond kings card

and i would love to see that image in color. it would have been fantastic as his 1957 topps card with that ebbets field background.

a couple of the dodgers' rated prospects are michael busch

and bobby miller

both of whom have spent time with the big club in 2023, perhaps a bit ahead of schedule.

my break netted me some parallels of these two as well - blue holo for miller

and "america" for busch

that america parallel is numbered to 50, but the icon is just the lower 48 states.

i wound up with the duke snider elite series insert, too

there's a lot going on there.

it was a pretty solid team break for me, but it failed to include one of the retired guys that i really wanted to add to my collection - don sutton.

i sought out some cheap parallels for the hurler, including his holo orange,

"red holo", 

"liberty",

"on fire",

and "voltage"

parallels.

that last one is numbered to 25 but i got it for about $2.50. not bad. plus, the guy who sold me the red holo threw in the base

for free!

i was happy to see panini use old man sutton with his perm. that's the don sutton i remember. and, as odd as it sounds, this is my favorite non-steve garvey dodger card of the year. meaning, it has made me the happiest to obtain - not the best looking card. we will see if it holds that status at year's end.

i was so pleased with my team break and sutton additions, that i actually bought a pack of this stuff at target. i didn't get any of the other dodgers i was missing, but i did add some cards for my "name/number on the back" mini-collection. 

johnny bench

mark mcgwire

and pete rose

i actually really like that rose card - i confess!

in a similar vein, i walked to my mailbox early last week and was shocked to find a sase inside. i had not sent out a direct ttm request for years, but there was a return in my hands. my initial thought was "i did not expect to see one of these ever again" and so this 1978 topps card signed by don carrithers

also qualifies for this post. all told, it took 1,041 days for this card to find its way back to me. still far shorter a time than the spanish inquisition was in place. what a surprise, which as it turns out, is the chief weapon, or at least one of the main weapons, of the inquisition, along with fear, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.

thanks don! and "donruss"!