show me two times, baby. show me twice today.

as you might have figured from the title of the post, i like the doors. you might have also deduced that there were two card shows in the twin cities today. well, not today today, but today as in when i started writing this post (november 15).

neither show was the monthly club show, instead there was the biannual church show (put on by one of the owners of one of the local card shops) and then a "monthly" show that doesn't always happen every month. it is put on by the same folks who do the big show at the rivercentre space in downtown st. paul twice a year. i didn't plan on going to both, but when i left the first one, i figured i might as well head the few miles north to see what's what.

before i get to that, i'll share some of what i found at the church show. i purchased cards from four sellers and also received some cards from brian of highly subjective, completely arbitrary fame. the first seller has discounted boxes that have yielded some decent finds in the past, so i dug through for a bit. i started with the "half-off sticker" box that was autos, relics, and manufactured things.

i found some mookie betts cards i needed - a couple of things from 2022 topps

and one from 2023 topps

plus a 2021 panini mosaic encased gavin lux mosaic autograph

i was happy to pay the seven bucks for those.

i also added a 2022 topps stadium club chrome green refractor auto of zack short

for a buck because i liked the look of the card and his signature. it's numbered to 99, too. the other two items i took from this box were both priced at four bucks, so they were two bucks each. they were a small stack of cards in team bags - it turned out that there were 10 cards per bag. i'll do a separate post to highlight them and see if you think it was worth the gamble.

this seller also had some fifty cent boxes (or three for a dollar) as well as a quarter box (or seven for a dollar). i wound up with nine fifty cent cards, including a 2020 bowman's best cody bellinger insert

that i turned out not to need, and this 2022 topps stadium club chrome lars nootbaar card

that i will add to my retired numbers tangential collection because it shows murals for august busch and ted simmons (no photo for simmons that year). at some point i'll probably seek out the refractor of this card because shiny. and kudos to the cardinals for maintaining their murals!

to finish up, i found 21 quarter cards to take home, including a red holo parallel of keibert ruiz's 2021 panini donruss card

and a red foil parallel of eric davis' 2023 topps stadium club card

i'm still looking for an eric davis dodger auto though.

after that, i stopped at one of the bargain vintage sellers and looked through his dollar and fifty cent boxes. it was good to dig through vintage again, after not doing so for quite a while. i recently decided to revisit an old vintage project, so i wound up pulling quite a few cards. one of them was this 1962 topps elio chacon card

it is unrelated to the project i am working on - i just grabbed it for the lurker collection since i am pretty certain that is frank robinson in the background. one thing i was looking for was a 1960 topps coaches card, and i wound up buying six of them, including these three

i don't need all three for my project so let me know if you are in need of one.

i also bought a couple of vintage cards from the show organizer out of his vintage bargain tub. these two cards

do figure into my project, but i will explain later.

in between those sellers is when i saw brian and talked with him for a bit. he's still working on his venezuelan set, but has some big cards in his way. he said that he also opened a bunch of 2025-26 topps basketball and had plenty to trade, so if you are interested in those sorts of cards, look him up. we swapped cards, of course, and here is some of what he handed over to me

2025 topps max muncy diamante parallel

2022 topps finest flashbacks chris taylor gold refractor parallel

numbered to 50

2025 topps now luis arraez

apparently, arraez got his 1,000th hit on the field behind the mos eisley cantina.

the other seller i bought cards from spanned two separate purchases. they were set up on a corner, and my first pass ended before i turned and saw their second table. in my walk through at the start of the show, i noticed that they had a couple of baseball monster boxes priced at 4/$1. there was a big guy already camped out in front of the boxes so i figured i would circle back later. when i did, the guy was still there. i asked if i could start looking and you would think i had asked him to give up his seat altogether and while he was at it give me his lunch money. i assured him i was not looking to cut in front of him but that i would look through what he had already put back. he didn't make any room for me, so i quit after finding 12 cards in the first row and a half of the box he was done with.

there was quite a variety of things, as evidenced by these cards

1996 pinnacle eric karros starburst parallel

2025 topps heritage andy pages chrome parallel

2022 topps allen & ginter chrome vladimir guerrero

and a trio of 2024 panini select orange flash prizms - johnny pesky, dick williams, and jim bunning

so, when i turned the corner and saw a small box of "$1, $2, $5 autos/relics" i decided to take a peek. it's no surprise that deals like this are populated with andre jackson relics - these two 

are from 2022 panini chronicles and capstone, respectively. jackson has been pitching in japan the last couple of years with some success, and i'm happy for him.

finally, i found a 2025 panini donruss bob feller relic

in that box that is numbered to 99, and i couldn't pass up the old-timey wool swatch! i wound up with six relic cards for ten bucks and decided that was the end of the church show for me. it was still fairly early, so i headed up highway 100 to the other show.

the parking lot was pretty full, and i had immediate regret as soon as i walked in. i would say the venue was as crowded as the national - fewer people, of course, but in a smaller space. i did one and a half laps around the room and saw that is was at least 75% pokemon and those that had sportscards didn't have much in the way of bulk or bargain boxes - not that i could have bellied up to a table if they had. there were even some people there with strollers and one guy had a collapsible wagon. there was no room to maneuver any of that.

i left quickly and empty handed, so i'll show an andre jackson card that has been in my scanned folder since i pulled it from a bargain box at a show sometime in the past year. it's from 2022 topps gallery

it's a "private issue" parallel but it's nothing to be embarrassed about.

i was glad to get to a regular show again (the last show i went to was a disappointing mall show that i'll review in a future post) and i'm glad i stopped at the second show just so i know i don't have to have any fomo about missing those in the future. and, i'm happy as always to have seen brian, talked about cards, and added some to my collection.

a moment for jerry grote

i want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of jerry grote.  because he was a member of the 1978 topps dodgers, i was automatically a fan of his.

as i did with vic davalillo a few months ago, here's a look at grote's career in topps cards thanks to my evolution of the 1978 topps dodgers collection:

grote was famously left on the cutting room floor by topps in 1977, and he didn't receive a card when he returned to the majors in 1981. i, of course, made customs for him to fill in the blanks as i did for other members of the 1978 topps dodgers. the 1977 topps test card showed grote as a met, but i showed him as a dodger in 1977

as a royal in a 1981 topps traded style card

and back as a dodger in 1982 for a final tribute

however, my favorite custom i made featuring the veteran catcher was this 1979 topps 1978 nlcs card

grote was on deck when bill russell singled to drive home ron cey and secure the pennant for the dodgers in game 4 of the 1978 nlcs, and so he was there to greet the penguin as he scored. pure joy.

grote will be best remembered as a met, as he helped the mets to two pennants and the 1969 world series title in addition to being a part of the dodgers' back-to-back pennant winning teams in the late 70's. to me, he is number 9. when i go through numbers, i associate 9 with grote because i was a dodger fan in 1978 and because gordie howe didn't play baseball.

with grote's death yesterday, seven members of the 1978 topps dodgers have now passed away, and it is a reminder that time waits for no man. rest in peace number 9!

a moment for vic davalillo, players from my youth, and the new dodger dh

i read last wednesday that vic davalillo passed away, and it made me pause.

thanks to his incredible, rally starting, two-out bunt in the 9th inning of game 3 of the 1977 nlcs and his inclusion in the 1978 topps set as a dodger, i got to know davalillo at the very beginning of my fandom and collecting days. he didn't play a lot, but he was a dodger and there was cardboard evidence of that fact, so he was respected and celebrated in my collection.

i have all of davalillo's major manufacturer cards (issued in the us, anyway), as his entire topps flagship run 

is encapsulated in my "evolution of the 1978 topps dodgers" mini-collection, and his 1981 fleer offering

is in my dodger collection. there are one or two venezuelan releases that i wouldn't mind adding to the collection, but i haven't ever made it a priority.

davalillo is the sixth member of the 1978 topps dodgers to pass away. preceding him were glenn burke (1995), johnny oates (2004), lance rautzhan (2016), tom lasorda (2021), and don sutton (2021). time marches on, but it is still a bit of a thing to see these players whose cardboard i coveted back then pass away.

shifting to another way of looking at the 1978 topps set, i get excited when i can complete the immaculate grid using only players who appeared in that set. it is always my goal to use as many as i can, and there was a two day stretch last week where i was able to do so:

with davalillo getting center square in saturday's grid! as of now, that second one has a score of 8, which would be my second lowest ever.

finally, i would be remiss if i didn't mention the 700 million dollar man, shohei ohtani. i feel for angel fans who will now see ohtani suit up for the dodgers, but not enough to not be excited about ohtani joining the dodgers. here are some 2018 topps update cards i have of ohtani

with the last one being the most valuable, i guess, since it's a rainbow foil parallel. the dodgers still need pitching for the 2024 season (ohtani can't help them there), but it's a good start to a longer term benefit. i suppose my team break costs for 2024 just went up. way up.

my retired number collection - check their 6

this is the seventh 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 are the seven people for whom the number 6 has been retired:

stan musial (retired by the cardinals in 1963) 2013 topps tribute

the cardinals retired musial's number 6 on september 29, 1963 as he finished his playing career and so he became the last cardinal to ever wear the number. it was also the first time that the organization had retired a number. musial had announced his intention to retire about a month earlier, and the cardinals responded with plans to retire his number and move him in to the executive suite. i like the brightness of the 2013 topps tribute card which happens to be one of the best cards as far as showing his number. it beats the 1988 pacific legends card i had originally pulled.

musial went 2 for 3 in his final game, finishing with 3,630 hits and a .331 lifetime average. a three-time mvp and world series champ, musial also won seven batting titles and is fourth all-time in hits and third in total bases. in 1969, he was voted in to the hall of fame on the first ballot.

al kaline (retired by the tigers in 1980) 1969 topps

like musial, kaline's was the first number retired by the tigers franchise. they bestowed the honor on "mr. tiger" on august 17, 1980 after he was inducted in to the hall of fame on his first ballot. the tigers did not reissue number 6 following kaline's retirement at the end of the 1974 season, so they obviously had an inkling that they would be retiring it once he was headed to cooperstown.

kaline had 3,007 hits and 399 home runs during his 22-year career. he won 10 gold gloves for his work in the outfield, but never won the mvp although he did have four top five finishes across a 12 year span. i appreciate the tiger uniforms of the era with the numbers on the shoulders - it made finding a card for kaline a lot easier. 

steve garvey (retired by the padres in 1988) 2003 carl's jr padres

like musial and kaline, garvey's number 6 was the first number retired by the padre franchise. the retirement ceremony took place on april 16, 1988 at jack murphy stadium on steve garvey night. attendees received a nice trifold program and there were some commemorative pins distributed as well. garvey hurt his shoulder in may of 1987 and never returned to the playing field, retiring after he did not receive a contract for the 1988 season. i believe it was at one point determined that he had been a victim of collusion but that decision was later reversed in court. garvey was included in this regional set along with other notable padre players from their first 35 seasons. the 6 is visible enough, i think.

anyway, one has to wonder if the padres were quick to retire the number of a player who had been with them for just four seasons for reasons other than his play on the field. he did help to propel them to their first pennant with a dramatic home run in the 1984 nlcs, and he did bring them some legitimacy as a high profile free agent signing, but even for a big fan like me the gesture was a surprise. still, the number is retired and keith moreland (who wore it for a couple of weeks in 1988 prior to the ceremony) had to give it up. i even created a card that should have been for the event. if only topps now was around back then, although even they don't make cards for every number retirement event.

tony oliva (retired by the twins in 1991) 1974 topps

breaking the streak here - tony o's number was not the first to be retired by the twins. he followed fellow hall of famers harmon killebrew and rod carew in terms of number retirements, getting the treatment from the club on july 14, 1991. it turns out that was just in time for his number to be featured prominently during game 6 of the world series as kirby puckett's game saving catch occurred right above the placard displaying oliva's number 6. coincidentally, killebrew's 1974 topps card is in this collection as his representative, too.

oliva was a hitter. he won the american league rookie of the year award in 1964 as the league leader in batting average. he led the league in batting average again the following year as the twins won their first american league pennant. he later won a third batting title in 1971. oliva also led the league in hits five times and doubles four times, and who knows how things would have turned out had his knees held up in to his late thirties. because oliva had remained with the club as a coach following his playing days, no other twin wore the number between tony o and its retirement. oliva was inducted in to the hall of fame in 2022 through the golden era committee.

johnny pesky (retired by the red sox in 2008) 2003 fleer flair greats

the red sox retired pesky's number on september 28, 2008. i couldn't find a card of his showing the number, so this one will have to do. at the time the number was retired, pesky had been a member of the red sox organization for some 57 years - first as a player and then as a manger, broadcaster, coach and finally an advisor. the club didn't take the number out of circulation, however, and so in 2000, gary gaetti became the last player to wear number 6 for the bosox.

pesky began his career with three straight 200-plus hit seasons, although he missed three years to military service between his rookie year and his sophomore season. he wound up hitting .307 over a 10 year career that included time in detroit and washington dc. pesky is not in the hall of fame, so he may be best recognized for having the right field foul pole at fenway park named after him, although there is not a lot of evidence that he ever hit or came close to the "pesky pole" with his seven career homers at the stadium.

bobby cox (retired by the braves in 2011) 1981 donruss

bobby cox managed the braves in two different stints - first from 1978 through 1981 and second from 1990 through 2010. in between he managed the blue jays. i chose his 1981 donruss card for this collection because it shows the number 6 loud and clear, and i also like the fact that it features a glimpse of the black armband that the braves wore for executive bill lucas.

as a manager, cox won five pennants in nine years with the 1990's braves, and claimed the world series title in 1995. overall, he won 2,504 games as a big league skipper, and was elected to the hall of fame in 2014. he was the last brave to wear number 6, as the club retired the number on august 12, 2011.

joe torre (retired by the yankees in 2014) 2004 topps

so the 2004 topps card i chose doesn't show torre wearing number 6, but the number does appear in the outline inset. it's a nice touch on the part of the card design that has some 1973 or 1976 vibes - just less generic than those two. while torre had a decent playing career, he was voted in to the hall of fame alongside cox in 2014 as a manager. he posted 2,326 career wins as a manager, mostly as the yankee skipper. he also managed the mets, braves (he was cox's successor in 1982), cardinals, and dodgers. 

he won six pennants and four world series championships with the yankees after succeeding buck showalter who had guided the club to a postseason return in 1995. he managed the yankees through the 2007 season, but no yankee ever wore number 6 again, even though the club didn't retired his number until august 23, 2014 following his induction in to the hall of fame.

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

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

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

giants - 3, 4

pirates - 1, 4

guardians - 3, 5

red sox - 1, 4, 6

phillies - 1

cardinals - 1, 2, 6

reds - 1, 5

braves - 3, 6

astros - 5

mets

orioles - 4, 5

dodgers - 1, 2, 4

twins - 3, 6

white sox - 2, 3, 4

brewers - 1, 4

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6

cubs

royals - 5

padres - 6

athletics

angels

expos

rangers

major league baseball

rays

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies

mariners

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

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 48

running total of non-hall of famers: 7

my retired number collection - here's 2 them

this is the fourth 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 are the five people for whom the number 2 has been retired:

2 nellie fox (retired by the white sox in 1976) - 1962 topps

the white sox retired fox's number, visible on his sleeve on his 1962 topps card, on may 1, 1976 - just a few months after he passed away at the age of 47. after missing the writer's ballot by two votes in his final year of eligibility, he was eventually elected to the hall of fame by the veteran's committee in 1997.

fox spent 14 seasons with the white sox sandwiched between time with the philadelphia a's and houston colt .45's/astros. he was the 1959 american league mvp, leading the chisox to the world series that year against the dodgers. he is considered to be one of the better defensive second basemen in the history of the game but also finished his career with 2,663 hits (most of which were singles by far). in 1975, chet lemon became the last white sox player to wear number 2, which had been in constant use since fox's departure.

2 charlie gehringer (retired by the tigers in 1983) - 1999 upper deck century legends

no number visible on this card of gehringer, but he did wear number 2 for the tigers for the last 11 years of his 19 year career, a career spent entirely with detroit. he was the 1937 american league mvp, hitting .371 that year to lead the league. he hit .375 in the 1935 world series to help lead the tigers to their first championship in franchise history, and the following season he hit 60 doubles. you probably heard his name if you were following the dodgers the last week of the season as freddie freeman was trying to became the first player since gehringer (and joe medwick) to hit 60 doubles in a season.

he had a great nickame - the mechanical man - and finished with over 2,800 hits and a .320 batting average for his career. he joined the hall of fame in 1949 and the tigers retired his number on june 12, 1983. not sure what took them so long once they started retiring numbers in the mid-1970s. 19 different players wore number 2 for the tigers following gehringer's retirement, with the last being richie hebner in 1982.

2 red schoendienst (retired by the cardinals in 1996) - 1969 topps

when i was a kid, it was gaylord perry's cards that made me think the guy was ancient. looking at schoendienst's 1969 topps card there has me doing a double take as i realize he was probably just 45 when the photo was taken and possibly even 43 as i think there is a good chance the photo was taken during the same shoot that included the image on his 1967 topps card. i am also realizing that i assumed he was inducted in to the hall of fame as a manager, but no - he was elected by the veteran's committee as a player in 1989.

i didn't see any playing days cards of his (or modern cards showing him as a player) with the number 2 visible, although it is possible his 2001 topps tribute card is from his time as a player as the cardinals began wearing the number on the front of the card in 1962, scheondienst's penultimate season as a player. he finished his playing career with 2,449 hits and a .289 average.

schoendienst did go on the manage the cardinals over three different stints that included four decades. he was a fixture with the club even when not managing, and continued to wear the uniform even after the club retired it on may 11, 1996. the only time he wasn't wearing the number between his return to the club as a player in 1961 and his retirement from the game was in 1977 and 1978 when he was coaching for the a's. as a result, steve swisher became the last cardinal player to wear number 2, doing so during the 1978 season.

2 tommy lasorda (retired by the dodgers in 1997) - 1989 mother's cookies dodgers

this card was gifted to me by a card shop owner in costa mesa california back in the early 1990's. i was on the hunt for a box bottom card of lasorda from 1989 or 1990, and the guy gave me this instead. i was pretty stoked about it to be honest. since then i've bought the complete team set, but held on to this extra tommy, and now it gets to represent him and his retired number in my collection.

lasorda wore a couple of other numbers for the dodgers as a player in the 1950's and as a coach in the early 1970's, but settled on number 2 before beginning his first full season as the dodger skipper in 1977. ellie rodriguez was the last dodger player to wear number 2, doing so in lasorda's first four games as the dodger manager at the end of the 1976 season.

lasorda led the dodgers to the world series in each of his first two seasons, and then guided them to world championships in 1981 and 1988. he won 1,599 games as their manager, with his retirement being forced after suffering a heart attack in 1996. the team retired his number the following year on august 15, 1997 in recognition of his induction to the hall of fame a couple of weeks prior.

2 derek jeter (retired by the yankees in 2017) - 1998 upper deck

for the record, i am a fan of 1998 upper deck.

you know the yankees thought highly of jeter when they assigned him number 2, or at least i thought so, but it had been worn by mike gallego for the three years prior to jeter's arrival. still, it makes sense that he would be the last to wear it for the yankees given his status as an all-time great.

3,465 hits, a .315 career batting average, 1,923 runs scored and 1,311 rbi certainly amounts to a hall of fame career, and then you add five world series championships as well. i wasn't necessarily his biggest fan but i sure do respect the talent. jeter was voted in to the hall of fame on his first ballot in 2020 with 99.7% of the vote, but the yankees didn't wait for that honor as they retired his number on may 14, 2017.

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

retired numbers by team (shown in chronological order of their first number retirement):

yankees - 1, 2, 4

giants - 4

pirates - 1, 4

guardians 

red sox - 1, 4

phillies - 1

cardinals - 1, 2

reds - 1

braves

astros

mets

orioles - 4

dodgers - 1, 2, 4

twins

white sox - 2, 4

brewers - 1, 4

tigers - 1, 2

cubs

royals

padres

athletics

angels

expos

rangers

major league baseball

rays

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies

mariners

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 30

running total of non-hall of famers: 4

but he never bought any smokes

well, the lenten season is upon us. it's been about 10 years since i consciously gave something up for lent, and i don't really intend to give anything up this year. at least not because of lent. for those who may be unfamiliar, lent is meant to represent the 40 days of suffering and/or temptation jesus endured in the desert. my catholic school upbringing was not wasted.

enough of that - here's something you may not have known about jesus:

210 hits in a season is pretty good. there's more:

i wouldn't expect any less.

of course, these details come from the back of jesús alou's 1969 topps card:

here's the front:

topps put alou in the first series, and so missed the fact that the expos dealt him to the astros before the season began. they got rusty staub in the deal, so they were still fortunate to have "secured jesus" in the expansion draft.

i had a kid in one of my elementary classes who shared his name with jesus. i called him jesus (gee-zus) once and was corrected: jesús (hay-sus). it was the first time i learned about non-english name pronunciations. i didn't learn about accents over vowels until high school spanish. these days, accents over the proper vowels are more prevalent, even on the backs of jerseys and online player rosters. we aren't all the way there, however.

i grabbed this card image from comc:

it's the back of jesús luzardo's 2021 topps heritage "boyhood photos of the stars" card. notice that only luzardo's father gets the accent over the "u" which is odd to me. i would expect cards to start using accents in the very near future, but who knows. maybe it's inconvenient. 

i used to only do it when i used my macbook for these posts which is pretty rare these days. and even then, i think i've only previously done it on posts concerning enrique (kiké) hernandez since i certainly don't want to forget the accent when typing out his nickname. now that i took the two minutes to figure out how to do it on a pc, maybe i can give up ignoring the accents for lent. at least for players named jesus.

ps i am really hoping someone gets the title of this post...