highly surprising and completely appreciated

although he's been quiet on the blogs, brian from highly subjective and completely arbitrary is still out there and i have some cards to prove it! brian sent me a package sometime last fall, and it's a shame it has taken me so long to share.

first up is a professionally printed "card that should have been" 1967 topps sandy koufax

i created one of these missing final tributes a long time ago, and it is great to have this version in my collection. the back

meets the final tribute criteria by having his complete career stats on the back, even if they don't have the year by year stats and they also show a line for 1967. it's still great. you can see that the card was produced by or for the greater boston sports collectors club in 2008 based on the "celebrating 23 years" note in the text. there are some other similar "cards that never were" under the gbscc name out there, including a 1957 bob feller that would be nice to have.

speaking of nice to have, i've been eyeing a complete dodger team set of 2020 topps total after brian sent this will smith card

from the online only set. we will see if i pull the trigger (spoiler alert i am certain that i will). i just miss topps total so much.

this is a 2022 topps mike piazza insert

and i appreciate topps showing him as a dodger from time to time. of course, he had to be a dodger in this "welcome to the show" set.

brian also hit some mini-collections, such as the dodger stadium one with this 1985 donruss mario soto card

and the double play mini-collection with this 1994 fleer ricky gutierrez card

nice cameo of hall of famer jeff bagwell there, too.

this next card

wasn't a need, but it is such a great card that i had to show it anyway. fernando valenzuela's final topps flagship card as a dodger, and the photo selection and design complement each other so well.  although, this isn't topps but instead is o-pee-chee!

oh my!

here's where i remind folks that i once dedicated an entire blog to the differences between topps and o-pee-chee cards. check it out if you haven't already!

a couple of the cards that i featured on that site were also included in brian's package, including this 1991 dodger/mets mashup of bob ojeda

and a blue jays/padres card of joe carter

forget the "now with" - card packages from brian always have the good stuff. thanks brian!

a common thread of collector generosity

earlier this fall, i received three different mailings from three different collectors. a common theme? dodger stadium.

first, i received an email from andy at stadium fantasium who previously sent me most of the dodger giveaway sets from 2018. this time, he let me know he was sending these cards:

those are four of the five dodger 2021 topps national baseball card day cards produced by topps, but represent the full set that was distributed at a dodger game in august (trevor bauer's card was held back by the club). they are rainbow foil-ish and i am happy to have them.

next, i received a package from brian of highly subjective, completely arbitrary. in it, there were a couple of cards - a 2021 topps mookie betts 1965 chrome insert

and a 1991 juan samuel

o-pee-chee

card. oh my!

but the main contents were a dodger stadium guide

and their 2021 yearbook!

world champions yo!

as usual, there was lots of great stuff in the yearbook. some of the larger articles centered on the 40th anniversary of fernandomania

and the passing of tommy lasorda

nice to see lasorda with steve garvey and ron cey there. i would also like to see the tommy lasorda photo at the bottom right of that page make it on to a card at some point please and thanks.

lasorda also led off the "in memoriam" segment of the yearbook, with don sutton and vin scully's wife following

this section also included tributes to stan williams, ben hines, ron perranoski, norm sherry, jimmy wynn, dick allen, guy wellman, sweet lou johnson, jay johnstone, and three staff members who passed.

another item i will show is the gallery photo of the dodgers' alumni group that makes appearances on behalf of the team. let's remember some guys:

i think al ferrara might have been one of the inaugural members of this group, along with joe moeller, but i can't be certain. great to see so many players from the team of my youth, but this page is proof that time waits for no man.

finally, reader and fellow garvey collector alex reached out a while back noting he was filling out a comc order with one of my top non-dodger wants, a 1992 classic update white travel edition royce clayton card. well, the card finally arrived, and alex passed it on to me

obviously, i wanted this card because of the dodger stadium background - not because of the giants player.

i am very thankful to each of these collectors for thinking of me and sending these items, all tied to dodger stadium - blue heaven on earth!

it's time for almost free stuff friday!

it's been a while since i've hosted one of these, and with cards from the quarry doing his sunday thing, i figured why not.

the "almost" in "almost free stuff friday" means that i am going to ask that you send me a card from my want list in return. you can choose to claim up to 9 cards from this post (to keep shipping at pwe-level) in exchange for at least one from my want list.  just claim the card(s) you want in the comments below and they will be reserved for you. email me your address and i will send the cards to you. i will trust that you will send me at least one card in return. easy enough, and this should keep the 'something for nothing' folks that we've all dealt with at bay. 

here are the cards - claim them in the comments!

random stuff:

here's some o-pee-chee from the post earlier this week:

1998 and 1999 pacific crown royale:

2000 pacific invincible aces and kings of the diamond:

2005 upper deck pastime pennants:

2008-2009 upper deck starquest

2010 topps yankees randomness

2011 topps lineage:

2013 topps target red parallels

2013 topps making their marks

2013 topps emerald parallels:

2015 topps 40 free agents

2016 topps perspectives:

2017 topps chrome pink red sox refractors

2018 national baseball card day

2018 topps big league parallels:

2019 topps stars of the game/superstars of baseball

a mashup of cards from a 2018 topps factory royals team set and a 2020 topps factory american league stars team set

2019 topps gypsy queen fortune tellers

and finally some 1952 in 2021

the judge card has a dinged corner, fyi

here are some non-sport inserts from 2019 topps allen & ginter

and how about some hockey?

ok, that does it for this week. make your claims! i'm looking forward to sending out some cards!

a pack to be opened now, 30 years later

i won a prize pack from brian at highly subjective completely arbitrary recently for guessing that his next vintage set build is the 1974 topps set. there were lots of great dodger cards in the package, and i'll show those later, but he also included an unopened pack of 1991 o-pee-chee cards. oh my o-pee-chee! 30 year old cards and gum to be unwrapped - let's give'r and see if we can make it four posts in a row with a frank thomas card, or if there is a chipper rookie waiting inside.

here's the pack:

le vrai! lots of french! good ol' wax paper!

the back also had a mail-in offer for a team pennant.

so i opened the pack and was greeted by a steve crawford card back.

here's what i saw when i removed the cards from the pack

half of the stick of gum was missing.

no, it was just stuck to the back of todd hundley's card:

i mean, it was really stuck

here's the front.

there is no sign of the parasite that sits adhered to the back. there is also no sign on the front that the card is o-pee-chee, but i've covered that before.

here are the other nine cards from the pack, in three card groups, and i will try to say something about each card:

willie mcgee, cecil fielder, tom henke

a text variation from mcgee is the only sign of the o-pee-chee-ness of these cards. 

the fielder card isn't even the best 1991 topps/o-pee-chee card to feature big daddy. 

it's always good to find a canadian team represented in an o-pee-chee pack.

ron robinson, tim jones, terry kennedy

ron robinson was justin turner before justin turner. 

tim jones had a banner year in 1990 - he hit his only big league home run, and he made his only big league pitching appearance (during which he retired hall of famer larry walker)

the terry kennedy card is probably my favorite in the pack. it features the other mets catcher, mackey sasser, with a blurry view of the giants' retired number placards in the background.

darryl strawberry, willie randolph, steve crawford

another text variation thanks to daaaaaa-rryl.

willie randolph only played in the national league for a small part of his career, and he hit only 3 home runs as a dodger. the only home run he ever hit in dodger stadium, however, came in the 1981 world series when he was with the yankees.

steve crawford spent the 1988 season in the dodger minor league system. i remember him most for being the winning pitcher in game 5 of the 1986 alcs. what a game that was.

not a bad pack, even if there were no big hurt nor a chipper jones rookie. 

bonus content!

i was looking around for other examples of cards with gum stuck to them, and i found an image of this 1981 fleer dan driessen card:

that's nasty. i recall donruss' gum being the worst of the three in 1981, but i might reconsider that thinking after seeing this.