grab bag - brag or drag?

i bought two team bag semi-mystery bags at the fall church show (as mentioned in this post), and i promised i would go through the contents in a subsequent post which, as you have guessed, is this one.  these were marked at $4 each which means i got them for $2 each. it turned out that there were 10 cards in each bag. i didn't bother to try to move the cards around to count or peek before i bought, by the way.

the first one had this card on the front - 2021 panini elite extra edition troy glaus all-time first round materials

and this one on the back - 2019 panini prizm manny machado blue hyper prizm parallel

neither of these cards really fit in my collection, but i was intrigued enough to add the bag to my stack. i assumed the other cards were parallels or inserts, but didn't know for sure. here's what was between those two cards

2019 panini prizm carlos correa blue hyper prizm parallel

2022 topps pristine josh donaldson purple refractor parallel (numbered to 99)

2024 topps chrome adley rutschman ray wave refractor parallel

2021 panini elite extra edition calvin ziegler optic auto (numbered to 99)

2021 topps stadium club chrome max scherzer virtual reality insert

2021 topps stadium club chrome jacob degrom 1991 design variation refractor parallel

2023 topps chrome spencer strider future stars insert

2021 panini prizm robin yount carolina blue prizm parallel

so, not a bad lot of cards. the new york referenced on ziegler's card is the mets, by the way. he missed all of 2025 due to tommy john surgery so will see if he bounces back. the scherzer was a need for my dodger collection, so that was a happy surprise. 

there were, i think, four of these bags in the box, but i only bought one more. the other bag i bought had this card on the front - 2022 topps pro debut elijah tatis autograph

and this one on the back - 2024 topps chrome will smith raywave refractor parallel

so i knew i was adding a dodger card to my collection. i'll note that tatis is wearing number 23 on that card - that's a big deal in chicago given their history with number 23 on the bulls and cubs, and robin ventura was no slouch, either. doesn't matter, though as i don't think the younger tatis is active any longer.

just as before, here are the cards that were sandwiched between those two:

2023 topps chrome miguel cabrera sepia refractor parallel

2019 topps heritage minors tim tebow

2020 topps inception kris bryant purple parallel #/150

2019 panini father's day brandon lowe #/199

2022 panini usa baseball stars & stripes sean mclain jumbo relics #/150

2022 panini prizm yordan alvarez blue mojo prizm #/199

2019 panini chronicles blake snell obsidian prizm

2019 panini chronicles whit merrifield phoenix holo prizm

the sean mclain card presents a bit of a quandary for me. it could fit in my collection a couple of different ways - mclain was the dodgers' 5th round pick in 2022 (i've used this tactic once before with a team usa relic), and he also hails from tustin, california.

i have a mini-collection in the works that includes tustin (foreshadowing another future post). not sure what i'll do with this card as of now.

it had been decades since i had bought a grab bag at a show, but i am happy with these. not sure i am happy enough to try my luck again, but never say never!

the new adventures of old pristine

well, topps gave us a second year of the "new" pristine in 2023, so i guess i may as well show what i added to my collection as a result. i entered a team break and was able to pick up this mookie betts "oh snap" insert

i'm not sure that anything that says "oh snap" belongs in a 2023 release.

before i get to more from last year, let's go back and review previous pristine releases, shall we?

2002 topps pristine - here's shawn green's card

i didn't pay a lot of attention to this release as it reminded me of a finest set which typically wasn't on my radar at all. i did pull some singles from a box at the local card and comic shop, however.

2003 topps pristine - hideo nomo, kevin brown, paul loduca, shawn green

i did not have any 2003 pristine cards in my collection until late last year as it was way off of my radar. also, i have no idea what happened to paul loduca's uniform in that photo. at no point did the dodgers wear black uniforms, and he is still wearing a dodger uniform in the picture. 

2004 topps pristine - shawn green again

same deal here - i had to buy this card to have one to represent the release in my collection. of course, there are only two dodger cards in the team set (anyone have an extra eric gagne card?)

2005 topps pristine - jeff kent

i didn't pick up any of this set, either, but i was acutely aware of pristine in 2005 because of....

2005 topps pristine legends - including maury wills

don newcombe

and others. i was aware of this set because of the 1965 design and the fact that it featured a lot of retired guys that i favored, like three-fourths of the dodger infield. topps also issued uncirculated cards encased in what i assume at the time were screw holders. i've never bothered to check, but maybe i'll see if my ron cey card

reveals anything. these uncirculated refractors are numbered to 549

the dodger infielder who was left out was bill russell, so that means that davey lopes (not pictured) and steve garvey got cards.

garvey got a relic card, too, and i added the refractor version to my collection about a year ago

it featured a new to me photo of the garv and this version is numbered to 25

truth be told, it was primarily the fact that garvey was on the checklist that i paid close attention to the set. as it stands, i am missing don zimmer's base card although i have his uncirculated card.

i was surprised in 2022 when topps brought pristine back, and have only picked up a handful of non-garvey dodgers. one card i did add sometime in the last few months is this mookie betts refractor parallel

when i saw that the 2023 set was coming out, i noticed that the design wasn't too different from the 2022 version. i figured i would join the group break and that would be it. 

in addition to the mookie insert above, the break netted me a miguel vargas pair of refractors - base and purple

a steve garvey refractor (!)

plus all-star cards of freddie freeman

and tony gonsolin

with garvey on the checklist again, i of course went looking for more. i showed some of the cards i picked up in this post but have added a couple more since then. these are the encased orange /25

and encased pink /15

parallels.

i will be just fine if topps/fanatics gives pristine a rest in 2024, although if they are following their playbook 20 years into the future, i will be on the eye for a 2025 legends release!

rolled reuss?

back when i was playing baseball (mostly in the 1980's), uniform day was a much anticipated milestone. one thing that got a lot of attention were the stirrups.

there were lots of things to consider - do you stretch them or not? if so, how much of the top of the stirrup will you show? and, the more you stretch, the more material closer to the knee, and with that there was the question of whether you fold or roll that material. and remember -  we wore socks, covered by "sanitarys", and then the stirrups. three layers of material that contributed to the mass that needed to be dealt with. some of my teammates used tape to try to keep it all in place, but a lot of them rolled it down.

it looks like jerry reuss was a "roller" based on the image used on his 1982 topps sticker

but i reached out to him to get the scoop:

My older brother tutored me on the proper sock roll. I don’t know where he came up with the method but it sounded right to me. Put on uni pants with bottoms near your ankles. Then pull sanis as high as you can get them, followed by the stirrups (preferably 7”) riding same height. Pull up pants and fold all three layers together to desired height. If the socks were striped, I made sure all stripes were visible.

that's great big league advice right there! you can see examples of the stripes he refers to on his 1972 topps card (cardinals) and 1976 topps card (pirates).

i can't tell what pedro guerrero's tendencies were from the photo on reuss' sticker, but he clearly stretched his stirrups! his 1985 topps sticker 

doesn't show any bulk near his knee, so maybe he didn't have to roll or fold?!

one guy who i am pretty sure didn't stretch his stirrups was steve garvey, as you can see a pretty standard approach on his cards including this 2004 donruss world series blue card

it's hard to tell, however, if garvey rolled or folded. i assume folded, but his left leg shows some bulk. still, it looks folded to me. as an aside, i folded, and my league issued stirrups looked like garvey's in my little league days. if you go back to the first post on this blog, you will see that i stretched them out a bit as i moved on to babe ruth baseball.

in earlier decades, i think the stirrups were slightly different, with less actual stirrup. case in point, jim gilliam's 2002 topps superteams foil parallel card

shows very little of the sock underneath the stirrup.

in recent years, after a preponderance of long pants that showed no sock, sanitary, or stirrup for many players, this has been replaced by socks with designs, like cody bellinger is wearing on his 2022 topps pristine refractor parallel

even more recently, these socks have evolved to include a stirrups design! you can see this on jj bleday's 2023 topps stadium club card

looks like he pulled those socks up a bit higher than intended!

thanks to number 41 for his insight on the topic, and no matter whether they are stretched and folded or rolled or just printed on socks, i enjoy seeing the stirrups!

thank you jackie robinson

i showed off a bunch of 42 cards earlier in the week, so today i will celebrate jackie robinson day with a few cards of the trailblazer himself.

this one is from 2022 topps archives

and uses the design of the 1992 topps rookie debut set to great effect. 

this 2017 topps insert

also recognizes the memorable moment that was his major league baseball debut.

some other cards i've added to the collection in the past year include:

1982 tcma superstars card

1984 renata galasso baseball collector's series card

2009 topps update & highlights legends of the game career best legends

2010 topps hta logoman insert

2010 topps walmart legends chrome cereal box platinum

and one of his most recent cards coming from 2022 topps pristine

i also had an ebay seller throw in a couple of well done reprints of his 1950 bowman and 1948 leaf cards

as part of a non-jackie purchase i made. i don't know who is responsible for these, but they are pretty good looking and seem professionally printed. 

the best thing about these cards is that they all feature different photos of jackie, which is fairly rare considering that most of those cards are from the pre-google images era.

my jackie robinson collection, which is just a subset of my dodger collection, now stands at 414 unique cards which slots me into third place on tcdb. overall, jackie is the 9th most represented player in my collection

and i think i will see if i can make eric karros give way.

it's always a good idea to reflect on the trail paved by jackie and recognize that the effort continues. thank you jackie robinson.