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.

smooth sailing out of los angeles

as a team collector, i don't typically avoid dodger cards in bargain bins unless i am certain that i already own them. i do pause, however, when i find parallels of guys like dennis santana, which was the case at a show last year. i wound up bringing home these 2019 panini donruss optic and 2019 topps parallels

but i would have preferred them to be of a current dodger. 

santana seems to have found his groove in pittsburgh which makes me happy. the dodgers in recent years have been quick to jettison young talent that they have developed in exchange for other teams' talent. in santana's case, they dealt him to the rangers for a minor league pitcher who toiled in the dodgers' minor league system through last season, and is now a free agent. i get that they are dealing from a surplus, but i still appreciate the older dodger way that allows me to collect and cheer for "homegrown" players for an extended period of time, as with clayton kershaw or will smith.

other dodgers whose departures i understood but to some degree regretted include joc pederson 

that's a 2016 topps update 500 home run futures club insert. spoiler alert - joc won't get close to 500 homers, but he hit some big ones for the dodgers and i am glad he is no longer in the national league west so i can root for him a little more.

cody bellinger, seen here on a 2022 panini prizm illumination insert

and a 2022 topps 1987 insert black parallel

was another one that was tough to see move on in free agency even though his performance with the dodgers in his last years had not warranted a big contract. i hope he has a nice season for the yankees but is at home in october. i do think the game is more fun when the yankees are good, but i really want the blue jays to get another crack at a title.

i was ready to be a ryan pepiot fan, but adding a proven starter in tyler glasnow was a deal too good for the dodgers to pass up. pepiot's 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor

was the last one i needed for that dodger team set of parallels.

just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced by the rays that pepiot was headed to the il and replaced on the 40 man roster by michael grove, seen here on a 2023 topps chrome sepia parallel

grove is also injured at the moment. i was ready to be a fan of his as well, but now all i will have are random cards to find at shows.

another example of a short time dodger that had a lot of cards available for me to collect is miguel vargas. this is his 2024 topps yellow parallel

and i am sure i will be finding vargas dodger cards in bargain boxes for years to come. will i buy them? time will tell. adding tommy edman and michael kopech in the trade that sent vargas to the white sox was a great move by the dodger front office, so i hope that vargas finds his way in chicago and lives up to a bit of the hype that surrounded him in his earliest dodger days to pay back that championship level deal that is currently a bust for the sox.

gavin stone, seen here on his 2023 topps chrome update refractor

and landon knack, shown on his 2025 topps gold parallel

are still dodgers as of now. they are both on the injured list, and who knows what will happen once they are healthy. there's not a lot of room on the pitching staff at the moment, so it's possible that these two become trade bait once they prove themselves healthy. i hope not, especially knack who i like, but i get it if it is the case.

and then there are guys like dalton rushing. 

his 2025 panini donruss card is one of many that i already have of him, and who knows how long he will be a dodger? blocked by his fellow university of louisville alum will smith, who is signed to a long-term deal, and too good to be in triple-a, he's not getting a lot of playing time. so far this year he is playing very well when he does play, but is it just enough to entice another team to make an offer that fills a different dodger need later in the season?

we will have to wait and find out who will join the likes of santana in the former dodger makes good elsewhere camp, and then subsequently haunts the bargain boxes and collections of team collectors like me.

42 for 4/15

jackie robinson day is truly celebrated every day of the baseball season, but today is the official day to remember and reflect on the breaking of the color barrier and what that meant and means to our society today.

earlier this year, i added the dodgers' team card golden mirror parallel from 2024 topps

because of that photo of  the players all wearing jackie's number 42. here's the back:

a reminder, the tigers' team card in 2024 topps also featured a player wearing 42, but that was the base card, not the golden mirror parallel. it stinks when more interesting photos are "saved" for short printing but business is business.

sometime last year, i also moved a duplicate of this 1997 upper deck jackie robinson card

in to my "name/number on the back" collection.

today, it's 42 for everyone. thank you, jackie robinson.

post holiday post of pre-holiday card show cards

it's been over two months, and i haven't posted cards from the december 2025 twin cities club card show. i thought about skipping it, as i went to the february show and found some fun cards that i want to post about, but remembered some of the cards i picked up in december were also post worthy so here we are.

one of the regular sellers at this show always has a couple of dime boxes tucked under his table. i always stop and take a look, even though it requires some effort as his table tops is jammed full of shiny stuff and you have to squat and dig under the table. most of the time, it's been worth it. here are some of the cards i found in december

2013 panini golden age evel knievel playing card insert

big nostalgia hit there. evel knievel was a big part of my childhood for a year or two. we had the toys and his snake canyon jump had my neighborhood talking for sure. i've never looked to see if he has any other cards but i am sure panini has put some out.

2025 panini donruss prince fielder rockets parallel

knievel literally jumped over sharks, while panini has done so metaphorically with some pretty ridiculous parallels.

2017 topps gypsy queen matt kemp purple parallel

there were about 10 of these parallels in the box. they are numbered to 250. even as a brave, i can't quit matt kemp.

2017 topps gypsy queen francisco lindor blackless parallel

there were a few of these as well.

2011 bowman chrome clayton kershaw

i picked this one up for my name/number on the back collection

and this 2020 topps chrome jonathan villar sepia refractor

goes into my double play collection, and this 2017 panini donruss 1983 ozzie smith insert

goes into the dodger stadium collection. that glove in the photo belongs to mike scioscia or mike piazza, or carlos hernandez or a number of other dodger catchers. ozzie looks a bit too old for it to be steve yeager though.

the most surprising cards to find in this dime box were some oversized topps big box toppers from 2023 topps update. included in these cards were nolan arenado and vladimir guerrero jr

as well as none other than clayton kershaw!

usually when i find cards like these, the dodgers are nowhere to be seen. not this time.

there was more from that seller, but you get the gist. now on to the primary seller i visit at these shows. he's the guy with quarter and dollar boxes but always gives a great deal when you pull a lot of cards. this time, i took a look at his $2 boxes and found a few cards, including this 2006 fleer (upper deck) flair showcase greg maddux hot gloves die cut

these have a print run of just 150 copies. there are no comps that i could find - i couldn't even find one of these in comc's database. i didn't know all that when i pulled the card - i just thought it was different and i hadn't seen one before. cesar izturis has a card in the set that i will likely seek out.

as for the quarter boxes, they yielded some fun stuff, like a 2011 topps heritage adam dunn green tint parallel

and some topps heritage chrome parallels, like carlos beltran's 2005 issue

and eric gagne's from the same set

those are numbered to 1956 as seen on the back

i found a david wright chrome refractor from 2005 topps heritage 

in the dollar boxes. those are numbered to 556

it seems like more often than not, i find a legends parallel in this seller's boxes, and this was no exception. here's a 2009 topps babe ruth short print

i already have one of these in my retired number collection, but i couldn't leave george herman behind.

i don't always go for political inserts, but i did grab the gold parallels of the 2008 topps presidential nominees - john mccain

and barack obama

it's hard for me to wrap my head around what has become of the republican party since mccain (or even mitt romney) was the nominee. mccain famously defended obama on the campaign trail when a woman referred to him as something that he was not, and that sort of thing just isn't happening from the gop today.

now for some dodgers that i found - here's a 2016 topps heritage high numbers corey seager rookie performers insert

that's missing the rc logo. that logo is present on alex verdugo's 2018 topps finest card

which was the last base card i needed to complete the team set.

these boxes always have a bunch of parallels, so i have a few to show. from 2024 topps, here are a couple of rainbow foil cards

and from 2024 topps update, here are a couple of silver crackle foil cards

bobby miller and emmet sheehan both had silver pack chrome cards

from 2024 topps update and 2024 topps, respectively, while teoscar hernandez' is from 2025 topps

there are so many inserts these days, as you know, and so i was not surprised to learn that i did not already own this freddie freeman insert

from 2023 topps archives. same goes for this 2025 topps summer superstars insert of blake snell

and then there are the 2025 topps series two 1990 all-star inserts. blue and red versions, and this mookie betts card i pulled

was also a need. in fact, i didn't have the blue one of betts, either.

one more item of interest, to me at least. 

that's a 2018 topps holiday starling marte relic card. it was in the $2 box, and i grabbed it because it features a piece of the pirates' 2017 memorial day camoflauge jersey. i know that's not the holiday this set is celebrating, but i thought it was sort of meta having a holiday jersey piece in a holiday insert. 

that's a wrap on 2025 card shows, and as i mentioned, i have cards to show from my first 2026 show - stay tuned!