the first adrian

this is adrian gonzalez's 2013 topps card

it was the first card of gonzalez as a dodger that i owned.  it won't be the last, but there is one that i pretty much know that i will never own.

for the first time since i began collecting (and now dating back to the 1957 set), i do not have a complete dodger team set of topps' flagship and traded/update cards because of the ssp nonsense that was perpetrated in last year's update set.

sure, for $700 i could own this gonzalez card

and this nick punto card

plus this card of carl crawford

and this josh beckett card

but i won't.  instead, i'll settle for this 2013 topps beckett

and wait for series two (maybe) for a punto and a crawford.

things were simpler in 1999 when another adrian made his dodger topps debut

i've been thinking about making 2013 the last year that i would bother with the non-ssp dodger team sets.  we'll have to see what kind of shenanigans (beyond the out of bounds short prints) topps brings to the table.