i need a new favorite dodger

it turns out that yesterday was quite a day for the dodgers in terms of player personnel.  gone are dee gordon and dan haren (i already had a post queued up for later today before this other deal was made official) and in are jimmy rollins, howie kendrick, and some relatively unknown marlins.  well, add matt kemp to the list of former dodgers as he was dealt to the padres for yasmani grandal and a couple of other players.

here's kemp's 2006 upper deck rookie card

kemp was my favorite dodger, supplanting nomar.  he was more than that, however, as i referred to him as my baseball salvation - the guy i thought would be anchoring the team for 10 or 15 years.  i traveled to colorado to see kemp play not too long after he was called up. he was hitting around .350 at the time, and he didn't disappoint me, hitting his first career double and driving in a couple of runs.  he hit two home runs in the series finale, and i was hooked.

there probably won't be any 2015 cards of kemp wearing dodger blue, unless he's in the topps flagship series 1 release i guess.  here are some cards from the past, then, to keep my spirits up.

2008 topps chrome refractor

2010 topps triple threads emerald parallel

2010 upper deck jersey relic

2012 bowman's best

2012 topps museum collection

which reminds me that i need to do an official duke snider memorial patch post

2012 topps triple threads

2013 topps mini

and a 2014 topps chrome refractor

there's no doubt in my mind that kemp is now my favorite non-dodger, and that clayton kershaw is my favorite dodger.  there's also no doubt in my mind that i'll be heading to san diego in 2015 to see the bison play.

i love you guys, but enough!

so, next month 2012 topps is released.  my new year's wish is that we see some new blood with the short prints and the vintage legend type inserts.  i really wish gil hodges had been elected to the hall of fame so that topps might have been motivated to use him to represent the dodgers instead of roy campanella, duke snider, jackie robinson, and pee wee reese.

nothing against those four hall of famers, but enough is enough.  there are other players, topps. i know that we have seen sandy koufax get a bunch of cards in 2011, which is great, and steve garvey and don sutton were used as well in some of the insert sets, but there is no denying that topps seems beholden to the four brooklyn hall of famers.  here's a sampling of what we've seen in the last couple of years, in addition to the four kimball champion mini inserts from 2011 topps shown above.

roy campanella was part of the topps '60' insert set this past year

as well as the 'lost years' insert set.

as a fan of 'cards that should have been', this was by far my favorite insert set.  i hope topps expands it to a bigger insert set in 2012.  here's the 'original' back to what should have been campy's 1954 card

then there was topps marquee

and back in 2010, we saw him on a million card giveaway

and a turkey red insert in the update set

he also got a vintage legends card, 2001 style

that's three inserts in the update series.  that's a lot.

the duke was similarly featured in recent sets.  here's his 2011 topps marquee card

and then there is this 2011 topps tribute card

like campy, snider was part of the 2011 topps '60' insert set

that's enough of the duke - let's move on to jackie

not sure why, but topps added the jackie robinson special inserts/parallels/whatever to 2011 topps heritage, as well as a 'news flashback' card recounting his election to the hall of fame

he also was featured in the '60 years of topps' insert set from 2011 topps

back in 2010, he was part of the topps 'tales of the game' insert set

and had a cool redemption card in 2010 chrome

here's his triple threads card

and his vintage legends insert card from topps update

you get the idea.  that's why i'll just show one pee wee reese card - his 60 years of topps card from 2011 topps update

it's even got jackie lurking in the background.

let's see some new (dodger blue) blood in 2012!