1/1 for 25/25

as many of you may have seen over at the chronicles of fuji, mark and i recently made a deal in which he acquired my 1/1 bert campaneris autograph from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams.  here's what i wound up with after converting cash into cardboard.

it's a 2012 panini national treasures ron cey auto/patch card numbered 25/25, complete with a 'penguin' reference on the back.

and yes, while batman never had to deal with ron cey, he did have to fend off some of the penguin's teammates.  jim lefebvre and wes parker are two dodgers whom i know appeared on the batman tv series.  i believe they were henchmen of the riddler.

anyway, what this cey lacks in numbers when compared to the campy, it makes up for it with dodger awesomeness.

thanks mark - glad the campy is somewhere where it can be better appreciated!  and, yes, i do plan to finish the timeless teams set blog sometime before 2014 rolls around.

od dp's

as much as i enjoy seeing some variations between the topps flagship set and their opening day release, i am happy to see many of the same double play cards in both sets.  this one is a strong candidate for my favorite dp card of the year - it's danny espinosa

he's elevated over tony gwynn jr at dodger stadium, which is very nice.  not sure that tg2 is going to get a card in series 2 or update (he's in minor league camp and not on the 40-man roster) so it's good to see him on espinosa's card.  by the way, if this play is from the 1st inning on april 28, 2012 (and i'm pretty sure it is as that was bryce harper's big league debut with lots of cameras on hand), then gwynn failed to break up the double play.

now here's aaron hill with yadier molina apparently doing what gwynn could not.

even though hill is still holding the ball, i put this card (and others like it) in my double play binder.  that's part of what i like about the play at second - there needs to be a decision made as to whether the turn can be completed or not.  sometimes, it's best to hold on to the ball and jump.

on a quick tangent, here's a baseball fun card of hill that i also pulled from a pack

i had not seen the double-bubble shower before.  thankfully it's not abc gum.

jason kipnis' opening day card is the same as his series one card

as is howie kendrick's

but marco scutaro's is not

scutaro had a world series highlight card in series one, but his regular base card will be in series 2, i assume.  perhaps this is a preview of it.  i like the chevron cars from the phone booth in the background, but it's too bad that the coke bottle is so high up in the left field stands.  it would be nice to see that on a card once in a while.  not that i want more giants cards.

here's another tangent - as i mentioned earlier today, the opening day packs i purchased had a 'bonus' pack of series one cards.  i was duped into thinking that i had pulled an 'out of bounds' short print of ryan raburn

until i found a second one in one of the other 'bonus' packs.  it's still a nice looking card.

back to opening day, here are a couple of play hard inserts - david freese

and alex rodriguez

it seems like it's been awhile since arod has been featured prominently in any set, doesn't it?

the last of the opening day cards i'll show is this brandon phillips ballpark fun card

i suppose it is fun to clinch the division.

hold on - i'm not done with this post yet.  seeing that danny espinosa card reminded me of another double play card. this 1990 upper deck bill doran card

features tony gwynn sr sliding in to second, trying to break up a twin killing.  no word on whether he was successful or not.

while i'm at it, i'll show a few more double play cards that i have recently acquired.  here's a 1994 topps stadium club geronimo pena

and a 1994 pinnacle pena as well

they are nice, but not as nice as pena's topps and collector's choice cards from that year.

finally, here is a 2011 topps short print of phil rizzuto

i tried to convince myself that ted williams is the bosox player sliding by, but i can't quite do it.  the number on the back of the player looks more like '8' than '9', but i'm not completely sure. what do you think?

i couldn't wait for opening day

opening day is still a week away, and there is nothing easier than posting a bunch of cards from topps' opening day set on that day.  it's a no-brainer.  well, i'm not waiting.  i mentioned over the weekend that a work related meeting last week put me near a toys r us store.  i wound up buying 4 blister packs (3 packs per blister - plus a 'bonus' pack) of 2013 topps opening day.  i opened everything in the car before heading home.  here are some highlights.

zack greinke

one of my favorite things about opening day cards are the chances of seeing a player airbrushed/photoshopped into their new uniform, or seeing a different photo from the flagship set.  greinke has both - sort of.  there's the card above which is his base card.  i am guessing that when series 2 comes out, topps will use a real photo of greinke in a dodger uniform for his card.  or, they might use the other photo they used in opening day.  yes, there is a short print of greinke in this year's opening day set, featuring a photo from his press conference after joining the dodgers. 

i don't own a copy - i lifted the image from ebay.  it seems to me that this sort of thing runs counter to the premise of the 'cheaper' opening day set.  the other thing that was odd to me was that the 'bonus' pack mentioned on the packaging was a 5-card pack of cards from the flagship set.  i was hoping for opening day bonus cards - i don't need any more flagship cards.

moving on - here's josh beckett

andre ethier

and clayton kershaw

those are the only dodgers i pulled from the 12 packs i opened.  i did get some notable players in their new uniforms though, which was nice.  like josh hamilton

here is hamilton again on his opening day stars insert

this next one is very strange looking - it's michael young in a phillies uniform

there's a blogger in texas who just threw up a bit in his mouth, although he did get one last card of young as a ranger in the flagship release.

i am pretty sure we have seen this next image on a card before, although denard span was wearing a twins uniform then.  here he is in nationals' garb.

is that even a real uniform/hat combo in dc?  span was featured in the flagship set still wearing a twins uniform.

another guy in a different uniform is adeiny hechavarria

hechavarria was part of the jose reyes deal, so at first i thought he might have been a marlin in series one.  after all, reyes was featured in blue jays gear as was mark buerhle (on an insert card), but as luck would have it, hechavarria's flagship card was included in one of the 'bonus' packs.

i also got a blue sparkle parallel of the guy.

i like these better than the emerald parallels from series one.  and, because i mentioned him, here's a mark buerhle as a blue jay card from opening day.  a toys r us purple parallel exclusive, to be exact.

these were one per blister.  i'll show the other three in a moment.  first, there were some other cards that i liked, such as this pirate parrot mascot card

this colorful jose altuve card

which i somehow missed during everybody's series one posts, just like this adrian beltre card

i suppose i should just make it official and start to collect what i refer to as 'tatooine' cards - cards on which there is only infield dirt to be seen.

back to the purple stuff - here's the other three that i got.  elvis andrus

jarrod saltalamacchia

and barry zito

mas gigantes.  i was disappointed to see andrus bunting on his card - i was holding out hope for another double play turn from him.

i'm not sure what the seeding of the blue sparkle cards are, but for me they wound up being 1:6 packs.  here's the second one i found - jonathon niese of the ny metropolitans

i did get a handful of inserts as well.  here's the dustin pedroia 'play hard' insert.

i have nothing to say about that.

jurickson profar, who might not be old enough to shave, gets a shaving cream pie on his 'ballpark fun' card

while albert pujols is cackling maniacally on his contribution to the set.

pujols also appears, although in a non-credited appearance, on mike trout's 'superstar celebrations' card

i was happy to see another one of these in one of the packs as they might be my favorite of all the inserts.  unfortunately, it wasn't a matt kemp card.  instead, it was josh willingham

i think the twins have 3 cards in this insert set which seems like a lot.  this one looks a little strange.  the crowd in the background looks a bit like the crowd on george scott's 1973 topps card although i would need to see some other cards (in addition to the trout) from the set to see if maybe there was just an odd treatment given to the background on all the cards.

of course, i also picked up some packs of series one while i was there specifically for the purple parallels.  i shouldn't have bothered i don't think.  here's what i wound up with

not much to see there.  still, i'm going to see if i can get another meeting scheduled after series two is released. it would be nice to see some purple dodgers.

dodgers on cards. for the most part.

i have fallen behind on trade posts.  and, in some cases, in sending return packages.  jaybarkerfan, scott crawford, nick, docholoday, hot corner - i am working on it. am i forgetting anyone? one trade that has been completed recently was with madding at cards on cards.  he sent me a card that i claimed from one of his trade bait posts, as well as some dodgers.  let's have a look.

as always, if he's in the trade package, he leads the post.  here's steve garvey and his 2002 upper deck world series heroes card

the garv is here representing the 1981 world champion dodgers.  garvey's teams were 1-4 in world series play, but he owned a .319 average in those 5 appearances.  in 1981, he hit .417 although 10 of his 11 hits were singles.

kirk gibson had only one hit in the 1988 world series, but it qualified him for the set, too.

gibson could have also represented the 1984 tigers in the set, too.  maybe he did - i should check, but i won't.  i put this set together back when it came out.  i was big on the upper deck legends/hall of famers sets between 1999 and 2003 or so, and this one fit the bill.

one set i didn't try to collect was sweet spot classic.  here's a 2004 upper deck sweet spot classic card of don drysdale

he's almost suttoning.  anyway, these cards were fairly elusive to me when they were released as far as the lcs was concerned.  so i pretty much stayed away, except for when garvey made an appearance on the checklist.  these days, i am hoarding all the dodgers i can find.

here's another dodger now - a 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee chad billingsley black border

someday i will finish my set.  it is somewhat of a frankenset in that some of the cards are black bordered.  i refused to play the game that upper deck was foisting upon me by inserting these in every pack.  mot sure if it makes sense, but oh well.

here's another pigeon, i mean shawn green relic card.

it comes from something known as 2005 upper deck mlb season opener jersey collection.  at least that's what is on the back.  i do appreciate upper deck putting the set names on the backs of their cards.  it makes it easy to identify all of the inserts and what not.  too bad they didn't start doing this sooner.

here's a 2010 topps national chicle card of andre ethier

with a big egg yolk behind him.

switching gears, here is the card that started the trade - a 1993 pacific nolan ryan 27th season card of the strikeout king swinging the bat

wait - let me flip the card.  hold on.

that's better.   here we see ryan taking a hack in dodger stadium, which is why i wanted the card in the first place.  not sure who the dodger catcher is.  it could be steve yeager or mike scioscia or jack fimple or alex trevino or even gilberto reyes.  who knows.  the back of the card mentions that this is a rare color photo of ryan at the plate.  not sure why - he played in the national league as an astro for 9 seasons.

the last card i'll show is a 1971 topps set need.  it's richie scheinblum of the senators.

i've been neglecting my 1971 and 1974 topps set pursuits this year.  i need to get back on top of htose pursuits sometime soon.

thanks for the trade madding!