the cuts are legendary in the next installment of sheets from the steve garvey binders

the first five cards of sheet 64 in the steve garvey binders feature a photo (well, two photos) of him wearing the dual-ear flap batting helmet.  if i were to ever have a conversation with garvey, i would ask him about wearing that type of helmet that was usually reserved for switch-hitters and amateurs.  here is sheet 64:

those cards are:

1. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts baseball chronology materials relic
2. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary materials relic /225
3. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary materials relic /199
4. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary materials relic /99
5. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary materials relic /15
6. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts memorable moments materials relic /225
7. 2006 upper deck sp legendary cuts when it was a game silver /550
8. 2006 upper deck ultimate collection ultimate ensemble signatures quad auto (with ron cey, don sutton, and dusty baker) /25
9. 2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary materials relic /199

looks like padre relics on cards 1 and 6 (which are dodger cards), which always bugs me a bit.  there are a number of other parallels, and a relic version of card 7, that i am missing from the 2006 legendary cuts set.  the 2007 legendary cuts set has two versions of the legendary materials cards for garvey - one is a padres version and the other is the dodger version that i have.

here are the backs:

moving on to sheet 65:

those cards are:

1. 2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts legendary materials dual relic /125
2. 2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts masterful materials relic
3. 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic /575
4. 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic classic memorabilia relic
5. 2007 upper deck sweet spot classic classic memorabilia patch relic /55
6. 2008 dodger pocket schedules (with james loney)
7. 2008 donruss threads
8. 2008 donruss threads century proof silver parallel /100
9. 2008 donruss threads jerseys relic (yellow swatch) /150

so there is the padre version of the legendary materials card, although it is the dual relic version.  there are also quad relic versions of both the dodger and padre cards, but i don't have either.  i was disappointed back in 2007 to see garvey as a padre in the sweet spot classic base set and jersey insert checklist, but at least they got the relic swatches matched up with the team this time.  and, at least they had garvey as a dodger on the signature cards in the set (more on those in a future post).

i suppose that the pocket schedule really belongs in the oddball binder, but it fits nicely here in a 9-pocket page, so here it remains.  there are a number of versions of the schedules with then-current dodgers and past dodgers matched by position as is the case with loney.

here are the backs:

you can see on the back of card 8 that i have the /100 version of the donruss threads parallel, and that i am still looking for the /250 version.  that card is target number 1 on the nefarious 9.

read any good books lately?

how's that winter reading list coming along?  personally, i've yet to finish a book this year, but i'm working on 'east of eden'.  i took a break from some steinbeck goodness to pick up a couple other books recently.  here's the cover of one of them.

that's a 2013 panini america's pastime 'hitters ink' book, numbered to 25.  it only has two pages, and it's a picture book to boot.

so, this is my first tony gwynn auto.  it's nice to see garvey paired with mr. padre.  he's previously been featured on relic cards with ozzie smith in the brown and mustard, and with gwynn, willie mccovey, and rickey henderson, too.  i just hadn't seen an auto pairing between these two, who have 5,740 hits between them.

here is the back of the book (and the binding and front)

the other book i picked up was also a quick read.

it comes from 2009 topps sterling, and is a 'seasons' auto-relic card of steve garvey as a dodger, numbered to 10. you can tell from the back of the book that the 'season' being celebrated here is garvey's 1978 campaign. it's even more clear inside.

the book came at a steep price, but anytime '1978' and 'steve garvey' are put together, i'll probably make it happen for my collection.  now, this card/book was advertised as a patch card, but in reality the jersey pieces used come from a dodger away jersey that had the blue and white striping on the sleeves.  just like the one he is wearing in the photo used for this 2003 upper deck sp authentic dodger stars chirography auto card

the seller of the book/card noted that he had some other limited run garvey cards available.  i inquired and picked up a few, including two versions of the chirography card.  that first one is the 'base' (numbered to 320), and this one is the 'bronze' (numbered to 100)

it has the inscription 'dodgers', and the lower print run versions have different inscriptions such as '1981 ws champs'.  i already had those two cards, but they're in the garvey binder and i wanted duplicates to put with the other dodgers featured in the set.

i did pick up from the seller a few other auto cards that were new to my collection, however.  here's a 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary combo triple signatures card featuring garvey, dusty baker, and ron cey

and here's one from the same set (although just a combo dual signatures card) featuring the penguin and garvey

the triple auto card has a reported print run of 50, while 150 copies of the dual were produced.  i already have the garvey/davey lopes dual, but there are some other dodgers (like don sutton and tommy john) that have eluded me.

speaking of sutton, he's on the next card i picked up.  it's a 2006 upper deck ultimate signatures card numbered to 25.

and there we have 4 of the starting 9 from the team of my youth.  fantastic.

the last card is kind of a letdown.  it's from the no photo sticker auto dump that was 2012 upper deck sp signature edition

i have a dodger quad signature from the set, but i didn't have the supposedly easier to obtain garvey solo card.  go figure.  i'm not sure why this particular garvey collector was moving his collection, but i was happy to have the opportunity to add some of the lower print run cards to my collection.

now i need to get back to seeing how things are going for adam trask and family in salinas...

epic nomar and the (not really) team collector dilemma

there was a time when i considered becoming a nomar garciaparra supercollector.  i did have a pc going of his cards during the late 1990's and into the early 2000's, but those were mostly cards that i pulled from packs - i didn't go out and actively seek cards of his to add to my collection.  that all changed when he signed with the dodgers prior to the 2006 season.  i figured that i would go after all of his non-red sox cards.  that task was made easier by the fact that nomar didn't bother to re-up with topps after the 2006 season, but it turned out that there were still way too many releases and inserts and parallels for me to keep up with.

here are a few that i did track down, including an insert from 2006 upper deck epic that features him (mostly) as a red sox player.

there's a smaller picture of him as a dodger on the card so it's ok. there's really no team collector dilemma this time.  and, here's his completely dodger-iffic base card from the epic set

nomar didn't get a flagship dodger card from topps until the 2006 update set (i count update/traded sets as part of the flagship sets), but he did get a trading places insert in series 2 of their 2006 flagship release.  this one includes a bat relic

here are a couple of photoshopped cards from 2006 topps finest - base

and refractor

more shiny stuff from 2006 - bowman chrome

and topps chrome - this one a black bordered refractor

nomar also made it into the 2006 topps triple threads set - here's a green one

numbered to 99.  his 2006 upper deck ultimate collection card is also numbered, but to 799

this is what i was referring to when i suggested that all of the different issues and parallels and inserts and even the regular 'base' cards made it tough to become that nomar supercollector.

his card in the flagship 2006 upper deck series 1 set was him in cubs gear listed as a dodger.  so, i was please to see that he was put on the team checklist in the upper deck update series in real dodger apparel

nomar had fewer cards in 2007 despite his big comeback season in '06.  here's his 2007 fleer ultra card

and some 2007 upper deck 'predictor' parallels - blue and green - on both the team checklist card

and his regular card

i'm not sure what was being predicted, but whatever the reason, upper deck made some parallels.  another ud parallel from 2007 were the red backs in their goudey release.  here's nomar's

at least there were no 2007 topps red letter backs of nomar to chase.  here are a few more - a 2007 upper deck spx die cut base card

a 2007 upper deck spectrum die cut parallel thingy

and a low-end retail 2007 upper deck first edition pennant chasers insert

nomar helped the dodgers get to the postseason in both 2006 and 2008, but never actually successfully caught the pennant.  that was too bad, but we'll always have the 4+1 game, and i'll always have my incomplete nomar non-red sox super collection.