Right now the baseball buzz on social media is the World Baseball Classic. While I’m happy to see people talking about more baseball, I can’t get into the WBC more than periodic glances. A few reasons just to make sense of how I feel:
1. We just had two weeks of an international sports event. I’m tapped out.
2. March has enough chaos and energy — March Madness, right? I don’t need more.
3. The WBC seems to run on star power, which really isn’t my focus in baseball (Yes, I know the Dodgers have a ton of stars, I do feel conflicted about that).
For baseball all I need is the Dodgers and the other MLB teams that play the Dodgers. I have a difficult time getting invested in any other kind of baseball, whether that’s Olympic, collegiate, Banana Ball or any of the many, many non-MLB leagues through history. I’ve found where my heart will reside forever — as corporate as MLB may be now.
My collection reflects that — in the pursuit of MLB-themed sets and, of course, my Dodgers collection. The Dodgers collection clicks most with fellow collectors — they send those the most — which is why I have a bunch of current Dodgers cards to show you that have recently arrived from different sources.
Going in order from, “I’ve been delinquent showing these” to the most recent:
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I also received some 2024 parallels from Stuart.
Best of all, Stuart wasn’t afraid to send me some Shohei Ohtani cards! Be like Stuart!
All these cards arrived before Stuart started hunting for a new job, so good luck to him there!
The next set of Dodgers arrived from reader Jonathan, who is the most recent winner of my downsizing giveaway! (There should be another in a few weeks). As usual, nobody needs to send me cards in return but I do appreciate these! It’s a colorful lot of inserts from the past year.
Yes, Jonathan thought to send parallel Dodgers, too. It’s the thing to send for the Dodger collector who has everything! Not that I have everything.
Even more parallels. I just found out yesterday that Walker Buehler is pitching for the Padres. I don’t know how I missed that. Probably suppressing.
Lastly a card with a ’90s trick — players from different teams on the front and the reverse. Paul Konerko gets the reverse, which was a bad call by Team Pinnacle. Ben Grieve will never see the light of day.
These two 2026 cards arrived from Diamond Jesters, some of the first cards Matt opened from this year’s set. The Dodgers Duo card I needed for the team set, and, what the heck, let’s claim the totally unnecessary “spring training parallel” of Mookie.
Still looking for a handful of 2026 Topps Dodgers. It’s probably time to hit sportlots again.
Finally, some cards arrived from The Collector just the other day. As far as parallels go, these are two of the very best from 2025. I still like the plaid Holiday parallels, though still prefer the 2024 ones, and those Heritage color borders still have me hooked though I know it’s almost the worst thing to happen to Heritage.
Chris also sent me several black-bordered cards. Love them! Just one is a parallel though, the rest are from the black-border-themed sets from 1985, Donruss and Topps football. That Lou Whitaker Diamond King means I’m down to under a dozen to complete the set.
This post was supposed to be Dodger-themed but the ’85 football gives me an in to show the Bills cards that Stuart sent:
They’re from the mid-’90s so it’s stuff I never knew existed. But it’s nice to get a sampling!
Getting back to the WBC, I might catch the championship or maybe a game or two near the end of the tournament, but I’d still rather watch spring training games honestly.