Revenge of the team collector

I have mentioned before that I have bought a pack of baseball cards at least every year of my life since the age of 10, except for two years in the '90s.

That's pretty good, I think. Even during the years when I barely had an interest in cards, I still found myself picking up a pack or two at some point during the season.

But in 1996 I was buying my first house and in 1999 I was taking care of a 1-year-old, so my thoughts were elsewhere. Throw in the fact that the Yankees and Braves made it to the World Series each of those years and it's no wonder that I found other things to do.

Since I've gotten back into collecting I've made it a mission to track down as many Dodger team sets as I can. I'm starting from scratch with a lot of them, but none more so than the 1996 and 1999 Topps sets. Bloggers helped me finish off the '96 Dodger team set a few months back. Now I have all of the Dodgers, displaying their weirdish Terminator-like heads, from '96.

The '99 set was my next mission. And thanks to Greg at Lake Effect Baseball Cards, I now have all the Dodgers from that set, too. Both the '96 and '99 Dodgers throught they could avoid me forever. Ha! Now I have my revenge. I know both the '96 and '99 Topps sets were under 500 cards, but, still, going from nothing to everything with your favorite team is something for me to enjoy.

So I'm going to enjoy each of the '99s that I received from Greg. You see Eric Karros up top, one of the greatest sluggers in Dodger history, now on with the rest:

Wasn't that fun? The 1999 set is a nice-looking set, even though there was too much of a fascination with gold in the late '90s. I much prefer it to the 1996 set, and it's a lot better than the 1998 set, which also featured a lot of gold.

Greg sent me several Dodgers from the '98 set, too. I'm down to needing three cards to complete that team set. I'm just showing Karros here again, because '98 is not one of my favorites. But the list of '98 cards I received were: Karros, Young, Valdes, Park, G. Gagne, Zeile and Nomo.

But Greg didn't stop there. He finished off the '94 Topps Dodger set for me with these two cards: Dax and Mondo (and some guy named Van Ryn). There really needs to be a guy named Dax in the major leagues.

And remember when cards like the Coming Attractions card were really big deals? Now there are so many freakin' "first cards" and "rookie cards," I don't know what I'm looking at when I see a Coming Attractions or Rookie Prospects card. Especially from the '90s.

Two faces of the franchise from the mid-90s. I love getting cards of both Piazza and Nomo. Especially Nomo.

And just to get everyone up to the present day (in a Heritage sort of way, anyway), here are three 2009 Dodgers. Getting closer and closer to completing the Heritage Dodgers set.

Thanks to everyone who helped me finish off the 1996 and 1999 Topps Dodgers. Now I'll have to tackle the Upper Deck ones ...