The birthdays continue

 

Not only are there all the birthdays in March for my family but it seems like Facebook is notifying me every day this month that there's a birthday for someone I supposedly know.

One of those notifications was from the Dodgers' Facebook account and I should've had this memorized already: It's Clayton Kershaw's birthday today. Happy birthday to the best Dodgers pitcher of my lifetime.

Kershaw has it all now: a World Series title, Cy Young Awards, an MVP award, a no-hitter. And today he is "only" 33, so who knows what else will show up on his way to the Hall of Fame.

I have been collecting Kershaw cards for exactly as long as I've been writing this blog. His first Topps card showed up in 2008 Update, which came out a month after I started blogging. So maybe I should retire this blog when Kershaw retires?

Nah, I'm not going to do that (maybe I'll do it earlier).

I'm having too much fun collecting Kershaw cards.

As you know, I'm not a player collector, I don't have a box, binder, display or altar dedicated to a single player. But I do like to accumulate and keep track of how many cards I have for a few select players. Kershaw is one of them.

I have 786 total Kershaw cards, just 14 away from 800.. But there are some in the house that I haven't totaled yet as they're in stacks on my card desk that are in the "to be blogged about" section. Since I'm coming up on another Kershaw card milestone, let's see if I can get to it with those Kershaw cards I haven't blogged about or catalogued, all on his birthday.

First is one I acquired online (and it showed up randomly with a couple of early '90s NFL Upper Deck cards). It's Topps' diecut insert this year, recognizing its 70 years. Depending on which blog you read, these are either welcome throwbacks to the '90s, or lazy and boring. I think it's OK. I can take or leave diecuts anyway. It's fine.

This is Kershaw card No. 787.

Next up are five Kershaw cards that arrived in a very Kershaw-heavy envelope (Betts and Muncy were the only two other players to show up) from GCA of The Collective Mind.

All are welcome needs, although the less said about that Kershaw-Buehler Gallery card the better. I thought the Panini Donruss "As Seen" card was a duplicate, but silly me, this is the "rapture" parallel. All right then.

Panini really caters to the ADD crowd but that and the rest from GCA brings me to 792 Kershaw cards. Getting closer!

 

Kerry from Cards On Cards just sent a PWE with four 2021 Dodger needs, including two '52-style Mookie Betts cards, one of those weird "Through the Years" cards of Cody Bellinger and the above '52 Chrome parallel of Kershaw.

We're now at 793 Kershaw cards.

Rod from Padrographs also recently sent me a good stack of Dodgers. I'll blog about the rest some other time -- there is a bunch -- but I selected the Kershaw needs for this post. All good stuff -- and yes, third-place on a league leaders card does count as a Kershaw card.

 

That brings me to 796 Kershaw cards.

 

But that's it.

 

I have no other incoming packages that include Kershaws.

 

So I'm afraid we didn't reach 800 total cards on Kershaw's birthday.

Oh, well. Guess that doesn't matter when your team is still World Series champions.

(P.S.: I went right to everyone's favorite online store and picked up Kershaw cards 797, 798, 799 and 800!)