This is a bit embarrassing, but as I was getting prepared to write this post about having completed the 2022 Topps flagship team set for the Dodgers, I discovered I haven't completed it.
Somehow, I'm missing the Mookie Betts card. It's been checked off on TCDB. It's been erased from my blog want list. But it isn't physically here. That probably means I did something stupid like traded it or gave it away when I thought I had an extra.
So, yeah, I need a 2022 flagship Mookie card. Anybody have an extra? (EDIT, 2:49 PM Sept. 28: Found it! Misfiled in my binder).
There's no going back on the post though. This was supposed to be a quick-and-easy one because I have no time and now that's blown up in my face. So, with the Opening Day Betts as a substitute, here are the flagship Dodgers:
The team set is just 22 cards this year, after 31 last year. Even taking away the extra four World Series cards from last year, 2022 is still on the small side.
Now, let's take a look at some runners-up for the best Dodger card for 2022.
It's nice that Topps finally got Kenley Jansen's exaggerated wind-up onto a card, although it arrived after he had left the team. This is probably a two-outs-in-the-ninth-inning situation as everybody is standing in the background.
A couple of notable short-timers. It's always fun to get cards of future Hall of Famers who won't be remembered as Dodgers.
I debated making this the top card, and I'm sure many Dodgers fans would. Nothing wrong with it at all, what's wrong with eliminating the Cardinals? But sometimes selecting the celebratory shot is a bit too easy.
This is my best Dodger card for 2022 Topps. A nice, gentle bat-flip from Max Muncy. It's probably after receiving a walk. He takes more walks than anyone I've seen not named Barry Bonds.
This is the second bat-flip card to be named the best Dodger card by me, after the 2013 Hanley Ramirez. Here's a look again at my favorite Dodger card for each year since I started collecting in 1975:
All right, I forgot how time-consuming posting those one-by-one is. Next year I'll just take a pic of them all together.
As I mentioned in the comments last year, I have done this for many years, long before the blog started, and I've stuck with only Topps just because there was no other company making cards for the first six years I collected.
Not the most exciting crop of pictures for 2022. ... Oh, and sometimes-major-leaguer Justin Bruihl is at the top of this post because I THOUGHT it was the last card I needed to complete the team set.
Oh to be as young-and-innocent as 45 minutes ago.
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Also, as neither a Dodger fan, nor a Pujols collector, i did keep a 2021 Heritage of him in the Dodgers uni because its a fun one...