Sometimes the best aren't Dodgers cards

"Of course," the many collectors who aren't Dodgers fans are saying.

"Blasphemy," my fellow Dodgers fans are saying.

A few years ago, I would have been right there with the torches and pitchforks: of course the best cards in a trade package are Dodgers cards!

But in the last couple of years of really focusing on diversifying my collection, I am naturally drawn to other cards that don't necessarily display Dodgers on the front.

Such was the case from a recent envelope from Nick of Dime Boxes. As I always I do when I receive a package from a fellow collector, I -- after my traditional card mail dance around the room -- go through the cards and pull out the ones I need.

Once I have that tidy stack, I review which cards stand out and how they might form a blog post. Those cards are placed in a new stack while the others stay where they are while I figure out whether I have anything at all to say about them.

Here were the cards -- needed cards -- that just don't elicit a sentencet:

All Dodgers there. Well, all Dodgers and one Driller. All I have to say about those is "Weee! I didn't have them yet!" and "They make something called Bowman Tek now?"

But that's about it.

There were a handful of Dodger needs where I can expend a few extra words:

Nick recently wrote an ode to Donruss' Team Heroes sets from about 15 years ago. These are two Dodgers from those sets I needed.

I was never impressed with Team Heroes. It's one of those sets that arrived when I wasn't collecting and the designs just don't do much. The cards seems a little flimsy, too. The lack of attention to detail seems to be a theme with all-inclusive sets like Team Heroes and Total. All the effort goes into a complete checklist, apparently, and there's nothing left over to make the cards look good.

I do appreciate the Carlos Garcia card just because I have on record forever the Padres making another one of their ace "steals" of a Dodger player. How'd that work for you, Padres? Much like the others, huh?

The best two Dodgers in the envelope were, of course, oddballs.

The Johnny Podres card is from the 1980 TCMA set that pays tribute to the 1959 World Series champion Dodgers. Like with many TCMA sets, I need to do a better job of tracking down those cards in the coming year. (This set, like at least one other Dodgers TCMA set that I know, comes in black-and-white and blue tint).

The Ron Fairly is a 1962 Topps stamp. Love it. Right now I store my Dodgers stamps in one of the 15-pocket tobacco pages. I cut out a slim piece of construction paper and slide it behind the stamp. It keeps things in place and I like the way it looks.

And thus ends the Dodger portion of the post. Because the other cards were better.

We get off to a sad little start as neither of these minis qualified for my frankenset, even though I wanted both to make it very much.

Cole Hamels is already in the frankenset and I'm trying not to unnecessarily repeat subjects. Super-fine Hilary Knight can't remove the X-Ray card (the one with the bony hand) from its spot. I may just put Knight with my page of notables who couldn't break through.

This is one of the Online Re-Imagined 1978 Topps cards. I've picked up a couple Dodgers already but this is my first non-Dodger blue dude. Not a fan of the player or the team, but the '78 theme helps alleviate that.

Nick, I think, has been the only other blogger to acknowledge the greatness of the 2004 Topps World Series programs set and attempt to collect it. I'm doing the same -- a miserable job at it, I might add, because I think they're overpriced.

Fortunately, the Subway Series program is one I needed! Yay! Only 60 or so to go!

That is fine want list reviewing right there. These were four of the final six cards that I needed from the 1975-themed portion of the 2019 Archives set. I received another in the mail today and now all that's left is Aaron Judge. It now resides on my currently under-construction Nebulous 9 list.

Ah, one of the "mystery" oddballs from the 1970s.

I call any oddball from between 1970-74 a "mystery oddball" just because even though I love '70s cards so much, I often ignore the first part of the decade as it was before I started collecting cards.

The 1971 Milk Duds cards are in that "mystery" group. This is just my second one. And it needs a little grooming. Not sure I can fix it much, we'll see.

Last card, and it's the best.

I did nothing with Kellogg's cards in my recent massive COMC purchase, mostly because I had just finished the 1976 Kellogg's set and any additions haven't been on my mind much yet. BUT THEY WILL BE.

I don't seriously expect to complete the 1970 Kellogg's set for a long time, but I celebrate every card that arrives, especially the notable Curt Flood card. This was right during that fateful moment when Flood was traded to the Phillies -- it says so right on the back -- and he refused to report, contacting a lawyer and Marvin Miller and, well, here comes free agency.

There aren't a lot of cards of Curt Flood beyond this one. He's airbrushed into a Senators hat in the 1971 Topps set and that's it for his career. He's on a few legends sets -- Pacific, Upper Deck, etc. -- but not very many for someone of his stature.

Curt Flood never played for the Dodgers. And this is why I don't collect just Dodgers.

I want to collect the history of baseball. It's why I'm a set collector. It's why I chase oddballs. The Dodgers are my favorite team because their history is as rich -- probably richer -- than any other team, but they're not the entire history of baseball.

And that's why, sometimes, the best cards aren't Dodgers cards.