C.A.: 1994 Score Steve Finley

(Greetings. I am currently sitting through about the 59th dreary, dark day of this fall/winter. It's been even more pronounced lately. When you get no snow for weeks, there's nothing on the ground to brighten up the gray sky. And the worst part is it's impossible to take card pictures for this blog. Filching scans it is! Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 317th in a series):

 

I play this little game with myself, which sometimes I also air on Twitter, where I ask myself the following question:

 

"Dodger card?"

 

This 1994 Score card was the latest example. It was one of the cards that Bob sent in that box I blogged about yesterday. He threw in a couple other cards that I'm thinking were just to mess with my head.

 

Now, the perfectly logical and serious-minded collector, with RULES and GUIDELINES would be adamant that this is not a Dodger card. The guy is listed with the Astros, he played with the Astros at that time, he is wearing an Astros uniform. 

However ... that logo behind him is so large, so bright, so blue, so wonderful. It's almost the first thing I see.

I actually thought about adding this to my Dodgers binders, right there at the end of my '94 Score team set. But I think I like 1994 Score so much I'll probably dedicate it to that pile of someday-to-complete sets that I'll never end up completing.

That's usually what I do for cards like this, come up with an overruling collecting obligation that will save me from making a complicated call. There's actually another card very much like this Astros Finley card in my collection.

Another Astros outfielder with Dodgerness in the background.

Even though Carl Everett's uniform does not announce his Astros' affiliation as proudly as the Finley card, I have banished this card to a box of incomplete Fleer sets. And since it's from one of those dead-zone years, 1999, it's my only example of an Ultra set from that year that is not a Dodger.

So if this card had no chance of making my Dodgers binder then Finley doesn't.

But there are other non-Dodgers in my Dodgers binders.

I barely hesitated in putting this 2021 Heritage card in my Dodgers binders. Just about 75 percent of the card is Howard as a Dodger! Besides, he's not even a Phillie anymore. He's now on the Rangers, which means he's moving across the country on his way to become a true Dodger, as is his destiny.

I made the decision quite awhile ago to include this card with my 1973 Topps Dodgers. Frank Robinson is so obviously playing for the Dodgers IN Dodger Stadium. That Angels listing on the bottom doesn't fool me.

This pair is not in my Dodgers binders, although both are quite obviously in Dodgers uniforms. That red number tells all.

I can hide behind the idea that I need both in my bid to complete the 1969 Topps set. But if I should get dupes, then what will I do?

Ray Lamb is also wearing a Dodgers uniform. But I just can't get past that crudely painted "C" on his cap so it's not going to make the binders.

 

Then there is this card from the 1971 Partridge Family set. I don't have this card -- I don't feel like paying the $8.50 it would cost -- but you better believe that if I did own it, it'd be going in my Dodger binders.

All of this makes me think I need a separate binder for cards just like this (yeah, like I have room for that). Then they'd have a place to go without me being conflicted seeing them with the rest of my Dodgers.

 

I'm sure some of you team-collectors have similar problems. Or maybe you just make it easy on yourself and dismiss stuff like this. 

But I can't do that.