Too much of a good thing

 

My daughter was good to me for Father's Day and sent a blaster of 2023 Heritage as a gift (just as I requested!)

I enjoyed opening it on a very relaxing day and I even pulled a Dodger card, which have been amazingly scarce in my Heritage openings this year (yet 12 Rangers and 11 Pirates total).

This rookie card of the slumping James Outman gets me down to a just a couple more non-SP Dodgers in my team-set quest (Trayce Thompson and the Betts-Buxton card). Between this card and a few Heritage Dodgers that I received from Johnny's Trading Spot recently, I've noticed that the Dodger cards in 2023 Heritage are pretty damn dull.

This feeling is a holdover from last year's Heritage and the Heritage before that. Virtually nothing exciting from the Dodgers, just a lot of bat-on-the-shoulder poses. This is particularly unfortunate this year because there were some pretty good action shots for the Dodgers in '74 Topps with Ron Cey, Claude Osteen and Joe Ferguson (I'm annoyed there is no horizontal comparison as tribute to Ferguson).

Even more, the numbing sameness has taken away the thrill of one element that I mentioned regarding 2020 Heritage three years ago.

Note the vehicles in the background in the Outman card. That's what I loved so much about the Dodgers in 2020 Heritage.

Here they are again in two other Heritage cards. Kind of at a distance in the Urias card, but you get the idea -- it's the same general background.

But this is not just a phenomenon of Dodger Heritage cards in 2023 Heritage nor 2020 Heritage.

 

Vehicles in the background showed up in 2022 Heritage Dodgers.

They also did in 2021 Heritage.

And in 2019 Heritage.

2018 Heritage.

2017 Heritage.

Even in earlier versions of Heritage, when the photos are more close-up, you can find cars in the background of the Dodgers cards.

It's gotten to be too much of a good thing (and I'm a little disturbed by how long it took me to realize this).

Granted, none of these Heritage Dodgers are as exciting as the '73 Topps Luis Alvarado card or the '77 football Dan Fouts card or the '71 football Gary Yepremian, but I liked when I spotted them in 2020. 

 

I'm assuming a lot of these are just stock backgrounds. You can even see the same car in the same position beneath the same bush/plant in some of them. This is not a surprise, stock backgrounds in Heritage are rampant and have been for several years, it's one of the main reasons why Heritage will never truly replicate the real thing. But I wonder why the Dodgers versions have to be so boring.

Here are some others that Johnny sent. Outside of the Betts and Freeman, and the Trayce Thompson and an SP Dustin May, all of the other Dodgers feature basically the same background.

I don't know if this is a spot at the Dodgers' spring training facility at Camelback Ranch. I'm assuming it is. If that's the case, the White Sox share that facility with the Dodgers.

So how come all the White Sox Heritage cards I've pulled are action shots that are relatively true to the '74 Topps theme? (But all those uniform styles didn't exist in '74).

Conceivably I could be stuck with the same Dodger images in Heritage until it starts covering the 1980s in six years. That would suck because these Heritage sets coming up are all of my childhood sets, I would like at least a few interesting Dodger cards.

No more vehicles in the background -- unless there's going to be a card like the '73 Alvarado.