Auto Collection: Milton Bradley Diamond King

Milton Bradley was quite an anomaly. When his head is on right he is possibly one of the most dangerous hitters in the game. Unfortunately, "peace of mind" is not his forte. I can hope he can find a way to turn his troubles around.

Here is a 2005 Diamond King autographed card, numbered to 100.

Dodger Gypsy Queen Inserts

Here are some of the insert cards I recently received from a case group break. I got all of the possible Dodgers available, and a bonus bronze border paper frame parallel card of Duke Snider, below. It uses the exact same photo as the base card, but comes with a fancy bronze frame, numbered out of 999. Click on any of the pics below to enlarge.

Here are the two Dodgers in "The Great Ones" insert set.

Pee Wee Reese

Jackie Robinson

How weird is it that they use a Adrian Beltre photo in a Dodger uniform? I guess since this is a "Home Run Heroes" insert card, and the last time he was a major home run threat was when he wore "Blue" might explain it.

We Could Lose Our Best Players

The likelihood of this is so far remote it's probably not even worth mentioning, but since Bloomberg brought it up... well then, here it is.

Los Angeles Dodgers players could file for free agency if the team can’t make payroll, Major League Baseball players union spokesman Greg Bouris said in an e-mail.

The Los Angeles Times reported two days ago that the Dodgers don’t have enough cash to make payroll at the end of May. Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney declined to comment on whether MLB would step in and provide the money.

Well, there ya go. McCourt has so screwed up this thing so much that we could potentially lose Kemp, Ethier, Kershaw, Billingsley, and the like for nothing. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have the US Senate able and ready to bail out his high leverage, high spending ways. Fortunately for us, we have MLB to cover our backs.

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen: Dodger Base

I just picked up my bounty from a recent Gypsy Queen group case break I participated in last week and I'm as happy as a clam. I'll post the big "hits" I got later on- they are pretty damn good, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here are the Dodger base cards.

I have to add that I really like the look of these cards. The drawings are great, and some of the inserts aren't too bad either. The backs are lacking in substance- I wish they added some stats (or maybe a cartoon) to fill out the reverse. As you can see there is only a short biography. As always, click on any of the pics to enlarge.

#4, Jackie Robinson

#15, Matt Kemp

#35 Pee Wee Reese

#59, Duke Snider

#66, Sandy Koufax

#87, Clayton Kershaw

#123, Ted Lilly

#183 Rafael Furcal

#237 Roy Campanella

#257 James Loney

#273, Chad Billingsley

#292, Andre Ethier

#310, Jon Garland