Q: Are We Not Men?

A:

For those that need a hint: (link)

And for those that got it already: (link)

2010 Topps design: I kinda miss Upper Deck

I know this is silly, really, but after seeing the Pujols card from 2010 Topps on Mario’s site (and can we please get other players on preview cards? I feel like I see that guy every time a new set design is released), I really thought, ‘Man, I miss Upper Deck.’

Not because the design is bad. It’s not.  But it’s not great, either. And in years past when I was disappointed by one set, usually the other one would lift me up and get me excited for the new year.  But not for 2010.  This is it.  It’s meh at it’s finest, and it’s going to set the tone for next year’s releases.

Too bad.

Topps 2010:  The only one!

1994 Fleer hobby box review

When I posted that John Kruk card all those many weeks ago, it was supposed to be a tease that more 1994 Fleer cards were coming.  Finally, here they be.

I’ve always toyed with the idea of picking up another hobby box of this stuff.  Not that the first one wowed me or anything like that.  But when I look through the lens of fifteen years, I really like the way these look.

Take, for example, this Julio Franco.  Beautiful card.  Franco has been in the majors for twelve years already when this card came out, and would last another thirteen (Japan included) with various teams.  If there’s a “Who’s the oldest player in baseball to…?” question, chances are Julio’s your man.

And since I’m a Reds fan, here’s his connection:  His two run double in the 1990 All Star game, the one that made him MVP?  Hit off Rob Dibble, Cincinnati Red.

For those not familiar, the back, featuring Mitch Webster running for (or from, I suppose) something.  Godzilla, maybe?  Who knows.  The point is, it’s a great design, too, with the head shot the focus and the body faded out behind I believe at most 12 years of stats.  I defy you Dodgers fan to name a “key hit” or “key defensive play” form 1993 that the card text refers to.

What I remember Fleer most for from 1994 is an insert in every pack.  I’m not going to show any of them because none of them have really withstood the test of time.  Had I pulled a Smoke and Heat insert, maybe.  But I didn’t.  Most of the inserts feature a grayish brown border that’s an awful choice for cards.

Instead, since I love the main set so much, I want to focus on that.  There were a few oddities with this one.  First off, I barely sniffed a card numbered under 100.  In fact, the bulk of the box featured cards 200 and up, which would be frustrating for a set collector if I didn’t already have a good chunk of the first 200 cards.

The second oddity involves the Reds.  Before I go further, though, I still got a childlike thrill when I pulled this guy:

Barry Larkin.  Pure awesome.  Or should I say soon to be Hall of Famer Barry Larkin?  He’s gotta be a lock, right? .295 career average, almost 200 HRs and close to 400 stolen bases, World Champ in 1990 and MVP in 1995, all from a position not known for those kind of things.  Oh, he’s gotta be in there.

Barry was one of 25 Reds I pulled.  25!  There are 27 Reds in the whole set, and I almost pulled the whole freakin’ team.  And I knew every single one of them.  Except this guy:

Jerry’s Baseball Reference transaction section is filled with “Signed by’s” followed a few months later with “Released by’s.”  He is one of the only Reds my wife actually pointed out to me as we opened this box.

If you’re interested, it’s a 540 count box, with 504 base cards and 36 inserts.  I pulled 165 cards that I needed for my set and now have an extra 259 duplicates to trade, if you’re interested.  There were 80 damaged cards, mostly because the cards UV coating stuck them together in corners and edges that stuck out got bent.  Still, for the price I paid, it was well worth it.

I’ll have a few more of my favorites over the next few posts.  Whether it takes me a week or another month, I’ll do it, gosh darn it.  You should hold me to it.

Returning to the past

So I went dark for a while.  It’s going to happen.  I’m honestly surprised the first run lasted as long as it did because I could feel myself getting burned out.  Not with the blogging part, but with the hobby itself.  And when you aren’t all that ramped up about your topic, it’s awfully hard to write.

Sure, I could have pushed through it, but it was probably best I just stopped for a while for a number of reasons.  And I’d look for posts to continue at a more irregular pace for quite a while.  Until then, how about some cards?

Ah, what might have been.  In December of 1934, The Cincinnati Reds purchased Mize from the Cardinals where he was blocked by Ripper Collins.  In April of 1935, the Reds sent him back to St. Louis after he failed a physical.  Mize recovers and goes on to lead the league in home runs 4 times and hit over .300 for his career.

Quite possibly the most boring of the Turkey Reds this year.  I know he’s a good pitcher and all, but I wouldn’t be upset if I never pulled another Carlos card again.  There’s just something about the guy that rubs me the wrong way.  Maybe it’s because I’m good friends with a Gatorade cooler.

That’s what I got for now.  Time permitting, I’ll get back to the wantlists soon.

John Kruk was a big, big man

2009 Allen and Ginter wants up

In the last bit of free time I may have for the next four days, I’ve updated my wantlists to reflect both the rejection from Upper Deck and my Allen and Ginter wantlists.

I was pretty lucky with my two boxes of A&G, getting minimal duplicates for the set.  My National Pride and Sketch cards overlapped quite a bit, though.  I’m not sure what insert sets I’m going to chase.  Probably the Creatures of Legend, Myth and Terror set as well as the low lying fruit of the National Prides.  If I ever get to the end of those, I’ll contemplate the minis and the rest of the stuff.  Except the Sketch cards.  I must be the only guy on the planet who’s not a fan of those.

Anyway, thanks for any help in advance.  Like I said, I’ll be limited on free time for the next few days, so I may not get back to you.  But I will get back to you.  I promise.

Victory is mine!

I’m a little impatient to get my son into collecting.  At two days away from 3, it’s clearly too early, but when we were looking at potential birthday gifts with him, I showed him a blaster of hockey cards and talked of opening it with him.  He enthusiastically shook his head up and down, so I grabbed it.  And a pack of Spongebob cards, too, just in case.  I was hoping for a 1:12 seeded sponge card.

The blaster was 2009-10 Upper Deck Victory.  It’s a set I never thought I’d collect, but now with a kid I can see the draw.  It’s cheap and relatively easy to put together.  $10 for a 66 card blaster?  I’ll bite.

When we finally got to the blaster box, my son could have cared less.  The Spongebob cards went over a little better mainly because of the sticker insert it contained.  No sponge card, though.  I can’t decide if I should get him a box of the stuff.

On to the hockey, and here’s what infuriates me about Upper Deck and why I will not miss them in the baseball world:  when it comes to hockey, Upper Deck is pretty much locked in.  I don’t like that almost every set has SPs in it, but the designs in general look nice, and, perhaps most important of all, when you open the cards, they don’t come out damaged. They release a fairly solid line of products each year.

It’s honestly the main reason I’m not to concerned about Topps exclusivity.  Upper Deck still pounds the crap out of hockey and does it very well, even with no real competition in sight.  They want to produce great cards so the NHL will stay with them and them alone.  And the NHL gets a quality product and has no reason to invite In the Game, Topps, or anyone else in the door.

The other thing I love is that it’s I don’t have 40 different sets to choose from.  Without looking, I’m guessing without adding it up there’s 12-15 releases in hockey – 2-3 low end, a bunch of mid stuff, and 2-3 high end.  I can sit in the middle and pick and choose what I want.

Or I can go low end and see what’s there.  Since you are all clamoring for Victory, here’s a look:

Did I say 66 cards?  I meant 67.  One oversized card in each blaster box.  This Ranger fan is pretty pleased that this was his. If only he didn’t have to stand on his head each game to give the Rangers a shot.  I’m not sold on the scoring for this season, either.

The base card.  Really nice looking, but I cheated by picking the best of the bunch.  The only complaint I have is the white space.  There’s too much of it.  Maybe a team logo somewhere?  And while my son wasn’t into the cards overall, he did like the shark on Setoguchi’s chest. It’s a start.

The rookies, seeded 1:2.  It’d be more kid friendly if these were just regular cards, but I guess Upper Deck figures that most parents foot the bill for their kid’s hobby, so why not fleece ‘em if you can.

Hockey’s Future gives Petruzalek a B rating, which means he could crack the third line if he’s lucky.  And he’s signed a contract to play in Switzerland this year.  So much for this card paying for my son’s college.

And the backs.  My favorite thing is the pronunciation guide under the players name.  That’s mih-kigh-EHL gra-BAWV-skee to you.  Otherwise, nothing too exciting.  The head shot is lifted from the shot on the front, and there’s only room for stats from the last five seasons.  Not what I wanted from the Mats Sundin card I got.

So after not wanting anything to do with Victory releases in the past, I’m pleasantly surprised with this set.  I’m not sure if I’ll keep going with these or just trade them away and try again when my son turns four next year.  For this year, it may serve as a nice distraction for the next 48 days until opening night.

Dear Upper Deck

Whatever you do next year with baseball cards, if you release more of the boxes of 75 cards plus 3 starquest inserts that I found at the toy store today, do not use freakin’ shrinkwrap to secure the cards, okay?  Because square corners + plastic shrink wrap = a whole lot of bent corners.  And how are you supposed to open a block of 75 cards that have been tightly shrinkwrapped together without inflicting damage?

You don’t really, that’s how.

Thanks,

Hand Collated

Where I’ve been

You may have noticed a whole lot of silence from the blog recently. Nothing major, just some vacation time to collect my thoughts. It’s actually quite nice to not be caught up in blogging and the whole Topps baseball exclusive thing. From what I’ve seen, though, it seems baseball card bloggers are quite a pessimistic bunch.

Upper Deck’s been doing it with hockey for years. Sure it’s not my favorite thing, but it makes it easier for me as a set collector to chose what I want to collect. The industry doesn’t get as much money from me, though, and I think the Topps exclusive will see me saving even more. Good for me.

Either way, the industry will go on. Topps had ups and downs even before 1981 when Fleer and Donruss entered the scene. Topps will continue to be challenged to put out good product because they want to make money. Putting out crap will lead to their downfall. I wonder if Upper Deck’s recent history of misses led in part to this change.

Anyway, I’m not gone forever, and I’m still working on wantlists when I get a chance. I’ll have more later. I hope.

So I got me some of them ‘89 Upper Deck cards

One of the tougher aspects of blogging without time is that you sometimes plan out a post, upload images, and get ready to talk about the cards and then find yourself forced to be doing something else instead. Then a week later you stumble back on the images and wonder what you were going to talk about in the first place.

For example, I’ve got some 1989 Upper Deck cards that I’ve scanned and added to a post, but have no idea why I chose some of the ones I did. I know the overall idea was to celebrate the fact that my 89 Upper Deck wantlists have gone from “inquire” (meaning I needed a heckuva lot) to an actual list. That’s gotta make things easier on you generous folks, right? And if you are working on your set, then maybe we could, you know, trade or something.

Here’s a few of my more recent acquisitions in the quest for 89 Upper Deck:

So young.  So small.  He really seemed to bulk up in the later years, didn’t he?

I like the look on Darrell’s face here.  One of quiet emotion.  One of a man who went from leading the league in home runs in 1985 to struggling to top .200 and prove he still deserves a chance to play in 1988.  One who’s just been told his only option for baseball in 1989 was the then lowly Atlanta Braves.

Why did I scan “the Kip?”  I have no earthly idea.  Seems like a waste not to include it now.

This obviously would give me reason to mention Rickey’s HOF speech.  Instead I’ll mention how jealous of my brother I was back in the 80’s when he had a Rickey rookie and I didn’t.  And when I think 1981 Topps, his card is the first image that springs to mind.  That was a great looking card.

If you don’t have a Dale Murphy reverse negative card, you can write a letter to Richard McWilliam and he may print one up for you.  And if you haven’t read the book Card Sharks, you probably should.  The chapter on Bob Eubanks is classic.

Two cards that show players at the height of exertion.  I had no idea Yount was so ripped.  Yount is also the answer to the trivia question “Who is the first player elected to the hall in a Brewer’s uniform?”  If you win a free drink with that, poor a little out for me.

And finally, one of my favorites of the whole set, Orlando Mercado.  A man so busy playing 18 games in 1988 that Upper Deck only had one shot to capture his image on film, so they had two photographers snap two different angle shots of him at the same time.  Or perhaps they got a wax statue of the guy instead.  Wikipedia says Mercado, “became a local star for his play in the Portland Beavers Triple-A franchise in the late 1980s,”  but doesn’t back that claim up.  Anyone know why?

So there you have a few too many ‘89 Upper Deck cards.  If you need a few more, send me your wantlists and I’ll be happy to look.