I can't exactly say that I was ready for 2010 cards to be out and I have definitely been underwhelmed by what I've seen around The Internet so far. Still, it's really hard to resist buying some brand spanking new packs because it's a sign that a new baseball season is not far off, and there are some brand new images of your favorite and least favorite players slapped on small pieces of what passes for cardboard these days. (Well, those images were all snapped sometime in 2009 if not earlier, but I won't dwell on that.) I picked up three Target retail packs last Saturday as well as a jumbo pack. This will be image heavy, so I'll leave the jumbo pack for the next post and just talk about the 3 single packs here. We can compare notes later or something.Pack 1:
49 - Jorge de la Rosa (Well, how is that for an underwhelming start to an underwhelming set as far as first impressions go? I won't diss the Rockies or anything, but this guy has a career 5.18 ERA.)
275 - Chris Coghlan (Is this an "award winners" card? Does he have a regular base card? If not, then where is his Rookie Cup? Did he not make the Topps Rookie All-Star team?)
228 - Chris Pettit (RC) (The new rookie card logo basically looks like the MLB Network logo.)
120 - Jorge Posada (Horizontal cards seem to be fewer and farther between in this set, but this one looks nice.)
CMT-30 - Eddie Murray The Cards Your Mom Threw Out (There are so many things wrong with this insert sent, and the name just scratches the surface. If you're seriously going to call a set what they called this - I will never repeat it, by the way - then you should actually highlight cards that someone's mother might have thrown out which resulted in tragic consequences. Even if they really wanted to represent every year Topps cards were made, don't you think they could have picked the most valuable card from each set? If they wanted to just highlight a player who did something noteworthy for each year, which is apparently what they did here, then they should have called this thing something else! Also, just to confuse people, apparently there are more rare "original back" versions of these.)
TMC-6 - Some Redemption Thing (And then there's this. I don't really even know the full story behind this, but I'm hoping that it means that I will end up with a truckload of 1989 Bip Roberts cards on my porch if I buy enough packs.)
FCTTT20 - Adam Jones First Class Ticket to ToppsTown (AKA Topps Town Gold - I thought this was the regular Topps Town design this year, but the subtle gold shading in the background is meant for the more rare version of these cards. They're better than last year's which was better than the previous year's - where they were basically a glorified Topps of the Class-style filler card. Which brings me to something else... are we finally done with those David Wright filler cards? Hooray!...?)
48 - Joey Votto (I think there was a general focus on making everything more easy-to-read this time around, except for the legalese mumbo-jumbo which seems to become more and more involved as the years go on. Eventually, each baseball card back will just be a standard boiler plate with a background image of David Wright. I have noticed that Topps probably laid off most of the copy writing staff as many cards seem to favor the inclusion of minor league stats over a blurb about the player.)
10 - Clayton Kershaw
167 - San Diego Padres (The Padres haven't had a lot to celebrate about recently, so this is somewhat amusing even for a casual Padres fan as I claim to be. There are also team Franchise History cards, which I originally was annoyed to hear about until I realized that they effectively replaced manager cards. The managers are now pictured on the backs of the regular team cards.)
TR4 - Albert Pujols Turkey Red (Nice! This was my very most sought after non-serial numbered/relic/auto/whatever card from the 2010 Topps line and I pulled it in only my second pack. In case you were wondering, and you probably know me well enough by now to know this if you are actually reading this, I am planning on collecting the 2010 Turkey Red inserts. That's a major reason why I can justify spending money on these packs in the first place.)
- Dizzy Dean Red Back (Red Back cards in the 1951 Topps style are this year's Target exclusive insert. What I did not know is that, unlike when they did these inserts in 2003, they are miniature-sized. At least, this one is. I scanned this against the background of the dummy/loss prevention detector card at the end of the pack to show that it is smaller in size because blogger does weird things with image sizes.)
TTT7 - Josh Hamilton Topps Town (This is the regular Topps Town design if you want to compare and contrast. I guess every Topps Town card depicts a tiny David Wright base card in the lower right hand corner.)
143 - Omar Vizquel (Nice looking card. Vizquel has officially achieved the Tiny Stats on the Back status from having now entered his fourth decade of play. Or he will soon, anyway. Wow!)
304 - Adam LaRoche (A pretty nice shot of LaRoche here. The GINORMOUS team logo interferes with the player's photo on a vast majority of the cards, unfortunately.)
106 - Chris Carpenter / Tim Lincecum / Jair Jurrjens NL ERA Leaders (This is a traditional look, which is good.)
HOTG6 - President Taft Attends Opening Day - History of the Game (This is kind of a throwback to the historical inserts that we saw in 2007 and 2008, I suppose. I think we'll see a lot of this stuff because of the apparent success of the American Heritage line.)
WTWY-DM - Daniel McCutchen When They Were Young (It seems like the only subjects I've seen for this insert set are rookies... who are already young! You may as well call the insert set When They Were Young and just show a current picture and leave it at that. This isn't interesting to me at all because I have no idea who Daniel McCutchen is. Don't the Pirates already have a McCutchen? How many McCutchens are you allowed to have on your team?)
I just scanned this image for Erin.
49 - Jorge de la Rosa (Well, how is that for an underwhelming start to an underwhelming set as far as first impressions go? I won't diss the Rockies or anything, but this guy has a career 5.18 ERA.)2 - Buster Posey (RC) (This guy is kind of a big deal, maybe?)
114 - Chris Iannetta
275 - Chris Coghlan (Is this an "award winners" card? Does he have a regular base card? If not, then where is his Rookie Cup? Did he not make the Topps Rookie All-Star team?)
228 - Chris Pettit (RC) (The new rookie card logo basically looks like the MLB Network logo.)
120 - Jorge Posada (Horizontal cards seem to be fewer and farther between in this set, but this one looks nice.)
CMT-30 - Eddie Murray The Cards Your Mom Threw Out (There are so many things wrong with this insert sent, and the name just scratches the surface. If you're seriously going to call a set what they called this - I will never repeat it, by the way - then you should actually highlight cards that someone's mother might have thrown out which resulted in tragic consequences. Even if they really wanted to represent every year Topps cards were made, don't you think they could have picked the most valuable card from each set? If they wanted to just highlight a player who did something noteworthy for each year, which is apparently what they did here, then they should have called this thing something else! Also, just to confuse people, apparently there are more rare "original back" versions of these.)
TMC-6 - Some Redemption Thing (And then there's this. I don't really even know the full story behind this, but I'm hoping that it means that I will end up with a truckload of 1989 Bip Roberts cards on my porch if I buy enough packs.)
FCTTT20 - Adam Jones First Class Ticket to ToppsTown (AKA Topps Town Gold - I thought this was the regular Topps Town design this year, but the subtle gold shading in the background is meant for the more rare version of these cards. They're better than last year's which was better than the previous year's - where they were basically a glorified Topps of the Class-style filler card. Which brings me to something else... are we finally done with those David Wright filler cards? Hooray!...?)17 - Dexter Fowler
62 - Kevin Millwood
91 - Erik Bedard
Pack 2:
48 - Joey Votto (I think there was a general focus on making everything more easy-to-read this time around, except for the legalese mumbo-jumbo which seems to become more and more involved as the years go on. Eventually, each baseball card back will just be a standard boiler plate with a background image of David Wright. I have noticed that Topps probably laid off most of the copy writing staff as many cards seem to favor the inclusion of minor league stats over a blurb about the player.)303 - Chris Snyder
29 - Aubrey Huff
222 - Curtis Granderson (Tigers version - there's a photoshopped Yankees variation out there supposedly.)
10 - Clayton Kershaw
167 - San Diego Padres (The Padres haven't had a lot to celebrate about recently, so this is somewhat amusing even for a casual Padres fan as I claim to be. There are also team Franchise History cards, which I originally was annoyed to hear about until I realized that they effectively replaced manager cards. The managers are now pictured on the backs of the regular team cards.)
TR4 - Albert Pujols Turkey Red (Nice! This was my very most sought after non-serial numbered/relic/auto/whatever card from the 2010 Topps line and I pulled it in only my second pack. In case you were wondering, and you probably know me well enough by now to know this if you are actually reading this, I am planning on collecting the 2010 Turkey Red inserts. That's a major reason why I can justify spending money on these packs in the first place.)
- Dizzy Dean Red Back (Red Back cards in the 1951 Topps style are this year's Target exclusive insert. What I did not know is that, unlike when they did these inserts in 2003, they are miniature-sized. At least, this one is. I scanned this against the background of the dummy/loss prevention detector card at the end of the pack to show that it is smaller in size because blogger does weird things with image sizes.)
TTT7 - Josh Hamilton Topps Town (This is the regular Topps Town design if you want to compare and contrast. I guess every Topps Town card depicts a tiny David Wright base card in the lower right hand corner.)186 - Andrew Bailey
192 - Andruw Jones
26 - Zach Duke
Pack 3:
143 - Omar Vizquel (Nice looking card. Vizquel has officially achieved the Tiny Stats on the Back status from having now entered his fourth decade of play. Or he will soon, anyway. Wow!)183 - Jonathan Papelbon
235 - Neftali Feliz
304 - Adam LaRoche (A pretty nice shot of LaRoche here. The GINORMOUS team logo interferes with the player's photo on a vast majority of the cards, unfortunately.)159 - Vernon Wells
106 - Chris Carpenter / Tim Lincecum / Jair Jurrjens NL ERA Leaders (This is a traditional look, which is good.)33 - Adam Moore (RC)
HOTG6 - President Taft Attends Opening Day - History of the Game (This is kind of a throwback to the historical inserts that we saw in 2007 and 2008, I suppose. I think we'll see a lot of this stuff because of the apparent success of the American Heritage line.)
WTWY-DM - Daniel McCutchen When They Were Young (It seems like the only subjects I've seen for this insert set are rookies... who are already young! You may as well call the insert set When They Were Young and just show a current picture and leave it at that. This isn't interesting to me at all because I have no idea who Daniel McCutchen is. Don't the Pirates already have a McCutchen? How many McCutchens are you allowed to have on your team?)
I just scanned this image for Erin.TTT13 - Ryan Howard Topps Town
190 - Pablo Sandoval
230 - Jonathan Broxton
Aside from the Cardinals cards, all of these and most future 2010 Topps cards will be up for grabs, including the non-Turkey Red inserts. At an average of apparently 3 per pack, there's certainly plenty of those to go around.
THERE's the Kershaw card. First time I've seen it.
ReplyDeleteThe Coghlan card is the award card. There's another Coghlan base card, which I just pulled. I wondered the same thing on my blog until I bought some more packs Tuesday.
question: when I look at all of the checklists online there is a huge gap between card 192 and 239. Did topps forget how to count, are the checklist makers missing something, or am I missing something?
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