Ugly But Useful

As a follow-up to last night's post about a giant package I received from The Sandlot, I thought I'd come back around and show off the meat of the trade, which allowed Joe to dump a massive amount of cards from a set nobody seems to love. I got into collecting Bowman Heritage cards mostly because the 2007 set, it's last to date, was still everywhere in stores and was really affordable. Heritage cards are usually thick and "cardboardy", and stand in such stark contrast to everything else that is released now that I can't help but gravitate towards them even though they can be so gimmicky. I've slowly acquired cards from previous Bowman Heritage sets, and after picking up a bunch of packs of the 2006 stuff at a card show, I felt compelled to put together a want list. That's where The Sandlot came in, and now I really feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Casey Janssen is an under-the-radar closer for the Blue Jays that I thought I'd be all sorts of clever about and pick him for nearly all of my fantasy teams. The Jays added a ton of players and I thought that wins would come with those acquisitions. They haven't really gotten there yet, but Janssen is still their closer so it's not yet a total calamity.

Getting back to this particular set, though - I'm struck by how ugly it is. Is this the real reason that Bowman Heritage ran its course and no longer exists, or is it just because they ran out of designs? I'd love to see Topps bring back Bowman Heritage (and ditch Gypsy Queen at the very least) just so I could collecting something new and cardboardy again. Surely they could come up with a mild tweak on an old design, or perhaps use something that Bowman did once that's a little more obscure.

Speaking of ugly, I don't miss the old Devil Rays uniforms. Evan Longoria's prospect card is one of the key cards in this set, so it was great to be able to pick it up in a trade.

In addition to the foil parallels that will never scan well, there are mini parallels all over this thing. The Cards just finished up a four game series with the Phillies, and I have to admit to being a bit surprised that Chase Utley looks to be finally back to 100%. If he was a Cardinal, he'd be due for an oblique strain right about now, but he's not. And, allegedly, he's what's known as a "gamer".

Joe also tossed in a healthy portion of 2006 Turkey Red set, which is always a treat. Put side by side with the Bowman Heritage set from the same year, I'd choose this stuff every time, even if it's thinner and less cardboardy. I just feel like a lot of care was put into each individual card in the Turkey Red sets, even if they aren't all winners.

Retired players just look better on Turkey Red than their present day counterparts. I never really got to see Palmer pitch as he was in full underwear pitchman mode by the time I was hitting my formative years.