Heritage Takes an Encore

"Bringing Back The 1968 Topps Design... Again" 

Whether we like it or not, Topps has decided to extend the Topps Heritage set the past few years to more than 700 cards. For someone who is so fed up with the flagship set that I may as well treat these as the de facto Topps cards to get for the year, you would think I would want more, more, more of these. (And to that, I say, bring back Topps Total!)

Nevertheless, I picked up packages of 2017 Topps Heritage High Number in three configuration options: a fat/rack/jumbo retail pack (20 cards), a hanger box (35 cards), and a blaster box (a bunch of packs and the smug satisfaction of getting a bonus... pack... I guess?) As usual, it's more of the same. Players that changed uniforms, rookies and players that were just left out for whatever reason comprise the smaller 225 card set. At least there are only 1/4 as many short prints to track down this time.

This is a really fantastic looking card, except for the subject. I would have loved to pull a card of someone with Yankees pinstripes if it wasn't this chump. This is one of three cards in this post that I'm not planning on keeping, in case there's any interest. See if you can find 'em all!

This is my first Cody Bellinger card. I'm about as impressed as Bellinger looks.

There are more Game-style inserts in High Numbers, but this time there's only the Target exclusive rookies. They started over with the numbering of these at 1 again, which I'm sure won't be confusing at all to anyone.

David Ortiz retired after last season, but that didn't stop Topps from cramming another Big Papi card into America's already bloated snack hole. This one is up for grabs, because I actually pulled two of these.

Like previous High Number efforts, Rookie Performers are back. Nothing in this set is probably going to be as expensive or tough to get a copy of as Clayton Kershaw's Rookie Performers card from the 2008 set, but that's okay I suppose. (I still need five 2008 Rookie Performers cards, though I fortunately have Kershaw and Scherzer. Votto, on the other hand...)

Short print, blue sky, blue cap. Lots of blue skies on these cards.

Mike Leake, also a short print, was the only Cardinal I pulled in this entire exercise. Of course, he's not even on the team anymore.

I've seen a lot of Manny Margot cards in 2017, which must be why I could have sworn that he was also included in Target's rookie Game cards from the first set. He was not.

Here's another SP and some blue sky.

Gift Ngoepe is the first African-born player to make the big leagues, and it took him a long time to get there. He first appeared in the WBC and the minor leagues back in 2009. At 27, he's still young yet. I guess that's easy for me to say.

Now and Then are just generic highlight insert cards. This is Buster Posey, not that you'd know by anything printed on the card.

This is not the character from Mad Men, sadly.

If you guessed that this is card number three that's up for grabs in this post, you would be absolutely correct. The Venn Diagram of Red Sox fans and Panda fans probably does not intersect at all, so I might have a bit of difficulty moving this one.

We end with a very talented pitcher that Seattle coughed up. Short print. Blue sky.

The set want list will be updated momentarily. I do need all Cardinals, still, as I often do.

More Heritage, Finally?

Yeah, these aren't so bad.

It had been a good while since I'd busted open a blaster of anything, so a trip to the red bullseye store on Friday made sense to me. I had saved my coupon from an earlier box of something or other and was able to score one of these 2014 Topps Heritage boxes for less than $15. Not bad. Rather than scan a bunch of cards that I'm not trading anyway, I just thought I'd show off a few things that caught my interest.

Jon Jay has taken the early lead on the center field job that many were expecting Peter Bourjos to lock up. Bourjos can't hit but is very speedy with the glove. Jay can hit at times but his defense can leave something to be desired. Can't we just glue them together to make a Frankenplayer and call it good?

Here is my ("on average") one per box Target quasi-parallel. Kimbrel has struggled a bit this year for essentially the first time in his career.

Dodgers fans are hoping the Koufax/Kershaw comparisons end somewhere before Kershaw gets his career cut drastically short due to injury. I definitely dig the diamond design.

This card is more '60s than the '60s themselves.

Chrome cards are again a very difficult pull this year according to the odds, so this was nice to see. It's also up for grabs, as are virtually any of the Chrome cards from Heritage because I have to at least put some restraints on my collecting madness.

I was also suckered in to buying a blister pack, mostly due to not having seen what the exclusive inserts would look like. For $9.49, you get three packs and 3 of these black border Chrome-less Chrome inserts. Don't tell anyone I said this, but this design suits the Pirates well. I also snagged Francisco Liriano and non-Pirate Max Scherzer.

Here's another Chrome card. Two short prints came out of this blister as well, beating the odds.

Shockingly, in addition to the (1:31) Chrome pull, I also pulled a Chrome Refractor (1:49) of the one known as Aroldis. Crazy stuff. My bang-to-buck ratio was off the charts with this one. Like Desmond and Verlander, this is also up for grabs.

More '60s. Before the draft existed, I just assume that the Yankees got first crack at every single player and the rest of the teams had to line up for table scraps or something.

That was quite an ending! Here's one of the two cards I can somewhat bear to look at in the World Series subset.

I'll get to that want list eventually. I already have doubles, folks. Sad to say.