Old and New Business on a Pretty Good Good Friday.

   First things first, you will have noticed that the header has changed, I figured the blog could use a spruce and little more color plus the other photo was not a good example of social distancing.  While I am not sure if the new one has the guys 6 feet apart, it is still a better graphic for this day and age. 

A couple packages have come to Starting Nine central recently, one was from a new reader eager to share; Tom from The Angels in Order looked at one of my my wantlists and satisfied some missing base Mets, especially from series 2 of 2018 Topps, from which I purchased exactly zero packs:

One of the last posts I did before I disappeared was a harsh yet fair critique of the 2018 Topps design (and what they could have done about it).  I stand by my thoughts 1000% though I must say, those vertical photos of d'Arnaud and Thor looks great regardless of their borderless nature.  I never did get to say what I thought of the 2019 look, but I liked it more than most; 1982 Topps is one of the first sets I remember and it definitely invokes that look.  Anyway, I have a bunch of Angels stuff to go out to reciprocate these so thanks Tom!

The other came from Nate of The Bucs Stop Here, who read about my glut of 2020 Heritage and wanted to trade.  I sent him the Alvarez/Aquino rookie I had and he sent me some Mets that will be far more appreciated around here:

It may not look it, but that Granderson is shiny foil and rookie cup cards are always appreciated especially when needed. My completed trades column to the right has been updated.  Thanks Nate!   Also in the right column, you will see the "followers" and "blog roll" - if you aren't following me, you may as well click on the button now and rectify that.  Also, if you want to be on the blog roll, just let me know and we'll do the old quid pro quo (and not even get in trouble for it).  I usually don't worry about such things much, but with the blog being dormant for so long, I figure I'd like to see more readers and know who they are, especially if they're new.  Hell, I have now posted more in the last month or so than in any of the last four years.  I am also pleased to see that one of the few bright spots of this current lockdown situation we all find ourselves in is that a few blogs that had gone down have started up again.  Let's hear it for the blogosphere!!!

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A few belated thanks need to also be delivered to some altruistic displays of cardboard giving.  Last November, Jeff from 2 by 3 Heroes sent a random email to me verifying my address.  This email had no other information whatsoever but I told him I hadn't budged, address-wise.  A few days later, a package arrived full of goodies:

I am pretty sure it was this long forgotten post that inspired his delivery, but full of Firefly cards it was.  He even gave it an international header card.  There was also a bunch of Mets cards in there too and it is rare that they are relegated to second tier in a scan, yet here we are.  Firefly is streaming on Hulu right now and we all have nothing but time on our hands, so I suggest highly that if you have never seen it to go watch it.  And hell, now is as good a time as any to watch it again if you have seen it.  (belated) Thanks Jeff!

While I was irregularly (then not) blogging, one person I kept trading with was venerable veteran Night Owl Cards.  We have probably sent 40-50 packages to each other in the last 10 years or so and because we know what each other collect so well, we just kept doing it regardless of online status.  At one point last year I scanned this batch:

Matt Harvey?  Sheesh, this is old.  Remember that guy?

These are some fabulous Mets cards and inserts, then there was this vein of oddities (from NO at least):

The note answered my questions when it said "I didn't suddenly become a Bo-Chro collector, the cards just kind of landed in my lap."  It is probably the strangeness of the rookies in there and the gloriously dismissive abbreviation that made me scan them for future use in the first place.  Well, thanks as always Night Owl, I already have plenty in my pile for your next package.  I even looked at your wantlists for a change.

And speaking of piles, lastly I need to clear up a few unresolved trades.  I keep the outgoing cards on my bookshelf close to my mailing stuff and right now there is a bunch of things I need to figure out.

A few, like those Orioles and Blue Jays, I just need to verify addresses before I send them out.  But I also have a rare Barry Larkin insert that I can't recall whom I was going to swap with.  I also have a bunch of blue parallels, do you collect blue parallels?  Let me know, I think those are for you.  I also have a couple of 1990 UD Marquis Grissom rookies that I know there is a blogger who wants to collect 1000 of them or something but I can't remember who it is.  Is it you? Do you know who it is and if he's done collecting his grand of Grissom?  Please leave a comment or drop me a line. 

So now it's back to the grand Spring Cleaning, in between playing with stuff I find of course...

Ride The Waterslide.

       Seeing as I have little to no interest in who wins today's Big Game (aka Super Bowl - sue me!) it seems as good a time as any to break out the new Topps.  I stopped in two Target stores only to stare at bare shelves full of old, picked-through 2017 product and it was only serendipity that led me to cut across a parking lot to a Toys R Us to go looking for the new stuff.

There I found blasters and hanger boxes and seeing as it was Friday and I had some money burning the proverbial hole in my pocket, I bought one of each. 

I assume Topps has Mike Trout under lifetime contract since we get to look at his mug on the packs yet again and I am surprised Aaron Judge isn't here - maybe series 2.  One thing I am amazed at is the now incredible amount of odds and legalese that accompanies baseball cards.  It literally takes up the entire back of the hanger box:

Enough of the packaging, let's take a look at the cards. When this set was previewed last fall people immediately seized upon the 3D ribbon on the bottom of the graphic and referred to it as the Water Slide Set.  I think it is Night Owl that keeps track of "official" nicknames but this one was a no brainer.  If only it twisted in on itself a little, it could have been the Mobius Strip Set, which would be as good a name as the Psychedelic Gravestones IMO.  I'll have more on the design in a later post, though this is a great improvement over the last couple years.

As the name of my blog hints at, I tend to view sports cards nine at a time and this is the page I made from the 20(!) doubles I got in 172 cards.  Since I bought 2 different boxes I guess that isn't terrible collation but hardly optimal for the set builder (full disclosure, I am not building the set).  The real disappointment was that I only got 3(!) Mets cards out of all those cards.  All things considered, statistically, I should have gotten 5 or 6.  Luckily Amed Rosario was 2 of those cards.

These are some more cards that are staying in the collection: rookie cups and World Series cards, and of course a couple of my birthday boys, Garrett Richards and Yoan Moncada. Not to mention a couple of dudes that are tastefully named. The rest are for player collections or other such things.

This is just about all the cards that are staying in the collection this time around.  Not an inspirational haul but part of the joy of this time of year is the opening of the new flagship as a reminder that spring and the season are just around the corner.  Good thing to since it is cold as fuck this weekend and this Superb Owl has me rooting for the meteor strike.  In the name of completeness, let's look at the inserts that Topps inundates us with:

This is Year 18 of the gold parallels, they are now old enough to vote.  I am always fond of the shiny and that McCullers is a rainbow foil parallel; alas my scanner didn't quite do it justice.  Topps has a new contest that is convoluted as it is uninspired.  It involves scratching things and home runs hit on certain dates and in the end winning a trip to the 2019 Home Run Derby.  The fine print is what you're going to get is an all expense paid trip to Cleveland.  Wonderful.  Also seen here are the opposite ends of the insert spectrum, the Superstar Sensations which features players in glorious swooshes of purple and sparkles, and then MLB Award winners, a well-worn concept drably presented in what looks like a design that was rejected last year with all it's bad negative space and jutting angles.

On the top row we see the Salute cards again, in what looks like a rejected design for this year's flagship set; I had a hard time picking them out during my sort.  I am not sure if presenting 100 different cards in a bunch of different subsets reeks of overkill or laziness.  That is not high praise.  Speaking of lazy, Topps also has a whole insert set here titled Opening Day.  Given the design, why not something with "Wall" or "Bricks" or "Foundation" or some other cliche rather than the same name as an entirely different set they already release.  *sigh*

I ruminated last time around if the 30th anniversary milestone would be a touchstone for a design reprint insert.  I was wrong because this time they are going with 1983 as a 35th anniversary.  Topps really does love to congratulate itself on its own history.  But between Archives and Heritage, these are overkill to the extreme.  We just got 1983 in Archives a few years back anyway.  Since they insist on reusing all their old nostalgic designs, I wish they could/would use Archives base cards to highlight subsets or odd vintage inserts rather than flagship designs, or even other sports designs applied to baseball, as they have done before for inserts.  This could mix things up a little and they have done it to interesting results for their WWE Heritage sets.  Also above you see a set called Legends in the Making and they are exactly what you would expect from that bland moniker, a rehash of young stars and highly touted rookies presented in some splattery computer design that looks like something Panini would reject.  Am I wrong in thinking Topps would be better off focusing on a few excellent inserts with nifty designs rather than a bunch of rehashes and rejects?  That or since this is the flagship, just keep parallels, inserts and short print variations to a minimum and focus on the base cards.  I know, this is crazy talk.

Speaking of which, last but not least here you see my promised manu-patch card from the blaster.  I really liked the idea of Players Weekend, with the funky jerseys and nicknames on the back of uniforms.  I think it would make a splendid topic for a well done insert set.  Instead, Topps kind of throws the idea away without bringing it to full fruition and giving it the attention it deserves.  They don't focus on the nicknames the players used at all and use the same "patch" for every card.  They at least did come up with a photo of Miguel Cabrera in the uniform the Tigers used that weekend.  It really makes you wonder who's making decisions over there.  

Most of the cards here are available for trade (think from the gold parallels down) and I have a whole list of cards (in comments) if you need to fill your want lists. Be warned, these cards are destined for eBay so act quickly.  I am looking for the Mets cards and inserts and will gladly trade for them as I didn't get very many, as I lamented before.  Drop me an email or comment if you're game for swapping.   And now, back to hour nine of the SB pregame show.

Blizzard Blaster Box.

       I saw earlier in the week that it was going to snow today. Then as the days went by, the forecast got more and more dire and while it is not exactly Snowmageddon '17 out there, it is pretty bad.  In a rare case of thinking ahead, I stopped at Target yesterday early in the afternoon before the full French Toast Alert System panic set in and grabbed a box of the newly released 2017 Topps cards.  So now that I am housebound until the storm passes, let's take a look at what the flagship is giving us this year.

I wasn't posting last year when the 2016 stuff came out but I did see that the design was not at all lauded.  Pity because I kinda liked it.  I like the full bleed, I liked the photography, I liked the homage to 1988 and 1966 in the diagonal stripe. Yes, the white misty bits were distracting, but Topps made up for it, in my opinion, with the Snowflake release late in the year.  I am not sure if Topps was making up for a mistake or mocking itself, but it was a nice little quirk on the holiday design that helped out the one flaw in the original.  This is what we have this year:

I haven't really read up on this yet but I have a feeling this is going to be slammed as well.  I like the big photos and I like the layered look but the busy lines and the awkwardly angled logos are bound to bring out the haters.  I like that Topps once again showed some restraint on the foil usage only going with the Topps logos itself.  The only thing I really don't like is the font - it is too modern looking and bound to look dated in a few years.  Topps is also trying to get away from the glut of 3/4 action photos that ruined the 2015 set and while they are obviously there, the majority of the pictures look sharp and well chosen for the most part. 

This is the 'Salute' insert series, which includes a number of ideas: Jackie Robinson Day, Throwback Jerseys, and the Legends.  I am going to throw this out there right away though: isn't this a much better and cleaner looking design than the base card?  It is less awkward, less likely to look dated in 5-10 years, and very easy on the eye.  Really, I think they should have considered swapping out the Salute insert design with the base design.

Also, why are there players on the Jackie Robinson Day cards where you can't see them in their #42 jerseys?  Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose?  Legends is self explanatory, it is yet another excuse to shove in some old time players but at least the two I got here are different photos than the usual ones they use for Palmer or Koufax. Throwback Jerseys is an excellent theme for an insert set as long as you don't put the throwback jersey photos in the base series.  From what I have seen, this is not the case.  Oh well, they tried.  That last Stanton card is one of the foil parallels and you know how I like the shiny.

Here are the Mets players I got, all four of them out of 100 cards in the blaster. I must have gotten 9 or 10 Pirates and somewhere in Pittsburgh there is a dude with a shit load of Mets angry at the collation gods.  Such is life.  The Nolan Ryan is a reprint with an ad on the back for Bunt and Topps Now.  I am not 100% sure what that card is supposed to be, but hey, I'll take it.

Topps also made the choice to go with single League Leader cards rather than combo cards. I don't like this as I like multi-star cards and we get all the All Star and Home Run Derby cards in the Update set to highlight single players to give them multiple cards.  I hope this is just a one year detour.  I also didn't get any All Star Rookie Cup players.  Send me yours. 

While the photography on the vertical cards is okay, Topps seems to have gone out of its way to choose dynamic shots for the horizontal ones - plays at the plate, diving fielders, full wind-ups and follow-throughs, etc.  I also find the design less distracting sideways; maybe they should have done the whole set this way? These are some good looking cards...

One last complaint about Topps' tone deafness sometimes.  That combo card is called B'more Boppers.  I have never heard Baltimore called B'more ever really but they could have amused many in and out of Charm City by calling it Balmer Boppers. Anyone in Merlin wanna dispute my thinking here?

Topps has a 30th anniversary insert for the 1987 set.  Topps seems to use this design a lot but I am not certain there is some kind of universal love for it. Or is this a new 30-year flashback thing they are going to do with sets?  This one has me perplexed.

One thing I will say is that Topps got the look of those 1987 backs correct. The right font, the right kind of write-ups.  But the deciding fatal flaw of the these and the flagship base cards is right there to see.  I hope you folks missed Donruss cards that much because they're back and their 'recent major league stats' are haunting the back of Topps.  This is would be a poor choice for some one-shot release in early June and it is inexcusable on the regular set.  These are the cards of record, they should have full major league stats.  It's a shame too, because the colors and design of the backs are legible and aesthetically pleasing.  Leave the uniform, half stat nonsense for the Lineage or Top-Tens of the world.  And the less said about the amount of space devoted to the Twitter addresses, the better.

Here are the other inserts and parallels that were in my box. Some new things and traditional favorites are here:

The Bowman Then and Now cards are almost like advertisements.  I am not a fan.  The Five Tool cards, however, are the right kind of busy and colorful with a sturdy baseball-related premise.  This is what an insert card should be. The Award Winners cards devote entirely too much space to the team name, and I guess that Topps got tired of giving Rawlings free advertising because they are just calling them 'Fielding Awards' which looks terrible. I am a huge fan of the First Pitch set and I am glad they are back.  I will be completing a page of them as I have the last couple years so if you need to get rid of yours, you know where to send them.  Last and least is the venerable Gold Parallel which I could hardly tell was a gold parallel. They probably should have retired these by now.  Do we really need rainbow foil and gold numbered parallels (much less all the other colors)? 

I was promised a Jackie Robinson Day manu-patch card and I pulled Madison Bumgarner (clearly not showing he is wearing #42).  If Night Owl has taught me anything over the years, it is no one wants to have Giants on their Dodger cards or Dodgers on their Giants cards.  They are the two great tastes that DON'T taste great together. 

If there is any card you have seen (including this one) that you would like to trade for or if you have a want list of base cards, feel free to email me or comment here and I am sure we can work something out.  Otherwise most of these are destined for eBay or Listia after I make a page, separate the Mets, and decide if there are any specific insert pages I want to make.  Now I have to go shovel and daydream about using those coupons in the warmth of spring.

Wave of the Present.

       So as promised in my last post/tease, I cracked open some brandy dandy new 2014 Topps in the form of two blasters and two Target jumbo peg hanger packs.  These are the fruits of those delightful labors.

These nine will be immortalized as the 2014 Topps page (until I decide to change it).  Topps has stepped up its photo game since the disasters of 2008/2009.  They are crisp and clean and there is a great variety of shots.  This is by the far the strongest element of the flagship set this time around.  The design is a step down from last year's minimalist piece of perfection.  I can describe it as sort of like the 2005 Topps and 1984 Donruss designs had a May/December love child.  I find the team logo and the team name on the right side redundant - one or the other would have been enough - but the nice little wave with the name and position is pretty cool.  In fact, that little wave reminds me of this gem and if Night Owl needs a suggestion for a name, Catch the Wave seems pretty appropriate. 

Here are the Mets I pulled.  Topps really liked those new blue jerseys, huh?

I am sure Matt Harvey will look back on the face he is making on this card with great fondness.  There were probably 10,000,000 photos of Matt Harvey taken last year and that is the one they went with?  On the other hand, there is some nice action on the Turner and Lagares cards.  I'll need to add the other Mets to my want list.

Some other base cards of note that are staying in the collection:

Of course the all star rookies must stay.  The Wil Myers photo is nicely cropped with his trophy.  I only wish he could afford the extra L and E for his name.  The World Series cards make me quite happy this time around since my baseball mistress won it all last year.  Napoli's beard deserves its own card.  I really liked the two photos on the Chapman and the Cespedes, it is just coincidence they are both Cuban.  Those 1969 A's throwback uniforms are magnificent.

My blasters promised manu-patch cards and this is what I got:

Too bad Prince got traded from the Tigers because that patch is amazing.  A Detroit fan could not be taken to task if they decided to just cut that card into a square to highlight that patch.  Pity the Miggy patch has the classic D and not this.  That Bryce Harper is nice, though it is destined for eBay unless someone has to have it.

Also here is the coupon book from the blaster.  These are very useful coupons for the Target card aisle shopper:
$5 off a 2014 Heritage value box
$1 off three packs of Opening Day
$1 off two packs of Gypsy Queen
$1 off two packs of MLB Chipz (the only one I probably won't use)
$1 off an Archives jumbo pack
$5 off a Topps series 2 value box.

The coupons are dated to coincided to a 2 month window when the products are released.  I like the inclusion of this, my being a cheap bastar...I mean a frugal sort, I never look down upon using a coupon. 

Inserts?  Oh yeah, we got your inserts.  This year's theme is The Future is Now:

These are sort of painted/graphic art photos with of all things lens flares involved.  JJ Abrams approves these cards.

I am not sure why Topps feels the need to have theme, but here are some more inserts following the "theme":

The top six cards are called Upper Class and they are nice enough, I guess.  They cover the rookie class of each year and highlight the best of the bunch.  Yankees fans can wallow in seeing Cano in the pinstripes one last time.  The bottom three cards are from a set called 50 Years of the Draft and in a stroke of luck I got not one but two Derek Jeter cards.  Joy.

I am greatly disappointed that the All Star Rookie Cup inserts are hobby only.  I will have to pick these up on ebay I suppose.  Must. Have. Trophy. Cards.  (If you have these to trade, you know what to do...)

Since Topps has decided to constantly shove minis down our throats, this is what we got this time around:

These aren't just minis, they are die cut minis based on the 1989 design which I guess kind of reflects this year's base design.  I am personally minied out and all these do is remind me of these.  Underwhelming, to say the least.

Lastly, Topps pulled out the old 1983 Super Veteran idea and made it as bland and boring as they possibly could:

Also there you see the 14th year of the numbered gold parallel which would be fine if they didn't make any other parallels...and oh boy, are there parallels.

In the jumbo peg boxes were yellow parallels:

The one thing I can say about these is I am glad that they have taken the celebration photos out of the super short print realm and made them base cards.  And no, I didn't get any super duper short prints in these boxes, not that I care much.

Topps also has these Power Player parallels, which are plain parallels with no foil:

They have codes on the back and I have no clue if this is a game or a contest or whatever Topps has been doing the last few years.  If anyone wants these codes, I happily will let you have them if you have the other Mets cards or something.

These are the shiny red hot foil parallels:

I think I preferred last year's shiny green ones. 

These being Target boxes, there were also red Target exclusive cards.

They also do blue for Walmart and purple for Toys R Us.  Since I don't shop in Walmart at all and have no need to ever go into TrU, I only ever see get these in packs.  I like the bold red border, it doesn't really clash with too many teams - though the Royals and Brewers come close - and for teams like the Phillies, Nationals, and Red Sox, they look great.  And for the A's, they of course become accidentally Christmas themed.  

My only issue with all these parallels?  Well, look:

In two blasters and two jumbo packs, I got 40 of them.  Forty!  Three each in the jumbos and two in each pack of the blasters and that is way way waaaaaay too many.  Unless this is unusual and I just have a shit load of them.   Not shown are the camo, black, pink, clear(!), platinum, and the printing plates.  You can make a rainbow page with just the flagship set now.  I would rather have more base cards.

Speaking of base cards, lets get back to them:

Like I said, there is some great photography going on in this set.  I also like that the design works well both horizontally and vertically; this is not always the case.  The backs are decent and include for the first time WAR, which is appreciated (though they do not say which version they are going with).  It is also pretty nifty that they tied in the wave element from the front to the back.  They also have a little blurb from everyone's rookie year since, hey, everyone was a rookie once.

So. More themes.  More parallels.  More minis.  Topps seems stuck in a rut.  The look on Mike Trout's face kind of covers my overall feelings about all this - "meh" with a touch of dread and disgust.  There has to be a reason for all this stagnation and a lack of innovation and in fact, it is right there on the wrapper if you look closely...

Enhance!

Yup, there's you're problem.