Around The Card Room, Take 2

I have caught a few baseballs at games. 

I don't go out of my way to catch them, they have to come to me.  

On July 15, 2005, my parents are out of the country and they left me a bunch of their baseball tickets for the week. They sat in right field at the old Busch Stadium. In this picture, their seats would have been above the white sign next to the Cardinals bullpen, under the overhang. 

I went to this game with one of my neighbors who worked as a chef in the city. We met up at the ballpark and were watching the end of the Houston Astros batting practice. Those seats were prime territory for ballhawks pregame. Frequently, there would be people who stood in the aisle of the section or in the walkway in front of the seats trying to catch BP homers or get players to throw balls into the stands. This game was no different. 

Although, the Astros did not have many lefties, so the batting practice crowd was light in right-field.  In fact, Baseball Reference lists no starting left-handed batters on the 2005 Astros, which is shown with an asterisk.  

They did have Lance Berkman though, who was a switch-hitter. 

So, batting practice is happening and there was a hard-line drive hit by an Astros player. Watching the ball, it was going to be below my seats and to my left towards the aisle of the section. The ball ends up hitting off a high school aged kid, who was hanging out in the aisle, and bounces back about 20 feet. The baseball lands in seat in front of us and is stuck in between seat bottom and seat back. 

I looked at it. My neighbor looked at. The kid in the aisle was down and out on the step. My neighbor pointed out that he did not pay for his ticket, so he insisted that I take the ball. I reached out and grabbed the ball. I watched batting practice for the next several minutes to determine the left-handed batter while also watching the high school kid try to garner some level of sympathy from an usher who had yelled at him several minutes before for standing in the aisle.  

The answer was Lance Berkman.  

This is the ball.  

The ball is marked with an H.

The Cardinals ended up winning the game on an Albert Pujols walk-off home run.  

This ended up being the last game I attended in Busch Stadium II, because I moved a few weeks later and Busch Stadium II was torn down at the end of the season for the current version.   

I display this baseball next to one of my Albert Pujols bobbleheads. Although, it is not an a shelf like the bobble I showed in my previous post, rather this is on top of a bookcase. This is my oldest child's favorite part of the baseball card room, because he loves reading the baseball books. Albert has a little ding on his jawline from being knocked over. 

Add in the fact that Berkman would go on to play a short time for the Cardinals on the 2011 World Series team, and this is easily one of my favorite items in my baseball card room.  

Bowman Season

Topps brought Bowman back while I was in late elementary school. I really enjoyed the cards outside of the fact that they did not fit very well into plastic sheets.  I did not buy any special sheets or boxes, and it's pretty easy to flip through my 1989 Bowman cards and figure out the ones I actually opened in 1989, versus the ones I have opened later in life. I love them still the same. 

My best memory of the 1989 Bowman set was pulling my first Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.

Great card.  Really underrated in my opinion. 

In the 30 years since I opened my first pack of Bowman cards, I have generally enjoyed this product.  There were some blah years during the early 1990s where it felt like a second Topps base set, but I even enjoy looking at those cards from time to time.  For example, the time that Topps squeezed a Jamie Moyer Cardinals card into the 1991 set.

Not the finest moment of his career, and not many cards were made of him wearing a Cardinals uniform.  

When Bowman transitioned to being a prospect heavy set in the mid 1990s, I played along and found all of the cool rookie cards.  I watched the Cardinals, and did not know much about Minor Leaguers at that point, but I learned.  If nothing else, I would find cards of the Cardinals prospects.  I have all my favorite Redbirds from the 1990s and early 2000s who had really good Bowman cards.  

Scott Rolen.  

Chris Carpenter.  

Albert Pujols.  

They made Bowman spin offs like Bowman Chrome.  Yep, got those too.  

Another good 1990s Cardinals player.

Eventually, I even picked up the really popular rookie cards, like Vladimir Guerrero that I did not pull out of packs, or buy at the time the Bowman product for the year was released.  

Bowman Autographs.  Huge fan.  

I have always had a soft spot for the 1997 Bowman Lance Berkman card where he is standing by the old pickup track in front of the AstroDome.  Got to fit this card into the post.

Yes, it took money to buy Bowman cards, but they were a reasonably priced pack of cards.  It was a set you could assemble on a budget.  When players did not pan out for whatever reason?  

Who remembers Matt Anderson?  Nobody spent a small fortune on his cards, at least I do not think they did.  Probably not.  

I loved Bowman, but they feel different now.  How does someone go from thorough enjoyment of a baseball card product to annoyance and negative feelings?  I would like to point a finger squarely at the Steven Strasburg craze in 2010 as the starting point. That entire summer was filled with baseball card people going crazy over packs of Bowman cards, Strasburg autographs, and all the different parallel cards.

Can I buy Bowman cards at Wal-Mart and Target?  Normally, the answer is yes, but not the summer that Strasburg rolled around.  I think I ended up buying a box from someone online, but was highly annoyed that it was more expensive than normal.  At some point that summer, I was booted from a Facebook Baseball Card Group for rejecting a trade that involved me taking a Strasburg autograph and giving up autographs of Stan Musial, Ernie Banks, and Yogi Berra.  

I regret nothing.  

I saw Strasburg pitch at USA Baseball when he was at college, seemed like a pretty incredible talent, so I am not sure I could really fault people for being all in on finding his cards.  There has always been that sort of feel with Bowman since the late 1990s, it just seemed to go to the next level with Strasburg. I was hoping it would be a one year phase.  

It was not.  

The craze over Bowman has continued since, in what feels like a now annual event.  There was the Bryce Harper year, something about Kris Bryant, some other people I am not remembering off the top of my head, Wander Franco, and now we are on some kid from the Yankees who has not even played a game stateside.

I am not even going to touch a pack of Bowman cards this year.  

I may not even touch a loose single Bowman card this year.  

To me, there is simply no enjoyment in this product anymore.  I can basically narrow my dislike of Bowman down to two different factors. 

1. Money 

Money for baseball cards is finite in my world, and Bowman has become pricy.  I am not going to screen shot some baseball card stores site for this post, but they are generally selling jumbo boxes in the neighborhood of $400.  That's quite a price hike from what they normally cost.  There are better ways for me to spend my baseball card budget.  

I could buy 20 of those Project 2020 cards.  I should have bought 20 copies of the Bob Gibson card with the pirate hat.  

I recently went through a whole boat load of sets looking for missing cards, finding them on COMC or Sports Lots, and dragging them into my shopping cart.   I could finish off roughly two dozen partial sets in my card closet by buying 140 some cards off of the two sites.  My cost was less than $100 before shipping.  

That's the plan I am going with for the rest of my CoronaCon vacation.   

2. You Don't Know.  I Don't Either.  

Nobody knows what players from this year's Bowman set are going to be good ten years from now, but there are going to be plenty of people who spend a small fortune trying to guess.  That feels like a big waste of money.  

I frequently question whether people who spend a lot of money on Bowman cards actually pay attention to the number of Minor Leaguers who reach the Majors, what happens to them when they get there, and the chances of that player fulfilling their definition of the word great.  I have my doubts.  

Take the Strasburg draft.  The best player in the draft, Mike Trout, did not get taken until the 25th pick right after Randal Grichuk.  Besides Strasburg and Trout, the players with the best career numbers taken in the first round are A.J. Pollock, Mike Minor, and Mike Leake.  That went downhill quickly.  What did Mike Leake cards sell for in 2010? 

Who wants to go back to 2010, and spend a whole bunch of money buying up the Mike Trout cards?  

Bowman story time.  Gather round on the carpet.  Let me tell you about the time when I pulled the best autograph from a Bowman box, which is now borderline worthless, but one of the other autographs that was worthless at the time is really popular and expensive now.  It shouldn't be.  It's a good story.  

Everyone ready?  

In 2014, I went to some sort of half day training in a part of Raleigh that was near my card shop of choice at the time.  I miss Big D's Card Shop, great store. It was Bowman release day, so rather than taking a lunch break, I went and got a pair of Bowman boxes to open.  Food can wait. I opened my packs of cards, and got to hang out and talk to the store owner.  Best thing was that I got the best autograph possible.  

Look at this thing.

Mark Appel was the first overall pick in 2013.  He was going to be a great player.  In reality, I   probably should have scanned it in the card shop, and sold it that day.  I did not.

I was excited. 

I took it home, put it in a penny sleeve and a top loader.  The thing was going to go to from being a really good Bowman autograph to being a great Bowman autograph.  At least, that's what I told myself at the time.  It is still sitting in a box full of autographs.  Bet I might get $5 for this card on a good day.

Who were my other autographs?

Some Reds outfielder who was hitting sub-.250 in the Pioneer League, which is half season A Ball.  Threw this in a box.  Completely forgot about it for awhile.  Everyone has looked at his Minor League numbers, and knows Aquino is 26 and has not played a full season in the Majors?  (whispers) He didn't hit well away from Cincinnati, (whispering and mumbling) and he hit .196/.236/.382 during the last month of the season.  

I got someone to pay and arm and a leg for the card recently.  Glad these prospect collectors pay attention to numbers.  

I am already staying at home, but whenever and wherever Bowman shows up, I will be somewhere else buying cards that make me happy.  Probably some cards that actually have some reason attached to their value.  Hopefully one day we can return to the sane days of Bowman, because I would be happy to enjoy these cards again.  

Friday Five: Top 5 Sets From 1997

Another week, another year of cool sets.  This year I am going with 1997.  This was a fun year for my collection.  Lots of packs, not necessarily a ton of boxes, but lots of different types of cards.  Years after 1997 I found myself with a ton of incomplete sets, but lots of cool single cards.  I have finished off a bunch of these sets, but this year could be a set completion projection that could last years.

Here's my list......

5. Fleer- Not a really well noted set, but it makes my list for a few reasons.  Let's start with the simplest first.  There was not an "it" rookie in the 1997 card products.  There are some very good rookie cards in several of the products, but in my opinion the David Arias, now David Ortiz, is one of the iconic rookie cards from the late 1990s.  Again, not many of them, but this is a great card.  Great cards help make the sets around them better and more collectable.  Second, the set was large.  In general 1997 had some really small sets.  The Topps set was only 495 cards with no update set.  The Upper Deck set was 550.  Meanwhile this Fleer set was 761 cards.  Every year needs a big set.  Every set had a Ken Griffey Jr. card.  I want a set where I can get a full team set.  Everyone.  Some people may not like getting cards of players like Aaron Hobert and T.J. Matthews, but those players appeared for the Cardinals, I saw them play, and I own their cards.  Lastly, I love the finish of these cards.  Yes, each pack did have a tiffany card, but the majority of cards had that old fashioned feel.  They were terrific.  

4. Pinnacle Certified- I have been trying to understand for some time know why collectors love finding all of the rainbow parallels of different cards.  It seems like a difficult task, but I have been sucked in a few times over the years.  Sometimes I wonder if the collectors who pursue the rainbows out of current Bowman and Topps products know of some of the products that existed in 1997?  Let's take this set.  I loved this set in 1997.  I went out and bought a few packs and then just spent a lot of time tracking down all of the Cardinals cards.  There is a Certified Red, Mirror Red, Mirror Blue, Mirror Gold, and Mirror Black.  They look really good together, and I have to admit, they are probably a lot easier than tracking down some of these cards numbered to 10 or anything involving a printing plate.  These cards do have the goofy Peel protector covering the cards, a la Topps Finest.  I love the look and feel of the cards, I just wish Ray Lankford did not have a big Peel Off sign across him....Still a cool set.  

3. Donruss Preferred- I have two reasons for putting these cards on my countdown this week.  First, I liked the look and design of these cards.  Cool texture, and while they did have the whole color thing going on that seemed so popular around this time, this product only had three metallic colors.  They looked pretty good on the cards.  See the Bonds card above.  There were cool inserts and short prints and the cards still sell decently on the secondary market.  I dare say, they are somewhat worth something.   The Donruss Preferred set also tinkered in the packaging department.  I have long thrown away my tins, but yes, these cards came in tins.  There was also a Donruss product that came in a can.  The cards in a can were not cool, cards in a tin were cool.  Watch this classic clip from late 90s MTV show Sifl and Oly and substitute baseball cards for cereal....you get the idea....

2. Bowman- One of my favorite Bowman sets ever.  This set has some good rookies with Kerry Wood, Miguel Tejada, and Lance Berkman, but I just simply love the design and look of the cards.  I actually think of the Berkman card as being another iconic rookie card from the late 1990s.  He was a good player and this is an awesome card.  I know a lot of collectors who love this piece of cardboard.   The black borders are really cool.  There have been some other black bordered Bowman sets over the years, but this is the best of lot.   The Bowman set had a better set up back in the later 90s too.  The first 70 cards of each series were veterans with the rest of the 150 cards belonging to younger players or prospects.  This set also came with those $125 value cards.  Basically, you filled out the card, mailed in $5, and if the set was not worth $125 at the end of the 2000 calendar year you could mail in your set for a check from Topps.  Pretty bad gimmick, but I am not sure whether the set made it to that amount or not.  I am leaning towards no, but I am not sure how many people mailed in their checks.  Boxes of this are still floating around cheap and there are some nice highlights outside of the base set, mainly the autographs and the International parallel set.  I like these.....

1.  Flair Showcase- I got onto the Flair bandwagon later than most, but I loved them once I got there. The Showcase set was arranged in rows with Row 2 cards being the easiest to find, Row 1 cards being short printed at 8 per box, and Row 0 cards at 1 per box.  It was basically like having three 180 card sets.  I picked up the base set and also picked up a lot of the Cardinals cards from the short printed rows.  These were high end cards that were printed on really nice cardboard stock and have aged very well.  I think these are nicer than some of the high end stuff that comes out today.  Flair Showcase also started the craze for the 1/1 cards with the creation of the Masterpieces cards.  I cannot remember how much the Griffey's sold for, but at the time it was a completely ridiculous amount of money.  While the argument we could have a long drawn out argument over whether or not having 1/1 cards is really a good thing, or really matters too much anymore, it is important to acknowledge the fact that it was an important innovation that occurred with this product. 

The Coolness of Pacific Autographs

Over the past few years of blogging I have heaped plenty of love on Pacific Trading Cards.  If you collected baseball cards in the 90s it was hard not to love the flashy and innovative card producer.  Over the last three years I have written pieces about die their die cuts cards:

I have done pieces about how cool their checklists were:

and those other cool cards that were just special to Pacific like the dugout net card:

However, I amazed to find that I had never done a write up on any Pacific autographs.  I was shocked.  Back in the day I really loved Pacific autographs and had dozens of them in my collection.  They are still there, but they are just 15-16 years old now.  The Pacific autographs have aged great and look better than many of the autographs that companies like Topps and Panini are cranking out now.  What made them great?  Let me show off an old card from the autograph box:

This card is just awesome.  On card signature, die cut, cool design, and a great player.  This was the world of Pacific autographs back in the day.  There are numerous sets that Pacific cracked out in the late 90s and early 2000s that gave us cool cards like this Sheffield autograph out of the 2000 Pacific Omega set and again, this card is cool than 3/4 of the new autographs that are floating around on the market from new releases.

I also really like the Crowne Royale autographs which were also a 2000 calendar year release:

Again, this card has all of the same appealing characteristics of the Sheffield card above: on card signature, die cut, cool design, and really cool player.  Not to say that all Pacific autographs are All-Star caliber or die cuts, but there is a lot of love here in the making of this card.

The best part of collecting Pacific autographs is the fact that there are still tons of them floating around on Ebay and COMC and they are all pretty affordable.  Ebay currently has more than 200 Pacific autographs up on their site and COMC has almost 50.  There are some great looking cards in the lot ranging from an on-card Chipper Jones autograph for just over $30 to autographs of late 90s prospect legend Travis "Gookie" Dawkins for around $2.

I recently landed a brand new Pacific autograph as a throw in for a trade I completed on Facebook.  I love throw-ins, but found this card really cool......

Not a die cut, but this was a really cool and innovative set for the time from the Pacific Revolution set.  The card actually features a piece of game used ball (slightly blah), but they are signed by a Major League player.  It's not quite the Upper Deck Sweet Spot set, but it came out about a year and a half before the popular Upper Deck product first hit the shelves during the summer of 2001.  Loads of great names in this set too from Greg Maddux, Barry Bonds, and ARod to players like Shane Reynolds.  While this autograph was a throw-in, and might be one of the worst autographs in the set, the card features a guy who won 35 games in the two years leading up to the release of this product.

I probably should sit down and do a bigger post on Pacific autographs, but this should give you a good idea about the basics.  If you're an autograph collector and looking for a good, fun, collecting challenge, putting together one of these Pacific sets would be a lot of fun.

Juan Gone. Something Different.

Farewell Puma

I first encountered Lance Berkman on his 1997 Bowman card.  It's a pretty unique card shot outside of the AstroDome with the former Rice star leaning on the front of an old Ford pickup truck.  There were plenty of other cool players in the set at the time, so this card was filed away with the rest of my Bowman cards that year and remembered more as a curiosity.  Aramis Ramirez, Miguel Tejada, and Vernon Wells were the big names in this set when it was first released and the immediate years afterwards.

Just like all the other big names in the 1997 Bowman set, Berkman also made it up to the majors.  However, unlike players like Vernon Wells and Aramis Ramirez, Lance Berkman was actually able to play for a good team.  Not many people remember how good some of the late 90s and early 2000s Astros teams were because they did not make it far in the playoffs outside of the 2005 World Series.  The teams included future Hall of Famers like Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent,  and Craig Biggio.  Throw in a year of Carlos Beltran and a bunch of other great players like Mike Hampton, Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, Moises Alou, and Billy Wagner.

While all kinds of good players came and went in Houston, Berkman ended up playing a total of 12 years for the Astros and posted a line of .293/.406/.573 with 366 home runs, 422 doubles, and an OPS+ of 146.  I saw plenty of Cardinals/Astros games during those days and always had a good amount of respect for Berkman.  He was a good player, but you could tell that he had a good time playing the game.  As a fan, he was a fun player to watch.

   

For years he was quietly the face of Astros.  Bagwell and Biggio slowly faded away, but Berkman kept plugging away.  In fact, one of his best seasons came during the 2006 season when he replaced Jeff Bagwell at first base for the Astros.  Bekrman's 2006 season was .315/.420/.621 with 45 home runs and 136 RBIs.  There were a few more good years in Houston until he was traded away to the Yankees during the 2010 season.  I did not give the Puma much of a thought once he was off the Astros until I came across a curious headline on MLB Trade Rumors one evening.

At first I thought the signing was a bit of a joke.  Perhaps Berkman had signed on to be a bench player. However, Berkman ended up in the outfield.  Honestly, I know I was not the only Cardinals fan who cringed a little bit at the thought of The Big Puma roaming the outfield for the Cardinals.  Berkman ended up having a great year, and by all accounts, was a key factor to keeping the team loose during their unexpected playoff run.  In the end, I am not sure Cardinals fans will remember the regular season Berkman enjoyed as much as his key Game 6 game tying hit during the 2011 World Series.

I was sad to hear that Berkman decided to call it a career earlier this week, but I think it was time for Lance to hang them up.  After the 2011 season, he played a 2012 season with the Cardinals and the 2013 season with the Rangers.  Berkman's time on the field was limited during both seasons do to injuries.  Clearly it was time to go.

Even though Berkman is retiring I will still continue to collect his cards.  I picked up quite a few during his two years in St. Louis and was surprised at how many cards I had from his days in Houston.  If you are looking for a good 90s/2000s player to collect you cannot go wrong throwing a few Berkman cards into your collection.  His rookie card, mentioned above, is quite inexpensive and readily available.  Autographs aren't hard to find either and are generally pretty cheap.  You want a nice on-card Berkman autograph you are probably going to be able to find one for less than $20.  Relics, patches, all pretty cheap.

Farewell Puma, you will be missed.

2013 Topps Cut To The Chase Set

I have finished up another one of my projects from the 2013 Topps Series 1 set during the past two weeks and have not had a chance to share some of my cards in this space.  I had originally mentioned the sweet looking die cut cards in my initial glance at the 2013 Topps set and then later again shared a Ken Griffey Jr. card that I picked up from the set.  It took a few more weeks, but I have now finished the whole insert set.

2013 Topps Cut To The Chase Stan Musial 

As mentioned before, the cards remind me a lot of some of the insert cards that Pacific put out in the late 90s which I loved to collect.  While these die-cut cards are not nearly as difficult to track down, and are seeded at a much higher rate, they are clearly among the more difficult cards from the 2013 Topps set to find cheaply.  The Ebay auctions for the Cut To The Chase cards tend to be very competitive and they do well in the trade market too.  The majority of the set has excellent player selection with my two personal favorite cards being the Stan Musial and Lance Berkman cards.  There are a few head scratchers.... 

2013 Topps Cut To The Chase Lance Berkman

I am slightly puzzled why Berkman makes so many appearances in the 2013 Topps set when he was injured and unproductive for most of 2012.  Not that I am complaining about Berkman cards, but the Cut To The Chase set does not appear on the literature for the second series of Topps meaning that this set is stopping at one set of 23 cards.  Perhaps Topps could have put in a Matt Holliday or Yadier Molina if they were looking for a modern Cardinals player to add to the set.  

2013 Topps Cut To The Chase Nelson Cruz 

The most puzzling card in the set is the Nelson Cruz card.  By my account he was probably the fourth or fifth best player on the Rangers last year and here is sits with a cool insert card.  Now, Topps did put a Josh Hamilton card in this set, but still Nelson Cruz?  Adrian Beltre hit way more than Nelson Cruz, is not afraid of walls, and was one of the top fielding third baseman in the league.  I guess they could have also picked Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, maybe even Albert Pujols.  All better than Nelson Cruz.

A Pair of Pumas

Baseball starts tomorrow for my Cardinals tomorrow when they play their first spring training game.  In a few weeks they will begin their regular season and a quest for the 12th World Series Championship in the franchise's illustrious history.  The last championship for the team occurred in 2011 and last season the team came within a game of returning to the World Series falling to the Giants in the National League Championship Series.

The Cardinals have generally left the roster alone this off-season making a few small moves to add or subtract players.  In my opinion, the biggest move this year was the the subtraction of first baseman/outfielder Lance Berkman.  Understandably, Allen Craig has established himself as the everyday first baseman and the outfield is crowded with Jon Jay, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, and uber prospect Oscar Taveras.

While the team is in good hands for the future and Berkman only played one healthy season, with the 2011 World Series team, during his time in St. Louis, the presence of the Big Puma will be missed.  My favorite Berkman moment came during the sixth game of the 2011 World Series.  While many people remember the show that David Freese put on tying the game in the 9th inning with two outs and two strikes, and then later winning the game on a walk off home run, I will always remember the Berkman at-bats that made it possible.

First, in the ninth inning Berkman walked in front of Freese and scored from first base when the Cardinals third baseman tripled to left field.  The Rangers came back in the tenth and took a two run lead when Josh Hamilton hit a two run home run.  That home run set the stage for the Cardinals second at-bat of the night taken with two outs and two strikes.  My favorite Berkman highlight:

Of course, I also knew Berkman for the many years he played on the Astros as the Cardinals rival.  While I was not pulling for the Astros to win, their teams featured classy players and were much easier to watch and enjoy than the mid 80s Mets teams, or frankly any Cubs team from any year.  So, even though the Big Puma has taken his talents to the Rangers for the 2013 season, I am still going to add more Berkman cards to my collection.  Especially ones where he is wearing the birds on the bat.  

2013 Topps Chasing History Lance Berkman Jersey

First up this evening is a Lance Berkman from the newly released 2013 Topps series one set.  The card hails from the Chasing History set which features a small piece of Cardinals road jersey and a blurb about a record the player has, or is chasing.  In this case, the card recognizes Berkman as the National League's all-time OPS record holder for a switch hitter.  I was quite surprised that he ranks ahead of Chipper Jones, but he does indeed hold the record.  

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman Jersey

Last one for the day.  I also picked up a 2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman jersey card.  This is my second Lance Berkman Triple Threads jersey card from the 2012 set, but I like this one since Lance is sporting his shades.  Look through a stack of Lance cards, or just watch him the next time you see a Rangers game on and chances are good that Lance might be rocking some really cool sun glasses.  

The Problem with Triple Threads

Yesterday, I posted a write up about the Topps Triple Threads releases starting with the original issue in 2006, all the way through this year's release.  I cited the positives of the set, but today I here to discuss some of the weaknesses of the set and also offer up my usual alternative piece about a set (in another post).  Let's start by finishing the argument on the Triple Threads set.  I see two major problems with this set that prevent it from being a slam dunk every year that force me to rank my favorite annual release in the bottom half of important card sets over the last 30 years.  

Stickers are stupid, single jerseys are lame
If you are going to have a high end product then why not get the players to sign on card autographs?  It's well established that the Triple threads product is going to sell for Topps regardless of whether or not the boxes cost collectors $150, $170, or $200.  I would pay a little bit more to get a card with a players signature on the piece of cardboard and not on a sticker.  I know a lot of other collectors who feel the same way.  Further, if you are going to have players sign stickers than spare me the single jersey pieces.  I recently picked up the jersey card below:

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman

This is a pretty nice card and as sure as the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning I was going to end up with a copy of a Lance Berkman Triple Threads jersey card this year.  Topps made one, he's on the Cardinals.  I am sold.  Wait a second, this is a high end product.  Why am I getting one piece of jersey in the shape of a home plate?  Lame.  Lame. Lame.  Jersey pieces must cost card companies the same amount of money as a snack pack of Fritos.  Seriously, how many little squares can they cut out of one jersey?  I am not sure where the blogger is who makes his own custom cards, I see it on my Blogger role and they are cool, but I want something cooler.  All Lance Berkman Triple Threads cards should say "PUMA" or "FAT ELVIS" or something better.  I am pretty sure such a card would not break the bank.  It's clear after collecting this set for seven years that the bottom line for Topps is the bottom line.  I know I am not stating anything revolutionary, but nowhere is it clearer than with the production of this set.  

Donruss, Leaf, Pinnacle, New Pinnalce, Score, and the rest of our friends

I remember in 1998 the overabundance of cards issued by Donruss.  They single handedly put out my cardboard than most companies put out in a decade.  Seriously, they put out like 30 sets.  Worse than putting out 30 sets they were all the same thing with different designs.  Same price points, similar inserts.  It was like they were competing against themselves.  

Here we are fourteen years later and we have one card company that makes the same silly mistakes that card companies made over a decade ago.  Seriously, Topps Heritage, Allen & Ginter, Gypsy Queen, and T206 are really similar.  Many years they are all released and have similar autographs, relics, etc.  Topps does it with all their products though.  Look at this year's calendar.  You've got Tier One, Museum Collection, and now Five Star.  They are all really similar products and not very far away from Triple Threads when you look closely.  For example, in Triple Threads you get several pieces of jersey that spell something out.  In Museum Collection you get a big piece of jersey.

2012 Topps Triple Threads Evan Longoria 7 Piece Relic

2012 Topps Museum Collection Evan Longoria Jumbo Jersey

They're the same thing basically, but by releasing two similar products Topps is really just competing against itself in one argument, or worse they are dressing the same thing up and selling it to collectors twice.  Personally, I like the DIRTBAG card better, but if I just had to settle for a huge chunk of Longoria's jersey I'd be cool.  Anyway, it would be nice of Topps to stop issuing some of the extra sets, like Museum Collection, which just last for a year or two and disappear.  

 

More 2012 Triple Threads. Again.

I am going to make this a quick post.  I picked up a few more Triple Threads cards this past week in a trade.  I was really interested in trying to find a Lance Lynn autograph from the set and managed to locate one for trade.  However, sometimes you start trading and you take on a few extras to balance everything out along the way.  So, I actually ended up with a total of five cards.

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Lynn Jersey/Auto

I picked up one other Cardinals card with a nice Lance Berkman jersey and the rest were just gravy.  My haul ended up including a Tommy Hanson autograph, a Yovani Gallardo jersey, and a Cory Kuebke jersey/autograph.  Overall, a pretty nice set of cards.  

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman Jersey

2012 Topps Triple Threads Cory Luebke Jersey/Autograph

2012 Topps Triple Threads Tommy Hanson Jersey/Autograph

2012 Topps Triple Threads Yovani Gallardo Jersey