Set Appreciation Post #18 - 2001 Donruss

Donruss. 

What is the first thing that comes to mind?

I bet most collectors would go with Rated Rookies......

or Diamond Kings......

Maybe if you're under 30, the answer is unlicensed baseball cards. 

After Pinnacle went bankrupt in 1999, there were no Donruss sets for two years. In 2001, Playoff attempted to revive the brand, plus do some revisionist history and create Donruss sets for both the 1999 and 2000 calendar years. It was interesting to say the least, but ultimately not very satisfying in large part due to the fact that Playoff messed up the two must-haves in any Donruss set. 

See above.   

The 2001 Donruss boxes included a graded card as a box topper. I believe Beckett was launching their grading service and Playoff was relaunching Donruss. The graded cards were largely late 1980s Donruss issues that included the likes of Devon White and B.J. Surhoff. Nothing wrong with either player, but not many collectors want one of their graded rookie cards as a box topper.  

What did I pull?  

 

Gary Sheffield was a good player, but what is the value of a 7.5 grade Gary Sheffield 1989 Donruss? Didn't Beckett originally charge $10 when they first started grading cards?  There is zero chance that this card is worth $10.  

Let's check out the back for the breakdowns on that 7.5 grade.

I am going to issue a spoiler here and let you know that Playoff went bankrupt too, which is why we have the unlicensed Donruss set produced by Panini. It took four years, but in retrospect it should have been four months.  

Here is the base card design.  

I honestly like the appearance of these cards. The colored borders are nice with the star background fading out from top to bottom. Simple player name bar with the player position and team logo on each side. I even like the 20th Anniversary logo that Playoff stamped on each card. Donruss was not a very expensive set either ($1.99 per pack), getting this across the finish line should have been as simple as Playoff providing a decent ser of Diamond King and Rated Rookie cards.

Here is the back of the card..... 

Again, it's simple, but it does the job for a base Donruss set. If Playoff really wanted to win me over, they would have gone landscape and used the standard 1980s Donruss card back. That's probably asking too much.  This is fine though. Plus, these cards have on-base percentage. We can't replace Barry Bonds if he leaves as a free agent, but we maybe (not) able to recreate him through the aggregate. 

Almost sure Billy Beane said that once.  

One of the things that stands out to me as I flipped through the cards in this set was the number of established, veteran players who were in odd places during 2001. I picked seven that stood out to me and got lazy with the scanning.  

All seven in one scan.....

So, that is Eric Davis on the Giants, Rickey Henderson on the Mariners, Jose Canseco on the Angels, Andres Galarraga on the Rangers, David Cone on the Red Sox, David Wells on the White Sox, and Hideo Nomo on the Red Sox. Nomo actually threw a no-hitter on the Red Sox, so maybe that one is not quite as jarring as the rest.

My favorite Cardinals card is Rick Ankiel.  

This was after his yips had started. His cards dried up by the end of 2001 and did not reappear until he came back as an outfielder. I like that you can see the pitch grip in the picture, which appears to be a change-up. The rest of the Cardinals in this set are the standard from the time, McGwire, Edmonds, Kile, Matt Morris, etc. No Pujols even though it was a 2001 product. 

Favorite former Durham Bulls player is Ryan Klesko, largely because he has the lamb chop sideburns on the back photograph. If you are not going to picture him on a surf board for his baseball card, highlighting his sideburns is the next best move.  

Which brings me to the weirdness of Playoff trying to recreate Donruss sets for both 1999 and 2000. This nonsense had never been tried before the 2001 Donruss set and has not been attempted since either. Well, at least I don't think it has been tried again. We are all lucky that everyone learned their lesson with this set.  

I cannot place my hands on many of my imaginary 2000 Donruss cards, which were sold in retail packs, so I will focus my energy on the 1999s, which were sold in hobby packs.  

Players were shown on their 1999 teams on a design that was not nearly as good as the one Playoff used for the 2001 cards. The 2000 cards are not great either.  Although, these do feel really similar to the set designs that Pinnacle was using for Donruss right before they went bankrupt.  

I personally like the back of the 1999 Donruss Jim Edmonds card. The design is nothing great, but Jimmy Edmonds lost his half-shirt Cardinals windbreaker and reverted to back to "Anaheim Jimmy" complete with frosted hair and designer, colored-lens sunglasses.  

Gripes about Yankees fans going to DisneyLand and then filling up Angel Stadium were not included on the back, which is really too bad. If you are going to make up cards from previous years, you might as well do some pre-trade foreshadowing.  

I am not saying Ray Lankford is going to find his own doctor if his knees ever need to be cleaned up, but he's not using the team doctors....

Finding your own doctor. That's not the type of thing that would cause hurt feelings and a trade, right?

Let's get down to business.

This is a Donruss set and we all want to see the Diamond King cards and the Rated Rookies. For me as a long-time collector, I have a really hard time with the 2001 Donruss set because of these two long running brand staples having huge flaws.  

This is the design for the Diamond Kings set.  

The artwork of Sosa is fine, but the giant border stinks. The Diamond Kings logo at the bottom also stinks. Playoff bought all the brand name and imaging rights for all of Pinnacle's old brands, why not use them? I did not scan the back, but the write-up falls short in comparison to previous Diamond Kings sets.  The checklist is also terrible. 

Traditionally, every team got a Diamond Kings card in every Donruss set regardless of where they finished in the standings. When I was in middle school and the Cardinals were medicore at best, I still got a Diamond Kings card of Felix Jose. For 2001, Playoff only included 20 players, which included multiple Braves and Yankees.  

Some players on the checklist were not even deserving of Diamond Kings card.  

Mark McGwire was oft-injured during the 2000 and 2001, but still ended up with a Diamond Kings card. There were plenty of other good choices on those Cardinals teams with Jim Edmonds, Darryl Kile, Matt Morris, and J.D. Drew.  

The 2001 Diamond Kings are a definite negative when grading this set, but nothing compared to the disappointment I have towards the Rated Rookies. Again, Playoff owned the name and branding rights for all of the Pinnacle brands. 

Rated Rookie cards should have the logo. This is the only acceptable answer.  

This is ugly.  

White border, black name bar, Anniversary logo.  Whatever.  I don't card about any of it, because some designer working for Playoff murdered this card by using some middle school quality Microsoft Word Word Art "Rated Rookie" logo. Worse, beyond using the logo at the bottom of the card in color form, they repeated the logo in the background of the border.

How much better does this card look with the standard Rated Rookie logo?  

So, how does it rank?

This set has been out 21 years and I have not forgotten the fact that Playoff screwed up the Rated Rookies and Diamond Kings.

No mercy.  

18. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

17. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

16. 2001 Donruss 

15. 2000 Topps 

14. 2012 Bowman Platinum 

13. 2000 UD Ionix

12. Topps Lineage   

11. 2002 Bowman 

10. 1988 Donruss 

9. 1995 Emotion XL 

8. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

7. 1998 Topps TEK 

6. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

5. 2001 Fleer EX 

4. 1979 Kellogg's 

3. 1998 Metal Universe 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

Set Appreciation Post #12 - 2000 Topps

It's the 2000 Topps set, but I am still hoping for a good post.  

Did that giveaway the ranking? 

I like making these posts, so a short checklist and boring design are not going to stop me from finding fun and interesting things to talk about.  

If you're a big fan of the 2000 Topps set, be a good sport or go to another blog.  

Base Set

The basic design is a boring gray frame with some sort of oddly shaped player name box at the bottom of the card.  If you squint your eyes you can see that there is also a player position just above the player name on the right side of the card.  

The photography in the set is the opposite of the Upper Deck and Stadium Club sets from this era.  It's a mix of boring portrait photographs, drab action photographs, and other pictures which have aged poorly.  I hated the McGwire "Gut Punch" celebration that was in vogue with the Cardinals in the late 1990s.  Did Jose Canseco own the rights to the forearm bash?  

After watching the unauthorized biography of the Bash Brothers on Netflix, I am guessing that the answer to this question is yes.  

I asked my 10-year-old son about what he thought was happening on the front of this card.  I stared at the front of it for a minute and told me the photo on the back of the card was better.  When I redirected him to the photo on the front, his responses were, "You tell me" and "Looking dumb".  

There you have it. 

Back of the card. 

This feels boring and uninspired too.  

Did some designer at Topps forget he/she was supposed to finish up the design for the 2000 Topps set and create it at the last moment possible?  I don't want to know the answer, just in case, this was actually seen as good at the time.  

The small checklist is also problematic for me.  I can always count on the Topps base set to give me a good 20-25 Cardinals players.  The 2000 Topps set gives me roughly a dozen.  The 1999 Cardinals were pretty bad, especially the pitching, but some name players got left off the checklist. Who are some of the 1999 Cardinals players that got cut out?  

It was Willie McGee's final season in the Majors. Yes, he was the fourth outfielder, but he did not get a card in the set.  It was Placido Polanco's first season in the Majors.  No rookie card.  Shawon Dunston was a key bench player who did not get a card.  The pitchers on the team are worse.  Jose Jimenez started almost 30 games, threw a no-hitter, and did not get a base card.  Kent Bottenfield won 18 games, no card.  Darren Oliver started 30 games, no base card.  Rickey Bottalico appeared in almost 70 games and lead the team in saves.  You know, no base card.  

Where Was Dwight Gooden in 1999?  

One of the most enjoyable parts of flipping through old baseball card sets is finding baseball players in weird uniforms.  Places where you may or may not remember them playing, or you are just trying to forget about them appearing there.  

There are some good ones in the 2000 set.  

First up, we've got Hideo Nomo on the Brewers.  

Yes, I remember him as a Brewer, but I try to block it out.  Hideo had some rough years and bounced around more than I care to remember during his career.  Always a Dodger in my mind.  

Next up, Tim Raines on the A's.  

Definitely a little odd.  He was only on the A's for 58 games in 1999.  Raines was a long-time Expo and White Sox.  I always think about the end of his career being as a bench player on the late 1990s Joe Torre Yankees teams, but he played for 4 different teams between 1999 and 2001, including a return to the Expos.  

Next.  

Yes, I remember Rickey Henderson on the Mets.  Rickey Henderson was seemingly on every Major League team between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.  There were about three different times he was on the A's, two or three times he was on the Padres, the Angels, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Mariners.  Not in the correct order and I probably left out a team.  

This brings us to Dwight Gooden.  

What the hell is this all about?  

I remember Dwight Gooden on the Indians.  He had an ERA of 6.  He was in his mid-30s, it happens.  

The Astros?

He pitched one game for the Astros.

One game.  

Did I mention that Willie McGee was a pinch-hitter for the Cardinals in 1999 and did not get a single card in this set?  

This is an insert card that Topps made of him because he had a Topps All-Rookie Team card.  It's always easy to criticize a baseball card that was made 20 years ago, but considering where he was in his career, this was a terrible decision.  Find an old Mets photograph, put it on the same card design, and it's a really popular card.  That's the way we all remember Dwight Gooden, right?  He was a Met?  

Best Cardinals Card(s) 

The obvious answer is the Fernando Tatis highlight card from his two grand slam inning against the Dodgers, which is why I am not going to choose it.  I am actually going to pick two of them. Scanned side by side, so let me explain my choices.  

If you remember Joe McEwing, chances are that you would probably remember him best as a utility player for the Cardinals and Mets.  However, he had a great half a season with the Cardinals in 1999 where he the starting second baseman. During the first half of that season, he had a slash line of .305/.355/.418 with 4 home runs and 19 doubles.  In the second half of the year his slash line .223/.303/.362 with 5 home runs and 9 doubles.  He was a great story for half a season before he was a utility player for the better part of a decade.  

Jose Jimenez pitched a no-hitter for the Cardinals against the Diamondbacks in 2000.  Bud Smith would pitch one the next year, making him the last Cardinals pitcher to do so, but the Jimenez no-no was much more memorable.  

First, he out-pitched Randy Johnson winning a 1-0 game.  Second, he ended up starting against the Diamondbacks a week later and pitched a two-hitter.  The Diamondbacks did not get a hit until the fifth inning.  

This is the only Jose Jimenez card in the set.  

Best Durham Bulls Card 

Shout out to Javy Lopez for this photo looking pained running to first base.  

If I were Javy Lopez, I would never speak to anyone at Topps again after they made this card.  

The best Durham Bulls card in the 2000 Topps set belongs to former pitching coach Kyle Snyder.  

He went to one of the blue North Carolina colleges (powder blue), so that's a negative.  He also used to give my son baseballs every time we went to a Durham Bulls game, so that's a positive.  No, seriously he is a really good coach who did great work with the Bulls and is doing the same thing with the Rays.  

Year 2000 Set, 1990s Style

Peroxide was really popular in the late 1990s.  It's an inexpensive way to make yourself blonde.  There were people who looked good with blonde hair, then there was Todd Jones.....

A closer look at Todd Jones with blonde hair.  

This was not a good idea and I am certain that Todd Jones is not the real Slim Shady.  

Although I could see him being at Burger King circling the parking lot, something about onion rings.  Go look up the song lyrics.  

I was also on the lookout for Turn Ahead the Clock uniforms, but I could only find one card.  It's not even a very good picture.  Really disappointed. 

The Turn Ahead The Clock uniform appears on the Gary DiSarcina card.    

If you are not familiar with the Turn Ahead The Clock promotion in Major League Baseball during the 1999 season, I suggest you use the Google Image search to find pictures of some truly terrible uniforms.  Short sleeves, large logos, and odd color schemes.  

 

Apparently, the Mets are moving to Mercury. 

Best Non-Cardinal Card(s) 

Topps does so many reprints these days, along with borrowed designs from past sets to make current year cards.  If I created a list of grievances of modern baseball cards, like the last 10 years, that would definitely be on the list.  

Topps did do a pretty good job with reprints in their late 1990s base set releases.  Typically they choose one great player from the 1950s, 60s, or 70s and reprinted their entire run of Topps cards both on regular card stock and Chrome card stock.  If I recall correctly, they used Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Nolan Ryan, and Hank Aaron.  

Aaron was the last player to get this treatment, as 2001 was the start of both Topps Heritage and Archives.  

Here is one of the cards.....

 

Here is why I liked these cards.  I appreciate Hank Aaron and recognize the fact that he is one of the all-time greats of the game.  Would I like to own some more Hank Aaron cards?  Yes.  Am I going to spend the money to buy a bunch of 1950s and 1960s Aaron cards?  No.  I still love looking at his cards though and can do that by looking through my 2000 Topps set.  It might be the only reason I have looked through this box of cards during the past 10 years.  

How Does It Compare?

It's not in last place on my list, but it's just really hard to get past the fact that the set is boring.  The 2000 set is not the worst Topps base set during my lifetime, but it's definitely in the bottom 5.  There just is not a lot here to love.  

The last time I did one of these was two months ago with the 1988 Donruss set.  It's not as good as that set, so my ranking decision came down to this set and the 2000 UD Ionix set.  Sad to say this about a Topps base set, but I am putting it below that Upper Deck release. 

12. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

11. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

10. 2000 Topps 

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

9. 1988 Donruss 

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

The bottom two are going to be really hard to knock out of those places.  

Set Appreciation Post #12 - 1988 Donruss

It has been a week.  I am doing a whole lot of nothing this weekend and it feels great.  Writing a blog post about the 1988 Donruss set seemed like a really huge time waster, so here I am.  Maybe I just hang out with the wrong people and follow the wrong accounts on social media, but the 1988 Donruss set seems wildly unpopular.  Is it just me, or does it often get lumped in with sets like 1991 Fleer?  

I am going to hold my opinion to the end of the post, but I will probably give away it's ranking somewhere around the top of the post.  

Special guest appearance by Aaron Boone via screen shots.  I learned this week that I attended his Major League debut.  He was ejected after being tagged out at home on a throw from right-fielder Brian Jordan.  

 

Actual screen shot of Aaron Boone after getting run from the game.  Deion Sanders homered off of Matt Morris.  The Reds won.  The Cardinals fans booed Deion Sanders and none of them could tell you why they booed him. 

Let's go.  

BASE CARD

 

Many of the cards in the post were actually opened by the 10 and 11 year old me.  Pack fresh.  You're going to find this hard to believe, but I have never gone back and worked on improving my 1988 Donruss set.  The first base card in the set is Mackey Sasser.  Actually, the first two dozen cards in Donruss sets were always the Diamond Kings cards.  I will get to those in a few minutes.  

The Rated Rookie cards were always great.  That little logo in the corner of the card is always a bonus in my book.  One of the great things that came out of 1980s baseball cards. 

Shall we talk about the border design? 

 

I never quite understood what was going on with the blue, red, and black lines.  I have looked at these cards from time to time over the last 33 years and I have no idea how this design was picked for a large baseball card set.  If this was the best design option at the time, what did it beat out?  

The back of the card. 

 There were always pros and cons to the card backs in the Donruss set.  The con was when you got a card of some player who had been around forever, but they only put five years worth of stats on the back of the card.  I like the highlight section better than Topps and I also like that they put down how the player was acquired.  You could find some really bad trades on the back of these cards. 

Diamond Kings 

I wanted to pick a Cardinals card for this spot, but the 1988 Donruss set had Jack Clark with a pink background.  I like the pink background, but 1988 was not a great year to be a Cardinals fan and see Jack Clark in a pack of cards. 

Why?  

I am going to slip in a screen shot of Mike Bush from NewsChannel 5. I think Mike is a news anchor now, or somebody serious.  Hopefully Zip Rzeppa is still doing sports in St. Louis. 

It also started the Bob Horner era in St. Louis.  

I decided to pick this Mark McGwire card instead.  Big Mac was coming off setting the Major League rookie home run record.  If you didn't know the year of the card, you can tell it's early in his career, because he looks to be a normal size in the picture.  I like the colored bars in the background too, very 1980s.  

Aaron Boone screen shot. 

There are probably better Diamond Kings cards in this set, but I am sticking with McGwire.  Solid design and he actually had a really good 1987.  

Cool Card of 1988 

I never got the whole idea of spending a ton of money on players with very little Major League experience.  Yes, it's been really bad the past two decades with Bowman, but it's not like that was the start of the trend.  Bowman just made it worse.  The 1988 Donruss set had one of those "hot" rookie cards way back in 1988.  

The 1988 Donruss Gregg Jefferies card was a really big deal back in the late 1980s.  People were pretty sure that he was going to be the next great hitter in the Majors, win a few batting titles, and be in the Hall of Very Good or the Hall of Fame.  

A lot of people spent a lot of money on this card. 

 

Other people just pulled the card from a $0.35 pack of cards from Ben Franklin.  

While we are here.  It really bothers me when people label Gregg Jefferies as a "flop" or a "bust".  He was a really good player who just happened not to live up to very lofty expectations.  I saw him play for the Cardinals for two years in the 1990s, excellent player.  Great hitter. 

Best Non-Cardinal Card 

I am a sucker for flip-down sunglasses.  

Why don't players wear these types of sunglasses anymore?  

I don't wear glasses.

I don't wear sunglasses.  

If I did wear glasses, they would be flip downs.  

Thank you, Aaron Boone.  Yes, Eric Davis is also a really good hitter.  

Best Cardinals Card 

 

Wrigley makes a good backdrop for baseball cards.  The Ozzie Smith card is a Spring Training picture.  The Vince Coleman card was also taken in Wrigley, but he is bunting.  Easy choice here. 

 Thanks, Aaron. 

Best Durham Bulls Card 

Let's wrap up this post.  I thought about going Brad Komminsk on the Brewers, but I am going to fly under the radar a bit here and go with Milt Thompson.  Really, there were not that many great choices.  The Bulls produced a lot of Braves players during the 1980s, but none of them have great cards in this set. 

 

Milt Thompson, if you did not watch baseball in the 1980s or 1990s.  Good player for the Braves, Phillies, Cardinals, and back to the Phillies for a second time.  I think there might have been a few years with the Astros at the very end of his career.  Good hitter, good defender.  I like the portrait style photo, just wish the photographer had backed up a little bit.  Milt had a really unique batting stance, but I cannot find a good picture of it.  His bat is actually too high in this photo.  Normally it was behind his back shoulder, he stood deep in the box, but stuck his front leg out straight in front of him. 

 Yes.  

How Does It Compare?  

You're probably thinking that this set is going to end up being in the last spot, but that's not going to happen.  I have no problem putting the 1988 Donruss set ahead of the bottom 3 sets.  It's not better than the 2017 Topps Heritage Minors set, so I am really trying to decide whether to put it above or below the Emotion XL set.  

The major flaw with 1988 is its design.  If Aaron Boone had been a design manager at Donruss during the late 1980s, this might be a conversation he had with his team.

Aaron Boone was in high school in 1988. 

Emotion XL has a good design, but some of it's cards are really dumb.  Let's remember that Dante Bichette's "emotion" was "The Heat".  Still think that the Emotion cards are better overall set than Donruss, especially when the quality of the cards is taken into consideration. 

I am going to go ahead and put the 1988 Donruss set in 9th place in my Set Appreciation rankings. 

11. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

10. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

9. 1988 Donruss 

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

Sorry, I am out of Aaron Boone screenshots. 

Set Appreciation Post #7 - 2017 Topps Heritage Minors

I let my 10 year old son pick out a random set for this post.  I am honestly surprised that he did not come back with the 1996 SPx set.  It is his all-time favorite set.  We both know it's because of the hologram pictures on the front of the cards.  Instead, he chose the 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League set, which is based on the 1968 Topps set.  Yes, the burlap sack set.  

He actually informed me that there are a lot of Durham Bulls card in this set. After taking five minutes to flip through the cards, it appears that he is correct.  There are a lot of Durham Bulls players and cards in this set.  

Basic Design 

I am going to go ahead and show my hand early in the post.  Personally, I find this design a little bit boring.  That's probably a generous assessment.  I also understand some of the attachment to this set.  When I was a kid it was a super cool set.  There were all sorts of cool unaffordable cards in this set.  Nolan Ryan and Johnny Bench rookie cards, Bob Clemente, old broken down Mickey Mantle.  

Really, when you get past some of the names on the card, it is really overrated.  Reminds me a lot of Nolan Ryan's actual playing career.  

I actually need to get back on topic.  This is the 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League set.  It's easy to drift off topic with design when Topps just recycles all of the old ones constantly.  Kind of makes the Heritage product line seem a little less special.  

Here's a card.  I will do better on the other side of the scan with focus.  

Is there something nice I can say about the design of the 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League set?  

I have two.  

First, the cards have pictures of Minor League players.  I like Minor League baseball.  This set features some pretty talented baseballers before they reached the Major Leaguers.  

Second, I like this yellow color that Topps used on the back.  Most of my 1968 Topps cards are not of the "pristine" variety, and therefore the color on the back is slightly less yellow.  These look nice with the black ink.  In my opinion, one of the most readable baseball card backs.   

I would rank the burlap sack portion of the 1968 Topps set in the bottom half of all Topps sets.  It might be in the bottom half of the bottom half.  It's at least better than 1996 Topps.  

Nickels.  

The "let me tell you something I like" and "let me tell something I don't like" theme really runs throughout this set.  I really like the coin cards that Topps puts in the Heritage Minors on an almost annual basis.  I am not sure that the early Heritage Minor League sets had these cards, but they have been in all of the recent ones.  

I have a few of these cards in my collection.  I wouldn't say that I collect them, but if I see one I like I will usually end up with it at some point.  There have not been any Durham Bulls, but there have been a few Cardinals, along with some other players I enjoyed watching in the Minors.  

I got this J.P. Crawford card because he is shown as a member of the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.  I am generally of the opinion that Minor League Baseball often goes too far with odd and goofy nicknames.  There are a few that I am willing to overlook for various reasons.  Iron Pigs is one of them.  

The front of the card is really good looking.  The back is a disaster.  

What is all this talk about the Cubs on the back of the card?  I get that it is connected to 1968, but they also randomly throw in the fact that J.P. Crawford was born in 1995 at the top.  

Sir, this is a J.P. Crawford card.  

Couldn't we tie the card back to another shortstop who played in 1968?  Maybe a Phillies player who did something newsworthy in 1968?  You could even just make the card back about J.P. Crawford.  That would work too.  

It's like Topps couldn't get out of their own way while making this set.  

Autographs 

There are some really good autographs in this set.  I don't own any of them.  I won't hold it against the final ranking.  Of all the different baseball card products with autographs of Minor Leaguers, the Heritage sets is always the best.  

The players are in their Minor League uniforms, rather than Major League, which makes it better than Bowman in my opinion.  Pro Debut also has the players in their Minor League uniforms, but those sticker autographs look really bad at times.  

These are nice.....

Both pulled from packs of cards during a meeting at work.  Good story, but for another time.  

I usually try to chase down the different Durham Bulls players, future Durham Bulls players, guys I saw play in college or USA Baseball, or players I just enjoyed watching play in the Minors.  This was not a great set for my collection, but let's face it, this product generally has a good track record.  I know a lot of people who love the autographs in the 2017 Heritage set.  

The autographs are a definite positive.  

Bizarro World.  

I am not a fan of all the different variations.  I will just lump them into the category of "weird stuff".  It happens in almost every Heritage product, and there are very few over the years that I have actual considered owning.  

Just weird.  

Bizarro World.  

Grown men with magnifying classes looking at tiny little codes on the back of baseball cards, or hidden sparkles on the front of cards.  I'm over 40 and I do not wear glasses.  Probably because I do not read the little variation codes on the back of Topps cards.  

This is one of the variations from this set.  

The main variation in the actual 1968 set was the yellow and white team names.  

Why not just roll with that? 

Topps did include variations with the yellow and white teams names, I just don't understand the need to invent some ridiculous new variation for the Heritage remakes.  

Similar to the back of the nickel cards, this is something that should be really simple, but Topps overcomplicates things.  Does this card have any actual connection to the 1968 Topps set?  Maybe there is some variation on a card that I have heard of, but I don't think so.  

Best Cardinals Card 

This was a fairly easy choice, because it's the best Cardinals player in the set.  I am also not into all the gimmicky promotional uniforms that some of the Minor League teams wear at times. I've had it with Star Wars uniforms. This one from the Memphis Redbirds is actually pretty creative.  

Have other teams done themed jersey nights from bands?

Probably.  

In fact, I am almost sure the Toledo Mud Hens did a Sgt. Peppers night at some point too.  Maybe it's the fact Minor League teams have not beat this concept into the ground.  

There is also a Dylan Carlson card in this set from his days in the Midwest League with the Peoria Chiefs.  

The Flaherty card is much better though.  

Best Durham Bulls Card

As mentioned at the top of the post, there are a lot of Durham Bulls cards in this set.  No autographs, but lots of players in the base set, and a few others in the relic card set.  I am not going to scan the relics, but I did the base cards.  

The best of this cards is obviously Adames, who is the Rays starting shortstop.  

Casey Gillaspie was traded to the White Sox, but is playing an independent league this season.  Honeywell is still in the Rays organization, but has had arm injuries the past few years.  I think he might still actually be on the Durham Bulls roster.  

These three cards are far inferior to one other Durham Bulls card that appears in the insert remake of the 1968 Topps Game sets.  The original cards featured players, but the 2017 Heritage Minors set has picture of different mascots.  

This is the Wool E. Bull card.  

Not only is Wool E. Bull a great mascot, but the card has a cool shout out to the movie Bull Durham.  

Best Non-Cardinals Card 

There is a group of short-prints at the end of the set that feature some pretty big name prospects.  I believe Ronald Acuna and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. are both in there.  One of the big upsides to the Heritage Minor League set is the checklist.  I actually feel like Topps does a pretty good job of getting a good mix of big name prospects, along with some others that have good potential to make it to the Majors.  

It was hard to choose here.  

However, I went with the best current Major League player with a card in this set......

Little Fernando, as I like to call him, was in A Ball when this picture was taken.  First year in the Padres organization after being traded from the White Sox for James Shields.  Not sure that was the best move in retrospect.  Anyway, I am sure this card is now selling for the equivalent of a second mortgage on your house with the way baseball cards are working at the moment.  

Honestly, I know he's not a Cardinal, but I always liked watching his father play.  I have enjoyed cards of Tatis Jr. for a few years now.  I just wish they weren't suddenly really expensive.  

How Does It Compare?  

The list of sets I would consider placing above the 1983 Topps set is very short, and this is not on that list.  I wouldn't even rank the 1968 Topps set that high.  Again, my biggest positive is the checklist.  The on-card autographs are nice.  My negatives are the odd card backs on the coin cards, the imaginary variations, and basic design.  

I acknowledge that the design could not be helped here, but those other factors are going to push it down my list a ways.  

7. 2000 UD Ionix 

6. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League  

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3.1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps