Why I selected it: Although I do have a small pile of Pete Rose cards obtained in my ever more distant childhood, I do not have 9 such cards. This means I need to to acquire a few more. But there is a chance I do have a copy of this card although I did sell off my 1980 set a little over 3 decades ago now, which helped me go on an epic one week vacation I will never forget. I do get a shallow bit of melancholia whenever I see a 1980 Topps Baseball card now. All that being as it may, this card will look great on the opening page of my now steadily growing Powder Blue collection. Or maybe the Racing Stripe collection. Depends on how page construction goes once ground is broken on some new binder stadiums.
Why I selected it: When I first received one of these cards from a pack of 2021 Opening Day, which is a great Mike Schmidt card showing him in the same uniform as that Pete Rose card up there, I thought "ehh, that's kinda nice." I didn't expect to end up keeping that card, but then the common 1/pack Opening Day inserts have essentially zero resale value and I can hardly ever bring myself to throwing a Baseball Card in the trash (horrors!). So that Schmidt card and a few more that fell out of those packs have just been kicking around the Card Desk ever since. And the more I looked at them, the more I liked them. Nice pleasing bright yellow colors of the rays of the rising sun. The way Baseball Cards should look.
A nice bonus for this insert set flows directly from its name: the "Legends" — thus there seemed little chance Topps would be able to sneak a soon-to-fail Rookie in with the actual legends of the game. Still, I've been kinda nervous Topps might have decided to ignore such rock solid logic, as they do routinely on oh so many inserts checklists nowadays. It wasn't until just a few minutes ago that I finally took a peak at the upcoming roster of necessary acquisitions of these. I am pleased to report that this one has zero RC logos included, what a relief. However I can't say I often think of Craig Biggio as right up there with the Babe, so when it comes time to finish out a pair of quite pleasing binder pages for these, there will likely be some editorial decisions involved to keep just 18 of these 25 purdy little cards.
Another not insignificant reason I like these inserts is that they remind of this side-of-a-building painting I have always liked, which can be found in downtown Elkins, WV:
Why I selected it: Even a year-ish ago we (Tigers fans) all knew it was over. And, so did my local shop owner, or else this card would have been in the regular Tigers box featuring cards priced > $1, like the lower print run Riley Greene Rookie Card cards.
Why I selected it: I bought this card for 82¢ or whatever the final cost was that day (might have been 72¢, or 62¢), being highly positive that this was a Short Print Photo Variation and thus worth > $1. I remembered that Konerko had a nice "sunset" card in the excellent 2015 Topps Baseball set but didn't think it was this image. "Highly" is not the same as "absolutely" however and it again wasn't until just tonight that I confirmed this.
And, OK, I confess. I have no plans to keep this card as I expect it will be an easy flip on COMC. Did I take advantage of my LCS here? No, not really. They would be quite happy to know I found a card worth more than one buck in their one dollar box, for several reasons. One being they don't have the time to individually handle/sell cards with very low profit margins, and the other being that the prospect of a customer "flipping" a card they sell only increases the chances that customer comes back to look through the single cards some more in the future. They price cards to move, not to wring every last possible George Washington out of them, be those the little round metal ones or the rectangular paper ones. They knew what they were doing, in that if this card wasn't a SP PV, it wouldn't have been in the Dollar Box.
Plus I have to wonder if this card might be the first Baseball Card with a smartphone on it. It certainly won't be the last, and I definitely won't be collecting those.
Why I selected it: At the time I set this card in my little take-home pile, the 1965 Redux inserts from 2021 Topps Baseball were on my I-think-I'm-gonna-complete-this list, as I have already done with the 1952 Redux set, but not the 1992 Redux set.
Since then, a nagging feeling about 1965 Topps has become significant in my thinking on it. I love the design and worked for quite a while on 2014 Heritage when it came out. I tired of the effort under the annoyances of the Short Prints, the always rude part of the Heritage product. But the deeper problem I have with 1965 style cards is the repetitiveness of the the team icon followed by the team name. Phillies-PHILLIES just looks pointlessly redundant to me. I struggle with the 1985 Topps design in the exact same way. Did you know 65-85 were linked like 63-83 or 62-87? Look at 85 & 65 together sometime. It's not as overt, but it's there.
Result: going forward with any and all 1965 Topps style Baseball Cards entering my own personal Binder Hall of Fame for all perpetuity, I will only include those cards that don't repeat the team name text, of which there are always many to select from. You can't collect all the Baseball Cards, anyway.
I bought this card, anyway, for other warm fuzzy reasons unrelated to Hot Rookie dollar $igns dancing in my head. I have very warm & fuzzy memories of the 1978 Topps Baseball set of Detroit Tigers cards, the first "Team Set" I ever completed for the club. So 1978 style Detroit Tigers cards will always activate those fuzzies, and there are darn few 1978 Topps style cards ever produced by Topps, for who-knows-what-reason.
But I also collect cards that show the baseball bats proudly displaying their "HICKORY" origin. I bet you totally didn't notice that when lol'ing at yet another failed Tigers prospect. Overall I think this card won't receive a cousin in the Tigers binder, too, despite my love of 1978, as there will probably be too many cold fuzzy Torkelson cards in there already. Particularly if he becomes an ex-Tiger, which I feel is likely, soon, and he goes on to success, elsewhere...
Why I selected it: ...this is one I forgot was in the dollar box stack. Isaac (pronounced e-sock) Paredes was indeed a Tigers Rookie at one time, having debuted for them with unspectacular results in 2020 and then repeating those in a few dozen games in 2021.
He was part of two fairly memorable trades in recent Tigers history. First Paredes became a Tiger when our previous GM, Alex Avila Sr., traded away his own son, Alex Jr. — a first in Baseball history? Alas, there is no Topps Now card commemorating the trivia answer.
Paredes was then later traded away by Al Sr., off to Tampa Bay for the possibly troubled player Austin Meadows. Which sadly eventually proved to be the case, as Meadows has been unable to continue his baseball career. I think he could be a bit of a casualty in MLB's revised rule against the use of Xanax by players, which famously allowed Dontrelle Willis to continue his career, and probably others. But that is a strictly not-public subject for Major League Baseball and "Googling it" will just lead you more to a brand of gloves named Xanax than it will any concrete information on the topic/concept.
Anyhow I have wanted an example of a Allen & Ginter Chrome card, just one, and this seemed like as good a checklist spot as any to stop on for that tiny little goal. Plus I like how the RC logo isn't officially colorized on certain Ginter cards. Collecting checklist, checked.
Why I selected it: Staying on the Tigers RC trip, this player has quite some Mojo I have felt, even before I found this "Mojo" insert in that Dollar Box whatever day that was last winter. He definitively proved it when he faced the American League's best reliever in 2024, Cleveland's Emanuel Clase, in the top of the 9th with 2 outs, and his team trailing the Guardians in a playoff game (did I really just type that?) back in October. I will never forget that Dinger. Good thing I bought this Baseball Card to get that Mojo workin'
Why I selected it: I expect this player has many fans of a certain age, all around the country, not just in Dodger-land. Which is of course due to his nickname, which of course is "Ferris." Young-uns are likely like, wha?
So it was great to see his triumphant return to success this past World Series. And I expect you sharpies all already know why I splurged some random amount less than a buck on this card, which so clearly breaks the Topps Baseball set composition rules that it must be another Short Print Photo Variation, like the Konerko card back up there a lil ways now.
Thus it wasn't a large gamble on this being worth > $1 also. Although I like Walker Buehler and a quick check just-to-be-sure confirmed this is a basic SP and not a surprise SSP, this one will soon be off to COMC to net me a few more quarters sometime around the start of Spring Training. By then Ferris will likely be wearing a different uniform than the one on this rather odd - but not in a poignantly endearing way - kinda downer Baseball Card.
Why I selected it: I thought this one, too, might be a Photo Variation SP, I confess once again. But this time, I was wrong. This card was priced about perfectly accurately. It did belong in the Dollar Box, because of the back of the card — say that out loud. Yes Sir:
This informs me that Kenley's Average Fastball Extension varied by 4 inches over the years 2016-2021, for whatever that is and whatever that is worth.
I would somewhat like to own a whole bunch of these cards, but there are a couple large impediments to the idea. Although they arrive in editions of /300, it is certain that nowhere near 300 copies of these will ever be found by people opening packs, as only the back of the card indicates there aren't 3 million copies of it. But more significant is the fact that although advanced stats are very, very interesting, there is ultimately only so much time in a day and I barely have time to file away all these durn Baseball Cards I buy in the first place.
None of that quite explains where this card will end up, and why I wants-ed it in the first place, which was not to sell for $2 after buying it for a bit less than half that. Rather, I love the image on the front of the card, which will slide right in with some other cool sports cards I have, which feature NFL Quarterbacks. I'm sure you can guess the theme of that little collection.
Why I selected it: Here I again guessed wrong, in that this wonderful Baseball Card is not a Photo Variation. I didn't think there was a high chance of that, but I didn't hesitate pulling the trigger on this one, either way. That's because I knew I would need an extra copy of this card, regardless, as it will look great both in my collection of horizontal Rookie Card cards, and also on my eventual best-9-horizontals-of-2022 page. So I won, anyway. This card was in the Dollar Box because all Rookie Cards are highly valuable, amirite?
Buy 10-Get-One-Free Bonus
Why I selected it: Well, you win some, you lose some. I collect any 1975 style card I can find. But, it turned out I had pulled this one from a pack back in 2021.
So it already graces my 1975 oddball page which has Babe Ruth on it, too. All is not lost even though this card can't be "flipped" for any net profit of a few pennies. That's because that odd way to sign S-h-a-n-e B-i-e-b-e-r on there is not Bieber's signature at all, but rather is that of Yordan Alvarez. So this new extra copy will find a home on my Really Bad Autographs page, perhaps.
Another Error while Topps documents the game of Runs, Hits & Errors. As a passing (read: online) acquaintance of mine described such things earlier this year: "that's just part of the charm."
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