yeah Man, < 50¢ a little

Maybe someday I will reach the end of the stack of 50¢ Baseball Cards I have been enjoying. That's probably a little tougher than pondering true Dollar Box cards, because the fiddy¢ card pile grows a little faster, of course. Which is a very fun fact. 

Why I selected it: This one might be because I need to do some homework on 1999 Topps, more than anything. Of course Brad Ausmus will be a name connected to the Tigers organization for a lot more than a 1999 Topps Baseball Card, which is why it is in the 50¢ box in my town and nowhere to be found, ever again, in your town. He managed the Tigers basically unsuccessfully after the retirement of eventual Hall-of-Famer Jim Leyland; an essentially impossible-to-be-successful task given the Tigers slowly closing "window" at the time.

But for some reason, I can't seem to find whatever 1 or 2 sample packs of 1999 Topps Baseball I purchased, a year I didn't collect beyond a check-it-out purchase. This card makes me think, "for obvious reasons."

So one thing I want to check out is - how did they make a Gold parallel, for this year? Maybe they didn't?

I also need to wade through all of the Brad Ausmus cards ever made, to find the one with him on the dugout steps with a laptop computer. I believe I have seen the card, now I just need to find it...

Why I selected it: Tall players get better cards, for one. 2002 Topps is a major improvement over doings just 3 years before. And this is just a great Empty Seats card, so apropos for a 2021 card. Recently I decided to assemble a best Empty Seats page, of just Rookies, so it will be easier to also assemble another best-of Empty Seats. This card, though, would look great on the Best-of, too.

Why I selected it: This card feels like an homage. Not to another player, per se / specifically, but definitely to a certain Baseball Card: the 1974 Topps Steve Garvey card. So I just had to have this one and it will 100% certainly make it to my Top 9 verticals of whatever year Stadium Club this card is from, which is something I can never remember just by looking at the front of the card. Meanwhile on the back, I have to use the handy "Magnifier" app on my phone these days to sort out what year a Stadium Club card is from. Doesn't matter, for this card.

Why I selected it: This happy Baseball Card single-handedly made me want to assemble 9 of the 2021 New Age Performers, a Heritage insert I rarely pay much attention to. Those inserts do, however, pay attention to the graphical styles and motifs of the year, and set, they came from, usually. Here, the overall level of 1972-Topps-ness is quite strong.

I figured I had pulled a few of these in my purchases of 2021 Heritage, and that proved correct - 2 each of 2 players who did not "Perform" at all in MLB but rather flamed out quickly and dramatically. The eternal problem with putting Rookies on insert checklists that are supposed to be interesting, later. And it's never any fun to start an insert collection by pulling 2 doubles right off the bat.

So this great Ke'Bryan Hayes card will just be a reset to begin building up a few of these; a happy find.

Why I selected it: I can't say it would help me to have to keep track of another Pirate outfielder named Polanco. Though differing decades would keep me straight eventually. But then, a Bowman card only sometimes = Major Leagues. This one, probably does not, it appears, now, after 3 seasons have passed since it was issued.

But I bought this Baseball Card because I like cards with Trees on them. Trees = good.

Why I selected it: I do always like a road uniform on a card design that just prints the team name and nothing else. Washington. Nationals. Really though a build of this 2021-1986 checklist is looking increasingly likely, so here I have knocked down another one of the "big boys" in the set though I am near certain an Ohtani card will still be waiting for me on top of the mountain. Maybe soon I will start collecting only checklists without an Ohtani card. At least now I can afford to complete all the checklists with Trout cards.

Why I selected it: I was afraid I did not pull a Kyle Tucker Rookie Card card back in 2019. I think his career, or more particularly, his Baseball Card career, might really take off in Chicago in 2025.

If it turns out I already did pull a Kyle Tucker Rookie Card card back in 2019, well I think his Baseball Card career might really take off in Chicago in 2025, so having a "double" of this card will be, good.

Why I selected it: This had to have been discovered after I wrote a recent post largely about the Topps Stars of MLB inserts, and a small bit of certainly way incomplete history of graphical stars-on-cards. Can't have too many Stars in a Baseball Card collection.

Why I selected it: I figured it would be nice to have a Tigers card in with the Empty Seats cards, which usually come from Cincinnati, not Detroit. But the Tigers are on the road here, so ... wait, those empties aren't red, so this isn't Cincy. This just barely qualifies for a nice Empty Seats card but I got to have some Tigers cards outside of the Tigers binder at least occasionally, somehow.

Why I selected it: A Powder Blue Hall-of-Famer. Is this Morgan's Sunset Card, you ask? No, he still hadn't been to Oakland yet.

Why I selected it: Well I do like the Giants' Alternate black uniform even when it's not real, I guess. But mostly I kept this one because even Bowman players might display The Cross, which I quite respect.

Why I selected it: Well this horrendous scan certainly begs that question. I collect/save Dontrelle Willis cards when they appear in front of me, because I like daydreaming about the idea of playing Baseball while under the influence of Xanax, a thing of the past now in MLB.

Normally Dontrelle sure looks chillax-d on his Baseball Cards, but on this one you can't see his face, so who knows. That's usually a no-go for my collection, but this card is unique in that it is a promo card for a Topps&MLB collaboration of some sort, for a video game. It was issued in packs of 2006 Topps it turns out.

The back of the card features a "cheat code" to use playing the game, that is very hard to read ... except maybe my scanner can read it:

The code is a bit more discernible, electronically, appropriately enough. But it is just the word "Unhittable," which feels pretty lame in that I could probably guess the other 10 cheat codes now. Cracking the top 9 Dontrelle Willis cards might need a stronger cheat code, for this card. But it is a nice reminder of how strong his career was, there in the mid-00s.

Why I selected it: I am definitely heading into collecting all of the Significant Statistics cards, which appear in multiple years of Topps Baseball. I'm not even sure how many yet; I just keep these when I find them now. Can't be a bad thing to start another year of them with the Mike Trout card, even those aren't expensive any more.

I wrote up this same Average Distance for a Mike Trout Significant Statistics card from 2021 just the other day month; thus this 2020 card back has little mystery but these cards are meant to be enjoyed on the back, so

I haven't decided yet, but I might put these into binder pages showing the back of the card, for easier 'memberin of the text, later on down the road.

What's better than an Oooohhh, Shiny card?

 

Actually, I'm not all that completely devoted to Oooohhh, Shiny Baseball Cards. 

But — sometimes.

I've posted this card before, also as the lead/thumbnail card for you all to see on blog rolls, when I was pondering the use of stars on Baseball Cards. This card features stars all over the place, starting right at about dead center on the card, which has to be pretty unique in that regard. 

I think it is likely this card will be my 2024 Card of the Year, whenever I finally finish up with the delightful "The Neon" set of 2024 Topps Baseball, which occasionally fits along in starts and stops. I picked up a couple more packs of 24 Update just last week, for example. I think I can safely anoint this 2024 Topps Baseball Series One insert as my 2024 Psychedelic Card of the Year, right now. 

This card is just fun to have, in-hand. I sometimes wonder if there will come a day when we can make 3D scans of cards. If such a thing were possible, this would be one of my first experiments. When holding this card, the rainbow-ish palette for the exploding star behind Riley there starts to shimmer and catch the light. Maybe Tolkien's Elves would start wars over this thing, it's so purdy when light is bouncing off of it.

So aside from anchoring a page of these superb 2024 inserts, and also appearing amidst my collection of the Detroit Stars uniforms as seen on Baseball Cards, I began wondering if there could be another way to enjoy this ridiculously overly-fascinating slice of cardboard enjoyment.

And thus the question that titles this post. Could an Oooohhh, Shiny card become even better with the mysterious extra layer of Oooohhh, Shiny known as a "Chrome" Baseball Card?

hmmm

Surprisingly, the Chrome version of this card somehow dials -BACK- the Oooohhh, Shiny, when enjoyed in-hand, like Baseball Cards should be. In this case, the "Chrome" seems to be nothing more than an extra layer of some sort of translucent plastic that means you should probably wash your hands after holding this particular Baseball Card, before eating anything. (The new Chrome cards falling out of all packages of Heritage these days display this trait on the card backs, which look like they just came out of a shrink-wrap machine. Weird.)

Still I wanted to enjoy this card forever more on yet more binder pages than just the two I initially assigned this one to. 

I could just attempt to find 8 more Oooohhh, Shiny Riley Greene Baseball Cards, which here in the most wonderful season of Detroit Tigers Baseball in about a decade, will become ever easier. I even have a first page-mate, amidst a tiny collection of 24 Topps parallels, which includes a 10th, 'overflow' card, featuring Riley. I'll probably just go ahead and work on 'clecting that project, too. 

That triple inclusion in my various Baseball Card binders still didn't feel like, enough, particularly when I would happen to notice this complete gem of a Baseball Card selling for just 35~40¢, each - can you believe it?

After a couple rescues of this totally awesome Baseball Card from the fairly undeserved fate of being so ignominiously cheap, I finally figured out just what really is better than just one Oooohhh, Shiny Baseball Card-

The Result

how about let's never leave the fiddy box

A few days before Christmas, my LCS mentioned they are prepping some new $1 and 50¢ boxes. Oooh, that was gonna make for a nice Winter Break at some point over the dreary weeks, I hoped, if I could get back "up home" to my little ole home town. (Narrator: still hasn't happened, sigh).

Until then, I'm still scanning and deliberating on my 2024 finds from those boxes...

Why I selected it: At some point, hopefully in 2025, I will be launching my "Stadium Club Project," which will be to shop each set of Stadium Club, starting in 2015, and selecting 9 favorite horizontals, 9 favorite verticals, and a copy of every card originally printed with a black&white photo (not any of the parallels that changed a color image to b&w).

I'm quite looking forward to it and I expect it to be a lot cheaper than just buying random containers of Stadium Club cards, new or old. It should make for bunches of enjoyable $3 binder pages of Baseball Cards.

Will this 2020 Juan Soto card make it to 2020 SC Nifty Nine status? I'm skeptical, but I do like seeing the "Postseason" uniform patch on a card that doesn't otherwise say anything about the postseason on it. So, maybe. If not by then every stock broker on Wall Street will be wanting every Juan Soto Baseball Card ever made.

Why I selected it: Just, mostly, to scan it. Although this is one of the better recent Team Cards I can ever recall in that it sure makes the viewer want to catch a game at Fenway (bucket list thing, for me), I was hoping it would make a dramatic scan well "lit up" by the scanner, for a small "digital-only" project I plan to follow through on, with all of my otherwise essentially worthless "Rainbow Foil" parallels I have pulled since they began appearing in Topps Baseball sets in about 2015 or so.

There is a pretty good chance that the 2022 Topps Baseball Boston Red Sox® card #519 will become my 1/year best Horizontal Rainbow Foil card from 22 Topps, even if it doesn't become part of a little folder for "screen saver" use, as this scan just didn't light up like I hoped it would.

Why I selected these: I am a Topps addict. I forget what 2010s set these inserts appeared in, but I am "working on" the checklist - that means I want to finish it, someday, but since I can't recall what year these are from, "some" day is probably still a ways off. But that's OK, because I am fairly sure these will never be expensive, unless maybe Topps created a Rookie Card card for itself, which is always possible. They have also essentially already repeated this exercise in a 2020s set I am also 'working" on. Maybe when the 2030s version appears I will have a few more cards in each.

I definitely already had a copy of the Sy Berger card, but that's OK, cuz everyone loves Baseball Cards that show Baseball Cards on them. Don't you?

Why I selected it: A new collection effort, of these "Hobby only" inserts I only discovered courtesy of these cheap single card boxes at my LCS.

A 219 Ft "Avg Distance" seems like it will have some hidden trickery involved, since 219 feet is never a Home Run. So what are we looking at here? Let's find out:

Ok, so Mike Trout still relatively "bombed" the ball in 2022, to the tune of ten feet more than anyone else. Neat.

Why I selected it: Always a lot goin' on on an Acuña card. I just love the miniature "Logoman" the scan revealed, to me anyways. I am now rebuilding a modest collection of these 2021 1986 Topps cards. Maybe I will sync up MVP wins with inclusion in a few pages of these. Or, maybe I will just dive into the pool.

Why I selected it: I think the relatively few "re-dos" of 1988 Topps Baseball are really showing the design in a more positive light, particularly given it's deployment on modern, always-crisp-results printing technology. 

It is -very- functional, and memorable, but lets the image be the memory. In this way it is very reminiscent of 1978 Topps - could that have been deliberate, at the time? The 2 designs may seem a bit of plain-jane, however when the photo is as fresh and illuminative as this one, the design seems to be astutely getting the heck out of the way of viewer enjoyment.

I also liked this card because I can't recall having seen this Clemente photo before. Maybe a Clemente collector will have; I am certainly familiar with repeat images on other Clemente cards. 

So with 2023 1988 Topps I am on the same cusp-of-decision as I am with the 86s.

Why I selected it: More progress on the 2024 Significant Statistics checklist. I think I only have 1 card each from 2 other years of this insert, which has more history than I suspected, though not always in contiguous years. Although there is near zero mystery to the concept of a 100.2 mph average velocity on a Sinker, these cards are ALL about the back, so -

and as it turns out, I learned a few intriguing factoids, including a shout-out to a player who has been hard to collect lately, probably due to a combination of Topps' disdain for Middle Relievers and that he missed a lot of time to injury (I think?) - dat would be da Brooze-Darr. I hope to see him on more cardboard in 2025. Otherwise, I am enjoying these inserts, every time I find one.

Why I selected it: So, let's review. I like Pink Baseball Cards. I like Powder Blue Baseball Cards. I like Racing Stripe Baseball Cards.

3 boxes checked. I also like the Pitcher-Plays-Hard Baseball Cards - show me another Dirty Pitcher card.

I however, do not like 1991 Donruss and I had to laugh when someone succeeded at making the whole thing much worse. They must have been taking notes from 2021 Topps or something. I also don't like no-license = no cap logo, so a couple boxes checked on the other, negatory, side of the ledger.

So this is one of those hideous but ultimately love-hate cards. Here's to hoping that this image can somehow appear on another, better Baseball Card some future year.

Why I selected it: Now here is much improved take on an old Donruss design. It rather begs the question of why, back-in-the-day, they made the regular red version, and the sneaky issue blue version, rather than just super intelligently combining the 2 primary Baseball and American colors, just like this?

Meanwhile, I am launching a small Jackson Chourio collection. So this pretty card will fit in there though I would rather have his Nashville Sounds cards. The back of this card is one of the laziest I have seen lately, with oceans of blank space and a report that Chourio is "From: Venezuela." The super teeny-tiny card back text never even identifies what team name might have been the source of this image, other than "Biloxi." 

I do largely expect this is a totally faked approximation of Milwaukee's Powder Blue Throwback uniform (the new Brew Crew uniforms don't have the colored armbands). But there is an outside chance their MiLB affiliate in Biloxi does use them, so I wanna find out.

I also suspect this is some sort of parallel, not a base, and thus the regular 2023 Donruss probably doesn't use this best-possible approach to this design. But there is a teeny-tiny chance such a checklist holds a few other neato lookin' cards on it. Maybe.

Why I selected it: I keep sayn' I'm gonna quit these 2009 Legends of the Game inserts, but here they keep appearing in my little stacks of purchases. I automatically pick up Christy Mathewson cards because they just aren't commonly seen. Mostly I grabbed this one because of the image, which is probably well on its way to a hey, look at these 9 cards page, some day. This is likely the single most common Mathewson card image.

Why I selected it: This card was supposed to the fated 13th card for one of these posts, but I couldn't leave you with a card this hideous, now could I. 

So why did I buy it? I don't know. Maybe to make sure I don't buy it again? Does that make any sense?

This was an insert in 2022 Topps Chrome but these (the card does say "Diamond Greats" in pointlessly tiny text) first appeared in 2022 Topps as decent enough die-cut cards. That clearly then became an all-too-easily repeated insert in that year's Chrome. And somehow one that got significantly worse once Chromed, but then no amount of design could save a card from this turrible, just turrible pic.

The card back writer went quickly to the standard description of Mathewson in the 1905 World Series and probably clicked this one off the office computer screen as fast as possible. Maybe I bought it just to see how many Christy Mathewson card backs can just float on the one World Series. Blech.

Why I selected it: I have a small collection of Hunter Pence cards that needs to be wrapped up = placed on a binder page. He had a good number of memorable cards in the 2010s, but I can't recall having a choice Astros selection, so I thought a Topps Gold would be a nice add. I heard him call one game in 2024, when the Giants were on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball so he moved over to help out the radio crew. I expect he is otherwise routinely on the TV crew. Maybe that will happen again sometime. I hope so.

 

Repeats? Oh, yes. Nifty Nine #14

Baseball Card collectors often find that they have seen the picture on their brand new Baseball Picture Card somewhere, before — usually on another Baseball Picture product of some sort.

Instead of complaining, I recently decided to just go with a flow on this...

The Card That Started It All

2011 Topps Baseball Wal-Mart Hanger box exclusive insert

This wasn't quite the card that started it all, but was the first card I obtained for this project. I didn't dream this one up until some years later:

2018 Big League

I enjoyed the debut set from the Big League product quite a bit; I almost completed it but the grey border ultimately dissuaded me from that in favor of just some pages of highlights, one of which is a classy page of "All-Time Greats" on this classically understated design. But since I had a duplicate of Hammerin' Hank, I had to decide just what to do with the extra slice of Baseball Card perfection.

So I decided to just start putting Hank Aaron cards into my "Players" box to see what happens on the way to a low key 9 card Player collection page -

2020 Topps A Numbers Game insert

I got off to a bad start with these particular inserts; it took me a few more seasons of laughing at the absurdities of 2020 Update to realize just how much I liked Uni # cards. I will be collecting this one - a simple enough task for a high print-run insert checklist with zero Rookies on it - probably during the next Black Friday week on COMC.

In the mean-time when this great #44 card went into the Players box, that particular alphabetical sort had another 2011 card in the stack with it, waiting for entry...

2011 Topps Baseball Topps 60 insert

...and that's when I finally saw it, and this project was launched.

It all remained in slow motion until I was preparing a shipment of loot from COMC by looking for On Sale notes in the ole watchlist and I decided it was simply time to pull this trigger. After pulling this image from packs four times, I now had to spend actual George Washingtons, both round ones and a few rectangulars, to git r done:

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary "Home Team Advantage" Hobby Shop promo

Yes, this makes three 2011 cards using this image (so far). Yet that didn't slow Topps down the next year -

2012 Topps Baseball A Cut Above insert

This one has a somewhat atrocious card back / theme that makes me shudder to think what the rest of the cards on the little checklist may have been like. Plus a straight glaring grammatical error. I'm not looking forward to Chat GPT creating my card backs but I fully expect it; this one has about that level of quality. Yech.

Topps then seemed to lay off these easy lay-ups for a few years, until -

2017 High Tek

Never one to discount double check things, nor consider shame in the creation of their products...

2018 High Tek

As I scrolled through the voluminous Hank Aaron listings on COMC, looking just for this image, I found a few surprises. Such as the possibility I could likely, yes, repeat this exercise with another extremely similar image of this famous batting stance, shot from the same vantage point and with a very similar splash of sunshine on Hank's right leg, but a different uniform. And I already had 2 cards using the image. I never have scrolled through all 2,600+ Aaron cards all over again to determine for sure if 9 cards exist with it, though, maybe. A batting cage shot is also creeping upwards on such a list also.

The biggest surprise came 3 decades previous to these 2010s cards however:

1986 Donruss

This one's not even a photograph but rather is a Dick Perez painting/illustration of that same photo. It's also not quite a regular "Diamond Kings" card in that this is a card explaining "The 1986 Donruss Hall-of-Fame Puzzle," which can be enjoyed by this regulation 3.5"x2.5" card, or a 15 piece "mini" puzzle also the same size as a regular card, or a full 63 piece 8.5"x11" puzzle one can assemble. Maybe the full deal there would nicely backstop this oddball collection. Could be fun.

I think this might partially explain why Topps became so fond of this picture - perhaps, it is in the public domain. Or, the original Perez-Steele gallery / Donruss rights to the photo had expired by 2011, don't know. From the card offerings, it appears Aaron's licensing went to Donruss for one year in 2008, then no Hank cards appeared in 2009 or 2010, but then in 2011 the Topps floodgates opened.

Regardless, I thought it perfectly anchors this little expedition into the crazy world of minting "new" Baseball Cards of "old" players.

Card Most on the Bubble: despite the general (though small) level of absurdity to this still enjoyable page of Baseball Cards, I am thinking about tweaking it. Which is because there are still more cards using this image, including a 1983 style card, a design I quite like. There is also yet another 2011 card from Triple Threads that would get this thing to four cards from a single year, which has some weird sort of appeal, too. Or maybe, five -

2011 Topps Baseball Kimball Champions insert

So my initial thought was one of the Tek cards would go, because I am not a fan of transparency in cards, particularly once they grace a binder page. And I'm just generally afraid to touch them. Maybe, both will have to go. For now though,

The Result

A great Baseball day

Baseball has been back in full swing for a while now of course, which is always a wonderful thing. My Baseball Card hobby has not been; after working 6 day weeks from February through April, in May I moved on up - to 7 day weeks. Yay.

Fortunately even working with, around, and in the always dynamic mix of Biology & Weather has periods of slack water eventually, so it's time to blow the dust off the scanner...

1st Card, Best Card

Welcome to 2025! Y'all probably have Series One all bindered up and up on the bookshelf already, but I am still absorbing it. And, enjoying it.

This year I mostly pulled off my annual goal of (somehow) not seeing the new Topps Baseball design until I rip open a pack. A simple plan, which seemingly gets more difficult every year. At this point, "Google News" places all things Baseball Cards into my news feed within minutes of publication, I often think. And one of their little thumbnails with some sort of online/media piece about the new Baseball Cards almost wrecked everything a few days before my target 'opening day' to finally see 2025 Series One at the start of the Tigers' first Spring Training game.

I hit the scroll bar as fast as I could and managed to only know the design would be vertical (again), with a fair amount of graphical action on the left side of the card. Which, once it became "in-hand," I quite like. The foil/metallic ink from 2024's "The Neon" design is back for an encore but on a full white border. Looks like we will have team cap logos this year, which isn't quite the same thing as perhaps "official" team logos. This Phillies card inviting me into the new Topps Baseball set is a perfect contrast candidate for this, as in 2024 their cards used the 'Phillies' + Liberty Bell logo, which does not appear on their uniforms. It will be interesting to see if Topps manages to stay consistent for all 30 teams on this icon choice, something that can vary in some sets. I would like to explore the history of that, but when I can barely find time to read a pack of Baseball Cards, well.

Overall the obvious adjective here is "flowing" and in a way this feels somehow like a reversed ode to 1982's hockey sticks though without being one of those sly 20th or whatever anniversary nods that are more integral to many Topps Baseball designs than is always quickly obvious. An even better adjective which comes to mind is: "elegant." Another wonderful stay-away from those years of aggressive geometry on the card design.

And then there is something altogether NEW: the little graphical diamond indicating the player's position. This, I Like. Bats, balls, and gloves have done duty here but I can't recall anything similar before this, though I can be wrong on such things. It surely can't be easy to introduce a brand new graphical concept to the long history of Baseball Cards. Well done, Topps.

Plus a Powder Blue First Card? Yup, this one's a keeper in that ever growing collection, which won't be of every Powder Blue card, ever, but rather team examples on each design. This card will certainly rep the Powder Blue Phillies for 2025 Topps Baseball.

I particularly liked pulling that Alec Bohm card to open my 2025 season because while I was admiring it, Alec Bohm came up to bat. How handy is that? Let's check the back, because, yeah, I read them:

all in order here

I like the repetition of FIRST LAST name from the front

This is why I prefer to open packages of Baseball Cards while absorbing a live game of Baseball. It was also a bit of an amazement for me in that many Baseball fans in Michigan had spent the off-season wondering if the Tigers might trade for / sign a new 3rd Baseman, a Hot Stove topic which centered largely on the Free Agency of Alex Bregman.

I kinda figured that could go either way; indeed Bregman's decision seems to have ultimately been between Boston and Detroit at the end. Meanwhile I kept thinking about what the Tigers could offer Dave Dombrowski for Bohm, after it was known he had tried to package Bohm and Castellanos in a deal in late 2024. This surely meant Bohm was available, and as I write some 3 months later, Detroit still doesn't quite have an every day guy at Third Base even now that a previous 3B acquisition from Philadelphia, Matt Vierling, is back from an early spring injury. So my off-season armchair GM plan just never went anywhere beyond bouncing around in my own noggin and no one else's - though I will never forget my idea and most especially not when gazing upon this Baseball Card.

By the time I got done flipping First Card over and back over many times, I had lost my place listening to my first live Baseball game of 2025 and it was time to re-check the line-up and also start pondering the rest of the pack -

We all know 2025 will be the year of Chi-Sox RCs

Feels a little odd when the Official RC Logo® is supplying the only real splash of color, but so it goes with MLB's monochromatic team, on lotsa designs. 

Of course Pitchers hardly ever need a positional designator on a card when live game action photography is used, but overall this is a very good image choice very early in Thorpe's motion. As with the Bohm card, the complete player is pictured — perhaps it won't be a year of all-torsos, all-the-time in Topps Baseball. 

As for who Drew Thorpe is, couldn't tell ya. Baseball Cards help tremendously, but I had to look this up: Thorpe hasn't pitched in 2025 and is on the 60 day IL. No surprise for a Pitcher RC. I've had some realizations about RCs and the ultra-modern game of Baseball that I will be exploring in some more posts later this year. Or perhaps later in this post, as that surely won't be the last Rookie Card card in the pack; I think that is an Official Unwritten Rule of Baseball Cards these days...

Nice Mr. Redlegs cameo

From the West Coast, where I never know anything about Baseball players, to a Central division team, where I kinda root for all the teams, so I had better know a few things about their players. Thus, for me, Baseball Cards.

The France card, a fair bit more than the Bohm card, illustrates how the image is going to have to carry the load for some color appeal this year. The Reds uni, naturally, emphasizes the color red which is just kinda barely there in the metallic foil printing. And why do the Reds get a colorful "C," the opposite of their caps, when the Phillies get a regulation white "P," exactly like their caps? I knew Topps would have little chance of going 30-for-30 on this.

a "Sunset" card

More West Coast, in a sense, which I knew from my Baseball Cards, even though Marco Gonzales somewhat struggled to appear on them. He has exactly one Rookie Card - how does that even happen these days? That RC is a 2015 Heritage High Numbers card, without the famous logo; his first Topps Baseball card isn't until 2018 Update. How am I ever going to cover this player in my RC/FTC collection?

This card shows that 2025 Topps Baseball kinda just doesn't want to be scanned - the actual in-hand card in no way gives an indication of the color green in the team color design element.

Series One always has lots of odd checklist choices like this. I could consider this card an "Update" card commemorating Marco's brief (7 games) final career stop in the Steel City, but he did have a Pirates card in 2024 Series Two already. Ultimately considering Gonzales did manage to pitch over 900 innings in MLB, which is an increasingly unusual feat, I guess it's a good thing he got a final, good looking sunlit in-action card like this one. There are always more sunset cards in a set of Topps Baseball than most collectors will ever realize. Which is because this other kind of card -

Colorado Who?

- sucks most of the oxygen out of card collecting any more. We all also know 2025 will also be the year of Rockies Rookie Card cards. Except, Greg Jones is actually a White Sox Rookie in 2025, or, was. After a whole 5 At Bats in Colorado in 2024, he managed 2 At Bats in Chicago in 2025, before continuing on to the Astros minors, as I write. Will he ever exceed "Rookie Limits?" Could go either way, I guess. At least the Topps Baseball Card miner was smart enough to select the colorful Colorado road uniform, which is always a plus...

...and at least the Rockies have color coordinated accessories at home. Otherwise they are almost as monochromatic as that no color team in Chicago.

I at first thought, well, this young player must be on a Home Run trot, given his expression here. But, nobody puts on their oven mitt after banging a dinger. I guess Jordan is just happy to be playing Baseball and appearing on a Baseball Card, and that's good enough for me.

One of the best signs of Spring is the appearance of the Topps Rookie Cup logo on a brand new Baseball Card in my hand. Thanks, Topps. I know the bling has to be spread out some in Series Two, but I would actually be quite content to assemble the Cup collection at the start of the season.

As for this actual card though, I'm not sure mustard, sherbet, and dirt make for an appealing overall image combo. Nor can I discern if those batting gloves are a Mother's Day edition, or how a red belt snuck into assuredly the weirdest of the City Connect unis. I have never noticed the Swinging Friar has to suffer in the sherbet, too. I also have no idea what Baseball event is being depicted here; this card ... just doesn't make any sense. Too much going on.

This guy still plays Baseball?

Is Topps sure about this?

I sometimes like, sometimes don't like a card's zoom/crop choice cutting off a noticeable amount of the Baseball Player. This card, I quite like, as it looks like Blanco just came 'from the stretch' right into the card frame, and he is imminently going to release the ball off the other side of the frame, so you'd best pay attention and follow the action.

A perfect Baseball Card, image wise. even the cheesy advertising is smoothly blurred out for us. The 2025 metallic foil whatever striping for the team color kinda basically fails the Astros though as the primary team color stripe comes off as a weak red, in-hand, not orange, at all. And this is the place to note that 2025 Topps Baseball is probably best enjoyed on a nice sunny day, i.e. during actual daylight hours.

We have a Winn-ah

I don't always collect a set of Leaders cards, though I always kind of want to, every year. I basically prefer a vertical card with the actual League Leader reigning supreme at the top of the card, but for the horizontal style, this is quite The Way. I have to think this might not be the first card to actually print the quantity of the statistic right on the front of the card, but if not, then I will be wanting a little set of previous Leaders card that do this neat trick. I would have dropped the "A." part of the name as everyone knows the full names of MLB's Home Run Leaders anyway, but that's just a nitpick. Looking forward to assembling these.

Frame-Break!

OK, this isn't the first card in the pack that allowed the imagery to overrun the frame design. But this one is certainly a more notable example. I was sure hoping to see a regular horizontal card in my first pack, and this one didn't disappoint. It seems clear Butler is going first-to-third while the defender back at 2nd awaits the throw in from the outfield. Baseball, In Action.

I will soon be assembling all of my 2025 Topps Baseball horizontal player cards to decide if I might just collect 'em all, as Topps always instructs, rather than a 9 card best-of from S1+S2 with another 9 from Update, my usual approach to a partial collection effort. Yes, I already know I am not assembling a 2025 Complete Set, after committing to no less than 3 such efforts in 2024, 2 of which are wonderful big ole sets of Baseball Cards. Though I quite like 2025 Topps, I have to pick my shelf space carefully, going forward. Odds are good though, that '25 will get a bunch of space in the horizontal binder, if it holds more cards like this one. Which I figure it does.

another keeper!

let's zoom in some:

I always enjoy these hey-look-the-Baseball-isn't-round-right-now images. Send me more, Topps.

On the card, the Topps Card Back Writer nicely celebrates Sanchez' ability to hit very impressive Home Runs, perfectly accenting the image on the front. Only problem is, Sanchez just can't do this all that often. Miami's outfield feels as cursed as ever.

That wraps up a look at the 2025 Topps Baseball design. But does any set from Topps arrive without more than one design? I doubt that proposition. It's basically a given that all packages of Baseball Cards must include bonuses of some type - inserts:

Did I just use the word "cursed" appropriately? Nobody knows what's going wrong in Baltimore this year, including Topps probably with their selection of Gunnar Henderson for the 2025 Heritage cover. I was certainly looking forward to some dogfighting in the AL East this year, alas. Did someone kick over a lantern under that destroyed bridge or something?

As for 1990 Topps - is it an homage to Mondrian, or Lichtenstein? A long time ago I wrote about that on this blog, with a well-placed comment from the Night Owl helping things along, but I am too down to link back to that post as it shows off a card I should have never ever never traded away, even for a 1975 style Al Hrabosky autograph, as cool as that is. You can wonder the Archives on your own search bar time if you like.

I like 1990 Topps in very small amounts. I like colorful Baseball Cards in very large amounts. Why does that equation not balance? Just the random-ness of the color choices I guess. Match up some team colors to the here-we-go-round-the-border design and I'm all in. This card nicely serves up Oriole orange&black in the secondary card color element, then just pairs that with - light purple fader bars? I'm not sure either Lichtenstein or Mondrian would approve.

That's the now obligatory 35th Anniversary celebration, rolling since 2018. I have been considering putting together the efforts for 1988 and 1989 Topps, which I think will look quite nice with 21st Century printing quality. One thing I truly look forward to however, is next year: 1991 Topps. Mmmm-mmm.

Lately packs of Topps Baseball cards usually have one other obligatory component: the "Stars of MLB," which might or might not show off a star Baseball player -

the 1990s called, said Illustrator has been updated now

The Twins are hot right now, but this card certainly isn't, as Lee has a perfect 0.0 WAR on the season so far. I actually like 0.0 WAR players, a quite small company every year that supply a face to the "replacement" player concept. But when you tell me a card is depicting a Star of MLB, well I like that Lee rhymes with the theme at least. This insert concept is continuing it's on-year, off-year run, after a fantastic 2024 edition we'll see here sometime soon with a fun little project I just completed.

It's sure nice to get the bloggle on again...now I can wander off to see what y'all think of 2025 Topps, at last. C'ya soon.