I like Nickname cards

 

This concept is just perfect on Baseball Cards.

I would surely like to collect all Nickname cards, but these have an odd cheap/expensive binary dichotomy, sadly to say. 

The first such cards I can recall were in Heritage sets, where they were deliberately super short printed. Of course, the lower the print run and higher the expense of a Heritage card, the happier most Heritage collectors seem to be. I always kinda wished Topps would have made up some obscure /5 only image variation in the product for all the superstars, so the Richie Rich collectors could all get even more extra frustrated out-bidding each other to try showing off a completed run of such cards.

So when the inaugural 2018 Topps Big League set appeared with a whole checklist of these cards, for cheap, I was quite pleased. I discussed the whole concept at that time, and even rustled up a jealousy-inducing image of a full set of 2018 Heritage Nicknames. A weird deal of Topps never quite deciding if they should make Nickname cards as parallels or inserts, one of the themes of that post, is still with us today. As are the existence of sometimes cheap, and other times expensive Nickname cards.

As you can probably tell, I prefer the cheap versions. Ultimately I didn't collect a full set of the '18 Big League cards; the Nifty Nine page I did decide to keep has a few clues as to the reason why:

Turns out, some nicknames are just kinda blah. Though they do usually make sense, as on the Molina card there.

And, even on this one -

That's from Big League's sophomore season in 2019. Which is amusing enough to keep, particularly as a collector of the Detroit Tigers, and Bubble Gum Cards, but the similar deal on the '18 Big League Rizzo card is kinda nudging me towards finding a better example.

The '19 Big League checklist delivered a solid keeper, one even maybe the high-rollers now consider wanting to own despite it being a card with probably > 5,000 copies and from a "Kids" set of cards. Something particularly true if they lust after the '18 Heritage Nickname RC, but can't find for sale anymore, unlike this gem:

That, along with the Judge card at the top of this post, is an example of one of the rare times I have deliberately inve$ted in Baseball Cards — I purposely bought extra copies of them for 75¢ or so on various COMC Black Friday sales. That has worked out well, on those two cards at least, as they head towards being actual "double digit" Baseball Cards, i.e. each are approaching a $10 price point. But as usual with such decisions, it has also been a failure with similar purchases of Ronald "Sabanero Soy" Acuña and Juan "Mercenary" Soto. No, wait, Soto's says "Juanjo" on the card. But each of those would cost me a dime or so in losses if I sold them now. So it goes, when you are a low roller.

The unfortunate thing about those Big League inserts is they were only done the first two years of the now departed product. In 2025 one could say Topps kept the old Opening Day / Big League concept rolling with the "Celebration" product, which straight re-used some Opening Day & Big League insert themes, but without any new Nickname cards. They also bailed on the concept of low price-point Baseball Cards "for the children" by only issuing it in $60 ~ $70 "mega" boxes that all sold out instantly in retail stores, at least where I live. So it always goes in this often infernal Hobby.

Anyhow one reason Big League probably dropped the concept is that MLB dropped the concept that largely fed the creation of these cards - the "Player's Weekend" of games with special uniforms with the Nickname on the back, as seen on all the cards in this post so far.

It was never easy for Topps to get the actual nickname on the uni on to the Baseball Card -

That is my 2nd Topps Now card, one I still only partially own as it remains at COMC for now. That one came from a whole Player's Weekend checklist in 2018 when that whole deal got rolling; I don't know if the Topps Now line might have repeated the exercise in 2019. I kind of don't want to find out, because I like Nickname cards, but I don't like deliberately short printed cards that cost an Andrew Jackson, each, or even multiple Old Hickories, or even Benjamin Franklins, as with the Heritage cards. 

My first Topps Now card also came from that checklist, for Walker "Ferris" Buehler, which made for a fun card, but I am finding it unlikely to put together even a single Nifty Nine page for Buehler, as Pitcher career arcs are just depressing, these days.

Once the fun flair of "Player's Weekend" was replaced by "City Connect" uniforms, Nicknames became an uncommon sight on Topps cards, although the Archives product dabbled in them in 2020:

and again from way downtown / on the back, in 2021:

which is cut/pasted from this -

That particular iteration of this concept was particularly disappointing for me for multiple reasons, despite the surprise addition (i.e. not used originally) of Nicknames to the re-use of the "Topps Big" design from the late 80s. Sadly in classic lazy man fashion, Topps skipped creating new cartoons on the back of the cards, for one, but they also wrecked the fronts by making them "foil" cards which then largely obliterated the In Action photo used as a backdrop on the classic two image style front of the card. So, no front scan to memorialize that set of bad decisions; sorry, not sorry, for such a sorry effort.

Meanwhile along the way I didn't really keep track of Heritage keeping the concept going; perhaps it has been an annual tradition since those 2018 cards, perhaps not. Another don't-wanna-know deal, essentially.

I do however know Nickname cards were part of 2024 Heritage, because when I saw the images of a few, the inevitable Desire that rules all Baseball Card collectors started growing again.

Heritage still has that not-quite-an-insert, not-quite-a-parallel checklist confusion the first Big League cards had. That's because they use regular card backs with the same regular card number. Which is only a problem when you want to shop for the cards on COMC, where they become listed as card#.2, all mixed in with those dumb base cards nobody actually wants any more.

Perhaps that's just more better-not-to-know angle to these, I guess, not seeing a whole checklist of them at once. I really doubt I will ever own "The Martian" card since it is for a Yankees Rookie Card card, sigh.

But along the way last year I stumbled across a card image of another current Yankee, and not a Rookie Card card, and not even a 10-time All-Star MVP player either — one who is just, gasp, Very Good, and thus not on the GOAT track to Cooperstown, all of which (usually) means not very expensive Baseball Cards.

These Nickname cards seem, to me, like they would be absolutely essential for any Player Collection in particular; a big reason I detest the super low print runs of them in Heritage as Topps caters to the people buying cases of product rather than those of us who only buy one box at a time.

Nevertheless, I persisted. Recently, after declining on several Andrew Jackson+ copies scrolling through my Baseball Card "feed" on eBay (I am so hungry), a seller finally threw in the towel and just cut the price of one of these down to just "single digit" territory, so I instantly mashed the button. Because I have yet another casual Player Collection going for a player who seemingly has a Nickname printed on all of his Baseball Cards, anyway. What I know for sure is, this one will be just exactly perfect on his eventual Nifty Nine page:

Repacks are my jam

 

On a cold mid-January evening while on a one night work trip in a completely generic medium-sized town, I was nicely able to entertain myself without "screens" such as the one you're looking at right now, by simply wheeling into a Walgreen's. It seems their decision to stock Baseball Cards is sticking, always a "for now" deal with that chain, and in particular these Fairfield repack products are (almost) always on the shelf, waiting, for me.

These are such a fun way to suddenly, and completely randomly, own 50-ish old Baseball Cards. Let's take a look:

wait, did I say "old?"

In reality, repacks are often created by distributors, such as Fairfield, literally "ripping" their own un-sold retail inventory. This of course allows ... someone - the business? the employee? access to any sort of truly valuable Baseball Card that might be within, rather than actual Baseball Card collectors, which probably gives Baseball Card collectors the heebie-jeebies, at least a little.

As they say, be that as it may.... unsold Baseball Cards gotta go somewhere. As long as a repack product isn't just filled with 3-4 dozen cards all from the same set only 2-3 years old - MJ Holdings style - I will still enjoy them. Fairfield comes through for me with these.

So a nice nearly brand new (2023 Big League) Bobby Witt Jr. card was a great way to start this re-pack. I was also impressed by the Topps effort here, on an insert checklist which basically FUBAR'd the concept on the other cards from it I had previously seen. That was because these "City Slickers" inserts were -supposed- to show off the new-ish "City Connect" uniform designs. Simple enough, until lazy Topps Baseball Card miners simply copy-paste any random image onto them, including ones that completely fail to show off the special uni. 

Not so with that there BWJ card, which is highly likely to be my Kansas City entry in a simple City Connect collection I have going. The repetition of the special new KC logo on the card itself was a nice extra touch. Thus, a keeper. And, we're off -

I am this-close to finishing up all things 2011 Topps. After that I have to make 'last call' decisions on 2012 Topps, the "Surfboard Set." I have already decided to not fill in the 1-200-ish empty slots on the checklist, in my collection, nor break open the Factory Set of it that I have. It's functional enough design and the photo selections are often great, but so many sets, so little shelf-space, in my life. And the foil, uggh. Craig who? Sorry, Craig, I forgot. Baseball Cards are supposed to cure that for me.

Nevertheless I haven't finished picking out 9 favorite 2012 Topps Baseball horizontal cards. If memory serves, I do have 8 of them assembled. Repack for-the-win, 2-for-2 on the random old cards nobody else wanted. :)

hey look, a Sea Turtle!

It's a beaut!

These are always fun for me to find, now in a whole other decade. Wait, what? That was TWELVE years ago? Oh dear. 

Perhaps Dan Uggla might feel the same way about this entry in his Baseball Card oeuvre, which notes that the year before he had made the 1,000 Hits milestone and played in his first All-Star Game. For all that, he somewhat got "Hero Number" treatment on the 2013 Topps Baseball checklist, where he is card #126, sporting Uni #26.

However after this basically top-notch Baseball Card, I can't remember a single thing about Dan Uggla. I can just hope he is a happy AA Hitting Coach in a town near where he grew up. Such is what happens once you enter a repack and start looking at objects that mark the passage of Time, itself.

yasss!

Fairfield certainly routed this particular repack box to the right state: Michigan!

Is there a more "Baseball" card design than 1982 Donruss? That would make for an interesting contest.

I have always thought Champ Summers would have been a perfect subject for the "Fan Favorites" type cards in Archives sets. I suspect fans have fond memories of him wherever he played - how you could not root for an athlete named "Champ," after all? Alas, he passed away in 2012 at only 66 years of age, just as the concept was launching at Topps, and he doesn't have any 21st Century Baseball Cards. But here I am in the 21st Century, pulling one of his cards from a "pack." How cool is that?

Although I will always connect "The Mad Hungarian" to pleasant memories of St. Louis Cardinals Baseball in the mid-70s, I was also stoked to find this card, which is one shy of being Hrabosky's sunset card. For one I had forgotten that Atlanta hopped on the Powder Blue train, too. A simple Baseball color scheme so effective that Donruss used it in this card design, too. This pair of 1982 Donruss cards is starting to pull me in...

One thing I always liked about 1980s Donruss card backs (including this one) is that they often discuss the player's contract, a key piece of baseball information, for fans. But something strictly off-limits to discuss on Topps card backs.

Meanwhile although the fantastic sideburns and handlebar mustache had here disappeared into just, a beard, as if Al was here with us in the 2020s, this card finally unlocked the obvious realization: I need to start up an Al Hrabosky Player Collection. That's gonna be fun. Good job, repack.

Another great feature of repacks is they are today basically the only place you are suddenly going to see a Manager card, outside of deliberately ripping certain older boxes. Although I am sure I have perhaps multiple copies of this card, as I have large piles of the poorly printed 1989 Topps set that I have never culled down, I was still happy to see this card again, 36 years later. Because I like Manager cards. It's time, Topps, it's time.

yeah buddy

Did I mention that I like Manager cards? I'm still in a permanent push-pull space with 1990 Topps, with it's intriguing design but then essentially random use of colors, here with a classic base of red, white, and blue, but then - purple, multiple purples, fuschia? Violet? What -is- that up there in the corner?

Some (weird) people would probably have the same complaint about 1975 Topps I guess. Oh well. I would be happy to pull a Don Zimmer Baseball Card - out of every box of Baseball Cards.

One thing I like about repacks is that they don't make me reach for baseball-reference.com to figure out just who some Rookie is.

Hey, wait.

The Pirates, a team I follow a little on radio when I can, just came through Detroit this week - & I can't recall hearing Travis Swaggerty's name called, on either broadcast. And as usual I was disappointed that Bob Walk is only on their radio crew in the spring. Nevertheless I can recall hearing his name on the radio back in a March of ... how many years back?

Here Baseball Cards let me down, and I had to reach for baseball-reference.com, again. Travis Swaggerty made a career total 9 Plate Appearances for the Pirates, in the year 2022. How that earned him a spot on the somewhat limited 200 (more?) card checklist in 2023 Big League, well, we all know why that is. Rookie Card cards!

Even in the "kids" set, we get pointless Rookie Card cards. I seriously doubt any kid in western Pennsylvania in the summer of 2023 was excited to pull this particular Baseball Card, as of course no adult was either. Even in repacks, sigh.

As I was saying, Fairfield got this little box of joy delivered to the right place. I always like seeing the actual Tiger appear on a Tigers Baseball Card. I might have to re-think my usual quick dismissal of 1989 Donruss I guess. Might prolly make for a fun team set to assemble. These repacks can sure make a collector question their assumptions, at times.

wot?

Yup, that happened. An occasional hazard of repacks. At least the Fairfield repacker person picked the right team to dup for a change.

I'm trying to find a defect in either of those scans - only total authenticity, here - but I can't. Are these Gem Mint PSA 10s worth one million dollars? Of course not. They have been ripped from a wax pack, held in someone's "collection" for a couple three decades, then placed loose / unwrapped in another cardboard box (horrors!), and run through all the things that happen to a cardboard box in the retail trade. And here they still look, excellent. I truly pity people who can't enjoy Baseball Cards that have been handled like this, with surefire "defects" only detectable via jeweler's loupes.

This is one of my favorite directions for repacks to wander towards - the early 00s. By this point the non-Topps manufacturers were far less likely to appear in front of me on a shelf in a small town, and an "LCS" wasn't a place I could visit routinely, either. 

So I never saw the various non-Topps sets that clearly borrowed their design from various Topps sets. I don't feel a pressing need to fully collect a set like this, but I certainly enjoy the new-old being on display. As I often type, you can't go wrong with a red, white, & blue Baseball Card.

Now here's a nice discovery - the simple, pure class of 93 Upper Deck. A set for which I never opened a pack. I think I will try and keep an eye out on the retro shelf at my LCS, which holds random "junk wax" appearances that never seem to sync up with my Baseball Card memories. Just today I could have ripped some 1992 Leaf, I think it was, for cheap. Here's hoping that concept will "stick" in my overly full Baseball Card mind.

This card will help. Just today I found a random Bowman card of a never-Major-Leaguer with the most picture perfect Pitcher Face - it will pair well with this one. The stranger the expression, the more effective the pitch? Perhaps. ALL CAPS CARD BACK TEXT though, yeah, nope. These will have to go in at 18/page, for sure. 

I thought Robles was an Outfielder.

And, where's Gretl?

I bet Robles, or Hansel (this can get confusing in 2019 Topps) probably wouldn't wanna hear that 2nd tease.

I do look forward to the day I start picking keepers from 2019 Topps. I should re-visit my First Pack, Best Pack blog post from release time. Over time I grew disenchanted with the heavy use of software photo filters in the set and declined to complete it. But it surely has pages of highlights to assemble...thanks for the reminder, repack.

Surprise!

I am sure -some- collectors are quite familiar with this Never Happened card and the circumstances that lead to it. I never completed 2001 Topps though am close. So this upped the amusement factor of that drab January evening a fair bit. Where else (outside of Baseball Card blogs) are you gonna stumble across card chaos like this?

I like Darryl Strawberry cards.

I like it when the Powder Blue gets picked up by the Baseball Card designer.

But I don't like Green Bay Packer style Baseball Cards. One and one team only should have appeared in this part of the multi-colored 90 Score checklist. Ok, ok, some Packers cards on this otherwise gets-the-job-done-ok-enough design would be OK, too.

It would be really hard to imagine the Krukker as a fresh-faced youngster in The Bigs, without Baseball Cards. That is often the appeal of Rookie Card cards, I would gladly admit that. And even, non-Rookie cards, sometimes.

A Minor League stadium with an upper deck? What a rabid Baseball town Denver must have been, I guess? So, I "did the research" and sure enough, the Zephyrs played in Mile High Stadium. With Baseball Cards, you can truly learn something new, every day.

And were the Zephyrs an affiliate of the Green Bay Packers? Close. They were the AAA affiliate for the Brewers back then. Props for the imaginative use of Home Plate in the functional, clean design here, too.

I mostly scanned this one because it has a key feature of Spring Training photos, one I quite miss on such Baseball Cards here in the 21st: other players. I truly don't know why they had to be banned from Baseball Card photos. Just let the photog work the field, and let the game of Baseball appear, too. Would that be so hard?

Finally, a Hall of Famer

I was getting close to the end of the fun little stack of cards before the Fairfield repacker remembered the key rule: one HoF card, per package.

Oh no, he's smiling at me

I have a small collection of cards with that working title. I have never seen this expression on a hitter, before.

And, yes, I might could best "upgrade" this particular copy. That isn't the cumulative effects of being run through the Baseball Card distribution system, twice. Rather, that is a common fate of 2001 Topps cards, which just love to brick themselves together in storage. If you haven't opened a tightly packed box of '01 Topps in a while, you might be a little disappointed when you do. I was.

Such a great stroll through the wonders of Baseball Cards. But did I get that wondrous 8th box with the "hit" in it? Alas, I didn't find any cards theoretically worth theoretical money - no hits. But then, how many "hits" in brand new boxes of Baseball Cards are actually worth any "real" money? I'll leave that for you to discern on your next box-ripping adventure.

I did however, receive one of the "randomly inserted packs" I was supposed to be looking for:

I'll bet you never noticed that one of the blue-est, though not the none-more-blue set, of Baseball Cards ever designed, came in a mostly red wrapper. That the designers could achieve this colorful, attractive simplicity on the outside but so fail on the inside just feels like the exception that proves my you-can't-go-wrong-with-red-white-and-blue on Baseball Cards rule. Plaid just isn't part of Baseball, save that for the Grunge musicians. Or, me, where every cold day is usually Plaidurday.

Anyhow, I decided to share the contents of that pack with ya -

Perhaps the cards that fare the worst in this set are when the uniform is blue, too.

Anyhow if those cards had appeared loose in the repack, which is certainly always possible in any repack though 89 Donruss might be even more common, well I doubt I would have scanned any of them. Perhaps the simple joy of a Rated Rookie might have made for a scan. And I do have to wonder if anyone in 1988 found it remarkable to pull two future Hall of Famers sequentially. Did I pull 2 Hall of Famers in a pack of 2025 Topps Series Two this afternoon? I doubt it.

Mostly what intrigued me about that pack was this sequence:

OF-IF-OF-SS-2B-2B-OF-IF-3B-OF-OF-2B-2B-SS-IF

Which means - no Pitchers, or Catchers, in 15 sequential Baseball Cards.

Just how did Donruss lay out their sheets for the 1988 set?

Ahh, the mysteries.

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.