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:

falling out on the 2nd date

I really liked the brand new Topps Big League in it's Rookie Year, 2018. I never did get much of a chance to show off many favorites from it, but perhaps I will try and work it into the Nifty Nine series as it starts making its way into some binder pages. It is easily my favorite 'grey' set I have ever collected.

This past year, I thought it hit a sophomore slump a fair bit. I am trying hard to quit writing about 2019 as "this year." Maybe the start of some live baseball games in a few more days will help that along.

Actually, I liked most things about 2019 Big League. The Nickname / Player's Weekend cards returned, but I am working on that set and will throw those up on a brag blog post, someday.

The design was basically nice too. I like diagonals on cards; 2020 will be a good year for me re-living all those 1985 Topps cards. I don't quite get the need for that extra little triangle of photograph, or the fairly superfluous section/row/seat ticket stub conceit. We use barcodes on our 'phones' to get in the big league game these days, Topps.

I liked the wood grain framing quite a bit - really, I wished there was a little bit more space to show it off on the front. On the back, it made for one of the purdiest card backs I have seen in quite a while:

Here the lumber really looks just exactly perfect, and the random Did You Know? feature returned. Those mostly useless random little factoids appear at the price of Full Stats, but how many people just collect one small set of baseball cards these days? Full Stats appear on plenty of other cards, and though if I were in charge, the regulation Topps Baseball set would have them every year, as they do re-appear in 2020 Series One. But how else could Bo Diddley, Aristotle, and Twilight movies make it on to the back of a baseball card?

Another nice feature on the back is the nifty team logo/graphic you just kind of expect to see on a baseball card. But seeing it all nice and crisp on the back informs probably the biggest reason I'm not collecting this release hardly at all:

After who knows how many years, we finally get a pennant on a baseball card again, but I don't like it. Too dark. That simple. Ironically, as I move now into a stack of cards from this set I do like, the pennant on that one is too 'royal' blue - dark; the portion of the pennant around the logo has to be purposely lightened to make the logo more visible, a process which fails for many other teams.  And the just exactly perfect light and shading, as if the sun was shining on the pennant and then casting a shadow on the baseball player photo below - overkill. Just ditch all that dark on baseball card design; leave that to the cards shot on a twi-night double header, or at night - and then they look real, real, nice with some nice bright baseball card graphics, like this card could have, without that odd area of dark graphics down in the low left corner dragging everything else into it's darkness.

Salvy's batting helmet there isn't that dark. Big league teams don't use dark shaded colors all that much in uniform and logo choices; Milwaukee just ditched their dark navy blue uniforms for this year for example. I think only Minnesota and San Diego persist with the navy these days, and maybe road alternates for the Yankees.

Ahh, well, I will try to stick to what I did like for the most part. I like bubble gum cards:

Those last 2 cards were the 'Gold' parallel. I like them well enough, though I wish I could pull only the Golds for the cards I like, or only the base version. Having to mix them together later will make me crabby.

I especially like "In Action" bubble gum cards. 

Now if only this pack of baseball cards had bubble gum in it, too — considering the price point, and some of the design themes of the inserts, and even some of the photo choices, like these bubble gum cards (2018 had several as well, but I can't recall any in S1/S2 for a couple years now), well in theory this set is aimed at kids. So it would seem to be the perfect place for Topps to return to issuing bubble gum with their baseball cards. Instead in the 2020 set, some packaging format will come with an MLB toy of some sort. I have been avoiding looking at the details - so ripping that first pack this summer will be so much more enjoyable.

One checklist feature Big League has that has been missing from Topps Baseball for many years now are Leaders cards:

After lo these many years, Joey Votto finally got his due in the 2018 set, though I wasn't able to pull that card this year. Big League really likes the Leader, err, Stat Kings, cards, and issues many for categories never seen in the history of baseball cards, like that one.

But I like some of the throwback Stat Kings cards, for categories that have existed on Leader cards in previous decades, but not consistently:

Of course, only us old-timers would even know what trying to use the word "Fireman" about this card would mean; let's not confuse the 21st Century kids too much now. But when I was a kid, I always looked forward to pulling this card -

Though any more in MLB 'action', the idea of a Stolen Base might start to confuse the kids. And how does Trea Turner steal a base with a bat in his hand? Is the game turning violent now?

Leader cards are a subset of course, and a traditional one. 

I mentioned the inserts - me likey, mostly, this year:

These somehow again make me want to chew some bubble gum, perhaps because I'm just barely smart enough to stay away from the cotton candy level of sugary stuff these days. But I like the simplistic stuff, sometimes; on that Trout card I like the Catcher's mitt now captured in a graphic bubble. I don't need 25x copies of simple, so when this little pile of cards reaches 9, that will be nifty.

I will finish that one out, however. Perhaps more for the photo effect laying over the outfield wall advertising? I like these kinds of cards mixed into my base sets, but I like them here, all gathered together in one place, too. 

In general, the photo selection in Big League is not all that different from the Topps Baseball set each year, and that's OK. Pictures of baseball players playing baseball are why I buy baseball cards. Big League does have one big advantage in that approach, seen on this card:

What I mean here is something that flows from Big League's mid-summer release date - the players who changed teams since the previous season now appear in their new duds, no Photoshopping required. Though of course fancy software was needed to first make a grey pennant so that it could then be artsy-fartsied into making it look like a fluttering pennant and have differing levels of shade and sunshine on it. And then somehow the team with the darkest secondary team color - black - now has the lightest of all the pennants in the set; go figure. A straight black pennant with the Sox logo would look far more striking, especially with the nice colorful Sox Throwback uniform on this card.

And I always like a nice Throwback card, like this one:

Which does make me look forward to seeing some video from Maryville here in a week or so. Let's hope 2020 Big League realizes how just exactly perfect the logo there on Chacin's cap really is and skips the busybody approach to it taken by 2020 Series One.

The Chacin photograph there was probably created at home in Miller Park; the bright powder blue & yellow popping out all over the card probably save it from my other more-than-just-nagging problem with this set - washed out photos:

That one has a good chance to have originated in a photo in Miller Park too (Yadi is wearing his road greys under the catcher gear), on a day when the roof was closed perhaps. 

(another Miller Park card)

I'm not sure what got into the baseball card creation system at Topps in 2019, but it sure seemed to churn out too high a % of these odd washed out baseball cards, sometimes even on the nice sunny baseball day cards.

Once more, another oh well - too many of those as you paw through a pack of baseball cards and you will look at all the other options on the baseball card shelf the next time you are standing in front of it. I do look forward to seeing Big League on the shelf again 4-5 months from now; I think it has a higher chance than most sets of including a playful card, like this one:

Which unfortunately is not my card, but considering the talk of MLB as Spring Training begins, I thought you might enjoy knowing it is in the set. I got a kick out of seeing in in some listings the other day, but am not that invested in the whole affair generating all the buzz. But if I had pulled that card, I would be keeping one.

I did keep this card, nearly 45 years after I first pulled a card featuring this All-Time Great from a pack -

Perhaps Hammerin' Hank has appeared on other cards that honor the recipient of the award named after him; I'm not sure. But to see him just on a base card rather than some fancy insert, etc., is just a nice touch in this set.

I just never know, opening a pack of baseball cards, what random live action baseball photo will translate into a keeper card for me, like this base-running card:

A more well known baseball card trope is becoming a pretty rare thing in MLB these days, but Big League almost seems to sometimes have a theme of keeping tradition alive -

Or even purposely trying to illustrate technique for it's (theoretical) young audience:

Here at the end of my little off-season resolution of what to do with a stack of cards from 2 blasters of 2019 Big League, I had less cards I really wanted to keep than I did with 2018 Big League. Probably, I will just make a final cut of 9 from the cards seen in this post, 9 'Blast Off' cards, and fill out the Wall Climbers set and probably just the nine niftiest Nicknames cards. 

One card though, will stay with me well into my twilight years, probably, as it is probably the greatest 'cooler dump' card I have ever picked up, though that little trope/sub-genre needs a much better name than that. I haven't found a 'Stadium Lights' card in quite a while now. It also somehow gives me nice warm fuzzy memories of Flaming Lips concerts, too, and some boring day late in the 2020s when blogs filled with all those wordy words are just another what-were-those-geezers-thinking idea like stealing a base or bunting the baseball, I think I will show off this card once again as my

2019 Psychedelic Card of the Year