You're my Sunny Day

I could really use some sunshine. The other day there was a notice in my media 'stream' about the large city 90 miles south of me. The news of the day was: some Sunshine! For 5, yes, five minutes. For the whole year so far. Of course with the year 2023 not even being a whole week old, that news was a bit disingenuous. And no one has sent an intrepid Lifestyle reporter to my little town, where everyone could have quickly informed any visitor that 5 minutes of Sunshine was the grand total for — the last 30 days!

So I sure miss that flaming ball of fire in the sky. Fortunately, I have some new baseball cards...

May I present: 2022 Topps Archives

It's tough to beat a purely red, white, & blue baseball card.

I always like Archives in a general sense. Maybe not all of the product, but for me, that's OK, as I don't often collect all of a product. Let's scroll-ponder our way through the first 8 card pack in a blaster.

I have always liked 63 Topps. I would like to see a "Redux" issue of it like I saw with 52 and 65 Topps on those 2021 inserts I liked. By that I mean an issue using all action images as the primary image (i.e. 83 homage style) rather than the purely keep it trad approach. That idea is so obviously good that Topps reserves it for the short printed "variations" in this release that I will never own and thus for me, Topps keeps it authentic and uses a head portrait shot in the large image, and a fuller body, posed image in the inset, which has never made the most perfect sense, to me at least. 83 got this quite a bit better:

Archives is a "3 set" issue this year. What's behind Door #2, Monty?

1978 Topps!

That hasn't fallen out of a pack of Topps baseball cards for me since: 1978! How did that not happen already? Are our cursive reading & writing skills so withered up and dried away that Topps didn't think we could read the cards any more? Doesn't seem to bother us (well, most of us) on those 'auto' cards everyone wants. An Astros card of Scary Altuve though, gee whiz.

If it wasn't for that clear cursive script and Mr. Redlegs running on to the card there, I might have thought this was a Yankees card. At least someone in Major League Baseball thinks it might look nice to have a nice clean shave on Photo Day, unlike that Altuve guy, or this next guy:

Sad Trout?

I am quite certain I have never pulled a sad looking Mike Trout card before. This does not bode well. Though I would have to agree with the expression showing that it just sucks that a great player like this is the prisoner of a bad team, as the back-drop here has got me thinking. I just want to see Mike Trout play a baseball game, say, in October, without paying $179 for an MLB.TV subscription, somehow. Maybe if I go wager $5 on an Angels game I can somehow get my local Casino Sportsbook to put Mike up on the big screen there, but I doubt it. And I just don't care for the idea of pay-per-view Baseball. You're right Mike, it's sad in MLB right now. And that means I still have baseball cards to watch instead:

Topps Big, take 2

Well I think I can predict one of the inserts in 2023 Topps Archives. This year's effort seems to have lightened the foil processing for the action image and the cards look a little better than last year's Archives issues of a way too dark Topps Big, though I still don't see the need for foil here. Just because you can Oooohhh, Shiny, doesn't mean you should Oooohhh, Shiny. Still no cartoon on the back either, bummer.

Ok, Ok, Monty, I give in. I will switch to door #3:

I swear I just saw some new 1987 Topps cards, somewhere?

Oh, yeah, that would be in packs of 2022 Topps Baseball. Is there a Dead Horse card in the set?

On the other hand, one reason I am not a yuge fan of 87 Topps is that the original set just largely looks terrible due to basic low quality production by Topps in the late 80s. Something particularly true in the 1987 set, which routinely offers up cards that were blurry to start with, anyway, even before the slapdash printing of them.

So when these retro 87s offer up a crisp image the way a baseball card should, quite often, me likey.

Got Bling? This image is in the right decade's set.

Finally a Rookie Card! I was starting to go through withdrawal. Early on in my year of pulling Rodolfo Castro Rookie Card cards, I was growing concerned that his incredible entry into MLB last year would become nothing more than a one or two card baseball footnote. Amidst the numbing parade of RC issues from Pirates middle infielders for seeming years now, on this one the Topps Card Back Writer gets in some nice illumination on Castro's standing in MLB. And by the time I pulled this card, after the season, it was looking like he might "stick" in the game, something fairly rare for Pirates middle infielder RC issues the last I forget how many years. 

Wait, isn't that 9 cards in the 8 card pack? Yup. But I wouldn't advise being concerned about this. The New Guys Topps sub-contracts production to these days are still dialing things in, but I have yet to see a card count error that didn't work out in my favor. Calmado, esse, todo bien.

Maybe I should at least count the packs in a blaster, considering how much each one costs, and since there just basically isn't any other way to purchase baseball cards now, except by spending $30 at a go. So as there for me is no such thing as bet you can't rip just one, anyway, let's see what else I find. Speaking of interesting new Pirates middle infielders...

A player I've been quite wanting to "see."

Topps did well here. I didn't need to flip that card over to know that O'Neil Cruz is a tall player, which is an interesting choice at Shortstop. Topps Card Back Writer puts in another solid swing on the back, too. That wood grain paneling is looking good at night, too...

5' 11" reports the back. Huh. I woulda guessed different.

The 87s I pulled are all game action shots, except one, which recently escaped from the blaster box and made it into my one-year-late 2021 review post. So many retro cards, it's hard to keep track...

A classic place to see a baseball player on a baseball card.

Tonight I did take a peek at the rest of the set and, true to 1987, there are some Spring Training images used on this design also, for better, or worse...

There were other Topps designs of the past in the box to check out:

"1992 Topps Major League Debut 1991"

'Rookie Debut' cards didn't just appear in the 2010s to pad out checklists and help give everyone that crucial impression that they pulled a valuable Rookie Card card, denoted by that key logo, even when they had already pulled another Rookie Card card of the very same player, sometimes in the very same pack. The mouthful set called 1992 Topps Major League Debut 1991 was actually the 2nd (and, final) year of a complete stand-alone product of nothing but cards revealing the date and the result of a rookie appearing in MLB play for the first time. 

The last few years in Archives the small - subsets? - of just a few cards of some old design now get sequential numbers on the checklist rather than some short numbering sequence more typical of inserts. What I don't know is if the cards then have the same print run as the base cards in the 3 main styles. This checklist oddly ends at #380 so there is probably something weird going on with production totals of some cards when they are coming off 100 card sheets, somehow.

On these, you can get a memento of M.J. Melendez' first game for the Royals, and one of Babe Ruth's first game, in the 'set' of 25 such cards. Good Luck, M.J.

There are some more of these efforts, too

I did not know that the World Series MVP Award is actually called...

The Willie Mays World Series MVP Award. Thanks, Topps.

A "1955 Topps Scoop"

The back of the card might help a little, here

I think I would quite like to see the rest of those, given the absence of Highlights cards from the current Topps Baseball set. The next only-one-in-the-pack card was also quite nice -

However that groovy card is a true insert with it's own card # PC-6, which stands for Post Card:

I blew that one up a little to illustrate the solid work put in by Topps Card Back Writer. The fielding award trivia seems worthy of, I don't know, maybe a whole baseball card? And I can't recall them ever mentioning a contract opt-in or opt-out before, a key piece of team construction that Topps usually completely ignores in their always-sunny-in-Brooklyn sets of baseball cards.

There is one more of these old subset efforts of only 5 cards, a super-gimmee selection of a 2005 Topps Draft Pick / Int'l Signing design that enables Topps to print the 59th or so Wander Rodriguez Rookie Card card this year, and the 39th or so Julio Franco Rookie Card card. I did not pull any of those valuable Rookie Card cards but I did get my first boring old base card from the 2022 AL Rookie Of The Year, so I guess I can retire now?

L-R centering all wrong = trash.

This card mostly makes me think of another big "pull" I made from Archives back in 2018 and my realization that it is probably time to sell that one: the 1981 style Ronald Acuña Jr. RC card. I think he is probably headed to Hall-of-Very-Good territory; his 18 Archives RC is currently selling for around $10, just like that Julio Rodriguez card right there. Ultimately past design Rookie Card cards from this set don't excite very many people.

Elsewhere in this blaster, Topps was up to it's usual shenanigans. Archives now functions as a bit of an Update set given it's late release and I saw one big highlight from that idea, though there may be others:

This card eventually just straight made me mad, because

So maybe the Heritage High Numbers card is the offender, as I discovered that one later, I don't know. Baseball cards should not make you unhappy, that's for sure. And they definitely shouldn't hit you over the head with the thought that, hmmm, maybe I really am buying just too many of these goofy things, and there are just too many of these things to begin with, now-a-days. But I am forced to conclude this ever more often of late, I am afraid.

Topps did manage to cheer me up elsewhere in the blaster on another 78 card, with a from-way-downtown nod to baseball card history

If I were a dedicated Randy Johnson collector, this would please me immensely. 

I found one other 80s/90s Ace card that would fit well into a Player Collection -

A 'Black Armband' year for the Red Sox

But once I had digested the inserts/subsets or whatever they are, enjoyed the unique things I found here and there, and pined away for any Tigers cards (none), I had to start pondering the true question about my little brand new accumulation of a $30 pile of baseball cards amidst the torrential blizzard of baseball cards we can select from today. If I could buy a $6 hanger pack with next week's groceries, that would be an easy decision; I would check these out a little bit more, sure. But at $30 a go, I had to decide - would it be a year I would assemble one or more of the different styles, Completely?

The 1978 cards seemed the strongest possibility, somewhat naturally. But did I want ALL of these -

That card made me mad, because

Not, technically, a repeat (from 21 Archives), but it might as well be.

Do I have any sense of Josh Bell (am a fan), or Victor Robles from either of these 2 cards? No, not really. I mean did they wear their baseball duds out to the industrial park to help unload cargo for a day or something? The current Official© Washington Nationals Baseball Card Back-Drop™ is just, pitiful.

Now there is an occasional sign of encouragement in these Spring Training Photo Day sets I sometimes like. Since the Yankees put up faux-Yankee Stadium edging on their ST field in Tampa -

Only one Position now, sigh

Yankees Photo Day cards look much less like the players are standing inside a prison, these days, like they were for an entire decade of such cards in the 2010s. So, that's an improvement. There were a few other signs of better cards ahead in this regard in this one blaster purchase, but I am becoming concerned this line of thinking, which I often Bloggle about, is going to become a be-careful-what-you-wish-for.

And I still had to decide - another $30 on this one? I did find a strong theme in the blaster, on 10 or so of the 54 (20-ish %) non-retail-gotchya-exclusive cards (the foil Topps Big I am a lot just lukewarm about) - the set editor on this one seemed to have picked up an image theme, and just ran with it -

Cloud Cards

And these, I quite like. Recall the first 2 cards I pulled from this, the Benintendi and the Maeda. Classics of the little me-defined genre. I have been setting these aside into a tiny little pile for years, occasionally deploying a Label tag for them on my blog posts, where a few of these have been seen before. I hadn't quite reached 9 really really good ones to keep, yet  -

It could be a cloudy day in Florida -

- or one in Arizona, which caught my eye.

Until 2011, it could happen in the Topps Baseball set

A foggy Photo Day?

Get out there and pose, it's Photo Day dammit.

But starting in 2012, these would only be seen in Heritage or Archives

A favorite 'sunset' card

Now in 2021, I started noticing an uptick in these cards, quite easily, because my team suddenly had bunches of them:

Even the Rookies were getting this special pose set-up

This year, I started noticing nice Cloud Cards for the Cubs in particular, as well -

 

I know from my team collection that this type of image could basically be found in any Heritage set one wishes to gaze their way through -

- even though an all-sky background is not automatically an extra-good baseball card.

I was becoming intrigued by the idea of building out a nice little collection of some just basically purdy baseball cards with this pleasant background, especially when it was used for a player that was, finally, in a new spot to stand for these cards, such as one for the Braves, another team with a decade+ run of same-same cards, until, now:

(I still hear a good ole ZZ Top song in my head every time I see this player)

I was, initially and for quite a few days and weeks of occasional post-purchase paws through this small stack of new Archives baseball cards, particularly intrigued that Topps seemed to have dug into their, yupp, archives to find other photos showing off a pleasant sky even 20-ish years ago:

How cool is that? This might be a fun set to dissemble / re-assemble just into some pleasant binder pages of baseball cards. 

But then, I hit a perplexing conundrum -

- how did they get a 2022 A's Rookie to stand in the exact same spot as Nomar did, 20 years previous? 

Oh, yeah, Garciaparra played his final season for Oakland, so, maybe, Topps just photo-shopped him back into a Red Sox uniform, considering how many people would basically prefer to see a Red Sox card for him. (Somewhat) understandable. But, then,

Wait.

Now the Twins have suddenly moved to Arizona for Spring Training, too? I quickly used my favorite information resource (the back of baseball cards, natch) to see if maybe Miranda had been somehow Photo Day'd on Oakland's back-fields and then PhotoShopped into a Twins uni. Nope: "Acquired: Via Draft" - "Drafted: Twins #2-June, 2016" - Miranda had never played in Arizona. Something is going on here.

I re-pondered that Kevin Smith card (is there a more forgettable name for yet another, now you see-em, now you don't A's Rookie?). On his card, why does the outfield / batter's eye type wall not line up on each side of young Kevin?

Finally, sadly, I realized what is happening. My lovely new Cloud Cards - were 100% Fake.

It's not even the practice field back-drop that gets re-used on multiple cards, it's the lovely clouds by themselves, too:

The clouds by each player's right ear - are exactly the same.

The reality of it all had escaped my notice last year. But there it was on that 21 Heritage Tigers RC:

Perhaps, if I stared at more of these cards for a while (I won't be), I could figure out if the pretty clouds are the same from year to year. Which, given the level of fake laziness (or, authentic laziness?) on display here, might be entirely possible. 

The more I gazed upon my brand new Archives baseball cards, the more I saw this, at least, in the clouds -

I have long wished to see an end to the basic repetitiveness of these "low end" cards that are seemingly ignored by so many people in "The Hobby" today. If I want a truly unique baseball picture card of any given baseball player I like, I can of course just buy one of their completely unique Topps Now cards with their limited print runs and $5, each, type price tag. Or a Topps Living Set issue, or a Topps Throwback Thursday issue, or any of dozens to scores of other cards to pick from for each player, in a given year.

That level of production of baseball cards is going to create repeats, to be sure. And now, I finally have my wish of not posing the players in the same spot, for ten years, or more, running on. Will I get to see a card shot during batting practice at Citi-Field some day? Who knows. If 2024 Heritage has this not-delightful new "feature" I will be very, very disappointed.

Ultimately, a bottom line is simple: it's my own fault for buying these products that just, repeat themselves. 

Farewell, Archives, it was some fun collecting, sometimes. It was good to rip a few packs, often, over the 2010s, but, now .... farewell.

Backs in the day

Well I have certainly been looking forward to ripping this particular 'pack' of cards, that is for sure.

1971 marked a bit of a turning point for baseball cards; most any one interested enough in baseball cards to be reading an obscure baseball card blog already knows all that. The Munson card, etc., etc.

This then begged a certain question - where would Topps put the 'historically correct' cards in the Heritage version of the set? Clearly there would be a take on the Munson card; the Lowell Palmer / Pat Neshek card in 1970 / 2019 Heritage made that plain enough.

But for some time now, Topps has been adding the "value" that the Lottery Ticket Scratchers, err, "collectors" demand in their boxes of baseball cards by including a certain totally a-historical card in Heritage sets: the super short printed / photo variation "Action" cards.

Would the historical styled cards just be issued as deliberately super short printed cards? Or might they be just issued as part of the 100 card "short print" portion of the checklist, which no longer has any correlation to the issue sequence &/or basic quantity made of the historical sets, only some of which had exceptionally scarce cards usually referred to as "high numbers."

So....let's rip the pack.

First card, best card? Well, this was the first bit of baseball card I could see as I opened the pack. Given the current news in MLB, I thought it was pretty cool to see this particular card, first, sorta. And this was quite surprising to me, because although I own very few 1971 Topps Baseball cards, the relatively sparse info backs weren't ones that particularly made me think - yeah, I'm gonna buy some 2020 Heritage and read all those dark card backs.

And what's that I see down in the left corner? A fleck of white? My uber-valuable baseball card is already ruint, before I even get to take it to the bank. Thanks, Topps.

This particular card back is a bit of a classic effort by Topps - talk up something that can be seen in a picture of a baseball player, and then no way, no how, use such a picture on a baseball picture card that might match the text. Oh, well.

But this was a nice surprise, and an initial answer to my key question: this certainly appears to be a picture from a Major League Baseball game. You won't see a back wall like that on a spring training field. There is no way to be sure on all that, but this is a nice portrait card that is probably also a live action shot, and this is not from the Short Print portion of the checklist, nor is this a special value added 'Action' card; those have a printed text notation of that word right on the back of the card now. Topps 1, Card Cynic 0.

But let's move on to the card that was on the 'top' of the stack of baseball cards, i.e. the one facing right-side up:

These particular cards make me so mad I want to fling them away from me like a frisbee, which is why I will hold that Fiers card in my thoughts of First Card in this product. I think we are up to about 5 years of seeing Red Sox players standing on this exact same spot on so many of their baseball cards. We all know that 1960s sets, and large portions of 1970s sets, were created with photos taken at Spring Training. But those original sets didn't feature entire teams of players all standing on the same spot to have their picture taken, and definitively did not feature that photo composition strategy for years on end. The Red Sox + the bushes has been running for some time now; I actually preferred the run of years when their players stood by a chain link fence, which made for a more menacing card. But some other teams, such as the Tigers, have had repeat backdrops running on for quite a few more years than these (in)famous Red Sox shrubs. And don't even get me started on the summation of the 2019 Eddie Rosario card and the 2020 Eddie Rosario card, which I have seen elsewhere already. Topps 1, Card Cynic -1.

This card creates an instant baseball question: how good will the White Sox be this year? This is what I want from a pack of baseball cards. I particularly like the back of this card:

Now that is how to do a Leaders card. Don't mess around, just give me the top 50 players for that stat. Simple, to the point, very, very informative. I would very much like to see this straight up copied in a Topps Baseball set in the 2020s; Top 10 is nice, but Top 50 is nicer. Topps 2, Card Cynic -1.

You can always tell, in a Topps Baseball set, which teams are down in the cellars of the Leagues. Simply by how many of their cards you pull featuring players you have never heard of. It seems like just yesterday I was adding yet another Chance Cisco card to my pile of "should I save this?" baseball cards. I think, for those Cisco cards, Topps just answered the question for me. Plus, I like a good old fashioned blurry empty seats card, an image that can pretty much only be seen on Topps baseball cards, and is also one that I don't associate with 59 other Orioles Heritage/Archives cards from the last oh so many years. This card also makes me look forward to finding a Giants, O's, Marlins, or Pirates player wearing their Home Alternate uniform. Topps 3, Card Cynic -1.

Meh. But, actually, not really. This card will help me quite a bit in considering the Houston Astros, going forward - none of these players could have been involved in the recent cheating, for one, so they will give me some tiny bit of bright spot to look forward to in Astros box scores. I also had a good friend named Rogelio, once upon a time, though he was from Mexico. That makes me always root for the Mexican players in MLB, so it is a bit of bummer that Señor Armenteros there is from Cuba. But I will root for him anyway. Also of note on this card is the home of that imposing looking young third baseman there, but I will leave that for you to discover on the back of your own baseball card. Maybe, he will end up on your team soon enough, considering that a Rookie has little chance of taking a spot from a young almost-MVP, even a young, now hated almost-MVP. Topps 4, Card Cynic -1.

I have pretty much already pulled this card in a previous pack of Topps Baseball cards, and that made me mad.

This is where the laziness of the Topps Photo Day shots really wear out collectors - when you also collect Archives. Which is unfortunate, because players with a big smile always make for good baseball cards, so I like this particular player for that reason and I do want to collect his baseball cards. This particular back drop for Braves cards goes back a solid ten years or so. Topps 4, Card Cynic -3.

Plenty of Giants cards from their "spot." Topps 4, Card Cynic -4. I am going to quit posting these cards. Note that is just a white team name, not a deliberate artificial scarcity value added card, which feature team names printed in silver, for you to chase and give away your money for not much, really.

Now we are starting to cook with some gas. A nice bright live action baseball card, with some really strong lines to the image, too, though only the best we can get for a rare Ball Boy cameo in the ever blurrier 21st century. And my first Tigers, card, sort of, though Cron only has a one year deal with the Tigers, who are fielding 5 such veterans this year all on one year deals, which makes rooting for their results about completely pointless.

On the Cron card I don't quite understand the off-set placement of the facsimile signature; one of the historical-set-mimic-deliberate-errors this year features a poorly placed sig like this one, on the Yordan Alvarez Rookie Cup card. But there is no magic word 'error' in the official spot just above the player picture on the back of the card, so this card is worth essentially 0¢. But, this is the kind of card I was hoping to pull from this pack, and indeed, will be keeping in a binder page prison for all eternity, just to look at some contemporary players on a vintage design.

I will update the score methodology in the pack now - Pose 4, Action 2 (recall Fiers card).

mmmm, so thirsty. I bought this pack of baseball cards instead of a six pack, but I do like King of Beers cards, even though I hardly ever drink that beer, or even buy beer any more, as currently I would have to choose between beer and baseball cards in life due to a # of swings and misses at work, so I am starting to have a love/hate relationship going with this card. But it will have a binder page slot some day too, though not with other 2020 Heritage cards. Pose 4, Action 3.

I think this card is probably a night card. What is also nice about this card is that Allard was traded to Texas last summer. But Topps didn't mess around with simply photoshopping Kolby into a T-for-Texas ball cap and a road grey uni. Or maybe they have updated their PhotoShop license and are now much, much better at such efforts. Still, another type of card I am looking for in my Topps Baseball sets. New team, new uniform (Road Alternate, no less - very nice on vintage designs), new bit of player bio on the back. +1 in the Topps score above. That Greek symbology on the bottom of the card though - what's up with that? Pose 4, Action 4.

I like this posed card quite a bit. A good smile makes a good baseball card. It has a familiar Spring Training vibe to it, but I haven't seen this photo spot 592 times before, neither. And I like those nice perfectly landscaped small trees showing off their Spring colors, too - a perfect card to pull this time of year, writing a blog post and listening to a Spring Training broadcast (I recommend absorbing a bunch of those this week, just in case). I also particularly like that Topps oh so carefully placed the signature reproduction; maybe that is a good sign for other cards in other sets, going forward, as otherwise Topps semi-routinely has players sign their names on cards right over dark uniform, etc., spots in the image, and they didn't exactly ace this detail on that C.J. Cron card. On this card, someone deep in the Topps baseball card mines showed they still care about the final result, on-card. So another +1 for Topps vs. Cynic, though I skipped over 3 other posed cards. Pose 8, Action 4.

Normally, a cap-less baseball card indicates a 1960s Topps Baseball card and they are a bit on the rare side outside of that decade, 'cepting of course their Heritage repros. But also normally, a cap-less baseball card indicates a posed card. Not so here. Also probably a night card - night cards and 1971 Topps Baseball - an interesting combo. I will be watching (my baseball cards).

That particular image of the card amuses me a little; mine is far more well centered but I could not get it to scan straight without the instant cupping of brand new Topps Baseball cards making for crooked scans. Finally I gave up and borrowed someone else's scan from eBay. But that particular copy certainly has more authentic vintage appearance than mine does, though none of my vintage cards have ever curled up and refused to lay flat on a scanner bed the way so many of my brand new baseball cards do lately.

I don't know much about Josh VanMeter, but the Reds are expected to possibly 'make some noise,' as they say, in the NL Central this year, so seeing their new baseball players is why I buy baseball cards. One intriguing little factoid about VanMeter I did just learn is this: he has exactly zero Bowman baseball cards already created. Must be a walk-on. Perhaps, future baseball cards will enlighten me. Pose 8, Action 5.

I am thinking this might be the first baseball card that says "Mad Max" on it, so straight into my little Nifty Nine collection of Max Scherzer cards this will go; and I expect it might stay there over time as though I like Max, I don't really need more than 9 of his nifty baseball cards to keep for all-time.

I am guessing Topps is having one of their mis-adventures with filters here, trying to give a vintage feel for how early 1970s Topps was able to handle cards photographed at night, or something. So perhaps a newer, better, stronger 'Mad Max' card will some day displace this one. I pulled one other NLCS card in this pack and it looks just like this one; I think on balance I would rather just have an un-processed image, whether that matches up to the vintage set or not. Because the image processing is rather obvious, and deliberate here.

But what I really like about this card is once again on the back:

Again I like the simple, old school take on the results of a baseball game, although this almost-complete box score gives the Pitchers exactly bupkis here, outside of their At Bats at least. I was writing about a 2013 Postseason card on the Sea Turtle blog the other day; this vintage Topps approach is far superior. Given how many cards Topps makes these days, what I would like to see in a future Topps Baseball set for a post-season card is simply a nice, detailed box score, as they are created today. There is plenty of room on the back of a 2.5" x 3.5" baseball card for that, particularly with 21st century printing technology and an ability to handle any font at any size. Such an effort _could_ fit, and this card back does have a lot of wasted space. But overall, I will quite a bit look forward to pulling some World Series cards from 2020 Heritage and reading those, rather than the ones I have yet to see in 2020 Series One.

No score update for that card; I pulled 5 cards of the 20 that were either Leaders, multi-Rookies, or PostSeason cards which aren't relative to the pose/action mix. The actual final was Pose 10, Action 5, Tattoos 6 — a bit of a Tattoo hot pack, this one.

And I did not pull any Inserts or Short Prints or Super Short Print "Action" cards - just 20 base cards - when was the last time you purchased a Topps package of some sort and found Zero inserts?

So that basic mix of cards is some pretty good news for me, and I will kind of collect some 2020 Topps Heritage. The basic news on the product remains the same: 400 base cards, 100 short prints. Which is something created by Topps changing to 100 card sheets in about 2015; having 100 short prints probably makes production quite a bit easier than 425 base + 75 sp.

But that makes for one heckuva expensive set of baseball cards, for this decidedly non-professional collector. So I already know I just don't have an option to attempt to collect this entire set, really, given how much it would cost to track down 100 short prints. I would say Heritage is perhaps a "mid-end" baseball card product, rather than a "low end" product which I normally collect due to cost. Though I have always liked 1971 Topps Baseball cards, the actual result of the creation of the 2020 Topps Heritage set finds me just, kind of complacent, I guess.

Ultimately, the repetitive nature of a large portion of the cards kind of helps me out - I don't really need page after page of the same card, over and over again, so I am not particularly disappointed that I can't actually collect this set. But at the same time, the amount of action cards sprinkled through the checklist - (the Munson card is indeed recreated, though I have yet to see who has the Topps Rookie Cup for a Catcher this year) - well, I will have something to look forward to when I casually add a pack of this to my grocery cart over the next year or so. And perhaps as I look to collect a little more carefully in my future, prioritizing cards based on how many binders of baseball cards I really want to own, the crazy nature of 'added value' and manufactured scarcity and the way so many of my fellow hobbyists really collect $$ signs, not baseball cards, well perhaps in Heritage now that works to my advantage. I can take what I need from a few nice memory making cards, and leave the rest. Which should probably work fine for the Psychedelic Tombstones next year, too, particularly as all the live baseball action will be corralled in a subset.

But I only have four years to save up for the Heritage set I really, really want...