2013 Topps Archives - First Look

I liked this product last year and I like this year's version as well. Not enough to buy a whole lot of it but enough to buy a blaster and a few packs.

Like last year, the set consists of past Topps designs. The first 50 cards are from Topps 1972. I was pretty happy to pull Mike Schmidt from the box. The players are a mixed lot of current players, rookies and past players.

 The next 50 cards feature the 1982 "hockey stick" card design.

Cards 100-150 feature the 1985 design. 1985 was the first year as a adult that I collected cards so I always have a soft spot (in my head probably) for 1985 Topps.

And this is what they did for cards 150-200. I'm on record as saying that 1990 Topps is the ugliest Topps design. I didn't think we'd see cards featuring this design until 2039 Topps Heritage. But here we are. At least I pulled another Phillie.

 Cards 201-245 are the All-Time Fan Favorites subset. The cards are short-printed and feature multiple Topps years. The backs are from the original card of the player but the front photos are different (at least on this card). I pulled two of these. A curious thing is that their copyright date is 2012.

Again like last year, the insert sets feature different years or past insert sets.

This insert is based on the 1983 Topps All-Star subset. I got 4 of these.

I got one of these, four stamps on a card based on some 1969 insert I'm not familiar with. The card is perforated so you can separate it into four pieces without removing the stamps.

There is a parallel gold set, numbered to 199.

Then there is this weird thing based on a 1970's football design. This is the first Denny McLain card of any sort I own. I knew something about his career (last pitcher to win 30 games in a season) but not anything about his personal life (2 stints in prison!). Maybe it's that personal history that's kept him off other Topps retro issues but if so, why now?

And finally, the card that made the whole purchase worth it.

It was in the last pack I opened. Don't you love it when something like that happens?

100-Card Fairfield Repack

I picked up this package back in January but just got around to cataloging the cards. I'll keep buying these things as long as they keep producing cards I want. Recently I've seen a trend toward more recent cards and away from late 1980's junk. Which is fine with me.

1981 Topps #291 Aurelio Lopez

The oldest card in the pack. Early 1980s cards are always welcome. Whatever possessed Topps to put pink borders on baseball cards?

1991 Topps #675 Tom Brunansky

If memory serves me, 1991 was the first year that Topps had a mixture of horizontal and vertical oriented cards. This is a good example of a horizontal card.

1991 Upper Deck #783 Devon White

There is almost always a selection of early 1990s Upper Deck cards in these packs. Someday I will have an entire set of 1990, 1991, and 1992 Upper Decks simply by buying repacks. Good running bunt photo.

1992 Pinnacle #367 Brian McRae

Another good bunt photo. This looks like it ended up as a pop-up.

1992 Topps Gold Winner #120 Alan Trammel

In 1992, the base Topps set had two parallels, Topps Gold and Topps Gold Winner. Topps Gold came randomly inserted in packs. Gold Winner was obtained by a mail-in redemption. These were the first regular Topps cards to feature gold foil.

1993 Fleer ProCards #203 Glenn Hubbard

I've never seen a card from this set. That's another thing I like about the repacks, getting stuff I don't have that would otherwise be hard to find. This goes right into the Reference Album.

1997 Sports Illustrated #176 Hideo Nomo

This is only the 3rd card I've gotten from this set and the other two I bought on eBay. This is a nice card for 4 cents.

2004 Just Prospects #2 Josh Anderson

Another minor league set I didn't have any cards from. And as I bonus, Anderson was in the Astro's farm system.

2005 Bowman Heritage #164 Rodrigo Lopez

I completely missed out on 2005 Bowman Heritage and only have a handful of cards from the set. Lopez was one of the top players in The Matrix.

2005 SP Authentic #1 A. J. Burnett

A main-stream set I didn't have any cards from. Another for the Reference Album. I actually have a Ryan Howard relic card from this set but no base cards.

2010 Topps #305 Juan Francisco

Another good example of a horizontally oriented card. I like the way the card design accommodates the photo.

2011 Topps Team Sets #ATL8 Nate McLouth

As far as I could tell, Topps did not produce these team sets in 2012. I used to always get the Astros and Phillies sets. You could always count on 1 or 2 players in the team set who weren't in the regular set. And sometimes, you'd get a different photo. This is the same photo as the base set.

Song of the Week - The Guns of Brixton by Arcade Fire

Here's a 2007 live recording of Arcade Fire doing the Clash song, "The Guns of Brixton". I'm not familiar with the original but this version is fabulous. It also clearly features someone playing what I believe is a hurdy gurdy.

Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

This is one great movie.

I've been looking forward to this movie since I saw the 2009 Star Trek movie. OK, so call me a fan boy.  Paramount starting teasing us with trailers at least a year ago.  Before I tell you how much I liked the movie I want to tell you that Paramount has conducted an excellent advertising campaign. Thinking back about the trailers I now realize that they managed to make me excited to see the movie without giving much of the story away. Sure, we knew that Benedict Cumberbatch was the bad guy. Could he possibly be the return of Khan!  The trailer showed battles with Klingons, the Enterprise getting the crap beaten out of her and cool cityscapes of future London and San Francisco. But the trailers did not tell us what was really going on and there lays the greatness of the movie.

J. J. Abrams has gotten it. He's captured what the original show and movies had and has brought it to life with a new cast. His 2009 Star Trek was pretty good, but this one is better.

I read a couple of reviews of the movie and I have to say that the reviewers did not get it. At this point, Star Trek has a lot of history. Abrams has mined that history well to present this alternate universe Star Trek that remains true to the original. If you know a lot of that history, then the movie has a lot of depth that you'll appreciate. If you don't, the story stands on its on.

I'm not going to divulge the plot here just in case you've not been following all of the publicity. You can look at the IMDB page if you want the ultimate spoiler right on the front page if you want. I'll just say that my wife is a fan but has not been following closely so the main plot came as a surprise to her.

The one review I read thought that this was the funniest Star Trek. I wouldn't go that far but I there are a lot of good lines, delivered with style and a sense of awareness.  McCoy gets to say "Dammit, I'm a doctor not a weapons technician". and "Are you out of your corn-fed mind"? Kirk tells McCoy "Enough with the metaphors"! 

I can hardly wait to see the movie again. I only have to wait until Thursday. My daughter and I are going to see it again, but this time in 3-D IMAX.

Song of the Week - Good Ole Rock and Roll Music - Cat Mother...

One of my all-time favorite record albums is the 1969 release "The Street Giveth...And The Street Taketh Away" by Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys. The LP had 11 songs, everyone of them great. It was 50 minutes long, quite long for an LP in those days. It was produced by their good friend Jimi Hendrix.  There was one hit song from the record, a medley of '50s songs which really wasn't typical of the album as a whole.It's the only video I know of them from back in the day.



I played the heck our of that record. Since the demise of my last working turntable and the rise of CDs and MP3, I hadn't heard the record for years. A few years ago my family gave me a USB turntable for my birthday, which made the tedious task of digitizing old LPs a little easier. One of the first records I did was "The Street Giveth...". But the record was so worn out that it sounded terrible. I thought, well at least I can listen to it, even with the flaws.

I'd been looking for the album on CD or on iTunes for ears with no success. There had been a limited CD release around 1998 that I missed. One of the songs came up on iTunes the other day and it was so bad I couldn't listen to it. I checked one again on Amazon, and surprise, a new CD was recently released. I ordered it immediately.

It's great to be able to hear those old songs again.

Random Cards From My Collection #44

Card #19484
2010 Topps #387 Josh Fields

Comments on the card: I kind of liked the big swoosh on these cards when I first saw them but find the set less to my liking these days
When acquired: 2010
How acquired: Paid $0.19 for 6 packs of Series 2 bought at Target
Player's season: Fields was a White Sox 1st round draft pick who made his major league debut with a home run in 2006. By 2010 he was with the Royals but only appeared in 13 games. He's been in the minors ever since. In fact, today he's with the Phillies farm club in Lehigh Valley.

Card #19028
1989 Donruss #485 Kevin Mitchell

Comments on the card: One of a series of crazy 1980's designs by Donruss.
When acquired: 2009
How acquired: Acquired in a box of 1989 Donruss along with a pile of other sports stuff at a church bazaar.
Player's season:1989 was Mitchell's biggest year. He hit .292 with 47 home runs and 125 RBIs. He was an All Star and the National League MVP. Oh, and the Giants won the World Series.

Card #3787
1994 Pinnacle #344 Bryan Harvey

Comments on the card: This was a real nice set. Glossy full bleed cards with good photography front and back.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: As a member of the first Marlins team in 1993, Harvey had an ERA of 1.70, appeared in 59 games, and saved 45 games. In 1994, he had an ERA of 5.23, appeared in only 10 games with 6 saves. He hardly pitched at all in 1995 and by 1996 he was injured and never returned.

Card #17967
2010 Topps #378 George Sherrill

Comments on the card: Go ahead and compare this to the 1994 Pinnacle. Seriously lacking.
When acquired: 2010
How acquired: Paid $0.26 for a blaster box of Series 2.
Player's season: Sherrill was a closer with the Orioles before the Dodgers got him in 2009. They appeared to be using him as a middle reliever, appearing in 65 games in 2010 but in only 36.1 innings.

Card #6994
2005 Skybox Autographics #13 Sammy Sosa

Comments on the card: Non-glossy cards featuring close-ups of the players on team colors and facsimile autographs in silver foil.
When acquired: Don't know but probably got it new.
How acquired: Don't know.
Player's season: A declining Sosa hit .221 with 14 home runs in 102 games for the Orioles.

Card #2660
2001 Greats of the Game Autographs Jim Bunning

Comments on the card: Non-glossy with an on-card auto. Great card.
When acquired: 2005
How acquired: Paid $8.50 in eBay.
Player's season: In 2005, Bunning was a US Senator from Kentucky.

Card #25623
1991 Donruss #760 Checklist

Comments on the card: Donruss continued the crazy through 1991.
When acquired: Don't know.
How acquired: Don't know.

Card #28657
2011 Topps Lineage #110 Thurman Munson

Comments on the card: I pretty much hated this set. The fronts and backs are very dull. It didn't help that about a third of the cards I got were badly miss cut.
When acquired: 2011
How acquired: Paid $0.35 for a blaster box from Target.
Player's season: Munson is the only Yankee ever to win both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards. Munson's career ended tragically in 1979 when he crashed his private plane and died from a broken neck.

Card #33061
2012 Bowman Chrome Prospects #85 Levi Michael

Comments on the card: 2012 was the first Bowman set in many years that I actually liked when they finally broke out of the long boring red and black theme.
When acquired: 2012
How acquired: Paid $0.31 for a 3-pack blister pack.
Player's season: The Twins #1 Draft Pick in 2011, Michael spent 2012 with the Twins single A team in Fort Myers, FL. For what it's worth, he hit .246 in 117 games.

Card #25971
1997 Upper Deck #201 Roberto Alomar

Comments on the card: A subset of 1997 Upper Deck featuring top players and references to their "international" backgrounds. Alomar was from the not-so-foreign country of Puerto Rico.
When acquired: Don't know
How acquired: Don't know
Player's season: 1997 was a pretty good year for Alomar. He hit .333 with 14 home runs and was an All Star. His playing time was limited by spending most of August on the DL.