I am not, nor have I ever been a Yankees fan, but what Topps did with Derek Jeter's card in its 2008 Series 2 is intriguing. First of all, Jeter is checklisted on card #455. (You'd think that the captain of the most famous team in American sports would at least garner a 2nd Tier number.)

The second thing is that the spirit of Mickey Mantle makes an appearance in the photograph. In the upper-left of the photo, a fan is wearing a #7 t-shirt. Nothing really bad about it, but does it have to be there? Presumably, the Topps photography team had more than one shot of Jeter from which to choose. So why go with this one? If they had wanted to include the essence of Mantle, why not go all-out and show Jeter in the Yankees Clubhouse store, purchasing a Mantle jersey? That might be kind of fun, in an US Weekly way: Baseball Players Are Just Like Us!

40. 1993 Bowman
I’ve been trying to come up with a metaphor to help better my understanding of how this set fits in the early Nineties Bowman lineage. The best that I’ve been able to come up with is that 1991 Bowman is John Lennon, 1992 is Paul McCartney, and 1993 is George Harrison (and if we follow this line of thinking, 1990 Bowman is Ringo Starr and 1989–Bowman’s mostly forgettable re-introduction–is Stu Sutcliffe).

As a collector at the time, 1989 Bowman was a dud of a set. The nostalgia of larger cards was lost on me (was this truly the first ‘Heritage’ set?), and my ten-year-old brain couldn’t make heads or tails of the statistical grid on the backs. And yet, though it didn’t fit in the hobby’s landscape then and stands out as a sore thumb today, the Bowman brand wouldn’t be the same today without it.

It’s very clear to the casual observer that they took a step back after 1989 bombed and shifted the brand’s focus to rookies for 1990 (Starr). And while that set is fairly uninteresting, it’s loaded with rookies, assuring it inevitable staying power, deserved or not.

Though not as universally popular as the Hobby Titan/McCartney issue in 1992, Bowman really hit its stride in 1991 (Lennon), prompting an endless debate of which is the greater set. Combining just the right mix of minor and major league rookies with a winning design and loads of stars, 1991 felt like a real set, without a hint of the novelty that pervaded the oversized ’89s or the tweening bland puberty that plagued the ’90s.


Like Harrison’s role within The Beatles, 1993’s set is ‘The Quiet Bowman.’ There is plenty within this set that makes it memorable, and you even get the feeling that Bowman was restraining itself a little, even though the released the set in greater quantities than 1992.

With the gentle foil, the understated front-of-card design that took nothing away from the clean photography, not to mention the full-color backs (if still promoting a slightly convoluted system of statistical analysis), and the standout rookies of Pettitte and Jeter, you almost forget that set's overall rookie class is much weaker than years before. The key word there is almost.

Boy, what a year Topps has put together, eh? They started 2007 with Jeter, Mantle and The Prez. From there it was on to what seemed like six long months of speculation, back-stabbing boardroom greed and the eventual buyout that polarized the hobby. So how have they followed it up? With a whoopsie on Michael Vick and now a slew of 'errors' in their brand-new baseball Series 3.

What can we take away from all of this? At its most base, it shows that it's a hobby for us but a cutthroat business for the manufacturers. One minute Topps is fighting off a hostile takeover from Upper Deck, the next they're figuring out ways to head UD off at the pass not only with Joba Chamberlain and Jacoby Ellsbury rookies, but with a Joba error and a super-rare Ellsbury not even on the set checklist.

And what's with that Ellsbury, anyway? Traditionally, Topps Series 3 (or Traded, or Updates & Milestones, or whatever) has been for late-season call-ups, trades and other stuff they couldn't fit in the set. But didn't this change with the designated rookie card? I thought the point of all the hoopla about using the standard 'rookie card' logo was to eliminate cards of guys like Jacoby from regular sets. First of all, he didn't have enough at-bats to qualify for rookie status. So that opens up a whole can of worms in trying to determine his true rookie card, because after his stellar play in September and just this past week on the national stage, you know he's going to be one of the major rookies for 2008 sets.

I don't know how I feel about all of this. Topps' strategy towards their baseball card products has been somewhat predictable this year, and these developments only cement their reputation. It begs the question: Do they employ the worst quality-control staffers in the business? Or do they have such a grim outlook towards their own product that they feel it won't sell without an error or two?