I, for one, was fooled by this Christmas-themed rack pack—it was created by a third party in the late 1970s, not Topps, and not in 1956. Good thing I didn't shell out the $400 it's going for on eBay.

The real reason I'm posting this is because the third party unwittingly seeded the  Warren Giles/Rin-Tin-Tin variation, to commemorate the seven weeks the animal filmstar ran the National League—appointed by the owners so Giles could take a vacation—in the summer of 1955. It's a great card, and hard to find in decent shape.

(Click on the image to get the full effect.)

I've been collecting 1956 Topps, with the hopes that some day I'll be able to afford the Mantle (in any condition) and complete the set. But as I've been piecing it together — buying commons at my local shop, picking up random cards at shows, and looking for cheaper stars on eBay, I'm finding I really have my work cut out for me.

I like to go for a master set when possible, and my quest for 1956 will be no different. I have just over 300 or so of the regular checklist, including both checklists. But if I start differentiating between gray backs, white backs, dated teams, centered teams, bearded variations, and others, I begin to realize just how complicated the master set will be to put together.

For example, check out this auction I found tonight. I've been searching for the Hodges "incognito" variation for almost a year, and even though $47.75 is sort of out of my price range for a single card, I'm seriously  tempted. (The most I've paid for a single card is $50 for a Ted Williams with a large crease. Second most? $32 for a Willie Mays with a stealth miscut on the back.)

I've wanted to blog about this set for a while now. I really think it's one of the best of its era in terms of checklist and design. It's also, in the grand scheme of things, relatively easy to put together, as it's bountiful on eBay in all conditions. Sure, the master set will be a challenge. But that's half the fun, right?

The following is pure conjecture – not fact, and should be treated as such.

I get emails from my local card shop, and in it I read today that Upper Deck canceled the remainder of its forthcoming baseball products, including Goudey (this must be what happens when you settle out of court with MLB Properties). I also read that the USA baseball stuff it was going to produce will now be produced by Topps. All of this is incredibly interesting to me, and not simply because I collect sports cards. It's interesting to me because it all boils down to one person.

In my opinion, all of this movement of the last year – official licensing, lawsuits, and the like – stems from Michael Eisner's involvement in Topps. And I'd say that Major League Baseball wants to be in bed with a big guy like him – not some small-pond guy like Richard McWilliam.

At Disney, Eisner was a big fish in one of the biggest ponds. He's a brand name all unto himself, and in the non-card universe, I'd bet more people have heard of Eisner than have heard of Topps, and certainly more than Upper Deck.

This latest development brings back the question: in 2007, why didn't Topps cave to Upper Deck's bid of a dollar more than Madison Dearborn's? Did Shorin know something about a wind of change at MLB Properties? Or was he simply looking out for the best interests of the company and the brand by a) not selling to their number-one competitor, and b) by brazenly puffing out his chest and selling the company his way (albeit not in the best interests of the shareholders) without kowtowing to the upstart? It could be a little of both. The other question is: did MLB Properties have a preference in who bought Topps?

I think Eisner has ushered in more good changes at Topps – a shift to the Web, with video and more meaningful interactions with the collector (not just customer service stuff) – than Upper Deck ever would have, or would have had reason to.

For Upper Deck to ever seriously think that Topps could be beaten in a one-on-one for exclusive MLB licensing is preposterous, especially with a heavy hitter like Eisner in the mix. So when 2010 Upper Deck debuted earlier this year, it seemed like the company was on a collision course with a court date.

Seriously, I get it that baseball is the biggest sport with the most money at stake, but why did Upper Deck produce a regular set without being able to show team logos? If they had to fill shipping quotas, keep the cash flow going until they could get rid of their baseball team, and hoodwink the public in the process, why didn't they put out a set like Studio? Or an innovative, every-card-is-autographed, prom-photo set of everybody in tuxedos? Instead, every card read like Upper Deck was thumbing its nose at Major League Baseball.

Also, it feels like Upper Deck doesn't get it that a Topps exclusivity now does not necessarily mean a Topps exclusivity in the future.

Yes, Upper Deck is losing millions now, but possibly not future millions. So why burn your bridges?

I haven't purchased a pack or any single cards from a Topps Heritage product in over two years (the last one I collected was Heritage '59, in 2008). I did this for a variety of reasons, most notably because I just didn't have the income to justify collecting another new set. I also stood (and continue to stand) firmly in the belief that the Heritage brand should've ended with the Heritage '59 (2008) set, and that Topps should've rechristened the subsequent sets as "Topps Classic." In any event, I've been thinking about this year's Heritage ('61), and I think I've hit upon a way to make the brand more appealing.

The Heritage checklister has done an admirable job "updating" checklists from the original sets and filling in each spot with its twenty-first century player equivalent. They haven't gotten everything right (as an homage to 1960's card #1, Cy Young-winner Early Wynn of the White Sox, 2009's card #1 was Mark Buerhle of the White Sox; it should have been one of the reigning Cy Young winners, Cliff Lee or Tim Lincecum), but 100% accuracy is not something any card company should be expected to achieve.

But a sly wink and an inside joke to an original checklist is no longer enough to buoy a set. The company has to continue to push the envelope or else they'll begin to lose the audience, or make them cynical about the checklisting tactics used ("Thom" Glavine, anyone? How about those annoying black backs versus green backs from the Heritage '59 set?).

The next logical step is the photo homage. Not just one or two photos sprinkled over the checklist, either. If they made every photograph on every card an homage to its checklist buddy from the original set, that would be something to write home about, something that would elevate the Heritage brand out of the retro-design doldrums.

Of course, to accomplish this, the Topps photographers would have to actually study the original set and pose their subjects down to the minutest detail. They'd also have to shoot their photos with an idea of recreating the photographic standards of the 1960s. Presumably, color-correcting of this caliber is something that Adobe Photoshop could assist in accomplishing.

I've never been a huge fan of the 1961 set. I think the design is one of Topps' weakest of the decade and the era, and the photos fairly unimaginative. Really, the only great part of the set are the subsets (the Brady Bunch-esque League Leaders, the MVPs, the All-Stars, the combo cards — "Lindy Shows Larry", anyone? — the World Series cards, and the Historical Highlights), an idea that exploded in 1961 and came to dominate the Topps Sixties.

It would be great to get "Josh Shows Daisuke" in my pack of Heritage '61 and not have it be two silhouetted shots of the individuals placed near each other. I'd appreciate the homage much more if Josh Beckett was smiling awkwardly while showing Daisuke Matsuzaka how to throw a curve.

This is insane.

Here's a question: How many shots did it take for Al Oliver to settle on this bat?

Also, if he ran out of bats, would he have posed holding a metal folding chair?





You may have been wondering: what happened to Ben, and why doesn't he post as much as he used to? Well, a lot is going on. I work two jobs, I teach blogging at MIT on weekends, and I'm winding down as a baseball card blogger.

I know I've made a number of different assertions as to the future of The Baseball Card Blog, but here's the truth:

I will stop writing The Baseball Card Blog as of January 1, 2009, if not sooner. The blog itself will stay up as a fully tagged and searchable archive of everything I've written over the past three years.

I've thought long and hard about this, and I've decided that The Baseball Card Blog needs to end. In my opinion, the best card blogs are those with a finite topic. For example, the stellar 1988 Topps Blog, where Andy K posts something about each and every card in the 1988 Topps and Topps Traded sets. When the sets end, the blog ends. It makes sense. But an open-ended blog about one collector reminiscing and finding his way back into the hobby he once loved? Three years is enough of that for me.

I'm not really interested in writing about the latest hobby trends, or new cards that I can't afford. When I really think about it, those are the very things that caused my interest to wan in the first place. I will still collect, and will remain open to trading. I will remain as the admin contact at A Pack A Day, as well as our brand new vlog spin-off APADtv.


Finally, I know I've made it a point to stick to the script on baseball cards, but I thought I'd make an exception. If you are vegan or enjoy vegan food and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, do yourself a favor and take a look at this new blog: Vegansaurus!. And if you've never tried vegan food, it's better than you think!

A few weeks ago, Reader Scott sent me a great big stack of blank-fronts, blank-backs, wrong-backs, misprints, and miscuts. To celebrate, I've put them with my other screwups in a binder.

The most interesting thing, besides the sheer quantity of screwups Scott sent, is that the blank-fronts he sent were broken down like so: 22 from 1989 Topps; 19 from 1990 Topps; and 14 from 1991 Topps. OK, that's a lot from each of those years. But here's where it gets crazy and leads me to put out a somewhat far-fetched conspiracy theory: the checklist numbers of the cards are grouped. For instance, here are the card numbers for the 1989 group:

237
246
681
685
686
690
691
692
694
697
702
703
716
717
718
722
723
757
783
788
789
792

So, that's like four separate checklist groups (and yes, I think it's awesome that #792 was included in the stack). And the same sort of breakdown is true for the 1990 and 1991 groups, respectively. It leads me to believe that there was at least one entire set from 1989, 1990, and 1991 (if not other years as well) printed as blank-fronts.

In other miscut news: I've been going through boxes, putting together the 1976 set (still need about 150 cards), and in the stacks of commons I've found miscut wrong-backs: Dick Drago (Wilbur Howard/Dave Parker) and Bill North (Father/Son Hegan/Father/Son Smalley).

Also, I offer no explanation on the double-prints, except to say that they may be the coolest cards I've ever seen. And yes, they're blank-backed.

Thanks Scott, you've totally made my year!

Something is wrong with this picture. Yes, there is no actual team depicted on this team card, but perhaps more importantly, there are no fountains beyond the outfield fence of Kauffman Stadium. It's one thing for a terrible team with no discernible national star (Mark Grudzielanek and Emil Brown, anyone?) to downplay a 100-loss season. But it's another thing entirely to rob a sure-to-be-boring card of its one potential highlight. When they don't even bother to turn on the fountains, you know they've given up.

It's almost like the Royals were trying to slip by undetected for the year. It's a bold move, one that I'm not sure I agree with, but an interesting tactic nonetheless. Let me see if I've got this right: if you don't put out a team photo, nobody will remember how much you sucked.

Wow, it's late. Or at least it is for me. I guess this could wait til tomorrow... Except... I have a feeling that this card will show up in my dreams tonight, taunting me to figure out the Mystery of the Two Well-Dressed Men in the Stands Behind Burt Hooton. Seriously, I feel like the third Hardy Boy trying to make sense of who those two guys are at the top of the bleachers. Wait... there were only two Hardy Boys, weren't there. Hmm. Well, you know any time a book series clocks in at well over 50 volumes, I say it's okay to position yourself as an alternate. You gotta figure one of the two is gonna get sick of the other one, or will sprain an ankle and can't get past page 100, or will be killed off or something. Makes sense for there to be a stand-in, stretching and loosening up somewhere in the background. Right.

Anyway, I've come up with a list of possibilities on the identities of these guys:

• Jake and Elwood Blues Problem with this theory is that they're a), about ten years early, and b), not wearing hats and sunglasses. Other than that, one's tall, the other's fat, and they're at a Cubs practice... Oh, but that's another problem, isn't it? This is surely Cubs spring training, and wouldn't Jake be in lockup at Joliet round about this time?

• The Righteous Brothers Man, how great would it be if these two guys were the Righteous Brothers? Problem with this theory is that there's nobody sitting around them. The girls would be swooning all over them, and yes, when I say "girls" I really mean "old ladies in the bleachers at a Cubs spring training practice."

• The Everly Brothers They both look a little too tall to be the Everly Brothers, but you never know. Again, not likely, as there are no guitars around them, and no girls swooning. Yes, "girls" still equals "old ladies in the bleachers at a Cubs spring training practice."

• Bonafide G-Men OK, here's the scene: practice has just ended and the players are walking off the field in clusters, joking and making plans for dinner. G-Men #1 and #2 walk down out of the bleachers and up to a random player, flicking cigarettes out of their mouths and pulling out notebooks. They say they just have some questions and the player gets real jumpy (cue fast-tempo bongo roll, to build suspense). The G-Men tell him to cool it, the player freaks and makes a break for it, and G-Man #1 pulls out a walkie-talkie and calls for back-up (cue horns hitting the first hook of the theme song). The scene freezes for a split-second and the title comes up "FOOT CHASE!" Then it goes back to the action. I'm thinking real late-Sixties, early-Seventies cop show, full of tense drama and action-packed, uh, action sequences. Oh, so it would turn out that the random player was really a petty numbers runner who would cave in interrogation and squeal on the mafia boss. Or something. It would be different week to week.

• Team Executives or Scouts Snooze. Seriously, who wears a sportscoat and black slacks to a spring training practice?

Or maybe they're not in the stands at all, but are:

• Tiny Devil and Angel, perched on Burt Hooton's shoulder It's a stretch, mainly because a), they'd travel with him throughout his pitching motion, and b), they're not technically perched on Burt's shoulder. I bet, though, that if he were standing up they'd be right there, leaning in to tell him a dirty joke.

I give you 1968 Topps #38, Tony Pierce, with razor-sharp sides and corners, and I-swear-it's-original-gloss. It's well-centered on the front and the tid-bit of fantastical info on the back is incredible (Tony once struck out 5 batters in one inning at high school). But best of all, you'll go blind looking at it.

This particular piece of cardboard badly misaligned when it was time to hit the blue rollers in the printing process, resulting in an almost 3-D effect on the team name and missing ink in other areas. It all feels like a waste, too, since the photo is so boring (it looks like the photographer asked Tony to take his hat off and gaze stoically into the distance, like a tired farmer at the edge of a field). If only this had happened to a card featuring a more dynamically posed player... but this was 1968, so I guess that rules out Vicente Romo doing jazz hands (1970), or Dock Ellis thrusting the ball at the camera in an attempt to get the viewer as high as he was (1969).

Like everything else, I could be weeks, months, or possibly even years late on this. Well, probably not years, because as far as I can tell, this is something new for 2008. I'm referring to a new promotion Topps is going to roll out for their football products in 2008, called Topps Player Collection.

The gist of it is that the 30 best players will be found on the same checklist numbers in every Topps NFL set for 2008. It's an interesting idea, and you have to think that if it tests positive with dealers and collectors, something like this will end up as the practice for other sports.

The problem I see with it carrying over to other sports is that it throws off the meritocratic checklisting system Topps baseball really just put back into circulation. Let's say Albert Pujols is #500 in 2009 Topps. Does this mean that every Topps baseball set will have at least 500 cards? Or is it much more likely that cards #1 through #30 are super stars?

Also, here's a great piece by Tyler Kepner in today's New York Times about major leaguers and their fantasy football teams. [NY Times.com]

Overwhelmed by the massive, 1,000+ card Yankee Stadium sets that have come out this year? Me too. That's why I've got a better idea. If you want to celebrate Yankee Stadium in your own way, collect those cards that feature it in the background. The same can apply for those of you sick and tired of all things Yankee, who would rather focus on Shea Stadium and the Mets.

Because Topps calls New York City its home, many of its cards feature the two current New York City ballparks as part of the background. 1970 was a big year that comes to mind immediately, but there are plenty of others. And the best part of these DIY Yankee and Shea Stadium legacy sets is that your sets won't be composed of just Yankees or Mets--your set will include most or all of the other major league clubs as well.

Now I'm not a Yankees fan, but something like this appeals to me as a fan of baseball history, much more than a set full of cards of the same handful of players ad nauseam.



(From sorting through a few thousand cards from the 1970s, a Fenway Park Legacy set could also be put together this way.)

One thing I always wanted: a clear resin toilet seat, the kind that comes embedded with hundreds of pennies. You can find this type of thing in gigantic Las Vegas souvenir stores and other fine outlets of all-American kitsch. I mean, c'mon-- who doesn't like finding money where you least expect it?

So then let's fast-forward to the end of September, when Topps releases Treasury Basketball, a product featuring cards literally stuffed with cash. Each box is guaranteed a rip card, with exactly 429 of them containing actual United States currency (neatly folded $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, and $1,000 bills).

OK. I can find a lot of problems with this, the least of which being that Topps has to remove their pack disclaimer that they don't claim to know if cards will have any future value, since 429 cards will be worth at least $10. But that's petty in comparison to the pandora's box this opens. What Topps has created is a lottery. Not just a pseudo-lottery that the card industry has become in general, with packs containing rare autographs and game-used memorabilia, but an actual one with predictable odds and real money changing hands. Kind of scary, isn't it?

Here's something else to consider: let's say you find one of the cards containing a $20 bill. Do you open it up? Or is it more valuable than $20 if you leave it intact? Also, what if it's stamped with a 1/50 serial number? Does that make it more valuable than $20?

But perhaps the harshest indictment of the state of the card industry is this: Topps is proclaiming that finding actual cash in a pack is the next step in the evolution of the insert card. And they may have caught on to something: it is probably far cheaper to include cash in a product than spending lots more on securing contracts for autographs and game-used memorabilia. And besides, autos and relics have become so commonplace that finding one in a pack no longer carries the same weight it once did.

If cash cards in a basketball product with limited originality or appeal works, the practice will soon become a staple of the hobby.

Read the article at SCD.com

I've been held captive by the 1953 Topps Eddie Mathews Mystique for years. It's officially my favorite card, and I've put off buying it until I had enough money for one in near-mint condition. But then something strange happened. I began to really love miscut cards. And it turned out that there are a plethora of miscut cards from the 1953 Topps set. Needless to say I jumped on this one as soon as I found it.

Here's where it gets really great. That other card that's along the bottom? It's the lower tenth of Roy Campanella's card, who's my other favorite player from Mathews' era. I think it's interesting to note that, using this card and the one of Clem Labine I posted previously as examples, Topps seemed to line up their cards one row up, one row down on their uncut sheets. Because the design featured a black box along a portion of the bottom of each card, you'd think that this set would've had a ton of miscuts.

Because I'm on a miscut kick, today's card of the day is this version of Ike Brown's 1970 Topps card. A few other great things about the card (besides Brown sharing it 90/10 with Richie Scheinblum of the Cleveland Indians (card #161)):

• Scheinblum didn't make the Indians roster for 1970, but then went on to make the American League All-Star team in 1972 with the Kansas City Royals.

• Ike Brown's card in the Topps Baseball Cards Book is also poorly centered. Does that mean that the Topps file version of the card is also a terrible version?

• I'm beginning to find that I like cards of players where there are other players milling about in the background. Ike Brown's card has another player walking through the frame, making it seem like the Topps photographer either got to the stadium late to photograph Brown or had to squeeze him in. This theory actually makes sense, because Brown was a rookie in 1969.

• Because this version exists, there is at least one sheet of messed-up miscuts out there from the 1970 set.