Cards From This Century
April 24th, 2012 by slangon
It’s been a little cold and damp around these parts lately. I had put Sunday aside to watch to the Mets/Giants game, which ended up getting postponed, setting up a Monday double header (which them stupid bums lost both games of. grrrr.). Because of that, I ended up running errands on Sunday rather than watching the ball game. One of those errands involved Target, which by default, involved the card aisle, where I picked up this.
As I was buying this, I realized it’s been over a year since the last time I opened a pack of new baseball cards. As a matter of fact, the last pack of baseball cards that I busted was last years Heritage. Anyway, I don’t have much interest in buying any more of this product than what I just did, but that doesn’t mean I can’t buy a pack or 2 out of curiosity, right?
Lets see what we got.
The first new card I pulled out of pack in over a year is the manager of the team that I most detest. Awesome. Well, I guess it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been Shane Victorino. As an aside, one criticism that I would have about this years Heritage right out of the gate, and this might apply to past Heritage offerings as well, is I don’t recall ever seeing in game action (or in Charlie’s case, in game inaction) photos in the original ’63 set. That seems to go a bit against the spirit of the whole Heritage idea.
I don’t know if this happens to fans of other teams, but I definitely tend to have blinders on when it comes to players of other teams, especially teams outside of the Mets own division. Does that make me a bad baseball fan? Or is Javy Guerra just a scrub?
Hey! It’s my first floating head rookie stars card! And it has a Met, to boot! I think I only need 2 more Chris Schwinden cards from this set now.
Hmmm. Two Dodgers in the last three cards. I think this pack might’ve been meant for someone else. Well, at least I’ve heard of this Dodger.
Make that one more Chris Schwinden.
Another card of another dude that I have no idea who he is, and not to sound mean, but don’t really care enough to find out about. I mean, look at that card. Does that make you want to find out about that guy?
You know what I sometimes like to think about when I look at Heritage cards? Wouldn’t it be funny if when they photographed the players if they made them get the same hair cuts and shaves as guys from 1963? Alex would never get away with that scruff. Mickey Vernon maybe. But not Alex Gordon.
Things I like about this card: A) It looks like whoever set up the lighting was the same person who lit The Twighlight Zone. B) The giant Mr. Red patch on Votto’s sleeve. Thing I don’t like about this card: wind breaker in small “action” photo.
Jair Jurrjens looks pretty bad-ass in this picture. But then I look at the smaller picture and realize that he’s making a duck face.
Out of sixteen cards in this pack, so far three are Dodgers. That’s an 18.75% Dodger rate. Yeah. This pack might’ve been meant for someone else.
Well, if this is a Dodger hot pack (not to mention a Chris Schwinden hot pack) I guess it’s also a manager hot pack, which I’ll take any day. At least old Jim’s photo looks a bit more like a photo that would actually appear on a 1963 card.
Aside from the fact that it vaguely looks like Jordan’s face is melting, I don’t remember too many dudes actually smiling on the 1963 set. Come on, Jordan. Grimace. Scowl. Look mean. You smiling pansy.
Well, I guess my theory about this also being a managerial hot pack might be spot on. Aside from 3 out of the 16 cards being Dodgers so far, 3 have also been managers. And, as a Mets fan, this particular manager happens to make me pretty happy (until the Nationals continue their mastery over the Mets, in which case I’ll put this card in the same category as the Charlie Manuel one.)
Hmm. There’s something very strange going on in this pack. I’m 14 cards into a 16 card pack and so far I have 3 Dodgers, 3 managers, 2 Mets and 2 Padres. I realize that when you have 16 cards in a pack and 30 teams, obviously you’re not going to have a representative of every team, but this seems like a bit of a distribution glitch.
I think someone should have Josh pull Jordan Pacheco aside and have a little talk with him. This is what a 1963 photograph should look like. This has been the only short print of the pack so far.
And the final card is…
Well, I can’t complain about that. Actually, I take that back. The one complaint that I have is that this card is #112. The Mets team card in the original ’63 set was card #473. I kind of always liked the way that Topps would at least try to match up the card numbers of the original set and the Heritage set in some way. This Mets team card doesn’t match up (although I realize that if it did, this team card would be a short print and therefore a pain in my ass) and both of those Rookie Stars cards featuring Chris Schwinden would’ve been checklists in the original set. On the other hand, all three of the manager cards that I got in this pack correspond to the their counterparts in the original set (Davey Johnson matches up with Washington Senators manager Mickey Vernon). The Clayton Kershaw card corresponds to Sandy Koufax, which makes sense, and Matt Kemp is the same number as Wally Moon, who is at least a Dodger. Joey Votto matches up with a Red, and even Alex Gordon, while not matching up with a Royal since they weren’t around, is paired with a Kansas City A. I can sort of forgive not pairing Chris Schwinden with an original Met card, because who the hell is Chris Schwinden, but it seems kind of lame to not pair up a team card when the team in question was in existence in 1963.
So that’s my Mets/Dodgers/managers hot pack of 2012 Topps Heritage. I find it a little weird (and slightly disappointing) that I didn’t get any inserts at all, but considering that I ended up with 3 managers and 3 Mets cards, I’m cool with that. I can’t believe that I didn’t get any Yankees, but again, I’m cool with that. All in all, I’m not nearly as disappointed as I usually am when I buy packs of new product, but don’t expect this to be a tend around here.
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