Living in the past

With baseball cards, as in life, I don't think it's a terrible thing to live in the past.

The key is moderation. And while I'm admittedly a perennial fan of old-time sets like Heritage and Archives, I've long wondered if Topps relies a little too heavily on its history. Throw sets like A&G and Gypsy Queen into the fold - and not to mention all the retro-style inserts spread out amongst Flagship and such - and you've sure got a lot of nods to the past. 

The question then becomes: does living in the past invade the present, the ability to create new and joyful things? I'm starting to think Topps is tipping that scale - we haven't seen a ton of "innovation" in the last handful of years, often thrown aside in favor of designs we've seen over and over again. (I need another '87 Topps tribute like I need a hole in the head.)

A good example of this is something I've seen a few people investigate lately - tracking how many different Topps designs their favorite players have been featured on.

This topic intrigues me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it gave me an excuse to go through all my Ichiro cards and see the variety of designs he's been featured on over the years.

While I actually own many more cards of my man Vladimir Guerrero, I chose Ichiro for this post because his career so closely aligns with Topps's deep plunge into its history (he's been around for almost all of Heritage, Archives, etc.). Whether or not you consider 1951 or '52 to be the true First Year of Topps (I tend to lean towards the latter), Ichiro's covered everything from 1951-60.

That's mostly thanks to Heritage, but you've got a few random inserts and some Archives to help the cause as well.

One of the special wrenches Ichiro provides is that I'm 99 percent sure he didn't have a contract with Topps in 2013 & 2014, so he wasn't featured on the '64 or '65 designs in Heritage those years.

Thankfully, '65 is saved with a "Topps Choice" insert from last year - and even with the glaring '64 Topps gap, Ichiro's been featured on 19 of the first 20 Topps designs, which is pretty impressive when you stop and think about it.

Things get a bit more spotty after that.

I still don't know how UD Vintage got away with blatantly stealing vintage Topps looks, but even so they provided my only glimpse of Ichiro on the '71(ish) design.

I'm a bit surprised that Ichiro's never been featured on the '72 design (or at least I've never seen one), but Throwback Thursday and Archives help save a couple other mid-'70s Topps stalwarts.

A question I never considered before I started this - do subsets and mashups count?

That Archives SP features Ichiro on the '77 Topps "Turn Back the Clock" subset, and the other (Pilots throwback!) is a combination of 1977-79 Topps from last year's interesting Super '70s Sports checklist - for what it's worth, I'm counting the former, but not the latter.

The early '80s are fairly well-represented in my Ichiro pages, mostly thanks to the gaggle of Flagship inserts we've seen recently.

Check off '86 & '87, too.

Another stretch, but I'll count this Throwback Thursday "Record Breakers" card as an '88 Topps tribute.

'90s Ichiro tributes are almost nonexistent because, for better or worse, there just haven't been a lot of nods to the '90s in our hobby...yet.

Somehow, though, Ichiro has been featured on the '91 design in two different Archives checklists without having appeared on any other '90s sets out of the cards I own.

From there, we go to the "playing days" era of Ichiro's career (starting with his 2001 Topps rookie), and let's just take a moment to admire how many great cards this dude got.

As I mentioned earlier, Ichiro probably didn't have a contract with Topps in 2013 & 2014, so those are glaring gaps in his canon (at least until they get around to making that "Cards That Never Were" set I've been begging for).

And while he didn't get a Flagship base card in 2019 or 2020, those two years are saved by a couple photo variations I've had the good fortune to track down.

When you add it up, Ichiro's been featured on 49 out of Topps's 71 total designs - darn near 70 percent of all the Topps sets ever made, which is way more than I'd thought.

I suppose if I wanted to get really crazy we could go back to the tobacco days of sets like A&G and Topps 205 and see how many of those designs Ichiro has graced through the years, but I only have so much time these days, you know? For now, we can't deny that some of his best cards came on old Topps designs - something that can probably be said for a lot of other fan favorites out there.

Like I said, maybe living in the past isn't so bad.

Ten years(?!)

Today is the ten-year anniversary of "Dime Boxes."

The first thing that comes to mind is, well, how in the heck has it been ten years already?! Didn't I just start this blog yesterday? Wasn't it just the other evening I scanned a few cards and decided to start a blog - just one of the many whims I pursued as a 19-year-old? Is this still the very same blog being written by me, a now-veteran blogger a mere two months away from turning 30 who wrenched his back at work last night?

The answer to all those questions is, for better or worse, YES! Somehow, more than 2,000 posts and many more thousands of scans later, I'm still here. Not with the consistency and vigor of ten years ago, perhaps, but here nonetheless. Because blogging, no matter how much it's changed for me over the last decade, is still plain and pure fun for me. I love writing my blog, I love reading your blogs. Always have. You can trace the crooked line of my 20s and see baseball cards there at each and every point, going straight through. I like to think at least a little of that (and probably a lot more) was due to the fact that I had this blog. 

I can go on and on about how appreciative I am of what this blog has given me, but I've said a lot of that already over the past ten years - so, instead, why don't I just show you?

Page 1

(Claimed: #s 1, 4, 6, 8)

And what other way to do that than to GIVE AWAY FREE CARDS?!

My tenth year of blogging has probably been my most miserable as far as mailing stuff out - I feel like a stranger at the post office these days. I'd like to change that by doing something akin to the Free Card Friday giveaways (remember those?) that I briefly did last year. I'll be posting 12 pages of cards tonight, and all you have to do is comment saying which card(s) you want from the slots from each individual page, with the slots going from 1-9 starting from the top-left corner of the page.

If, for example, you wanted the Jimmy Piersall from this page (who wouldn't?), simply reply with Page 1 - #4 (Piersall) or something along those lines. These'll go first come, first serve, and I'll do my best to update each page with claimed cards as time permits. Feel free to grab as many as your conscience allows (just don't be the dude who buys the entire dime box and leaves everyone else stranded). I'm planning on doing more of these giveaways semi-weekly through the next month or two, so I'll start building stacks for whoever comments as the posts & comments roll on.

There's some current stuff, some weird stuff, some (mostly far from mint-condition) vintage - but for now I'll zip my lid and let you see (and pick!) for yourself.

Page 2

(Claimed: #s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9)

Page 3

(Claimed: #s 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Page 4

(Claimed: #s 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Page 5

(Claimed: #s 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8)

Page 6

(Entire page has been claimed!)

Page 7

(Claimed: #s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9)

Page 8

(Entire page has been claimed!)

Page 9

(Entire page has been claimed!)

Page 10

(Claimed: #s 1, 2, 3, 4, 7)

Page 11

(Claimed: #s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9)

Page 12

(Entire page has been claimed!)

That's it for now, so by all means, claim away!

And once again, I offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks to everyone who's ever clicked on this strange little blog - a few free cards are a drop in the bucket compared to the joy you've given me over the last ten fantastic years. 

Locked out

For the first time in my life, I'm starting to get a little disillusioned with the game I love.

I will argue to my dying day that baseball is the greatest sport there is. My feelings for the game on the field will never change - pure beauty, for me, takes the form of a flawless double play turn, a wicked curveball, and yes, even a good sacrifice bunt. But off the field, baseball is hurting me. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious purist, I think a lot of the game's problems come from the fact that it's run by people who don't really care about baseball at all, and see only dollar signs and sponsorships. 

You've no doubt heard by now that we've entered into a lockout that was a long time coming. This is the first work stoppage of my baseball-watching life (I was two years old during the '94 strike). And even if all goes well and the problems get solved before spring training, I can't help but think there's some irreparable damage being done here. 

I'm starting to wonder if baseball is only going to get further and further away from the version of the game its truest fans really love.

All this is compounded upon the fact that my favorite team launched a fire sale that included many of my favorite players, and the Fanatics-led card industry will soon be treading into uncharted waters my gut tells me won't go so well.

Perhaps this is all a case of me jumping the gun and being a little too dramatic too early on in the game here. I don't know. All I know is that in the last 24 hours I've learned there's a big difference between hearing for months that there's gonna be a lockout!, and that lockout actually happening.

But on the plus side, I'm finding that any disillusionment I may have with baseball doesn't trickle down to my cards, because I'm happy to report that I still have a good amount of stuff coming in from fellow who are willing to overlook my current plunge in blogging productivity. 

Blogging forefather Greg of "Night Owl Cards" dropped a few cards in the mail for me a while ago, and as much as I enjoy randomness, I'm equally fond of people like him who take the time to go through my want lists and help me check off some numbers.

MLB disillusionment or not, I really should put more effort into tracking down these non-sport A&G minis.

(Sidebar: I've ridden the Red Line many times, and let's just say it's nowhere near as glamorous as it looks there.)

I already had these two, but they're both massive upgrades to the copies I had in my binders - I'm so used to having my Hostess & Kellogg's creased and cracked that flawless ones shock me a bit.

One reason I sometimes wish I grew up in the '80s is that it seems like every food you ate came with some kind of baseball card.

Longtime trading buddy Bo of "Baseball Cards Come to Life!" recently sent me some cards as well, including this '96 Topps Wade Boggs that was a former Dime Box Dozen suspect.

I think we can all agree that '96 Topps is miserable, but this was way too obvious of a card for me not to have.

Bo sent me a nice helping of Big Hurts, which is most welcome because I'm trying to make up for all the time I wasted not chasing his cards.

I feel like old Topps photographers could've said Say Cheese! a little more.

A quartet of excellent needs here from Bo - seems egregious that I didn't own that Bob Motley card long ago.

If you send me enough minor league cards, it won't take long for me to find something I like.

In the latest How Behind Am I With Trade Posts? barometer reading, I'm just now showing off the cards I got from Jeff when we met up at The National earlier this year.

Jeff hasn't been around the cardsphere much lately, but I'm honored that he remembered I collect Mookie Betts - love that '91 SC variation, and I admit I still get a tiny thrill out of serial-numbered cards.

It's tough to tell from the scan, but these are those shiny A&G "hot box" parallels - I'd be disappointed if I got a whole box full of these, but they're fun to pick up here and there.

Jeff is one of the few fellow Panini Golden Age fanatics I know of, and a good side benefit of that is getting his extras!

While Topps was busy making their 8,759th different Cal Ripken Jr. card, Panini was giving us cards of Ron Blomberg and Ed Kranepool(!), and making them minis too(!!!).

Golden Age inserts are always cool, so much so that I even get a kick (or a punch?) out of the non-baseball ones.

Living proof that there is no such thing as a bad Jim Abbott card - but darn if this one doesn't try (never been a big sunflower seed guy myself).

Collecting cards is a joy because I can embrace and ignore whatever I choose to. There's frustration and eye-rolling at some of Topps's tactics, sure, but it's never enough to really sour me on cards as a whole. I could put an embargo on collecting any cards printed from this day on and still have enough stuff to chase to last me a lifetime. That's part of the beauty - no disillusionment.

Alas, if could only say the same for baseball as a whole.

Archives, finally

It seems like every time I look up another Topps set is getting pushed further and further back into the calendar, which I suppose explains why I was more excited than usual to see that 2021 Archives did the impossible and actually came out recently.

Archives, for me, is in that weird middle ground of sets that probably don't have much reason to exist, but one I'm still glad exists anyways. Topps has lived on its own designs for several lifetimes by now, and Archives is nothing but a "Topps's Greatest Hits" remix. And it's even more pronounced this year - Topps decided to cram a whopping eight designs into this year's 300-card checklist (one from all seven decades + 1 weird one I'll get to later). 

All this seems like a recipe for disaster, but the truth is I think I kinda like 2021 Archives a little more than usual - if nothing else, the rash of different designs provided for a more interesting set this year. No, I haven't seen any on retail shelves (shocker), but I did manage to scoop up a good 95 percent of the base I needed on Sportlots recently for under the cost of two blasters (why wasn't I doing this years ago?).

And to further feed my addiction to ranking things, I've decided to rank the eight(!) designs Topps used in 2021 Archives based on the very arbitrary factors of how well I think Topps pulled off the look and/or how much the cards grabbed me.

#8 -- 1983 Topps

I always feel like I'm about to be banished to blogger purgatory for saying that while I've always liked '83 Topps, I don't love it.

It's probably a Top 20 Topps design for me, but it wouldn't sniff my Top 10. The fact that Topps has used it to death in the years since hasn't helped the cause - it already showed up in Archives a few years ago, as well as about a million other insert sets, and yet here it is again in 2021. 

I don't know whether it's the endless regurgitation or simply a dull group of cards, or a little of both, but for me the '83 portion of this year's Archives doesn't bring a whole lot to the table.

Favorite card -- Ron Santo

Seeing Ron Santo in a 2021 set warms my heart.

#7 -- 1957 Topps

Conversely with '83, 1957 Topps is a set I absolutely admire that almost always gets pushed to the sidelines in favor of other '50s Topps stalwarts.

The problem here is that the beauty of the original '57s is a tough thing to replicate, and that's shown in the times Topps has tried to attack it. The '57s in this year's Archives are almost all close-up mugshots that blend together after the fourth or fifth one. That Reggie is cool, and I like the Buxton in a weird quirky way, but overall there's very little of the true spirit of '57 Topps here.

(But I'm not a good enough writer to put whatever that true spirit is into words.)

Favorite card -- Anthony Rizzo

In another chapter of the Topps bizarro world, it's obvious that Archives had a later printing-press deadline than Update, because a lot of Update's glaring omissions are prominently displayed in Archives.

See: Anthony Rizzo on the Yankees.

#6 -- 2091 Topps(?!)

The reason there's eight designs in 2021 Archives instead of seven is the weird decision to cram a futuristic 2091 Topps series into the very end of this year's checklist ("140 Years of Topps Baseball").

The Fanatics takeover is definitely an elephant in the room with these, but I won't talk about that for now. What I will talk about is that, while I don't like the look of these at all (yes, let's make the player names EVEN SMALLER!) I admire Topps's to try something out of left field here. So much of what we're seeing these days is spoon-fed rehashings and "safe" generic designs that impress no one.

Here's a rare case of Topps going a bit off the rails, and although the look isn't great, I love the effort.

Favorite card -- Don Drysdale

Because the world needs more Don Drysdale cards.

#5 -- 1973 Topps

Here's the surprise inclusion in 2021 Archives, because '73 Topps is slated to be featured in Archives next year.

And if these are a preview of what's gonna come in 2022 Heritage, I'm fully prepared to be disappointed - there's almost none of the strange action photos or general roguishness that make '73 Topps so special.

Favorite card -- Ken Griffey Jr.

A nice candid shot that reminds me a lot of the '73 Jimmy Wynn, one of my favorites.

#4 -- 2001 Topps

A paradox: I don't like 2001 Topps at all (does anybody?) but in a weird way, I'm glad to see it in 2021 Archives because of how how little it's remembered these days.

I still get a kick out of seeing legends on designs that span generations into the future, and don't sleep on my first card of Dime Boxedonia favorite Kyle Schwarber on the Red Sox. Add it all up, and the 2001 portion of this year's Archives is an unexpected source of joy within so many better designs.

This begs the question: what's better, an endless rehashing of a great design, or a rare nod to a forgotten look?

Favorite card(s) - Vida Blue & Dick Allen

These are by far my favorite cards in this year's Archives & please don't make me pick between them.

#3 -- 1962 Topps

This is the case of me excited about a design I've always been kind of meh about, sheerly because of how well Topps managed to pull off a proper homage.

I could see a lot of these cards popping up in the original '62 checklist, and for a set like Archives that's really the ultimate compliment.

Favorite card -- Max Scherzer

My first Dodger card of Mad Max + an excellent photo = one of my favorite cards of the year.

#2 -- 2011 Topps

It's scary to think 2011 Topps is already being treated as a "classic" design - I vividly remember opening packs of these, for god's sake.

And while I think at least some of this is due to the hallowed Trout Rookie, a lot of it is because it's just a fabulous baseball card look, easily one of the best of my lifetime. I think Topps did a fine job here, and they're darn near indistinguishable from the originals - I imagine reprinting contemporary designs is a lot easier than going back into the '50s and '60s.

Sure, it pains me to think of something from ten years ago as "classic," but Topps did in preserving the  aura of this "classic" (ugh) design here.

Favorite card -- George Springer

All the Archives 2011s are solid baseball cards, but this one speaks to me for some reason.

#1 -- 1991 Topps

At this exact moment, 1991 Topps exists in the perfect storm: it's a design I love that Topps executes shockingly well and hasn't shoved down our throats (yet).

We saw it in Archives a few years ago, but apart from that there aren't a lot of '91 Topps homages out there, which makes any nod to it even more exciting. Someone at Topps must know this set backwards and front, because they've done a great job reproducing it on those rare occasions - the photos breaking into the "fourth wall" outside the border is especially well done.

It's been a few years since I did a comprehensive ranking of Topps designs, and I think '91 Topps came in at around #15 last time - my gut tells me it might creep into the Top 5 if I ever do an update of that list.

Favorite card - Ichiro

I love all Ichiro cards, so maybe I'm a bit biased, but to me this is just a wonderful card of a perennial favorite.

There's a lot to unpack in 2021 Archives, and I can see the arguments for and against shoving eight different looks into a single checklist. It's a lot. Does a design buffet like this one make a set feel more fractured, or more virtuous? Normally, I'd say the former - but in this case I'm leaning towards the latter.

I will say this: over the years, I've come to think the overall quality of a set can be gauged by how fun of a blog post it makes for the writer - and at least as far as I can remember I've never enjoyed writing an Archives post more.