Tag Archives: Johan Santana - Page 3

Curse of the Pinstripes

Posted by on 16 December 2012 Comments Off on Curse of the Pinstripes

Was R.A. Dickey’s departure foretold in cardboard?

One of R.A. Dickey’s final Dickeyfaces as a Met at Citi Field

R.A. Dickey’s career has been quite the roller coaster ride so far, hasn’t it?  A lot of us have been along for the ride for the last three years, but the latest development has us in free fall.  Like half of the Marlins just a few weeks ago, Dickey is headed north to the Blue Jays.  In return, the Mets get a legitimate catching prospect, something the organization has been in dire need of for a while.  Josh Thole has done an admirable job, but the team needs to get better and this is a step toward doing that.  Dickey may no longer be a Met (once the deal becomes official anyway), but he has meant a lot to an organization that hasn’t had much to cheer for lately.  I’m glad to have been able to see him pitch at Citi Field in what turned out to be his last game there as a Met.  No matter what he does in Toronto, he’ll always have a special place with the Mets.

How did it come to this?  Why would the Mets, after doing almost nothing to improve the team in the offseason, trade away their best pitcher, a 20 game winner and Cy Young Award recipient?  Have things really gotten so bad that a New York team has to wring every last penny of value out of its assets just to remain viable?  Starting pitching is one of the team’s strengths, but depth is still a concern.  Will Santana be able to hold down a spot in the rotation for the whole season?  Will Wheeler be ready?  Can Mejia, Hefner, McHugh, or whoever else gets called on to fill in be effective enough?  In a twist of irony, Omar Minaya, the very man who signed Dickey, is also the one most responsible for depleting the farm system to the point that it was necessary to trade him for prospects.  Yet another Minaya victory has been negated by his failures.

But what about the crackpot conspiracy theories?  What completely unrelated event could have somehow prevented Dickey from putting on a Mets uniform in 2013?  He wasn’t on any video game boxes, so what could it be?  Well, you’ve come to the right place, because I’ve got the answer you won’t find anywhere else.  Dickey’s pinstripe game-used memorabilia cards in 2012 ensured that he would not appear in a game as a Met in 2013.

Dickey’s pants from his second one-hitter of 2012 sure seemed lucky when Topps got a hold of them and chopped them up for 2012 Topps Triple Threads.  This was a big deal because it was the only time an active player’s pinstriped Mets uniform made it into cards in 2012 and was the first baseball card appearance of a uniform from the cream-ivory period (2010-present).  For a Mets game-used collector, these cards were a dream come true.  But dig a little deeper and a nightmare unfolds.

The only active player with a Mets pinstripe jersey card in 2011 was Carlos Beltran.  Beltran was traded during the 2011 season before this card was released.  The trade brought back Zack Wheeler, so it is seen as a big win for the Mets.  Still, Beltran signed with the Cardinals after the season and has been doing well while the Mets are in desperate need of some outfield help.  So was Beltran retroactively the curse’s first victim?

No, that honor goes to Johan Santana in the ill-fated 2010 Upper Deck Series 1.  Santana is known to prefer the white home uniforms because he believes that they hide the ball better, so pinstripes are unusual for him.  But wait, Santana is still with the Mets, so how could the curse apply?  As it turns out, Santana missed all of 2011 due to injury.  Is this the fate that would have been in store for Dickey had he not been traded?  We may never know.  What we do know is that, starting in 2010, any active Met with a Mets pinstripe memorabilia card has not appeared in a game as a Met the following year.  Is this curse a bit far-fetched?  Maybe, maybe not.  Only time and baseball cards will tell.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Five Star

Posted by on 15 December 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Five Star

With great price comes great risk

If you’ve been worried that baseball card products weren’t expensive enough and have been envious of football card collectors with their super-duper-ultra-mega-premium products, Topps has heard your pleas and brought Five Star to baseball for 2012.  With a starting price of $500 per pack (which dropped to around $400 within a couple weeks of release), you were basically paying for a case of cards and only getting the case hits.  The stakes have never been this high, which means that an unprecedented level of disappointment was soon to follow.

So what does $500 get you these days?  Not a whole lot as it turns out.  Here’s the pack breakdown:

1 Active Player Autograph
1 Retired Player Autograph
1 Autographed Booklet or some other autograph
1 Autographed Relic
1 Relic

And, as a last-minute reveal, packs will also include a base card numbered to 80 or 10!  Yes, after they ditched the base cards in Tier 1, they added them in at the last minute for Five Star.  I have no idea what they’re doing over there, but I guess it’s a bonus.

Sounds good, right?  I mean, as long as you don’t pull a bunch of cards that sell in the $10-20 range, but how likely is that?  Almost certain as it turns out, but there’s still a real chance of pulling at least one card that will sell for $100.  So really, you might be able to get $200 out of a pack, which isn’t that bad.  Unless you paid $500 for it.  Oops.  But the big hits!  8 player autographs!  Booklets!  All autographs are on-card and all relics are game-used (just like everything was in 2001…)!  Imagine yourself selling a card for $1500!  Which probably won’t happen until you’ve gone through at least four packs, or possibly four cases…  But at least you have some nice stuff left over after selling off the hits.  Oh, right, there’s nothing else there, just the seconds of enjoyment from opening packs.  Five Star sells you on the concept and the experience, which may be all you walk away with after putting your money down.

I bailed out of the high-dollar pack market way back in the beginning with SP Game Bat and Pacific Private Stock in 2001.  $20 per pack was pushing it back then and it didn’t take more than a couple of worthless packs to sour me on the whole concept.  Buying singles on the secondary market was always a better deal and that remains true to this day.  I haven’t touched packs of any of this year’s other high-end products and I’m not taking any chances with Five Star.  But there are some nice must-have cards in this product that will cost you a lot less than $500 to pick up.  The cards are all 4mm thick, which is annoying because common toploader sizes go from 3.5mm to 5mm with nothing in between.  And they all have a massive problem with chipping and corner wear.

Base Cards

Base: Numbered to 80
Rainbow: Numbered to 10

Mets: Johan Santana, Tom Seaver, David Wright

Added at the last minute, these are super-thick cards that look a lot like the base autographs.  David Wright is here as always, joined by Tom Seaver and Johan Santana.  If you were hoping for a deep field of Mets, you might as well stop reading now because Dave Kingman and R.A. Dickey are the only other Mets in the entire product (and people are complaining about there being too many lesser players in Five Star…).  As with everything else in Five Star, these are heavily color-coded: red for retired players and blue for active players, with the stone pattern from the cardbacks (rotated 180 degrees) as a border.  There’s a lot of design here and one big player picture, which looks to me like it’s trying too hard to look premium.  I’ve seen nicer designs on early ’90s products and those didn’t sell for $500 per pack.

Jumbo Jersey Relics

Silver: Numbered to 92
Gold: Numbered to 25
Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: Johan Santana, David Wright

Jumbo relics are great in normal products, but they’re largely just junk in this one.  Santana and Wright both have white and gray swatches here, so there’s nothing to get excited about.  They’re cheap at least.  The 1/1s have a piece of patch, but the premium price that they’ll fetch (probably around 1/4 of the price of a pack) isn’t really worth it to buyers or sellers.

Five Star Autographs

Silver: Numbering Varies
Rainbow: Numbered to 25

Mets: Dave Kingman, Tom Seaver, David Wright

While these cards look a lot like the base cards, the designs are completely different, though mostly the same.  The border switches from the light stone in the base cards to a very dark wood grain here, which makes the chipping more visible.

Five Star Quotable Autographs

Numbered to 10

Mets: Tom Seaver, David Wright

How can you not like a David Wright autograph with a “Let’s Go Mets!” inscription?  These are way out of my price range unfortunately, but the hobby could use more of this kind of variety in autograph cards.

Five Star Silver Ink Autographs

Silver Ink: Numbered to 99
Gold Ink Gold Border: Numbered to 10 or less
Gold Ink Purple Border: Numbered to 10 or less
Gold Ink Red Border: Numbered to 10 or less

Mets: R.A. Dickey, Dave Kingman, David Wright

Notable here are the first on-card autographs from R.A. Dickey.  The gold ink parallels are the big hits (well, bigger, it’s hard to call a $50-100 card a “big hit” in a $500 pack), but even the silver ink base versions look great.  These are the real must-have autographs in Five Star, skip the rest if you’re just looking for one or two nice cards.  Shame about the chipping.

Five Star Booklet Triple Relic Autograph

Silver: #d/99 or less (49 for Wright)
Gold: Numbered to 10
Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright

Oh boy, three small white pieces of fabric (some dirty) and an autograph on the other piece of the booklet when there’s still plenty of room on the relic side.  These just don’t interest me at all.

Multiplayer Cards

Numbered to 5

Mets: Johan Santana (2 and 4 Patch), David Wright (2, 3, 4, and 8 Patch)

The cards that got people drooling over 5 Star were the massive multiplayer cards with patches or autographs from up to 8 different players.  Numbered to only 5 each (10 for some of the autograph cards), the odds of pulling one are slim, but at least you stand a chance at getting your money back if you do.  David Wright and Johan Santana are the only Mets here, with both of the Santanas on cards that also feature Wright, for a total of four different cards.

Other Cool Stuff

Sorry, no Mets here.  5 Star has some nice extremely limited cards, but the Mets didn’t make the cut.

Bottom Line

Anything numbered to more than 10 in this product is junk.  That’s great for singles buyers, not so great for pack breakers.  Of the Mets cards numbered to more than 10, only the Wright, Dickey, and Seaver autographs and the Wright triple relic autograph will sell for more than $30, with most others regularly selling for less than $20.  That means you should be able to get all of the Mets cards numbered to more than 10 plus the base cards numbered to 10 for around $500, if you can find enough sellers willing to take a chance on the product and then sell the contents for fair market value.  That’s 20 cards, 10 of them autographed, for the price of one pack.  You’re guaranteed not to get any big hits this way, but at least you know what you’ll be getting.  That is, a bunch of really thick cards with fancy designs and widespread chipping.  Eh, maybe this isn’t a product to buy into that big.

Mets Game-Used History: The Fall of Upper Deck

Posted by on 22 November 2012 Comments Off on Mets Game-Used History: The Fall of Upper Deck

Milestones and the end of the road

Remember when I started this blog with the first entry in this series?  Probably not, that was almost a year ago…  I’m going out of sequence with the second part because the second part chronologically (1998-1999) is pretty boring.  Instead, I’m going straight to 2010 with a card from an insert set that started in 1999 featuring a player whose first game-used cards appeared in 1998.  So yeah, we’re still kinda in 1998-1999 for this piece.

Gary Sheffield has been a personal favorite of mine (as much as I was ever able to have favorites before R.A. Dickey came along) for a long time now, dating back to the day I pulled his error rookie card out of a pack of 1989 Upper Deck.  It is fitting then that Sheffield is also the player that I associate with 2010 Upper Deck Series 1, the final major baseball card product from what was once the most innovative sports card manufacturer on the planet.  I was thrilled when Sheff was picked up by the Mets in 2009 after being released by the Tigers, not because he was a superstar player (his best days were long behind him), but because of the wealth of game-used cards he had amassed over his career.  Between countless teams and several All-Star games, Sheffield had been one of the most prolific game-used subjects over the previous decade.  It didn’t hurt that he was Dwight Gooden’s nephew either.

Oh, right, he was also on the verge of hitting his 500th home run.  No Met had ever hit a 500th home run, so that would be a first.  The baseball card connection here is Upper Deck’s A Piece of History 500 Club game-used bat insert set, the longest-running game-used insert set in history.  Started in 1999 with cards spread out over several products over the next few years until the present club was complete, with new cards showing up as new players hit the 500 home run milestone, the 500 Club bat card set would finish in 2010 with Sheffield as the final member to be recognized.  As you can see, he appeared in a Mets uniform, the only member of the club so attired.  And that’s kind of the problem.

You see, MLB Properties has a soft spot for monopolies and thought it would be swell to have just one officially licensed baseball card manufacturer starting in 2010.  With two manufacturers still licensed by the MLB Players Association in 2009, the finalists were the old standard Topps and the brash 20 year old upstart Upper Deck.  MLB Properties went with Topps and forced Upper Deck into the unlicensed card market formerly occupied by Donruss.  The loss of the MLB license meant that Upper Deck would no longer be able to use MLB team logos and names.  Most companies in this position take extreme measures to airbrush/photoshop out anything and everything that could be considered a logo or property of MLB Properties.  As you can see above, Upper Deck went with angles and cropping that obscures the logos but doesn’t hide them completely.  While that’s pushing the limits of legality, they should still be safe, right?  Well, only if MLB doesn’t look on the back of the card.

And right there are the Mets sleeve and helmet logos in plain view, with no attempt made to get rid of them.  To its credit, UD did include the statement “NOT authorized by Major League Baseball or its Member Teams,” but I don’t think a capital NOT is going to pass legal muster.  For a second opinion, let’s consult with Johan Santana.

It’s almost like they were trying to put as much of the logos on the card as possible without being overt about it.  Between the two cards, we’ve also got the complete Citi Field Inaugural Season sleeve and hat logos in full view, which probably isn’t helping matters any.  That’s just asking to get your pants sued off, which is precisely what MLB Properties did.  As is the norm these days, they agreed on a settlement in lieu of an actual trial.  The terms included some cash (which UD was late paying) and an agreement that Upper Deck would not use any MLB Properties logos in the future (which they shouldn’t have been doing anyway) and would not use photographs that had been altered to remove or obscure any MLB Properties logos (which they clearly had no interest or ability in doing in the first place).  In exchange, Upper Deck wouldn’t have to recall any infringing products that had already been shipped.  Everybody wins!

This all but spelled the end of Upper Deck as a baseball card manufacturer.  Losing the MLB Properties license was a big blow, but other companies like Playoff/Donruss, Panini/Donruss, and Razor/Leaf have gone on without licenses.  In the event that MLB Properties reconsiders granting an exclusive license, there would be a chance of being reinstated.  Well, except for the whole snubbing their nose at MLB Properties and the law and napalming that bridge.  There’s no coming back from that kind of mess.

But at least we have this snazzy un-photoshopped Gary Sheffield bat card.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Archives

Posted by on 18 June 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Archives

Today’s stars, old favorites, and classic card styles team up to save the hobby

You know you have a hit on your hands when people start proclaiming it to be the best of the year in May.  Well, either a hit or a colossal flop you’re trying to cover up with marketing hype.  And really, any time you’re digging up old material and presenting it to a new audience with a modern look, failure is a distinct possibility.  The hype was for real this time though – The Avengers really was that good.

A few weeks later, with The Avengers still packing theaters, Topps released the long-awaited 2012 Archives.  Long waits for new material are nothing new to this product; Archives debuted in the early ’80s as a reprint of the 1952 Topps set, then took the rest of the decade off before returning in the early ’90s with the 1953 and 1954 sets.  A less focused product was released in 1995, wrapping things up for that decade.  The Archives brand was reborn in the vintage boom of 2001 with reprints covering the full history of Topps and for the first time included autographed cards, mainly from lesser-known stars (my big pull – Dom DiMaggio).  This run lasted for five years under a variety of names including Archives Fan Favorites and All-Time Fan Favorites.  Topps made a half-hearted attempt to revive the concept with last year’s Topps Lineage, but it was not well-received.  (I was going to do a full review of the history of this product, but I’m running a bit behind on things at the moment; I’m writing this with reviews of 2012 Museum Collection and 2012 Bowman written and waiting for scans…).

Card Designs

The 2012 incarnation of Archives focuses on four classic Topps sets: 1954, 1971, 1980, and 1984.  All designs are faithfully reproduced on high-quality matte finish thin white card stock.  I put a lot of weight on the look and feel of cards and these are just perfect, finding a pleasing balance between the low quality stock of the originals and the thick and glossy stock used in previous Archives sets.  The matte finish gives these cards a vintage feel, while using the same quality on the cardbacks makes them look more sleek and modern (some earlier Archives sets used rough backs opposite glossy fronts, which has the opposite effect).  The higher quality photographs really make the retired players stand out – their cards have never looked this good.  The design team for this set deserves some kind of award.

Player Selection

Unlike the 2001-2005 Archives run, the 2012 set consists of both retired players in the old designs (with new photographs) and current stars and rookies.  It makes for a thin player list in a 200 card set, but hopefully the success with this year’s product will lead to a more substantial set next year.  For once this year, the Mets were well-represented with eight cards in the base set plus four SPs, three reprints, a sticker, seven autographs, and one jersey card.

SPs

In addition to the 200 base cards, 40 short prints were inserted at a rate of one per four packs, plus a #241 Bryce Harper as a very limited late addition.  These were not limited to the four styles used in the base set.  The Mets were well-represented here with four of the 40 SPs.

Gold Parallel

All 200 base cards were featured in a gold foil parallel set that somehow manages to look better in scans than in person.  This was a great way to get a more modern-style insert into this product, though parallels of the SPs would have been nice as well.

Reprints

These are more like the Archives cards of old, complete with gold foil logo.  Three Mets made the cut here.

Retro Inserts

Topps mined its history of odd and quirky inserts to round out this product, and I can only hope they do this again next year.  Unfortunately, a Tom Seaver sticker is the only Mets representative in these four insert sets.  A David Wright 1977 cloth sticker is the obvious omission here, that would have looked spectacular.

1956 Relics

This game-used set is a great example of retro-modern fusion done right.  The 1956 design is sufficiently different from most of the rest of this product to make it interesting and the layout leaves plenty of space to fit a piece of jersey or bat.  David Wright finally got into the inserts here with a jersey card (blue and gray variants).

Fan Favorites Autographs

The big draw of Archives since 2001 has been its autograph set, featuring on-card autographs from some of the biggest names in the history of the sport and many lesser stars and fan favorites.  This year’s Fan Favorites Autographs set featured seven players shown as Mets and eleven more former Mets shown in other uniforms.  Noteworthy among the 18 are Jose Oquendo with nine variations, one for each position he played in a single game, Willie Mays with the only redemption of the bunch (and the hardest to obtain), and Gary Carter with the first-ever sticker autograph in Archives.  Carter has been a fixture in Archives autographs since they debuted in 2001, so it was nice to see him back one last time on a card numbered simply GC.

1983 Mini Autographs / Autographed Originals

There were two other autograph cards from former Mets in Archives – Nolan Ryan in the 1983 Mini Autographs (#d/50) and Willie Mays in the Autographed Originals (#d/5).  Sadly, these were out of my price range and will not be shown.

Six box breakdown

I bought in big with Archives – six hobby boxes.  The results were decent enough.

3 200-card base sets
188/200 card base set
~200 extra base cards
12 Gold parallel cards
27/40 SPs + 9 extras
32/50 Reprints + 4 extras
17/25 1977 Cloth stickers + 7 extras
16/25 1967 Stickers + 2 extras
9/15 1969 Deckle edge + 3 extras
12/15 1968 3D + 6 extras
13 Fan Favorite Autographs
2 1956 Relics

Big hits:
Bryce Harper Fan Favorites Autograph redemption card

It should be noted here that, after fees, the Harper auto redemption card brought in enough to cover the cost of three boxes of cards.  Everything else that I sold (11 autos, 2 relics, 1 base set) added up to the price of one box.  That left me in for only the cost of two boxes, with an Olerud auto, a couple of base sets, a good start at the insert sets, and a bunch of extras, all of which could probably have been purchased for around $100.  In pure dollars, that’s a net loss of more that $50 even with an improbably good pull (easily top 5 of my life).  While the big pulls in this product were good for $100+, the basic autos and relics were practically worthless; none of the 11 autos I sold topped $10 and the relics were lucky to sell for more than $1.  This does not of course take into account the fun of opening packs (which was pretty much gone after four boxes), but that’s really the only reason to open boxes vs. buying singles/sets on he secondary market; there should never be a financial motive for the typical hobbyist.

Suggestions for next year

I realize that it’s a longshot to think that anyone at Topps is reading this (or that anyone at all has made it this far down), but any discussion of 2012 Archives will inevitably veer into speculation about next year’s product (and I think the success of this year’s Archives will guarantee that it comes back in 2013).  While Topps got a lot right this year, there’s always room for improvement.

Base Set Card Designs

1955, 1962, 1969, 1986
The Mets will host the All-Star Game in 2013, so why not give them a nod in the base set card designs?  Don’t mess with the card stock or glossiness (or lack thereof), this year’s set got it just right.

Autographs

John Olerud 1999
Lee Mazzilli 1982
Tim Teufel 1987
Edgardo Alfonzo 2001
Rusty Staub 1974
John Franco 1991
Al Leiter 2002
Mike Piazza 2005
Todd Hundley 1996
Al Jackson 1963

Inserts

More or less the same as this year, a few more Mets would be nice…

Gum

Um, no.

Seriously, Gum?

NO!

CTM Mailbag – June 2012

Posted by on 15 June 2012 1 comment

Jerseys, autographs, no-nos, and boxes overflowing with cards, oh my!

I’m sitting here with about half a dozen pieces about 90% finished, so of course I skip over all of those and crank out another mailbag feature! It’s been a big month or so in the hobby with new releases every week, so here’s an update on the important issues facing Mets collectors.

Tilly wrote:

I am also writing to make you know what a fantastic encounter my girl obtained viewing the blog. She noticed many issues, most notably how it is like to have a wonderful teaching spirit to make the mediocre ones completely gain knowledge of a variety of advanced issues. You undoubtedly exceeded our expectations. I appreciate you for producing these warm and friendly, dependable, informative as well as cool thoughts on this topic to Julie.

Don’t get too excited about the Matt Harvey jersey cards in Pro Debut, they aren’t from the Mets jersey Topps obtained in Spring Training. Remember last year’s Bowman Chrome Draft Picks & Prospects, which featured Futures Game jersey cards for Matt Harvey and Jefry Marte? Only the primary color of those three-color jerseys made it into the cards back then, so what happened to the rest? The good news is that you can now get all three colors for both Harvey and Marte in 2012 Pro Debut; the bad news is still no Mets jerseys for either of them. For Harvey, it’s clearly only a matter of time.

Segota wrote:

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Things have turned around a bit from last month in the Mets representation department. Archives and Pro Debut each featured eight players in their respective small base sets, plus several more in insert and parallel sets. Topps Series 2 increased the diversity of Mets featured in the insert sets, though most of them were still either retired players (Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Strawberry, and Gooden), former Mets (Pagan), or David Wright; the only others were Museum Collection holdovers Dillon Gee and Ike Davis, plus a few Jose Reyes 1/1 letter patches. While the base set situation seems to have sorted itself out and the inserts are getting there (some game-used from new players would be welcome…), the lone remaining area of concern is prospect autographs. Between Bowman and Pro Debut, two sets that focus heavily on prospects, only Jordany Valdespin and Brandon Nimmo have been featured on autograph cards. Adding in Panini’s “2011” products from this year gives you Chris Schwinden (playing for [insert team here] this week) and a few more 2011 draft picks. That leaves a huge gap between the 2011 draft class and the Buffalo-to-Flushing shuttle, or basically all the hope for success in 2014. While a lot of them had autographs last year, guys like Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Matt den Dekker, Jeurys Familia, Jefry Marte, Wilmer Flores, etc. are no-shows (no-signs?) so far this year; heck, Matt Harvey still hasn’t signed his cards from 2011 Bowman Platinum! I had to go to a game to get an autograph from Jefry Marte (many thanks, Jefry!) and that’s not practical for a lot of fans.

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Don’t expect much of a hobby reaction to Johan’s no-hitter. Between the lead time to produce cards, two perfect games so far this season, and Santana losing a bit of his luster with a couple of sub-par starts following the no-no and being outshined by a more dominant but imperfect R.A. Dickey, there’s not much hope for a big celebration of the Mets’ first no-hitter in this year’s products. If you want something to commemorate the occasion and don’t want to spend big bucks on reproduction tickets or whatever else the team is selling, I would recommend The7Line’s HI57ORY shirt.

SWLVguy wrote:

I might have a few of these….got any doubles of decent 90+ Gary Carters?

Oh, you have no idea… And, frankly, neither do I. I likely have a lot of base cards from Topps and Upper Deck, but I wouldn’t know where to even start looking. Too many old cards around here… I could always use some help thinning out the collection a bit, but even charities that give out cards to kids don’t want stuff as old as my excess commons. Anyone willing to give some old cards a good home?

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Heritage

Posted by on 29 April 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Heritage

Treating the Mets like it’s 1963

Topps Heritage has turned out to be the most long-lived retro/specialty product in baseball history.  Now in its 12th year, the formula is simple and everlasting – take the Topps product from 49 years ago, replicate it with current players, repeat next year.  Last year we finally got to the set that introduced the first Mets cards, so there was plenty to satisfy any Mets fan.  The party’s over in 2012 Heritage, as Topps treated the current team as if it had just turned in a 1962 performance and barely acknowledged that a team called the Metropolitans even exists.

Card Design

#imwith28

I’ll be honest, the 1963 design isn’t one of my favorites.  It seems to be quite popular, but the simplicity of geometric shapes and primary colors just doesn’t work for me.  And that yellow back…  I’m all for readability, but it looks like these got dropped in the toilet.  It is what it is though; this is a retro set, so we’re stuck with the design.

Base Set

The new Mets, same as the old Mets

Ten Mets cards make up the base Mets team set.  There are no real surprises here; most of these guys will look familiar from last year’s set.  As he did in Topps Series 1, Schwinden gets the RC designation here.  We also get a team card, which is always nice.  A few notable players are missing, but there are SPs coming up later that should cover all of them, right?

Floating Schwinden clone heads, the new market inefficiency?

Four Mets appeared on multiple player cards.  Reyes once more gets recognition for his batting title, though the card is a bit ambiguous when it comes to who came out on top (sure looks like Kemp won from this card).  Chris Schwinden inexplicably shows up on a quad rookie card after getting his own card elsewhere, so, um, that’s another card.  Josh Satin quietly makes his debut in another quad rookie card, and then Chris Schwinden rounds the group out with, um, another quad rookie card?  What the hell, Topps?  Three Schwindens?  This had better he a reference to a Mets rookie who appeared on three cards in the 1963 set, otherwise this is just stupid.  Actually, it looks like they did this with a few players.  Not enough rookies to pad out the set?

Topps continues to lobby for Jason Bay as the face of the franchise.

Finally, the SPs add some star power with Ike Davis, David Wright, Frank Francisco in his first Mets card (not really a star but I’ll give him a pass for being new) and Oh come on Topps, Jason Freaking Bay???  He’s a lost cause, but Topps showcases him as one of only three Mets in the Opening Day set and now makes him an SP in Heritage.  Did somebody at Topps not get the message that, short a miracle, this guy will be a platoon player at best by the end of the year?  These are your New York Mets, missing only the bulk of the rotation (Niese, Pelfrey, and Gee) and a center fielder.  It’s not the best mix, but this is a specialty set, so you can’t expect to get everyone.  Heritage always has lots of fun variants and parallels, so there should be plenty more to see.

Variations

Not a mistake, this is every Mets variant in 2012 Heritage

Or not.  No Mets were featured in any of the multitudes of variant sets.  No errors, no color swaps, no store exclusive bordered cards, not one single chrome or any chrome parallels…  Last year there were 37 cards in this category.  This year: 0.  Hey Topps, tell us what you really think of the Mets.

Inserts

Who's the guy with the hair and why is he in a Mets uniform?

Luckily, the Mets weren’t shut out in the insert category.  The annual Clubhouse Collection Relic set featured two Mets, David Wright and Jose Reyes?  This is really getting old.  Wright also appeared on a little sticker.  And that rounds out the current player inserts.  Maybe getting nothing would have been better.

Who has two autographs and led the 1962 Mets bullpen in losses? This guy!

But wait, there’s more!  The Real Ones Autographs insert set has been a treasure trove of forgotten player autographs, with last year’s set giving us four (three and a half?) players from the 1962 team.  This year, we get one more original Met, Craig Anderson!  …  Craig Anderson?  He, um, led the Mets pitching staff with 50 appearances in 1962.  And didn’t do much afterward.  There you have it, your vintage Mets representative, Craig Anderson!

If you’re underwhelmed, well, you should be.  Look, I’m ecstatic to get a 1963 reprint autograph of ANY Mets player.  These are the guys who started the club, going from the standard for futility to World Champions in less than a decade.  Without them, we would be stuck with the Yankees and their dozens of championships, and who wants that?  I hope every one of them who can still hold a pen can get Topps to make some cards for them to sign.  But when your team’s only representative is a guy who lost a bunch of games in 1962 and then fell off the map, somebody isn’t trying hard enough.

Topps, I’ll give you a hand here.  There’s a guy out there who, as a Met, was named a Topps All-Star Rookie in the 1963 set.  He went on to get a World Series ring with the Mets in 1969.  He is still active in the Mets organization mentoring young players and representing the team.  You may have seen him in uniform at Spring Training this year.  He has never been featured as a Met on a certified autograph card.  His name is Al Jackson and he should have been in this year’s Heritage Real Ones Autographs set.

Not shown as Mets, but that won't hide their shame...

Maybe I’m just making a big deal out of nothing.  Maybe Jackson won’t sign cards anymore.  Maybe he’s just too busy working on building the next Mets championship team.  But was there really nobody else from the 1963 Mets team set who was available?  Three other former Mets did sign on cards showing them with other teams – Hobie Landrith, Chico Fernandez, and Ed Bauta.  Of the three, only Landrith was on the team in 1962 and only Landrith would have a career after the Mets (he was traded for Marvelous Marv partway into the 1962 season).  We still got autographs from four ’60s Mets players, so maybe things aren’t that bad.

This team set was way too easy to assemble. Still working on 2011...

No, they are that bad.  23.  That’s how many Mets cards were in Heritage this year.  Last year is was more than 80.  The product as a whole seemed to be a bit less exciting than last year’s product, and 1962 was a big year for the team, but the Mets should still have been good for at least 30 cards.  This is after all a product with well over 1,200 cards when you consider base cards, SPs, variants, inserts, etc. (everything except 1/1s and box toppers).  Hopefully there’s more to come later in the year with Topps Chrome.

Box Toppers

Pro tip: 3-pocket currency pages work great for storing these in a binder.

For the consolation prize, there were a few Mets cards featured in the box toppers that have become standard in Heritage.  First are the ad panels, three-card blocks that feature a rotating lineup of players.  This year, Jose Reyes (NL Batting Leaders) and Johan Santana made the cut, with panes showing them in all three positions, for a total of six cards.

1963 was a good year for names, not so much for baseball.

Original 1963 Topps cards with a special foil stamp accounted for the second box topper.  These included well-known Mets like Choo Choo Coleman, Marv Throneberry, and Al Jackson.  In fact, there was probably a better variety of Mets players here than in the actual Heritage product.