Tag Archives: Josh Thole

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Triple Threads

Posted by Matthew Lug on 3 January 2013 Comments Off

Finally, an excuse to say “Dickey pants”

Triple Threads is one of the most-loved Topps products, so of course I am largely indifferent towards it. This is one of the products born from the post-Playoff/Donruss era, when most of the products I liked were discontinued or marginalized, so I’m holding a bit of a grudge. And as a “Let’s face it, you’re not going to get a big hit out of this, just buy what you want on eBay and save some money” product, I get annoyed waiting for the few cards I want most to show up in auctions at prices that aren’t completely insane. Note to sellers: most of these cards will sell for less than $20, stop it with the “Everything $99” approach. The most annoying thing about this product though is the trademarked Topps infinite parallelization of every single card. In addition to the base version (typically numbered to 99 for autographed cards and 36 for non-autographed cards), there are Sepia, Emerald, Gold, Sapphire, Ruby, and occasionally a few other parallels, plus a set of 1/1 printing plates for every single card. This makes every card both rare (everything numbered to less than 100!) and common (more than 250 of each if you ignore silly color variations, with many players appearing on multiple cards in the same insert set).

Base Cards

Serial Numbering: None-625-250-125-99-50-25-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Gary Carter, Tom Seaver, David Wright
Non-Mets: Jose Reyes, Nolan Ryan, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider, Rickey Henderson

Sadly, Topps did not drop the base cards from Triple Threads like they did for Tier 1. They seemed really excited to show off this design on Twitter. Am I missing something here? This is about as dull a design as you can get. Good thing these aren’t the main draw and only serve as filler along with their six parallels numbered to between 25 and 625, two parallels numbered to 1, and four printing plates per card. Three Mets out of 100 cards is about average, so whatever.

Rookies and Future Phenoms Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 99-75-50-25-10-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Ike Davis
Non-Mets: None

As usual, Triple Threads includes a bunch of inserts as an extension of the base set. I do not know why they do this, probably just to make sure you can’t build a complete set that makes any sense. Serial numbering on these follows the 99 sequence, so that’s 265 total cards for those of you playing along at home, with cards numbered to 10 or less featuring patches if patches are available. Two of the 65 cards feature Mets, which is again about average. As with all of the “triple” relics in this product, there are exactly three pieces of material in each card regardless of how many holes are cut in the card placed over them. Putting 23 holes in a card does not mean that there are 23 pieces of material in the card! Why are people on eBay so stupid? Next thing you know, they’ll be calling every serial numbered card a 1/1 because every one is unique. Oh, wait, they already do that… Autographs on these cards are on the cards and not stickers, because Kirk Nieuwenhuis doesn’t sign stickers. Seriously, have you seen how many cards this kid signed this year? He’s at more than 1600 just counting serial numbered cards. I’m amazed he’s not on the DL from a hand injury.

Triple Threads Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Dave Kingman, Ike Davis (4), David Wright
Non-Mets: Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider (2)

And here’s the gimmick that everyone (except me) loves, multiple variations of every card with stupid things written in the windows over the game-used material! Lumbering lefty? I guess it’s better than “send me an angel” or “heaven sent.” Whoever comes up with this stuff must have been fired from a greeting card company for being too cheesy. These follow the 36 numbering sequence minus the 36 and 27 for 36 total copies of each.

Triple Threads Relics / Relic Legends

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: David Wright (5)
Non-Mets: Jose Reyes (3), Rickey henderson, Eddie Murray, Willie Mays

If you need more Wright, just head over to the non-autographed Triple Threads Relics insert set, which features five more variants on the full 36 numbering scheme minus the wood 1/1 for 98 total copies of each stupid phrase. Among this year’s winners are “Wright Stuff” and “D-Money.” Jose Reyes on the other hand got tagged with “Fresh Fish.” As I’m sure Jay Sherman would say about this, it stinks.

Triple Threads Flashback Relics

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Johan Santana, Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Rickey Henderson

Here’s an idea that’s so obvious that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before: put windowing on both sides of a jersey card (Topps did something similar with several relic sets a decade ago by making the bottom layer transparent, but these are the first I’ve seen that are open on both sides). Two of these feature the Mets on the front and another two on the back. Of particular interest here is the Dwight Gooden card with sewn-in pinstripes visible from both sides. Numbering follows the 36 sequence we’ve been seeing on most of these non-autographed triple relics.

Unity Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 99-75-50-25-10-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Daniel Murphy (2), Ike Davis, Josh Thole (2), Lucas Duda (2), R.A. Dickey (2), Ruben Tejada (2), Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden (2), Gary Carter.
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

OK, let’s cut the crap. The whole “triple” gimmick is nice and makes for interesting display pieces and once-in-a-lifetime pulls, but the bulk of the interesting cards in this product are in the Unity insert sets. While last year’s Unity inserts could be combined in groups of three to create a panorama of the team’s stadium (or a frankenstadium if you combine players from different teams), this year’s Unity design is completely generic. On the plus side, this is what Topps has been saving the bulk of the material from new players and players who haven’t been seen since last year for. So if you were wondering why Lucas Duda and Josh Thole have been getting the shaft for the bulk of the year, it was so Topps could make them the big draw in this insert set. Well, that and Dickey pants. Double Dickey pants. Fresh off Dickey’s second consecutive one-hitter this year, stains and all. This may be the only game-used item whose authenticity has not been called into question by the recent counterfeit merchandise scandals.

Each card lists a specific accomplishment for the depicted player, with some players featured on multiple cards. Accomplishments include a mix of awards, events, and on-field performances. All autographs are on stickers and numbering follows the 99 sequence minus wood. That’s right, there’s no Dickey wood parallel. Deal with it.

Unity Relics

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Rickey Henderson (3), David Wright (3), Johan Santana (3), Daniel Murphy
Non-Mets: Willie Mays, Warren Spahn, Carlos Beltran (3), Eddie Murray (2).

For players without a ready supply of sticker autographs, there’s the non-autographed variety of Unity. These follow the 36 numbering sequence (without wood, like the autographed variety), making them harder to find than their autographed brethren (particularly when it comes to patches, which are at the 3 or less parallels as opposed to 10 or less for the autographed versions).

2011 All-Star Workout Jerseys

Heath Bell, Carlos Beltran, and Jose Reyes appear here with various pieces of their 2011 All-Star workout jerseys. Base patch cards are numbered to 9 or less, all others are numbered to 1. They’re nice, I guess.

Multiple Player Cards, Booklets, Oddballs, and Other Assorted Rarities

There are a bunch of them. I don’t care about any of this stuff though and most of it is out of my price range, terribly boring, or both. Go somewhere else if you want an unbiased review, or just look at the pre-launch tweets from Topps for some of the many cards you will never own. This is the only reason to open boxes of this stuff, which I don’t do. These cards might as well not exist.

Bottom Line

While I may not care for the card design, Triple Threads never fails to deliver new material. Mets with their first MLB uniform material include R.A. Dickey, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Daniel Murphy, Ruben Tejada, and Lucas Duda. Tejada and Josh Thole have their first blue jerseys in this product and Dickey has the first Mets pinstripe material since the change to cream/ivory base material in 2010 (and on top of that it’s from the pants he wore during his second consecutive one-hitter this year). Dwight Gooden has the first Mets sewn-in pinstripes visible from both sides. And Nieuwenhuis’s black jersey swatches can only be from the jersey he wore on June 3 to honor John Franco.

Players who recently changed teams haven’t been left out either. Carlos Beltran, fresh off having pieces of a Giants uniform in Museum Collection, has his first Cardinals patch cards in Triple Threads. While these are all numbered to 3 or 1, there are three different cards for a total of 12 patch cards. Yeah, that’s still not very many. More common though are pieces from Jose Reyes’s spring training jersey, which Topps tweeted a picture of back in the spring. Material available for Reyes in his various cards includes black, black mesh, and orange mesh fabric swatches as well as some patches numbered to 10 and 1.

And then there’s the retired players who are shown on other teams on cards featuring pieces of Mets uniforms… Rickey Henderson and Eddie Murray have some beautiful big Mets patch cards that show them in other teams’ uniforms. They’re way out of my price range in any case, but it bugs me to see such great cards marred by showing the player in the wrong uniform.

Still, it’s hard to get too excited about this product. Triple Threads has a lot of stuff, but none of it really stands out. It doesn’t have the on-card autographs of Tier One or Five Star, the attainable jumbo relics of Five Star or Museum Collection, or the card design of Bowman, Finest, or Museum Collection. But I suspect that I might be just a bit biased. Player selection is this product’s real strength, but even that just makes it a placeholder for many players until something better comes along.

2012 Mets Baseball Card Year in Review

Posted by Matthew Lug on 31 December 2012 Comments Off

At long last, I have Dickey pants

If you were looking for Mets pinstripe jersey cards this year, your only options for the bulk of the season were pieces from Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden. In fact, the last few years have been pretty barren for Mets pinstripes from active players, with just Carlos Beltran in 2011 and Johan Santana in 2010. No pieces from the pinstripe jerseys worn in 2010 (cream) or 2011 (ivory) have been released in cards. On that second point, nothing changed in 2012. The good news is that R.A. Dickey is here to save the hobby.

Not content to merely conquer mountains, books, movies, and that whole pitching thing, Dickey provided Topps with the material to produce the first pinstriped memorabilia card of an active Mets player since Santana in 2010. And this wasn’t just any old memorabilia, it was his pants from his second consecutive no-hitter, complete with distinctive dirt stains. On top of that, he also signed a couple thousand autograph stickers to be put on these and future cards. This is why everyone loves Dickey.

The Mets Have the Blues

Perhaps the biggest news in Port St. Lucie this spring wasn’t related to the players but instead what they were wearing. The Mets had tried to get an alternate blue jersey added for 2012 but failed to get the design approved in time. As a consolation, MLB waived its usual requirement that all batting practice jerseys must be some sort of two-tone abomination and let the Mets use an all-blue version of the new style batting practice jersey (first seen at the 2011 All-Star event). Jordany Valdespin became the first Met to have one of these jerseys released one piece at a time in Topps Finest.

While Valdespin was alone with this year’s batting practice jersey, several other players had pieces of blue recessed mesh material from previous years’ batting practice jerseys or Los Mets jerseys released in 2012 products. Jose Reyes and Dillon Gee made their blue debuts in Topps Museum Collection, Angel Pagan debuted in Topps Allen & Ginter’s, and Ruben Tejada and Josh Thole rounded out the group in Topps Triple Threads.

And the Black Came Back

2012 was a landmark year in black removal for the Mets with the banishment of drop shadows, hybrid blue/black hats, and black socks and undershirts. One area they fell short in though was the elimination of the black alternate jersey. This jersey made one appearance in 2012 as part of a tribute to John Franco, whose Mets tenure, it should be pointed out, long predates the sad day when someone thought that black would good on the Mets. The black uniform just won’t die though (it has been confirmed to be in the mix for 2013) and Kirk Nieuwenhuis made his jersey debut with pieces from a black jersey which, if Topps is being honest, must be from the Franco game. I feel the urge to burn these cards, but I’m not ready to part with some of the dozens of Nieuwenhuis autograph cards I got this year. Tip for Kirk: learn to sign with your right hand. At this rate, Topps will burn you out before the Mets get a chance to.

And a Touch of Gray

While this year’s gray road jerseys looked sharp, I doubt the pieces embedded in cards will be any more exciting than the usual boring gray swatches we’ve been seeing for years. Like the blue and black before them, three players appeared in Mets gray for the first time: Ruben Tejada, Lucas Duda, and Daniel Murphy. Duda’s was his first-ever game-used, Murphy’s was his first-ever jersey (likely pants though), and Tejada’s was, along with his blue jerseys, his first MLB-worn material (his previous game-used pieces are from a WBC jersey), though I only ever saw one card with a gray swatch (possible Topps mix-up?).

Patches

Rounding out this year’s game-used newcomers (nobody had their first bat cards this year) are Jordany Valdespin, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Ruben Tejada, and Lucas Duda with their first Mets patch cards and Daniel Murphy with his first piping cards.

Back in April, I picked Ruben Tejada, R.A. Dickey, Lucas Duda, Chris Schwinden, Bobby Parnell, Mike Baxter, and Daniel Murphy to get some new memorabilia cards this year. Tejada (jersey/patch), Dickey (pants), Duda (jersey/patch), and Murphy (jersey/piping) all delivered, Parnell and Baxter could be in the mix for next year, and Schwinden is probably off the radar after his waiver claim whirlwind tour of AAA that ended back where it began. Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Jordany Valdespin exceeded expectations with jersey and patch cards released in their rookie years. I have to give Topps credit, they turned out material from these guys much faster than I thought they would.

Stars Past, Present, and Future

The All-Star event is always a good source of new memorabilia and this year’s didn’t disappoint. David Wright and R.A. Dickey were the only Mets on the NL All-Star team, with Beltran joining them as an ex-Met. For the second year in a row, no former or (as of yet) future Mets were on the AL All-Star team. Unlike last year, secondary colors were not mixed in with the primary color swatches (except in a couple of three-player cards), so we only got three blue jersey cards. And a few outstanding jumbo patches. With “few” meaning 6 of each player. Sadly, this put them out of my price range (the authentic jerseys cost far less and have all of the patches, though not event-worn). I miss the days of All-Star patch cards numbered to 100…

Over in Futures land, the Mets sent a pair of players to make their second appearance at the event. Wilmer Flores (2009 World Team) and Zack Wheeler (2010 USA Team) went back for a second time as their days in the minors wind down. Patch cards here were somewhat more plentiful, though Wheeler’s haven’t hit the secondary market in quantity yet (I’ve only seen two put up for sale out of the 35 total made). As with the All-Star jersey cards, secondary colors have yet to appear.

Well, for the 2012 Futures Game at least. 2012 Topps Pro Debut featured cards with primary and secondary color swatches from 2011 Futures Game jerseys (Matt Harvey and Jefry Marte). A few patch cards also appeared in a couple of products. 2011 All-Star jersey patch cards from David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran were released in 2012 Topps Series 1 and 2012 Topps Triple Threads, though all were numbered to 9 or 1.

Elsewhere in MLB

Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes suited up with new teams this year and both had new memorabilia from their post-Mets days released in 2012. Beltran started the year with jumbo jersey cards from a Giants uniform in Topps Museum Collection and finished it with jersey and patch pieces from a Cardinals jersey in Topps Triple Threads. Reyes’s Marlins spring training jersey made its way into Topps Triple Threads with black, black mesh, and orange mesh jersey pieces and a few patch cards.

Oh, and there was a massive scandal involving the sale of fake game-used memorabilia to all three major card manufacturers. The manufacturers have been silent on this issue.

Heavy Metal

Let’s face it, game-used material in baseball cards is getting boring. Other sports have things like lacing or material other than fabric and wood, but the best MLB can do is patches, tags, bat knobs, and bat name plates. It doesn’t help that most of the jerseys in MLB are white, gray, or black; say what you will about Oakland’s yellow jerseys, but they’re certainly not boring.

With game-used material failing to excite the masses, Topps has turned to manufactured material to add some variety to its relic offerings. Past offerings have brought us patches, hat logos, and poorly-received glove leather, but Topps went in a different direction in 2012. This year, Topps introduced four types of metal manufactured material cards, all in its mainline product. The pins and rings are missing the parts that would make them pins and rings (pointy bits and, um, rings, respectively), but the coins are complete double-sided medallions. The Hall of Fame plaques turned out to be some of the best metal cards produced, even though they don’t look much like the actual plaques. Tom Seaver is the Mets’ lone representative in most of these sets, with a Darryl Strawberry pin card being the only exception.

Topps brought logo patches to the minors in this year’s Pro Debut and Heritage Minor League. The Mets had representatives from their four highest-level minor league teams, though the two from Heritage Minor League came as redemptions that didn’t get sent out until late December. I guess it’s better than that 2011 Bowman Platinum Matt Harvey Autograph I’m still waiting for…

Speaking of autographs, Panini isn’t going to be left out of this. 2012 Panini Signature included three different manufactured material autographs from three Mets. It’s not quite Sweet Spot, but it’s a promising start.

Partying Like It’s 1969

The return of Topps Archives was one of the high points of 2012 and it came with an outstanding autograph set. In fact, a set of retired player on-card autographs like this hasn’t been seen since Archives last appeared in 2005. While the 2012 product can’t rival 2005’s list of Mets, it still featured seven Mets and several more former Mets shown in other uniforms (most notably Jose Oquendo on nine different cards, one for each position he played in a single game). Among those are 1969 Mets Bud Harrelson, Cleon Jones, and Ed Kranepool, back after an absence of several years. Kranepool later appeared on more on-card autograph cards in Topps Tier One and sticker autograph cards in Topps Update.

Justin Turner Auto Time

Also appearing on a sticker autograph in Topps Update is Justin Turner. Turner, best known for being the guy who pies people after walkoff wins, received his first game-used jersey card at the very end of 2011 in Bowman Sterling. He follows that up in 2012 with his first certified autograph card.

Inked

Several other Mets had certified autograph cards for the first time in 2012. Chris Schwinden started things off in 2011 Panini Donruss Elite Extra Edition alongside several 2011 draft picks. Jordany Valdespin became the first Met with a 2012 Bowman autograph with a sticker autograph in Bowman retail packs (sadly, no Mets were featured in the chrome on-card autographs in Bowman and Bowman Chrome). 2012 draft picks Gavin Cecchini and Kevin Plawecki rounded out the meager Mets offerings in Bowman with chrome autographs in Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects and Bowman Sterling.

Topps Heritage, as usual, added autographs from several Mets from the 1960s: Craig Anderson, Chico Fernandez, Ed Bauta, and Hobie Landrith.

Topps Breaks the Ice with a New Wave of Refractors

I am so sorry for that. With such a limited selection of parallels between the various colored borders, colored border refractors, atomic refractors, xfractors, and superfractors, Topps was in dire need of something new. Enter the ice parallels (base Bowman) and wave refractors (Bowman Chrome), both with serial numbered color variants of their own. Topps leads the way in making the same card as many times as possible.

Bonus!

Everybody loves free packs, so I was glad to see that all three major manufacturers found ways to deliver added value through extra packs (though only two of them featured baseball cards).

Upper Deck had the only true “free” offering with its National Hockey Card Day packs, now available south of the (Canadian) border. It seems like not many people knew about it in the US, because I was the first person to ask about it in one shop and the second shop gave me four packs because of the amount they had left at the end of the day. With a 15-card set, 5 5-card packs should have been enough to get close to completing the set. If not for another colossal Upper Deck collation screw-up. The 5 packs only had 8 different cards, with the same two cards on the top in each pack. Upper Deck has acknowledged the problem and claims that it will be corrected when they bring the promotion back in 2013, which may happen before the 2012-2013 NHL season starts.

Panini continues to endear itself to collectors through frequent promotional giveaways, though none of them applied to baseball until their Black Friday promotion, which featured players from all four sports. With a free pack of two Black Friday cards for every $10 spent on boxes of Panini products, it didn’t take much to get quite a haul. The packs featured the biggest rookies and stars in each sport and mixed in cracked ice parallels, autographs, and memorabilia cards. It was hard not to like what came out of these packs, even if you don’t follow the other sports. I traded away my biggest pull, an Anthony Davis serial numbered rookie card, for a couple of Mike Trout rookies; my packs had no baseball cards but were loaded with basketball, so I traded with a basketball collector who opened his packs in the shop at the same time. I can’t wait to see what Panini has in store for 2013, they made collecting fun again in 2012.

And then there’s Topps. Topps had various promotions in 2012, but no real giveaways; everything was an exchange, either in-store card exchanges or wrapper redemptions. Four products featured mail-in wrapper redemptions: Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, Bowman, and Bowman Chrome. For the Topps line, the redemptions were for packs of Gold Rush cards, which also included autographed (sticker) versions numbered to 100. For Bowman, the redemptions were for packs of blue wave refractors, with autographed versions numbered to 50 and red wave parallels numbered to 50. I skipped Topps Series 1 but sent in for the others, with mixed results. The Topps Series 2 Gold Rush packs were a total bust, with only 6 different cards between two 5-card packs (the duplicates were even in the same order, indicating a fixed pack-out sequence and an offset of just one position between the two packs). Bowman was the big winner, with four boxes bringing back four 5-card packs loaded with prospects, with one red wave refractor and one autograph. Bowman Chrome had half the return with four boxes only bringing back two packs with a low value autograph being the only big card. Overall, that’s a pretty good bonus, but I could do without the Gold Rush packs (should have just sold the packs…).

Farewells

Now the hard part. Several Mets have turned in their pinstripes in 2012, though I expect it will take a few months for the cards to catch up.

After suffering a season-ending injury at the start of the 2012 season, Mike Pelfrey was non-tendered and signed with the Twins in the offseason. Pelfrey hasn’t been relevant in cards for several years, but he was still a reliable starter and will be missed.

The same can’t be said for Jason Bay, who was released on a largely deferred buyout after his third disappointing season with the Mets. He didn’t have any premium cards in 2012, but he was still inexplicably featured as a short print in Topps Heritage and one of only three Mets in the Topps Opening Day set. He signed with the Mariners and we wish him the best.

With Bay gone, the Mets had an opening for a right-handed outfielder. Their solution? Trade Jefry Marte for Collin Cowgill. Marte last played at the AA level as a third baseman, so he was expendable. He signed a ball for me at a Binghamton Mets game, so I’m a little bit sad to see him go.

The Mets have been sorely lacking in offensive production at the catcher position, so changes needed to be made. A late-season deal sent Rule 5 pickup Pedro Beato to the Red Sox for Kelly Shoppach. Shoppach himself was then let go in free agency. Mike Nickeas was lost and reacquired as a minor league free agent before being traded with Josh Thole to the Blue Jays for catchers John Buck and Travis d’Arnaud (among others). Thole outperformed expectations with the Mets but lost all of his power after a collision at the plate left him with a concussion. Mike Nickeas didn’t fare any better at the major league level but excelled in AAA. You hate to see guys like this leave, but changes needed to be made.

Oh, right, the centerpiece of the above trade was none other than Mets ace and Cy Young knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. Dickey started 2012 a fan favorite and ended it a folk hero, outshining Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin. Unfortunately, his stellar performance and reasonable contract made him a prime trade chip, especially when the available pitching dried up and the Blue Jays needed an ace to have a chance at the suddenly wide-open AL East. With the best catching prospect in baseball and an overpaid Marlins castoff among their ranks, they had what it took to make a Dickey deal inevitable. And they also threw in a top pitching prospect and a young promising outfielder. Losing Dickey is tough, but you can’t not make that deal. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. I won’t be upset if Topps takes a few months to update Dickey’s team affiliation.

A few other faces from 2012 won’t be back in 2013, though it might take a while for the offseason to shake things out. Andres Torres has moved on and Kelly Shoppach probably won’t be back. Update: Looks like I left Omar Quintanilla out, but he’s now back with the Mets so that one’s moot. I also forgot about Miguel Batista, but we all forgot about Miguel Batista (or at least we try to).

Hails

After losing 88 games, the Mets needed to make some serious changes. As of the end of 2012 though, they’re really no better off going into 2013 than they were a year earlier. Beyond that though, the farm system is looking better, so that’s something. It’s going to be a long 2013.

Travis d’Arnaud was the centerpiece of the Toronto side of the Dickey trade, but his card history is nothing special, just a jersey card in 2011 Topps Heritage Minor League Edition and some autographs. He was selected to appear in the 2012 Futures Game but did not attend due to injury, so there’s no memorabilia from that.

Noah Syndergaard adds yet another interesting pitcher to a single A level that is loaded with pitching. Even though he’s still a few years out, he already has a couple of autograph cards.

John Buck was the big haul in the Dickey trade, from a card perspective at least. Despite not having a superstar pedigree, he hits on pretty much every type of memorabilia: autograph, Futures Game (2002 USA Team), All-Star (2010 AL), colored jersey (blue Royals), pinstripe jersey (Astros), patch (Astros), bat, fielding glove, catcher’s equipment, etc. Interestingly, much of his memorabilia is from the Astros even though he never appeared in an official Astros game (spring training?). At a total value of 7.25 GU, Buck rates as the best acquisition since Gary Sheffield, who came in at more than double Buck’s mark.

Needing a big righty bat in the outfield, the Mets dealt surplus third base prospect Jefry Marte to Oakland for outfielder Collin Cowgill. Don’t everyone get excited at once. It’s an upgrade, but the outfield looked terrible beforehand. Sadly, I pulled one of his autographs from 2012 Topps Chrome and sold it on eBay for $0.99. Crap. I really need to hang on to more of these worthless autographs.

In Memorium

Several former Mets passed on in 2012, but one has been a major fixture in the hobby for many years. As I covered previously, Gary Carter has been one of the most prominent Mets in game-used and autograph cards since 1999. He will undoubtedly be remembered in cards for many years to come.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Heritage

Posted by Matthew Lug on 29 April 2012 Comments Off

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.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

Posted by Matthew Lug on 26 February 2012 Comments Off

Topps remembers Tom Seaver and tries to photoshop out the memory of Jose Reyes

With the [trademarked term for a significant football game] just around the corner at the end of January, one thing was on everyone’s mind – baseball cards! Topps Series 1 dropped on January 31 with a huge media event that looked like someone put Keith Olbermann and a camera crew in my living room circa 2001. Anticipation had been building for weeks, filling the 40-day gap since the last Topps product release. So did the product live up to the hype?

The big news in the lead-up to Topps Series 1 was the inclusion of several short-printed variant cards. The big ones were photoshopped cards of fan-favorite Jose Reyes and some guy named Al in their new teams’ uniforms (I guess Prince Fielder waited too long to sign). These were announced as very limited short prints, just to make sure nobody sold them cheap on launch day. Other SPs included humorous cards showing mascots, Gatorade, and Skip Schumaker’s foot (more on this later).

The theme for the bulk of the insert sets this year is gold. Golden Moments, Golden Greats, Gold Standard, Gold Futures, gold-colored coins, Gold Rush wrapper redemption cards, and even 1/1 solid gold cards (via redemption of course) filled out the base product. The Golden Moments insert set filled the annual role of “set spread across all mainline Topps products with relic and autograph variants.” Manufactured material also got a boost, expanding into metal objects like pins, coins, and rings in addition to the usual cloth offerings (this year’s theme: retired numbers).

With the stage set, launch day held a few surprises. First, the first-ever card featuring Jose Reyes in a (fake) Marlins uniform was overshadowed by a squirrel. The Skip Schumaker SP featuring the Cardinals “rally squirrel” was the hot ticket, with one of the first pulled selling for over $600. After a few ending in the $300+ range, prices quickly settled down to the $100-200 level. These should bottom out somewhere in the $20-$50 range, which is still absurd. The Reyes card meanwhile is settling in at about $50-$100, not that it matters. This is supposed to be about the Mets after all.

2011 Mets Game-Used Year in Review

Posted by Matthew Lug on 31 December 2011 Comments Off

2011 was another dismal season for the Mets on the field, but who needs actual games when you have baseball cards? It was a fairly uneventful season there too until the last few weeks, but there were several bright spots.

Going into the first year of the reborn Topps monopoly (Upper Deck still managed to put out a 2010 product with just a MLB Players Association license before getting sued by MLB Properties), I didn’t exactly have high hopes. Take out all that Upper Deck and Donruss have given the hobby on the game-used front over the preceding decade and you would be left with mostly mediocre offerings. Even after just the loss of Donruss and Fleer in 2005, variety in game-used offerings has taken a nosedive; taking Upper Deck out of the picture certainly isn’t going to help. Gone are the days of finding pieces of hats, gloves, shoes, and other random items embedded in cardboard (I can live without game-used dirt cards). Gone too are the days of even having any details of the item mentioned on the card – “Congratulations! You have received pieces of stuff used in a game of some sort!” Based on how Topps seemed to be dumping its excess game-used inventory into cards in 2010 (some cards featured pieces of jerseys from events dating back to 2002), the days of timely and relevant game-used pieces (aside from the annual All-Star game insert sets) seemed long past. 2011 had a few surprises though, giving hope for some interesting products in the years to come (especially now that Panini, aka Donruss Mk. III, is in the market with a license from the MLB Players Association).

Collect the Mets

The cardboard world of (but not in any way affiliated with) the New York Mets