Tag Archives: R.A. Dickey - Page 4

CTM Mailbag – May 2012

Posted by on 5 May 2012 3 comments

Ike’s slump, Harvey’s chances, declining Mets representation, and a whole lot of nonsense

The results of our Reader Poll are in and I have a reader!  This is quite an achievement, but just getting a reader to your blog isn’t enough.  No, you need to work on getting said reader to return and eventually (don’t rush it) getting your readership into plurals.  It’s about giving the people what they want and people like their entertainment to be interactive, or so I am told.  In an effort to reach out to the fan community and give them a voice on this site, I’m starting a mailbag feature.  Post a comment here or send me a message via Twitter or however else the kids are communicating these days and I’ll do my best to get back to you at some point in your lifetime.

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Neuner wrote:

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I don’t think you can connect Ike’s lack of game-used cards so far this year to his poor start to the season.  Sets are planned out months in advance, so, if anything, it would be his season-ending injury last year (and the botched treatment) that has kept his material out of 2012 products.  The good news is that he is hitting again and his one 2012 game-used card so far is a beauty – a dual Jumbo Lumber bat card booklet with Wright in 2012 Museum Collection.  I’d say things are looking up.

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A month ago, I wasn’t very hopeful for getting Matt Harvey game-used cards this year, but two factors have me rethinking this.  First, Pelfrey’s season-ending injury has opened a door in the rotation, and while Harvey won’t be rushed, he could find himself in a very important role when he makes his MLB debut in August or September.  Second, Topps has tweeted a picture of a Harvey jersey they have in their possession, so the material is there waiting to be cut up.  Between the in-hand jersey and a near-certainty of a late-season call-up, it makes sense for Topps to plan for some Harvey cards in one of their late-season products.

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Poor Mets representation in 2012 Topps sets is definitely a concern that has been noted by the blog community.  Looking back at 2011, there was a lot of player diversity in Mets game-used cards, but most of those players are no longer with the team.  Beltran and Reyes were mainstays who also represented the team at the All-Star game, but now they’re gone.  Angel Pagan and Fernando Martinez were also starting to get some representation, but they’re gone too.  Jason Bay is Jason Bay, so Topps will probably get a few more cards out for him despite his lack of production on the field.  Jon Niese has been featured on one card this year and Josh Thole has all but been forgotten; Dillon Gee is the only 2011 newcomer with multiple game-used cards, all in 2012 Museum Collection.  That just leaves David Wright, who is left carrying the whole team.  While a lot of the other players have a strong following among the team’s faithful, they lack the widespread appeal that would make them no-brainers for game-used sets.  Without that, it could be a long road ahead to get the Mets some respect from Topps.  Winning would sure help in that department (their strong start this year did not go unnoticed by whoever is running their Twitter account, so that’s something).

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thelmarosendahl8037 wrote:

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If we do get any game-used cards from the bench players and injury replacements in 2012, it probably won’t be until late in the year like Justin Turner’s jersey card in 2011 Bowman Sterling last December.  The main problem here is the lack of exciting options; Scott Hairston and Ronny Cedeno just aren’t relevant enough to bother with, Mike Baxter, as good as he is as a pinch hitter, just has too limited an upside, and Turner has already been covered.  Josh Satin has a shot given his service time last year, but he has yet to get past Taxi Squad status this year.  Jordany Valdespin and Zach Lutz have a shot, but not until next year, at the earliest.  Kirk Nieuwenhuis is a viable option as a regular for most of the season so far (and a pretty good one at that), but I don’t know if Topps can work quickly enough to make something happen before the end of the year.

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Doug Dickey wrote:

Hey man, nice blog!  Just thought I would throw it out there that I have collected R.A. Dickey since I was a kid (same last name) and I have managed to create a enormous collection.  Check out my site if you want: http://dickeyscollection.webs.com
I have some of his most rare cards that you might like to take a look at in there. I’ve almost managed to collect every single one of his cards as well :).

OK, who let a spammer in here?  Wait, is that relevant commentary?  Could this be a real comment?  The use of a link in the message body matches the typical spam format, but there’s a chance it might be legit.  If so, you probably won’t like to know that I have this:

Sorry, but this one is staying in my collection.  Your pursuit of all the Dickey in the world will forever come up short.

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.

Player Spotlight: R.A. Dickey

Posted by on 4 March 2012 1 comment

For the first Player Spotlight, I’m going with the Mets’ biggest star over the last two years.  No, not David Wright.  Or Jose Reyes.  Or Carlos Beltran.  OK, all of those guys have a decent case, but I’m going with knuckleballing face-maker R.A. Dickey.  While I would ordinarily focus on game-used and autographed cards, Dickey’s greatness has thus far been overlooked by Topps.  Instead, here’s a sampling of Dickey’s few cards released since 1997.

Powerless without the beard

Dickey’s story is the same as most underappreciated heroes.  He started as a promising young pitcher drafted in the tenth round of the 1993 amateur draft, but chose to go to college and improve himself and his draft position.  His work paid off, resulting in a first round selection by the Texas Rangers in the 1996 amateur draft.  Everything was going right for Dickey until the Rangers discovered that he was a misunderstood freak of nature.  Dickey was forced to settle for a reduced signing bonus and toiled in the minors for the pitching-starved Rangers for most of the next decade.

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Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

Posted by on 26 February 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Series 1

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.

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2012 Topps Series 1 Review Preview

Posted by on 19 February 2012 Comments Off on 2012 Topps Series 1 Review Preview

I got the last of the cards I needed for a Mets-biased review of 2012 Topps Series 1 in the mail today, so the actual review will be up this week. Here’s some Dickey in the meantime:

The dream Mets starting rotation (one extra as an injury replacement of course)