2010 State Of The Blog Address

It's been a slow summer blogging about Tigers cards. The Tigers collapse after the All-Star break put a damper on the baseball season, but it did not put a damper on collecting. Overall it was a good year of collecting, with many hits and just a few misses. I have fully incorporated something old and something new as collecting tools this summer, as well as made some decisions on what I will and won't be collecting from now on. Hopefully I can tie everything up into one well written essay on my card collecting experience in 2010, but chances are I will just end up with several empty beer cans. In either case that'll be good enough for me.....

First off: The death of the Topps base set. I finally finished off my 2010 Topps base set about a week after the factory sets hit the stores. Sadly, this will be the last year I put together the base set by hand. It just doesn't make sense anymore. I probably dropped a couple of bills on packs and boxes this year. I still came up about 20 cards short of the set, while ending up with a couple hundred crappy inserts that I don't give a damn about. I was able to flip most of the inserts on ebay, but the whole process is far too cumbersome to continue anymore. In 2011 and beyond, I will just wait until August and pick up a factory set for a fraction of the price that I spend on trying to put one together myself. (And this year I would've gotten a Strasburg RC, plus variations of Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch. I may still end up buying that set before it's all over with....)

I have been pretty outspoken in my disdain for the plethora of inserts that riddle the Topps base set. But one cool discovery led to another, which led to me really never wanting to pick up a pack of Topps base cards again. The local card show circuit.

I found a cool website this summer that lists quite a few card shows across the country by state. It turns out that I live about 10 minutes away from both Bloomingdale and Schaumburg, which between the two have a show almost every Sunday afternoon. Since I found the link, I have been to just about every one of them. They're not huge, ranging anywhere from 5 to 15 dealers a show, but I've come to know a few of the dealers from my frequent attendance and it's been fun to actually talk to guys who do this as a weekend hobby.


The first show I attended was a pretty good sized one. It was there that I noticed at least a half dozen tables covered with Topps base cards and inserts. At almost every table I saw the inserts weren't priced any higher than the base cards (10¢ each). It completely makes sense since there are so many inserts. The thing I really like about it though is that if there is ever a cool insert set that I like, I can likely pick it up for next to nothing.

Given that I have come to loathe inserts, it only reasons that this year Topps would put out an insert set that is totally cool, and that's the Vintage Legends. They have taken 25 HOF players and put them on cards from years that they weren't originally on. (The Ty Cobb pictured above, Nolan Ryan on a '52, George Sisler on an '88, Jackie Robinson on a '76, etc.) The concept is not new by any means, but these look outstanding, and I was able to get almost all of them for 10¢ each.


I was able to finish my set of Vintage Legends from a website I found called Sportlots. I'm sure this is not new to a lot of people, but for set builders and team collectors like me, it is solid gold! I have absolutely fallen in love with this site for having the hard to find commons needed to finish my old sets. There must be millions of cards listed with the majority of them selling for 18¢ each. I am surprised at the quality of cards you can get for that price. I pretty much assembled all the base cards for 2006 and 2007 Topps Heritage Tigers for that price. I finished out the Vintage Legends set as well. And....I finished out a set that I never thought I would.....

2010 Topps Heritage! (Well, sorta.....) This was my first year to try and put a Topps Heritage set together. I was still 100 something cards short when I hit the card show circuit, but within a month I'd completed the base set. (There's the catch...) I do however have 40 something of the 75 SP cards and every time I place an order on Sportlots I try and pick up one or two more. Hopefully I can finish off the entire set before the 2011 cards come out next year.

I've really enjoyed collecting Heritage this year and I plan on this being the set that I will collect by hand going forward. It's always the best looking set of the year, it's not overloaded with lousy insert cards, for the most part the insert cards included are ok, and it's not a huge set to put together vs. the cost involved to assemble it. I probably have spent three bills to get what I have, but it sure seems like I have a lot more to show for it than I do with the Topps base set.


As for the rest of it.....it's been a slow summer for new stuff. The Allen & Ginter and T206 cards do nothing for me. Hell, they look like the same cards every year. Same with Finest. The National Chicle cards were ok, but nothing to write home about. I dig the Pro Debut cards (where the hell is the Jacob Turner card?) but their player selection is atrocious. The only Tiger with a remote chance of being something someday is Casper Wells, and he's already been featured on a Bowman card. I sort of get the feeling that this set is Bowman's illegitimate brother, primarily made up of the leftover minor leaguers who weren't good enough for inclusion in Bowman.

Speaking of Bowman, I have noticed a trend that really pisses me off, has pissed me off for some time, and yet nobody has been able to give me a reasonable explanation for it. The RC logo. I have noticed many dealers selling cards with the RC logo at a premium, despite that fact that none of these cards are true rookie cards!!! I refuse to pay $1 for an 2010 Austin Jackson RC that is not a RC. Even worse is asking a dealer why it's priced more and he looks you in the face and tells you it's a RC. C'mon guys. Let's cut it with this stupid fucking logo that is nothing more than a tool for card buyers to get ripped off.

As for Upper Deck, I can't say I will miss their mediocre product, but I dug last year's O-Pee-Chee and I'm disappointed that it won't be continued. I hate that Topps has the monopoly on the baseball card market, but if they continue like they did this year of only releasing a product every 4-6 week I could learn to live with it.


I am anxiously awaiting the release of the Updates & Highlights series this month. I'm looking forward to the cards of Boesch, Rhymes, Wells, Oliver, Valverde, Raburn, Kelly, St. Pierre, Peralta, Galarraga, and Avila, just to name a few.

One last note before I wrap it up. I spent a whole week this summer dividing up about 15,000 doubles into teams, so if there are any team collectors out there looking to deal, please drop me a line. I broke up several factory sets to take Tigers cards out of, so there are many complete team sets of stuff included.

Happy collecting everybody! (Only 4 empty beer cans......)

April in the D

Lot of goings ons around here lately and there is nothing like an afternoon of watching Rick Porcello pitch BP to the Texas Rangers to get me in the mood to catch everybody up. These are in no particular order.....


1. Made a trip up to Milwaukee to catch the Tigers last official Spring Training appearance. Yeah, the one where they gave up four runs in the bottom of the 9th to lose to the Brewers, 13-12. It was a great trip regardless. All seats were $10, first come first served, and I ended up sitting about 10-12 rows behind the Tigers dugout. There's a pic of Zumaya from my seats.


2. Made a trip over to Detroit to catch the Tigers play the Indians the first Saturday of the season. Bonderman looked fantastic that afternoon and the Tigers won 4-2 on an absolutely beautiful day. The weather was so nice I ended up getting a sunburn! This pic is the last out of the game.


3. I picked up an overpriced Topps team set at Comerica Park. I know you can get these at Meijer or Target for half of what you pay in the park, but I was already there, it was already there......what the hell. $4 is not going to break my budget. HOWEVER, I did end up stopping in Meijer on the way back to see if they had any caps or other Tiger stuff that I couldn't live without, and lo and behold there were the team sets. With a difference though. It looks like the fancy, high priced set you get at the park has a FREE COLLECTOR CASE (they bolded it first, not me....) as opposed to the retail version which does not.

So now I have two of them. Which is not a bad thing. I've been picking up these little team sets all over the country for the last 3 years and I have them in their own binder. I'll put one set in there and the other one in my 2010 Tigers binder. It does make me wonder though why there are two different types. Even though I can't put my finger on it, I'm sure Topps is screwing somebody over. I always am.....


4. I was in Target yesterday, and I've noticed plenty of times those bricks of cards that you can get for $5 that guarantee there are at least $10 worth of cards inside, or something like that. I saw that there was one that had two bricks, half filled with cards and half filled with Topps coins. I grabbed on of those, and a couple of the $4 "mixed bag" blister packs that make the same claim.


It made for some fun opening to get home and see what all was in those grab bags. I ended up with a complete '90 Topps/Kmart Superstars set (33 cards, no Tigers), 60 '90 Topps coins (interestingly enough, I got exactly two each of thirty different coins, including two of Alan Trammell), 3 rack packs of '89 Topps, 1 rack pack of '87 Topps, an '81 Fleer Dale Murphy, a '90 Post Cereal Nolan Ryan, and a some other crap. (Like a '95 Pinnacle Tony Phillips) It was certainly more fun than shelling out the same amount of $$$ for a few rack packs of Topps Heritage.

Oh well, not much else going on around here lately. I nabbed '81 & '82 Topps stickers sets off ebay a few weeks ago. Come to think of it, that'll give me something to discuss later on this week.

2010 Topps Heritage and Other Random Musings.....

I swore I was not going to try and build a 2010 Topps Heritage set.....and it turns out I am partially right. I'm not going to try anymore.....it's a shame too, because I think this is without a doubt the best looking Heritage set that has been released done so far.

Let me start at the beginning. Back when the rack packs first came out I noticed that you could see through the packaging much like the regular Topps rack packs. You can clearly see three of the four cards in the packs. One day while cherry picking for Tigers I noticed a serial number on the back of one of the cards on the bottom side of the pack. I bought it, and sure enough it was a chrome card.

Not long after I noticed that you can clearly see a SP card in a pack, as it is always the last card in a pack and the white card stock is easily distinguishable from the gray card stock. I started going around to area Targets and Meijers just buying the packs that I could see SP or chrome cards in. In the last two weeks, I've picked up a total of 41 SP cards, 7 chrome, and 3 chrome refractor cards just by inspecting the back of the packs.

Even with the SP cards (37 different, 4 doubles), I'm still 38 SP cards short and about 80 base cards short of a 500 card set. Now I've bought upwards of 50 packs at $5 a pack, yet I don't even have 80% of the set even though I've got over 700+ cards total. With this I've decided that this was a foolish endeavor and that I'm not going to try and finish this set by buying any more packs.

I went on ebay to see if it would be worth my while to try and sell off what I had to recoup my losses and call it a nice, but costly lesson learned. I learned a lesson all right. None of these cards are selling for all that much on ebay. You can get the base set of 1-425 for roughly $40. The SP sell for around $2-$3 each if you package them in a lot big enough that the shipping doesn't eat you up. I see all kinds of chrome and refractor cards not even selling for a $1 because of the $2-$3 shipping cost involved. So for less than what I've got in it now, I could've had the entire set already. I wouldn't even come close to recouping what I've spent.

So really, what is the point of buying packs of anything nowadays? This is the second Topps issue this year that I have thrown some major cash into while trying to put together a set the old fashioned way. (I know, fool me twice.....the old fashioned finger banging is all I got) I really am done with building sets from now on. If I see something I like I'll just wait for it to hit ebay and let some other sucker waste his/her money putting it together.


On the flip side, it was a great find at Meijer that helped me come to this conclusion. They had their 2009 Topps factory sets, which retailed for $60 last year, marked down to $50. On top of that they were having a 20% off all cards sale which brought the price down to $40. Since I boycotted buying packs in '09, I picked up a set. It had one of the cool Mickey Mantle chrome reprints ('57) as well as a pack of five Rookie Card variations that are exclusive to factory sets. I opened the set when I got home and one of them was a Rick Porcello. Not a bad deal for $40 IMO. That's about the price of eight rack packs or 4 jumbo packs, which would have only given me around 250 cards roughly.

I've noticed a trend regarding Topps cards. The longer you are willing to wait the cheaper you can get them. I've seen 2008 factory sets for $24. There were hobby boxes of 2006 and 2007 cards for $19. What incentive does a set builder have to even fool with it anymore unless you want to wait for three of four years to try and do so?

In conclusion, I've got a ton of Heritage doubles if anybody is interested in trading. I'm going to hold onto the SP cards, but if anybody is up for a swap of doubles drop me a line.

2010 RobbyT Cards: Brent Dlugach & Ryan Strieby

Found a couple more. Brent and I went to college together. I'm pretty sure he's the only U of Memphis Tiger to ever play for the Detroit Tigers.


I'm pretty sure Ryan Strieby is not.....

2010 RobbyT Cards: Jacob Turner & Phil Dumatrait

A couple more from the weekend. I drafted Turner today in my keeper league. I think I'm in love. I haven't even seen a Bowman card from this guy yet.

File Dumatrait under one and done......

2010 RobbyT Cards: Wilkin Ramirez

I'm beginning to think he's never going to make it with the Tigers.


I didn't realize that this was the third year I made one of his cards.

2010 RobbyT Cards 3-10-10

Here are the latest from sunny FLA.

Don Kelly has been having a nice spring so far.


These are for you Mr. DeArmond.

I have to stay on the ball in Spring Training to get photos of some of these cats because they may not be seen in a Tigers uniform again all season. I hope Mr. Sborz is one of those fellows.....

2010 RobbyT Cards Are Here!

It's been a harrowing night around here, as a roofer fell through my ceiling this afternoon, but the cards are finally signed off on and I'm looking forward to getting started and getting more out as the 2010 Championship Season gets underway!!!

2010 Topps Heritage Bonanza

Target now has Heritage rack packs. At $5 a pack for 14 cards I don't see myself picking up too many of these. However, since you can easily read 3 of the 4 cards showing, I went through the dozen or so packs that were there and found three packs with Verlander's name showing and one pack with Granderson's and I bought those 4 packs.


There were a total of 8 Tigers in the packs, and the Granderson was a chrome card. There also were cards of Edwin Jackson in his new threads and Johnny Damon in his old ones.


I've posted pics of most of the Tigers cards. I got two cards of both Dlugach and Marcus Thames.


That Kaline card is pretty damn sweet. I probably sat in one of those seats at one time or another in the mid-80's cheering for Kirk Gibson.


As usual, I think this will be the coolest set of the year, but between the price and all the frigging variations and short prints it won't be one that I'll be trying to put together. I usually end up with around 50 to 100 or so Heritage cards from each year that I keep in a binder all to themselves. I think of all the Heritage sets so far I'd rank these up there with '59 and '57 sets.


One suggestion I would make to Topps. PLEASE LEAVE THE HISTORY LESSON CARDS OUT OF YOUR SETS!!! There's nothing worse than pulling an insert card commemorating the passing of the 23rd amendment (not that I am against Washington D.C. getting voting rights or anything). Well ok, I lied. There is something worse than pulling one of these cards......can you guess what it is?


You got it. Two of those fuckers.....

2010 Topps Opening Day: Max Scherzer

So I was in Target today.......(for the record, I am in Target almost everyday. They sell beer and baseball cards and are not owned by crooked people from Arkansas....)

I picked up a handful of packs and got this bitchin' Max Scherzer parallel/photoshop card. I'm looking forward to watching Scherzer in the OED this summer, especially after he gets to spend the spring with Rick Knapp.

Speaking of spring there is like a 100% chance I'll have a 2010 RobbyT card or two posted to the blog this weekend. Time for me to shut up about Topps and do it my ownself!

The only other three cards I got of note were Brandon Inge, Fredbird, and the Phillie Phanatic. I'd swap both of those mascot cards for a Paws in a heartbeat. Shoot, the mascot cards are about the only thing going for this set. I may try and collect them all.

2010 Topps Opening Day: Observations on a Sunday afternoon

2010 Opening Day cards have hit Target. As this is not a set I'm going to get to worked up over trying to finish, here are some observations I made after opening a handful of packs today:

1. These don't look much different from the base Topps set. No foil stamping of the player's name and the addition of the OD logo are the only differences I see. I never have understood why Topps doesn't have a totally different design for these. (Well actually, I think I have an idea, but I'll hold off for now.....) it's be nice to see them use these to trot out some sort of design they might have used for a Bazooka or a Topps Total issue.

2. Seven cards for a $1. Six base cards and one insert per pack. No inserts to get excited about. One insert set seems to be all the team mascots. Another are parallels with a metallic greenish/blue border that are very reminiscent of '92 Fleer. God those were awful.

3. Several photoshop jobs in the packs I got. Granderson, Halladay, and Figgins. All are very well done. But there will always be a little part of me sad to see air-brushing go the way of bubble gum.


4. The first pack I opened, the first card was Porcello. I only need two cards to finish my Topps base set and this is one of them. It doesn't really mean anything, but I observed it, therefore I'm writing about it. Plus I needed more time to ponder #5.

5. I don't understand why Topps advertises these as a "Fun, easy-to-collect, celebratory brand attracts kids early in the MLB season." (from the MLB website, Topps doesn't appear to have updated their web site in months...)

They don't look any different than the base set. They aren't really any cheaper than the base cards (10 packs of these @ $1 X 7 cards per pack = 70 cards for $10 vs. 5 packs of the base cards @ $2 x 12 cards per pack = 60 cards for $10, 64 if you buy rack packs).

The inserts certainly aren't any cooler. I can't imagine too many kids of any age who would rather pull an insert card of Billy The Marlin instead of Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle.....if anything kids are way more likely to be interested in collecting cards that are worth money.....I know, I used to be one.....

So what it the reason for the marketing ploy? The only thing that I can see that makes this set attractive is that with only 220 cards in it, one should be able to collect the entire set for under $50.

Maybe I'm missing the boat, but it seems to me that they are marketing these towards an unknowing father or mother who think they're getting junior something on the cheap that he would love, when that's really not the case at all. All a part of Topps plan to return collecting to the kids, I'm sure.....

Oh well, I'll continue to buy a pack or two here and there trying to get the Tigers. If I see any kids buying any I'll be sure to mention it.

2010 Topps: The disappointment continues

So here's where I stand today. I've added up all the receipts from my purchase of 2010 Topps and it comes to around $250. I bought six blasters from Target and the rest have been rack packs.

I'm still 16 cards short from completing the base set. I can't even begin to describe in words how ridiculous this is. I'm not even missing anybody good. (The best player on the list is Adam Dunn. Second is Francisco Cordero.) I've purchased about 900 cards by my rough estimate and I'm still missing 16 cards from a 330 card base set. I swore in 2007 that I would never do this again. But here I am again.

Luckily, I flipped a Rickey Henderson variation and 85 insert cards on ebay and spent the $$$ on '66, '67, & '71 cards of Al Kaline, as well as a '67 Bengal Busters card. I've still got about $5 left in my paypal account. I've also got a nice trade lined up with a fellow blogger that I'll comment on when the deal is finally consummated. This weekend I listed the 60 Target Throwback cards and the 12 Million Card Giveaway cards that I had laying around. It looks like I'll do well enough with those to grab another 3-4 Kaline cards from the early '60's, which is what I should have done with my money all along.

I bought 4 more packs today, peeking through the wrappers to try and get some of the guys I was missing from my set. I was able to get about 50 cards that I was missing, plus one more MCG game card that I just HAD to redeem to see what all the fuss is about. I'm now the lucky owner of a '93 Andy Benes card (of which I already own). Whoo-boy.....

At this point, I don't know if I'll even bother trying to finish the 2010 set. Once again Topps has sucked all the joy I have out of collecting and building a set.

I'm interested to see how this all plays out in the hobby. Topps is royally screwing over the last of old school set builders like myself. Meanwhile folks are lining up at the trough to get the game cards, hoping for the grand prize of a '52 set, while more likely to end up with a '90s common card.

Is this really where collectors wanted to see the hobby go, or has collecting passed me by? I'm really hard pressed to think of a reason why I should continue throwing my money away. I'd love to hear others take on the state of the hobby.

2010 Upper Deck: Genius?

I stopped in Target on my lunch break today to pick up a 12 pack of Diet Mountain Dew and while I was there I mosied over to the cards aisle with the intent of picking up a few packs of Topps when I saw that the Upper Deck cards were finally out. They had blasters and rack packs, and not wanting to deal with a bunch of unwanted inserts, I picked up a handful of the racks. I was as curious as anyone else to see how they skirted the deal with Topps, and boy was I surprised.


In a move of genius, it looks like Upper Deck managed to get around the logo issue by selecting some very well positioned photos. It looks like they are forbidden to use the team names too, as all mention of of any teams is done so by the city they play in and not the team they play for.

According to Topps website, "Topps will have exclusivity on MLB, Jewel Event (?), and club trademarks, logos, and other intellectual property, for use on baseball cards, stickers, and certain other products categories featuring MLB players. Topps' exclusivity begins on January 1, 2010."


While Upper Deck did a great job of picking photos that obscured most of those things mentioned, not all of them do, so it will be interesting to see what merit Topps' lawsuit has. (You can clearly see the logo on Magglio's helmet). On the majority of cards where you can see the front of the players' uniforms, the logos on the jerseys are mostly blocked by the players arms. Also most of the caps were caught at an angle where you can only see the logo partially.

Lawsuit or not, kudos to Upper Deck for not caving in to what is an asinine move on the part of Bud Selig to run them out of business. I love the Porcello card where you can read the entire name and number on his uniform. I would love to see an entire set with the photos framed that way. Whoever was doing the job of designing these did a great job. The small head shots more than make up for some of the photos where you don't get the entire face of the player.


As for Topps' beef with Upper Deck, I say fuck 'em. They've been violating the rookie card rule ever since it started by including inserts of prospects in their Bowman sets long before they reach the major leagues. Now Upper Deck has come back and decided to play hard and loose with the rules too.

It's about time.

2010 Topps - Ready To Trade Inserts?

I swung by the Target near where I live tonight after work to pick up a few groceries, and lo and behold if they didn't have 2010 Topps at that one too! Knowing that I need to curb spending on these until the jumbo hobby packs come out next week, I only picked up one blaster and 5 of the regular packs.

I opened the first regular pack and the two inserts inside were a Ty Cobb Red Back and an Edwin Jackson Turkey Red. Yippie! I did ok in the blaster, getting a Throwback card of Wilken Ramirez and base cards of Aubrey Huff and the AL Wins Leaders with Verlander.

I've accumulated a nice collection of inserts that I'd be willing to deal for Tigers insert cards if anybody out there is interested.


I've got patch cards of Babe Ruth, Bob Gibson, and Evan Longoria. I would likely only swap these for patch cards. The rest of the inserts I'm pretty open to mixing and matching.

I've got 40 throwback cards including Tom Seaver Franchise History, Ichiro, and AL league leaders for HR and RBI.

I've got 4 of the Cards Your Mother Threw Out with the original backs: Jackie Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski, Thurman Munson, and Paul Molitor.

I've got quite a few of the regular CYMTO, a well as plenty of other inserts like Turkey Red, Legendary Lineage, When They Were Young, History Of The Game, Tales Of The Game, and Peak Performance. I've also got a gold card of Jason Bay.


I'm pretty much only looking for Tigers inserts in return, but I'd be willing to listen if I was wowed with a nice sized lot of base cards. If any team collectors are interested, drop me a line and tell me what team you collect and I'll be glad to post a list.

2010 Topps

I swore I wasn't going to do this anymore. I knew I was just setting myself up for getting mad. I saw the new packs of 2010 Topps in Target the other day and after staring at them for a couple of minutes was able to walk away without buying a pack.

I swore I wasn't going to do this anymore. I was walking around Target today after lunch. (I go to Target a lot....) I saw the new blasters of 2010 Topps. I picked up a box to see how many cards were inside and noticed on the side of the box that each box contained one patch card. Having never owned a patch card, and really jonesing to open some packs of cards, I knuckled under and bought a blaster.

I opened the box while sitting in my car in the Target parking lot. I dumped the packs out, found the pack that had the patch card, opened it up, and...and...and.....HOLY FREAKING MOTHER OF ALL THINGS HOLY! AN AL KALINE PATCH CARD.


Right then I knew that I was going to let Topps off easy this year. This is one of the sweetest relic cards in my collection. But then I started opening the other packs....and....and...and...

Well, nothing worth writing in all caps about, but this is a really nice product. The base cards look great and there are some great inserts too. So here's my 2¢ on 2010 Topps. (Actually my $60. I went back to Target after work and picked up two more blasters.)

THE GOOD

1. This is easily my favorite Topps design since 1991. Not coincidentally both feature the team logo prominently on the card. After years of flat designs, these cards pop. Very clean and colorful. I likey.

2. There are some honking cool inserts, the best of which are the parallels printed on the same stock as the Heritage cards. (Check out the old Topps logo on these. Nice.) Topps should have released these as a separate set altogether.

3. The Cards Your Mom Threw Out. A fifty+ card insert set reprinting various cards in Topps history. My favorites of the ones I got were a '59 Bob Gibson, '61 Roger Maris, '65 Juan Marichal, and a '74 Dave Winfield. I also got reprints of a '53 Jackie Robinson and a '60 Carl Yastrzemski, but they're not a part of that set. I'll have to investigate.

4. Babe Ruth. Three different insert cards. One called History Of The Game, one called Tales Of The Game, and a Turkey Red card. All three look awesome. I will never bitch about getting cards of HOFers, especially when they replace 37 different Kenji Johjima cards. (Sorry Topps, I'll never get over 2007...)

5. Combo Cards and Checklists. Topps killed two birds with one stone by putting the set checklists on the back of the Combo Cards and making them a part of the base set. Nicely done.

6. Franchise History. I'm not really sure what these are but the four I got look pretty cool. One of Rickey Henderson from when he was an A, one of Tom Seaver throwing out the first pitch at the last game at Shea Stadium, and a couple showing both the Red Sox and Marlins multiple World Series banners hanging in their stadiums. Very cool.

THE BAD

1. Once again this is not the set for set builders. Not if you want to build one for less than the amount of a car note. The three blasters contained 243 cards total. I ended up with 137 base cards. I haven't sorted them yet, but after doubles I'm guessing I ended up with about a third of the set for $60. I'm betting you could drop a couple of bills and not finish Series 1, and that's fucking absurd.

2. Topps Town. Is it an insert card? Is it a game piece? Whatever it is, it counts as a card in the pack. There appear to be 25 silver cards and 25 gold cards. I realize that Topps Town is geared for the kids, but since that's the case why put them in the boxes for the adults? Put them in the single packs that retail for $2. And don't put one in every pack either. I'd give up every one of these I have for a couple of the parallels.

3. SP cards. Or alternates, or whatever they're called. I got one of Walter Johnson, which I would gladly trade for the Hank Greenberg, but this is unnecessarily gimmicky. Why not just add them to the set so that everybody can enjoy them? For the first time in a long time Topps has released something worth spending money on. There's no need for this goofyness anymore.


THE RESEARCH

I got on the web trying to find a checklist so I could post the Tigers team set and insert cards, but I couldn't find one anywhere. I was able to find a checklist of the 25 SPs, but not a complete list of anything else. So for now I'll list the Tigers I got or know about and then I'll fill it in as I find out more.

The 2010 Topps Detroit Tigers:
1b Hank Greenberg (SP)
68 Brandon Inge
84 Nate Robertson
119 Wilkin Ramirez
171 Justin Verlander (either AL wins or strikeout leaders)
254 Edwin Jackson
293 Brent Dlugach
309 Gerald Laird

For inserts I got the parallel card of Edwin Jackson on the Heritage stock, a card of Justin Verlander called "When They Were Young," and a Topps Town card of Miguel Cabrera.

MAYBE (and I can't stress maybe enough...) Topps isn't going to be so Mickey Mouse after all. I give this release a big thumbs up. I like what I see so far, even if building a set is going to cost a small fortune.

If there are any team set collectors out there wanting to swap insert cards drop me a line. I've got about a hundred or so and I would love to put together a Tigers team set of the parallel cards. I've also got patch cards of Bob Gibson and Evan Longoria if anybody has a Hank Greenberg they'd like to swap.

And dadgum, that is one sweet Kaline card.....