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.

2009 Upper Deck

What? Me blogging about new cards? After I've derided the cardmakers time and time again and vowed not to buy any more packs or boxes? 

Don't worry. I've held true to my vow up to this point. I met a great dealer at my first show in Chicago last year who busts open cases upon cases of cards. I talked to him for a bit at that show and asked him if he wouldn't mind pulling out a team set plus any miscellaneous inserts of Tigers from the stuff he opened. He said he'd be glad to and a great relationship has come of it. He usually makes it to a show here to Chicago about three times a year. I'll go and pick up my cards and chit-chat with him and his dad for awhile and the whole arrangement works out well for everybody.

Well he wasn't able to make the show last week, so instead he mailed me the latest batch of Tigers that he had saved up for me. I've been putting off blogging about any 2009 cards because I have so few of them since I am NOT buying any packs anymore, but with the big package that came in today I thought it might be fun to review something current, especially with all the time I've been spending on 90's cards around here.

So I'll start with this 2009 Upper Deck release. There are so many good things about this set that I like. These are great looking cards, the inserts look great too, this is one of the biggest team sets I have seen in a long time, I got a Clete Thomas AU Insert, all around these are just absolutely fantastic. 

As I do when I get new cards, I catalog them so that can I print out a sheet of paper of what I'm missing (there always seems to be a missing a card or two) so that when I go to my next show I don't have to lug around a bunch of binders. But as I was cataloging these this evening I noticed something that literally floored me.

THERE ARE CARDS OF THE SAME PLAYERS IN $ERIE$ 1 AND $ERIE$ 2!!!

What the fuck is the deal with that?!? $erou$ly? You've got to be kidding me!

Arghhh....it was bad enough when Topp$ did it in their 2007 $et (Gary Sheffield and Mike Rabelo) but there are quite a few of them here. I count FIVE players that were duplicated, and damn if one of them isn't Sheffield, who didn't even make the team out of Spring Training! Gerald Laird only shows up on the front of one of the team checklist cards. There are no cards of Ryan Raburn, Fu-Te Ni, Brandon Lyon, Matt Treanor, Dusty Ryan, or Jeff Larish. What could possibly be the reason for this? 

Ok, I can understand that there are no cards of those guys because I'm sure there is little demand for them. But they did issue cards of Zach Miner, Bobby Seay, Freddy Dolsi, Chris Lambert, and Todd Jones, so it's not like they didn't already issue some low demand cards. So then why make duplicates of other guys and then end up with a set that checks in at over 1,000 cards? If I was trying to build an entire set I would be pissed. Especially with the price of packs these days. I guess little has changed in the last year. Both card companies are still out to fuck as many people over and take as much money from them as they possibly can. It's a shame too. This is a nice set. There was absolutely no reason for this.

The 2009 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

125 Armando Galarraga

126 Miguel Cabrera

127 Placido Polanco

128 Edgar Renteria

129 Carlos Guillen

130 Gary Sheffield

131 Curtis Granderson

132 Marcus Thames

133 Magglio Ordonez

134 Jeremy Boonderman

135 Dontrelle Willis

136 Kenny Rogers

137 Justin Verlander

138 Nate Robertson

139 Todd Jones

140 Joel Zumaya

428 Chris Lambert

437 Team Leaders

495 Team Checklist

633 Fernando Rodney

634 Justin Verlander

635 Bobby Seay

636 Clete Thomas

637 Placido Polanco

638 Ramon Santiago

639 Adam Everett

640 Gary Sheffield

641 Curtis Granderson

642 Freddy Dolsi

643 Magglio Ordonez

644 Zach Miner

645 Brandon Inge

945 Rick Porcello

995 Team Checklist

1006 Ryan Perry

It's a shame to be disappointed in this set, because there are some great looking inserts too. (These are probably not all the inserts, just the ones I did a limited amount of research on.)

O-Pee-Chee Preview

OPC-15 Magglio Ordonez

O-Pee-Chee Insert

OPC-37 Magglio Ordonez

Stars of the Game

GG-MC Miguel Cabrera

Starquest

SQ-19 Miguel Cabrera

SQ-36 Justin Verlander

Inkredible

INK-CT Clete Thomas AUTO

Needless to say, I'm glad I haven't caved in on my vow not to buy any more packs of cards and pissed away money in the wind trying to complete sets that can't be completed without spending hundreds of dollars. But now I'm contemplating giving it up altogether and just sticking to making my own......instead of letting the card companies continue to stick it to me.

1995 Upper Deck SP

I keep forgetting this game is tied. I blame beer and Roy Halladay. But like any true denier (yeah, I made that word up...), I blame somebody....

Regular readers know what I think SP stands for. Irregular readers may dig through the blog to find out why. Or else eat more prunes and lots of Soy Joy bars....

The 1995 Upper Deck SP Detroit Tigers:

16 Tony Clark

152 Chad Curtis

153 Lou Whitaker

154 Alan Trammell

155 Cecil Fielder

156 Kirk Gibson

Ok, there is a DIE-CUT insert card. That must be cool (end sarcasm, as someone in the printing business die-cutting is not that big of a deal, especially nothing this simple....)

PP10 Cecil Fielder

There is also a parallel set that looks just like the 

GRANDERSON HITS A TRIPLE!!!! WHOO-HOO!!!!!

base set, but instead of red, it's silver. Whoopty doo.

GRANDERSON SCORES THE GO AHEAD RUN!!!

1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

Nice job by Edwin Jackson with the 1-2-3 inning!

I'm a fan of the big cheap sets and this one is no different. Simple, clean, and easy enough to build. They all should be like this. Well, except for the pink Tony Clark card...

The 1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Detroit Tigers:

16 Tony Clark

51 Cecil Fielder

465 Travis Fryman

466 Danny Bautista

467 Sean Bergmann

468 Mike Henneman

469 Mike Moore

470 Cecil Fielder

471 Alan Trammell

472 Kirk Gibson

473 Tony Phillips

474 Mickey Tettleton

475 Lou Whitaker

476 Chris Gomez

477 John Doherty

478 Greg Gohr

479 Bill Gullickson

There were a couple of parallel sets that aren't worth mentioning, so I will. One had a silver foil signature on the front, the other had a blue foil border. There was an insert called Crash The Game, which I don't have, but will gladly list.

6 Cecil Fielder

It turns out the parallels were not a total parallel, but a shortened set, so I'll list them too. 

217 Kirk Gibson

218 Lou Whitaker

219 Chris Gomez

220 Cecil Fielder

221 Mickey Tettleton

222 Travis Fryman

223 Tony Phillips

1995 Upper Deck

Going to the 5th and the NL is up 3-2. Mass substitutions have begun. HEY MLB, I'VE GOT AN IDEA ON HOW TO MAKE THE ALL STAR GAME MORE INTERESTING. HOW ABOUT LETTING THE STARTERS PLAY AT LEAST FIVE INNINGS? 

I like this set. Very clean, crisp, minimalist design. Upper Deck liked it so much that they pretty much duplicated it in 2008. After that horrible 1995 set, these were a welcome issue.

The 1995 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

184 Chris Gomez

185 Travis Fryman

186 Kirk Gibson

187 Mike Moore

188 Lou Whitaker

189 Sean Bergman

227 Tony Clark

233 Bobby Higginson

249 Rudy Pemberton

421 Greg Gohr

422 Felipe Lira

423 John Doherty

424 Chad Curtis

425 Cecil Fielder

426 Alan Trammell

They did the Electric Diamond parallel sets again, this time with a silver or gold foil stamped "home plate" in the upper corner of the card. I've only got a few of the inserts and one of them is only a checklist. Another is that lousy looking "Special Edition" set. 

I vaguely remember the Predictor inserts being game cards that if the player did something related to the statistic listed on the front you could win a complete set. I'm guessing Cecil Fielder didn't do that. Oh well, here are the inserts that I know of: 

Checklist

1 Cecil Fielder

Predictor

R13 Cecil Fielder

R32 Cecil Fielder

Special Edition

95 Cecil Fielder

96 Alan Trammell

97 Tony Phillips

98 Junior Felix

229 Chad Curtis

230 Lou Whitaker

231 Kirk Gibson

232 Travis Fryman

Joe Mauer has tied the game at 3 with an RBI double. Sweet! 

1994 Upper Deck SP

I didn't blog about '93 SP because I don't have any. I'm only blogging about '94 SP because I do. It looks like Upper Deck finally joined the all foil club here. I said all I have to say about that. I never knew what the SP was supposed to stand for, but if stands for shitty product, I would not be surprised.

The 1994 Upper Deck SP Detroit Tigers:

176 Cecil Fielder

177 Travis Fryman

178 Mike Henneman

179 Tony Phillips

180 Mickey Tettleton

181 Alan Trammell

You know, if you can't at least make a set of card with at least 9 players per team represented, you really shouldn't even bother.

There were two insert sets called Holoview. Both contained the same players. One set was blue and one set was red. Oh boy....

7 Cecil Fielder

9 Travis Fryman

1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

Collector's Choice was Upper Deck's foray into superoverproducedcardsforkids, and as with most other issues of this type ended up outdoing their base set. There are ever so faint gray pinstripes on the cards, and the line art in the bottom corner obviously pays homage to the '75 Topps set. This was pretty much a no frills set, but sometimes no frills sets are ok with me. This is one of them.

The 1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Detroit Tigers:

27 Matt Brunson

56 Tom Bolton

100 Cecil Fielder

110 Chris Gomez

118 Bill Gullickson

132 Mike Henneman

167 Chad Kreuter

230 Tony Phillips

275 Mickey Tettleton

291 Lou Whitaker

352 Tigers Team Card / Cecil Fielder

364 Junior Felix

375 Travis Fryman

403 Kirk Gibson

421 Scott Livingstone

442 John Doherty

459 Mike Moore

474 Alan Trammell

499 David Wells

557 Danny Bautista

561 Tim Belcher

563 Eric Davis

There were a couple of inserts:

Home Run All-Stars

HA4 Cecil Fielder

Team vs. Team

13 Cecil Fielder

Then there were the parallel cards. Someday I'd love for someone other than me to take the time to delve into the history of the parallel card. It would be great for someone to explain to me their purpose other than to drive obsessive-complusive collectors into buying every pack they could find to try and complete these next to impossible to complete sets. Perhaps, I just answered my on question. 

But I think it's pretty clear that two parallel sets in one issue is a bit too much. Especially when the gold cards were seeded 1:36 packs. IF you didn't get any doubles, you would have had to purchase 24,120 packs of cards to get a complete set of 670. Ouch. Sometimes I think these card companies are just out to make money.......

I hope that I have been able here to demonstrate just how ridiculous parallel cards are. Since I think I have done so, I promise never to mention them again. 

1994 Upper Deck

Ok, so next to my computer sits a little table where sits the album of Tiger cards that am blogging about. For the last 6 weeks I have stared at '94 Upper Deck trying to come up with something, anything, to get through this set and continue moving along. 

Tonight I give up. 

These cards sucked. These are easily the worst Upper Deck base set ever. The inserts sucked. The parallels sucked. After tonight I hope to never see them again.

The 1994 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

37 Travis Fryman

51 Travis Fryman

56 Tony Phillips

93 Chris Gomez

179 David Wells

201 Alan Trammell

220 Cecil Fielder

247 John Doherty

261 Eric Davis

286 Cecil Fielder

296 Matt Brunson

301 Mickey Tettleton

316 Mike Moore

321 Mike Henneman

345 Travis Fryman

364 Tim Belcher

392 Chad Kreuter

414 Lou Whitaker

458 Bill Gullickson

547 Matt Brunson

You know a set sucks when Matt Brunson is in it twice.

I only have one insert, which apparently was released regionally in packs. (I thought they didn't start that until '95, but I'm too lazy to look it up?) Anyway, this is from the "Eastern" region.

E4 Cecil Fielder

Whew, I thought I was never going to do this again. I'm glad this is over.

P.S. Thanks to the two regular readers of this blog for contacting me in the last couple of weeks asking me if I was ever going to continue. The answer is yes. Thank you for your continued readership.

It's The End Of January 2009 As We Know It....

.....and I feel fine. I'm also closing in on almost five months since I bought a pack of baseball cards. The boycott is going well, and the only reason that I'm mentioning it today is that I found myself in Target this afternoon with four packs of Upper Deck products in my hand. I had a pack of X, Documentary, Timeline, and SP. I was this close to buying them.

But then I remembered that I already have the Tigers' X set, so I put that pack back. Then I remembered that I usually don't care for SP, so I put that pack back. By that point I remembered that I was boycotting buying packs, so I threw the other two packs back too. 

All was not lost though, as I left Target with the dvd for U2's Under A Blood Red Sky, which will be coming out of the wrapper and going into the computer sometime this evening. 

However, I was curious about the Documentary and Timeline issues, so I googled them to see what I was missing. As it turned out, I wasn't missing much. Two more extremely bloated card sets. But in reading one blogger's review, I came across a comment that shocked me.

You mean to tell me, there are people who film themselves opening packs of cards, just so they can post a video to youtube when they pull a really expensive card? Are you fucking kidding me? Again, are you fucking kidding me??? I'm sorry to go all potty mouth in what I try to make a kid friendly blog, but that is the most fucking ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. 

Is that really where this hobby has gone? Is that what's driving away collectors who truly enjoy set building, but can't because each pack of 6 cards has to have two lame inserts so that some dipshit named Dougie can show all of cyberspace when he pulls a 1 of 1 insert card of Jed Lowrie?

Unfuckingbelieveable......

I feel a whole lot better for putting those packs down and walking away. It's only fitting that the first song on the dvd as I cue it up is Out Of Control.

1993 Upper Deck

I didn't think I was ever going to get to these. These are one of my all-time favorite 90's sets. Top 5 material. So many great cards and themes in this set. Upper Deck had the knack for pulling off the cheesy subsets, but without making them look cheesy. I offer up the Motown Mashers card as exhibit A.

Upper Deck was still doing the team checklist cards with the great paintings on the front, which I always though looked better than the Dick Perez paintings over at Donruss. This is just a great card of Travis Fryman. 

This base card of Rico Brogna is one of the all-time best Tiger cards. I have always thought it was cool as hell how they lined up the photo so that the OED on his cap replaced the D in the UPPER DECK crawl across the top of the card.

The 1993 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

46 Motown Mashers

63 Scott Livingstone

68 Frank Tanana

86 Mickey Tettleton

95 Mark Leiter

162 Milt Cuyler

195 Tony Phillips

217 Rob Deer

251 Dan Gladden

273 Lou Whitaker

364 Travis Fryman

378 John Kiely

386 Rico Brogna

398 Bill Gullickson

403 Mike Henneman

446 Rick Greene

455 Travis Fryman - Peter Gammons By The Numbers

499 Cecil Fielder - RBI Champion

512 Mike Moore

530 Bill Krueger

532 Alan Trammell

564 Cecil Fielder

601 Mike Munoz

633 Tom Bolton

685 Greg Gohr

699 David Wells

757 John Doherty

766 Kirk Gibson

836 Team Checklist

Hell, I even love the card of Mark Leiter looking like he just watched a Mark Leiter start....

There were a lot of insert cards, but Upper Deck was still banging out great looking cards with those too. I can't seem to find any info on this Travis Fryman card, other than it was from a set called Diamond Gallery, and it was card #25, but I don't know if it was an insert set or something else. But it looks cool too. The scan doesn't do the hologram justice.

Clutch Performers

R9 Cecil Fielder

Home Run Heroes

HR 3 Cecil Fielder

Iooss Collection

WI23 Cecil Fielder

On Deck

D11 Cecil Fielder

1992 Upper Deck

I swore I was not going to do another Upper Deck set while under the influence.

I lied.

I like these. I really do. But I must draw this blogging session to a close.

The 1992 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

74 Rico Brogna

96 Team Checklist Cecil Fielder

184 Tony Phillips

251 Mickey Tettleton

255 Cecil Fielder

271 Pete Incaviglia

273 Alan Trammell

294 Rob Deer

317 Bill Gullickson

319 Mark Leiter

339 Mike Henneman

453 Rusty Meacham

466 Travis Fryman

468  Lloyd Moseby

470 Skeeter Barnes

487 John Cerutti

489 Paul Gibson

516 Lou Whitaker

520 Walt Terrell

536 Milt Cuyler

538 Scott Livingstone

601 Jerry Don Gleaton

605 Frank Tanana

643 Travis Fryman Best Infield Arm

647 Cecil Fielder Best Power

737 Dan Gladden

739 Mark Carreon

There were some inserts.

The Inserts:

Scouting Report

SR14 Scott Livingstone

Home Run Heroes

HR2 Cecil Fielder

Ted Williams Best

T5 Cecil Fielder

The first person to post a comment about the Mark Carreon photo that makes me laugh will win something to be determined sometime later. Probably a beer sometime next summer in Pittsburgh.....

Thank in advance for playing.

1991 Upper Deck

I can see already that Upper Deck is getting a bad shake in this deal. As I like to blog about a year per night, usually with beer, I find myself getting increasingly sloppy by the time I get to their cards each year. I'll address this in my final post this evening.

Upper Deck was stuck in a rut nonetheless. I have a hard time telling their first few years cards apart, which is a shame, since they were always at the top end of the spectrum. These really are great looking cards, but again, they didn't seem to have much going on with regards to originality. They just seem to keep moving home plate around. 

But, they do have that error card of Frank Tanana with Larry Wilcox's picture......

The 1991 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

7 Scott Aldred

45 Team Checklist - Jack Morris

73 Rico Brogna

131 Tony Phillips

201 John Shelby

203 Lance McCullers

205 Mark Salas

223 Alan Trammell

225 Travis Fryman

241 Scott Lusader

244 Cecil Fielder

316 Dan Petry

318 Mike Heath

320 Walt Terrell

336 Jack Morris

338 Steve Searcy

340 Larry Sheets

367 Lou Whitaker

369 Frank Tanana

386 Mike Henneman

389 Chet Lemon

412 Gary Ward

556 Milt Cuyler

559 Lloyd Moseby

579 Paul Gibson

599 Dave Bergman

676 Jeff Robinson

High Number Series:

726 Rob Deer

729 Mickey Tettleton

747 Pete Incaviglia

There was one insert card. Much like Donruss, it wasn't much of an insert card, it was just numbered differently. Oh, and it had a pretty bat. A silver bat. With white stars.

SS12 Cecil Fielder Sliver Slugger

Upper Deck also released an extra end of the year boxed set, the Final Edition. This was in addition to the high number series they already released. So I guess this is like the the second Update edition. Either way, that's a cool card of Livingstone.

44F Rusty Meacham

53F Scott Livingstone

82F Cecil Fielder

1990 Upper Deck

Upper Deck didn't do much different in 1990 than they did in 1989. Truth be told, I didn't either. 

These are great looking cards, but they sill look too much like the year before. Much like I did too.

I was raking in 1990 though, making $9/hour, and I spent a lot of it on these cards. I did take a great vacation in Washington D.C. that year, unlike the year before.

The Phillies are about to win the pennant, with former Tiger Chad Durbin a key cog in the wheel. Congrats Chad. Joe Buck just told me that it was 20 years ago today that Gibby hit the HR off Dennis Eckersley that would forever make him famous. I was playing poker that night at a buddy's trailer in Brunswick, Maine and quit watching the game in the 8th inning. It wasn't until I got home in the middle of the night that I would see the outcome. Congrats Kirk. 

Congrats to Paul Gibson for winning the Tom Monaghan look-alike contest....

The 1990 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

2 Randy Nosek

41 Team Checklist - Lou Whitaker

76 Rob Richie

78 Brian DuBois

98 Kevin Ritz

226 Matt Nokes

247 Fred Lynn

249 Kenny Wiliams

306 Mike Heath

309 Tracy Jones

312 Mike Brumley

327 Lou Whitaker

330 Doyle Alexander

332 Torey Lovullo

348 Chet Lemon

381 Dave Bergman

385 Gary Pettis

496 Paul Gibson

516 Frank Tanana

518 Guillermo Hernandez

520 Charles Hudson

537 Mike Henneman

539 Frank Williams

552 Jeff Robinson

554 Alan Trammell

573 Jack Morris

575 Steve Searcy

768 Tony Phllips

786 Cecil Fielder

789 Lloyd Moseby

1989 Upper Deck

Folks, we have a winner. Finally. 1989 Upper Deck was the biggest thing to hit the pike in the history of cards at the time. Even though they were solely to blame for triple-digit card values right out of the pack, there's no denying the importance these had on the hobby.

Counterfeit-proof holograms, card backs that were better than most others fronts, and a stellar classic looking design right out of the box made these the Holy Grail of 80's cards, surpassing '84 Donruss without even breaking much of a sweat. It's not often something lives up to the hype, but these did and still do.

Unfortunately it was still the same collection of has beens and never will be's that made up the Tigers set (Ivan DeJesus? Torey Lovullo? Good god, what was I doing in 1989?) 

Anyway, the 1989 Upper Deck Tigers:

47 Paul Gibson

49 Larry Herndon

106 Tom Brookens

117 Gary Pettis

128 Chet Lemon

136 Luis Salazar

150 Matt Nokes

259 Ray Knight

266 Dave Bergman

279 Guillermo Hernandez

290 Alan Trammell

298 Doyle Alexander

352 Jack Morris

355 Ivan DeJesus

373 Mike Henneman

391 Frank Tanana

451 Lou Whitaker

454 Jim Walewander

472 Jeff Robinson

475 Walt Terrell

493 Eric King

652 Pat Sheridan

654 Mike Heath

690 Team Checklist/Alan Trammell

As I recall, Upper Deck got a little sneaky with their Update set. Instead of releasing them as a separate set, they just started issuing packs that included cards 701-800 along with the cards of the base 1-700 set. I have no confirmation as to how pissed Topps was for Upper Deck coming up with a diabolical ploy that Topps would've loved to spring on an unsuspecting public. After finishing a 700 card set, you had to then buy packs that only had 2-3 high number cards, so Upper Deck made sure you spent as much money getting the last 100 cards as you did getting the first 700.

The 1989 Upper Deck, uh, Update set:

714 Ken Williams

761 Fred Lynn

764 Steve Searcy

782 Torey Lovullo

784 Chris Brown

Then once it was all said and done, they issued a factory set of all 800 cards. For something like $70. 

Bastards.

2008 Upper Deck Series 2

Nothing has changed my opinion about this lackluster offering from Upper Deck. It is responsible for the best Marcus Thames card ever, and that's about it. I picked all of these out of a commons bin at The National.

491 Kenny Rogers

492 Justin Verlander

493 Dontrelle Willis

494 Joel Zumaya

495 Ivan Rodriguez

496 Miguel Cabrera

497 Carlos Guillen

498 Edgar Renteria

499 Curtis Granderson

500 Jacque Jones (no, this is not a mistake, he is in both series.....as is Renteria....but no Galarraga.....argh......)

501 Marcus Thames

722 Clete Thomas

740 Ivan Rodriguez Season Highlight

777 Miguel Cabrera Team Checklist

785 Curtis Granderson Season Highlight

797 Magglio Ordonez Season Highlight

Well not all, as it looks like I am missing both Cabrera cards, the Pudge Highlight, and the Clete Thomas' RC.

Oh well....that is one sweet Thames card......

2008 Goudey

Enough blogging about mediocre Fleer sets for awhile. Time to blog about a lights out issue. The 2008 Goudey.

I guess this is Upper Deck's answer to Topps Heritage. So much so that they've resorted to the same old different colored back variations and what not. But since reprints of 1994 Upper Deck don't appeal to me in the slightest, this is likely the best they can do, and I love it. I vaguely recollect Fleer doing a Goudey set a few years back. I guess since Upper Deck bought Fleer that they have the rights to do these now. And I thank them for doing it.

The cards are on the same type stock as Heritage, which I hope someone figures out in the near future is SO much cooler than the usual glossy stock with some sort of foil stamping, and will one day produce a full set like this.

I picked up the following Tigers at the National:

68 Justin Verlander

69 Curtis Granderson

70 Miguel Cabrera

71 Gary Sheffield

72 Magglio Ordoñez

73 Jack Morris

I have also seen on ebay that there is a SP card of Al Kaline, #211.

IT'S ABOUT TIME SOMEONE RELEASED A SET COMBINING CURRENT PLAYERS AND ALL-TIME GREATS IN A SINGLE SET!!!

I'll be the first to admit that offering base set cards of players like Morris and Kaline is infinitely better than offering cards of Nate Robertson and Fernando Rodney. As successful as the Topps Archives were in the early 00's, I have never figured out why someone wouldn't do a set that mixes the best of the present and the past.

Well now they have. Hopefully next year it will be bigger, and ultimately, better. 

P.S. Why the fuck did they have to put Derek Jeter on the bottom of EVERY card? Why couldn't they do it by team? How much cooler would it be if at the bottom of every Tiger card it had Magglio or Granderson "saying it..."?