Topps Now

Hey everyone, Drew back here. So last season, Topps introduced "Topps Now", which basically recaps all of the big moments over the course of the season. Essentially, a MUCH better version of Upper Deck Documentary; if you remember that monstrosity back from 2008. However, there was definitely one flaw. Every card in the set costs $10 from Topps' website; which is a bit high for my liking.

Yet... I couldn't resist. I was working really hard last summer and making a lot of the money I spent abroad back, and I allowed myself to spend a certain amount of my weekly paychecks on cards in order to keep myself motivated to save up. While this was happening, the Baby Bombers came to town, and I had several opportunities to capture some of their most exciting moments on cardboard. I couldn't pass up.

I resisted Topps Now all season. Until August 13th. Just after A-Rod played his final game, the kids got their chance to prove themselves. 

Tyler Austin kicked off the festivities by hitting a home run in his first at bat just inside the right field foul pole. It probably wasn't a home run in any other stadium, but who cares?

Aaron Judge followed up with what would have been a home run in EVERY stadium, a center field blast that flew 457 feet and probably still hasn't landed yet. He hit 3 more home runs in 2016, but struck out in literally half of his at bats. Hopefully he can correct those issues, because his power is scary, as we saw Friday in the Yankees spring debut. Grant Brisbee put it best.

Austin and Judge's moment was special, but Gary Sanchez stole the show shortly after for the remainder of the season. In fact, he was good enough to almost win the Rookie of the Year award despite only playing in 53 games! This card highlights his torrid 8 home run start in 19 games. Little did Topps know, there would be more to come.

On September 8th, the Rays and Yankees traded blasts all game, but Tyler Austin had the last laugh in the bottom of the 9th to win it! Austin has been through a lot of ups and downs on his way to the big leagues, so he's an easy guy to root for. Unfortunately, he was in line to be somewhat of a utility man this year but fractured his foot after fouling a ball off of it.

But back to El Gary, because, duh. My last Topps Now from the season recognized Sanchez's record home run pace. No matter how good Gary turns out, I don't think he or frankly anyone will ever be able to replicate the start he had. I don't know if there was ever a time in the regular season that I was more excited to turn on a Yankees game than I was during Gary's tear last September. It was a great sign of things to come, that's for sure.

But there was a surprise perk to spending as much money as I did from Topps. I; as well as others who bought into Topps Now, were sent a Christmas card from Topps that included a baseball card (front & back):

This card was quite the reminder of just how fun the 2016 season was for baseball fans. The Cubs won the World Series... does it get any better than that (besides a Yankees title)? Ichiro collected his 3,000th hit in this country, and Big Papi had a farewell tour after criticizing Jeter and Rivera for having farewell tours! Good times.

Sometime last week, Topps sent me yet another surprise celebrating the beginning of the 2017 baseball season!

To be fair, this Mike Trout card is more of a promotion than anything else, but it was definitely cool to get a first look at the new design. I saw people receiving the Christmas card on Twitter before I got mine, but this time I didn't expect it at all. Trout is a special player, and his career statistical comparisons to Mickey Mantle really blow me away. We need to realize what we're watching now and enjoy it for what it is. Now if only we could find a way to get him in pinstripes...

So, I like Topps Now. It's a neat concept, and I think Topps executed it really well! Unfortunately, I probably can't keep spending money on them in 2017 if they're going to be $10 a card. Even for $5, I would consider buying more of them.

What do you think of Topps Now, and how much are you willing to pay for one? Leave their thoughts in the comment section below.

Thanks, but no thanks, Topps.

Hey everyone, Drew back here today, with a post that has been delayed longer than any other post in the history of this website! On July 15th, 2012, my Dad, friends Schuyler, Connor, and I all met up at a local card show at the Mid Hudson Civic Center. At that show, we not only met Whitey Ford, but we also won a door prize and I came home with a Tino Martinez signed baseball. Plus, my Dad got me a beautiful Mariano Rivera signed 16x20 for my collection. Boy, those were the days. Also, that was the same day I bought and activated two redemption cards from my 2011 Topps Tier One set; the relics they were supposed to make of Rickey Henderson and Ryne Sandberg. These have been the last two cards I have needed to complete my set ever since that day.

And well, they're clearly not making them. Topps is far past their 2011 Tier One set, instead focusing on this year's product, leaving behind all of the now expired redemption holders in the cold. It really is a shame, as I was particularly excited to have the Henderson card, but sure enough Topps found a way to disappoint. After waiting over a year and a half for the cards with no response, I emailed Topps Customer Service and spoke to someone who said my cards would be replaced and handled within 6-8 weeks. Two months later, I was still left in the cold (keep in mind about $40 was spent on the two cards), but I continued to keep my faith in the company, hoping they would eventually pull through.

Another year passed, until I finally decided to give it another shot; this time with a little bit more of a temper. I normally don't like to raise my temper, but this was something I grew livid about as two and a half years of my life went by. And you may ask, why didn't I just throw in the towel and give up? The simple answer is because I don't like giving up when I know there is something I have purchased or earned. More promises were made by Customer Service, and this time they actually delivered. I was hoping they would provide me with cards that would fulfill my PC's, especially considering how fed up I was over this situation. I let them know who I collect, and they said they couldn't make any promises as to what I would receive. For once, they actually prepared me for a letdown.

Albert Pujols is a tremendous player, and easily one of the best players I've had the privilege of watching in my lifetime. This 2013 Museum Collection card is beautiful, featuring four pieces of material; 3 bat relics and 1 red jersey relic. It is numbered 98 of 99, adding to the overall value of the card, which I presume was meant to match the Henderson card. But this is not what I purchased; if I wanted to spend $25 on an Albert Pujols relic I would have went to eBay and done that myself. The best part about this, as well as the next card, is that I finally have some trade bait. Again, I do appreciate all that Albert Pujols has done for the game, but I would've taken a Joe Panik autograph instead of these two cards any day.

The only saving grace of this 2013 Allen & Ginter Bruce Sutter relic is thanks to Sutter's beautiful facial hair. Otherwise, it's a very dull card, to be honest. I just listed Sutter as one of my most undeserving Hall of Famers, and I really don't have any need for this in my collection. I understand his place in baseball history as one of the better relievers of his era, and I'm sure someone else reading would love to own this, and if that is the case I'd love to work something out.

All in all, I'm pretty frustrated still with Topps despite finally sending me something. I get that the two cards I was given equalled the Beckett value of the cards I was waiting on, but there was more to it than that. I stopped buying Topps cards for the most part of two years in a row because their Customer Service was so lackluster, and you would think the company would provide the care for their customers a little better than just throwing two cards I don't want or need at me. With this, I am now officially done with the 2011 Topps Tier One set; it ended on a bitter note, but at least I can say I have some nice cards from that set to drool over.

Thanks but no thanks, Topps. Comment below if you're interested in either card.

See Ya!

Lucky Pull of the Opening Day Ace!

Hey guys, Drew back here! Things are starting to get a little bit busier in my life, which is obviously welcomed. I haven't had a whole lot to do lately with a relatively laid back Spring semester, but I just got a job and am starting to look into summer internship possibilities and even studying abroad in the future. I'm really excited for all of the future opportunities that could be coming my way, and although this may affect my time on this blog I'll do my best to stick around.

Along with the Walking Dead packs I displayed here on Sunday (excellent finale, may I add), I bought one pack of 2015 Topps Heritage to check out the new design. Heritage is still one of my favorite products despite the repetitive gimmicks, and the cards are fantastic for holding autographs. I figured with my pack I could add a card or two to send out through the mail during the season, and although that didn't work out too well in terms of consistent signers, I did much better!

In my only pack, I managed to pull the chrome refractor of our Opening Day ace Masahiro Tanaka! This is numbered to 566, and the shine is fantastic! It is easily my nicest Tanaka card to date and I was astounded that I managed to get perhaps the best non-hit Yankee card from the set!

The rest of the pack was relatively nice, but nothing came close to topping Mr. Tanaka for me. I guess I won't be needing to buy any more of this now, so I can go out on top with one of my favorite all around releases of the year! I know Topps had some problems with the Tribute product that are pretty inexcusable, but outside of that they have been improving just about everything else.

Now if only I could get my replacement cards for my 2011 Tier One set...

See Ya!

My First Taste of 2015 Topps!

Hey guys, Drew back here! Last week, I gave myself a little love and picked up a few 2015 Topps hanger boxes and a retail jumbo pack at Target! I've been seeing the new set all over the Internet and although I wasn't a fan at first glance, my opinions took a complete 360 turn in just about no time. So, Mr. Puig and I had a nice date in the Target parking lot during my break between classes in the midst of a snow storm (nothing new there).

My first card of 2015 was of Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford. The Giants are my second favorite team now after visiting San Francisco last summer, and I like this kid a lot. I'm more than content to start the year in this fashion.

Jumbo Pack:

It may not be a classy design, but its the way Topps has had to go with their flagship product for years now. In this age of advanced technology, it was only right that the product should be designed with color and flair to depict the time we live in. The photography is excellent as it has been for a few years now, and I absolutely love how there the border colors match the team colors! Hopefully this means we're slowly working towards less pointless parallels. My first Yankee card is of now ex-Yankee Martin Prado. I was bummed to lose him this offseason, but I'm excited to see how Eovaldi will fare in the Bronx next season.

My one gripe with the new product is something that has been a consistent Topps downfall of mine in recent memory: too many inserts. I like the concepts of some of them; particularly the Robbed in Left, Free Agent 40, and First Pitches, but the rest do absolutely nothing for me. The Archetypes cards look cool but have no meaning whatsoever in my opinion. And god- whoever decided to put Austin Mahone in a card set needs to reexamine their life choices (I'll definitely take the Jack White card though).

Hanger Box 1:

Boy oh boy do I love that Jeter card. Not only was it so appropriate to give him card #1 this year, but the picture to top it off just astounds me. I wouldn't be surprised if that is still one of my all time favorite cards years down the road. Another small complaint though is with the "Future Stars" cards, and I think a lot of you have vouched for this earlier. The foil does not look good at all. I'm so glad Topps went without foil for most of the base cards this year, but that was really unnecessary. All or nothing, guys.

I didn't pull anything spectacular in this box, but it was fun to go through. The Jackie Robinson inserts are neat, but I feel like the days of having a full insert set all given to one player should be coming to an end soon. The parallel I pulled of Sal Perez is beautiful looking, and has me excited for Topps Chrome!

Hanger Box 2:

I ran into some serious collation problems between the jumbo pack and this box in particular. Of the 157 total base cards I added that day, there were over 30 doubles including a few triples. With a set 350 cards deep, I shouldn't have come home with that many doubles, but what can you do. Those Hunter Pence and Cole Hamels shots are really sweet though; again, excellent photography.

We conclude with another relatively underwhelming collection of inserts. The dual past/present cards have passed their prime, but this year's Inspired Play is certainly the nicest design they've used for that template yet. The gold cards stand out this year more than in year's passed, and the history cards are interesting too.

Topps is never going to please everyone; and while I'm torn on some things with this product, I do really like it as a whole. I doubt I'll be buying much more due to financial constraints, but I'm happy with what I came home with. Over anything else, I wanted some cards to send out TTM, and I wanted to see the base cards for myself.

Very well done Topps, you're heading in the right path without a doubt! See Ya!

The Wait is Over- Partial Topps Comeback

Hey guys, Drew back here. I got a very random, but nice surprise in my mailbox the other day. Out of the blue, Topps sent me one of the three redemptions they've owed me! Take a look:

Out of 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen, a sweet Eric Hosmer on card autograph! I pulled this card as a redemption back during the Summer of 2012 at a card show, and although Eric was having a down year, I was excited to receive the card. A little over a year later, it arrived, and while my excitement generally wore off by the time it came, I still really like the way it came out. Hosmer had a much better season in 2013, batting .302 with 17 home runs and 79 RBI for the surprise Royals team! Kansas City is out of the playoff race, but they experienced their best season in a while and Hosmer was one of the major reasons why. 

I will consider trading this if you have a solid offer for me, but if not I plan on holding on to it for a little while! Thanks Topps for finally cashing in on this one! See Ya!

Note to Topps

WAKE UP!!!!!

Remember, this "big day" of yours, you know, the one where you give a bunch of collectors mid 90's commons and 89 Topps on a website because they bought your product? Hmmm... those people are waiting.... including me!

My Collecting Dream

Hey guys (and girls, sorry I never write that), Drew back here. I never really wrote about what I feel about Upper Deck losing its license to baseball cards, and now is the time to do just that.

So, Upper Deck was always the company I wanted to order boxes from! I always saw Topps as a terrible box maker. I mean in 2008 the list went on and on with stupid products, like Co-Signers, Finest, and Moments & Milestones. Then you have Bowman, which absolutely sucked last year, and the flagship set itself and Opening Day was horrific. Last year, I loved Upper Deck. Whether its Piece of History or Baseball Heroes, Goudey, Masterpieces, Legendary Cuts, or even Sweet Spot, I was really impressed. The only product I really enjoyed from Topps last year was of course Allen & Ginter, and if I had to pick then who would get the license it would have been Upper Deck.

But this year, we got to see the flip side of both companies. While Donruss disappeared, Topps made arguably their best flagship set during the 2000's, Upper Deck sunk. Their flagship brand was nice I'll admit, but not as good as Topps. Topps' releases all went well (other than Attax, this isn't a little kids paradise any more, please don't consider me in that group) including Finest, Heritage, Series 2, and Allen & Ginter, the best set so far this year by a mile. Upper Deck was lazy this year, got rid of one of the best products they had (Masterpieces), and the ship sank for them. Piece of History was not pretty as it was last year, Spectrum, SPX & X sucked, and they got rid of these cards:

for cards with X's all over them:

Upper Deck, this isn't a kids thing anymore. I think I'm the only somewhat kid in America that still buys baseball cards religiously. Topps took a good route, giving the adults something more, and throwing the x's and o's of Upper Deck into Topps Attax.

So, my card collecting future will be interesting. One thing Upper Deck needs to stop doing is cutting up legends memorabilia. If they can't put a Yankee logo on Ruth's cap, then why would they cut up his legendary bats and put them into cards. If you want a Babe Ruth bat card from now on, buy the old stuff. Legendary Cuts should include Legends again next year, instead of the usual product scrubs, Brandon Phillips, Aramis Ramirez, Jeff Samardzija, Max Scherzer, Ryan Dempster, Mike Lowell, and Stephen Drew. Who in this world would rather pull an autographed card of Nate McClouth instead of a Hank Aaron autograph? Legendary Cuts needs to be legendary next year, to save the tic-tac-toe company from falling to pieces. Another product that needs to shape up is SPX. I lived as a young boy in the 90's, I have NO IDEA about any of the 90's cards. They are so stinkin' confusing, all the different inserts and stuff, I can't find a place to start. But I have heard from the typing fingers of Mario Alejandro that SPX used to be great. And I want to see that again. Yeah, keep including autos and relics, they are the only shining light to make up the $100 you spend on boxes of cards, but make them look better! Add some more pizzazz to them.

Hopefully UD Goodwin Champions lives up to the hype it has had this year, because if it doesn't and is just another lazy effort from Upper Deck, I'll be sick of them. Topps: A+, UD: D. Case closed. I am out.

By the way, if Upper Deck had a "Crack the Code" contest the answer would be easy: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX