Beguiling Binder Page #5

So good to be at home - where I can get baseball cards delivered.

A few came the other day, a small lot of 2013 purple parallels. It filled 2 crucial slots in my ongoing Parallel Project as well as one in a small side project, and included a David Price card that will likely pay for the whole lot when ever I finally find the time to assemble a box to send off to COMC.

How is the project coming along, you ask? This is my 7th page completed for a 990 card set. I have reneged on declaring a Series One page completed due to dislike of the Kevin Millwood card I used for reasons illustrated below. I have a whole lot of other pages waiting for either a single keystone card to complete the page, or one difficult card to appear to release a mishmash of possibilities amongst the retail parallels I could use on the page, especially in Series 2. I know doing the Update set this way will be a years long slog, needing a /25 Sapphire on every page just as a starting point, but I'm not too worried about that with the baseball card buyer's resources of ebay and COMC available to help.

One of those slots filled yesterday (the Ryan Dempster) completed a page, card #s 395 ~ 403:

This page has one of my favorite parallels of my whole project so far, the David Wright card. That edition there is the Opening Day 'blue foil' version, which works just exactly perfectly for the Mets' cards. Well, last year it did at least. This year's cards don't have enough orange on them to keep you awake while perusing the Mets cards, which is a comment on the main 2014 design, not the current Mets team. I like colorful baseball cards, obviously.

It took me a while to decide on some rules / preferences for which parallel to use of which player. The Wright card was a bit of a no-brainer, as that was pack pulled. The black and pink on this page, well, that mostly depends on what shows up available cheaply as part of a lot, which is how I ended up with a really nice teal-on-pink card of a great Mariners pitcher who generally mows down hitters in the shadows of a more famous rotation mate in an obscure corner of baseball country.

It also didn't take me long to realize I didn't want red teams on Target cards, or blue teams on Wal•Mart cards. And the basic combination of red-on-blue looks so nice on the 2013 design that I tend to select it for favorite cards, or favorite players, such as for this example of my general like of Aroldis Chapman 'In Action' cards, even though so many of them are basically the same.

For the wrapper redemption 'Blue Sparkle' cards, obviously I nixed the blue teams, though that leaves plenty of options on this page. Generally I like the cards with a mix of tones to the background, as then you end up with green sparkles in the image contrasting nicely with the blue sparkles of the border. Thus, images with infield dirt or vibrant turf work best; I'm sure the Dempster card or the Aviles card would be very nice as a Blue Sparkler. But sometimes I just have to go with what is on hand in the stacks of cards before they head off to a hopefully friendly not local internet re-seller.

All those selections left just a decision on the mysterious Tom Wilhelmsen, card #402, perhaps a sly bit of dyslexia on the part of the Topps set editor, and a footnote for a future blog post.

But really, for the Ricky Williams of MLB, what other parallel could be used but the green one?

Meanwhile, out in the Bullpen

We get a baseball card there too. But just one, in S1/S2/Update at least.

It's not all that exciting to get this Bullpen Card, but that's more because Topps likes to zoom in so much and obliterate almost all baseball context from every card now, so I like the cards that bring the set some variety, somehow. (I'm sure you've noticed this by now).

I am fairly intrigued to know what is happening on that back wall of the Bullpen though. 52?

This is likely to be Myers' sunset card, as he made it off the DL for all of 4 games this year, and was released in August. There is one big clue to this on the card - once you see a gray hair on a player's card, well, you do the math. Baseball General Managers certainly will.

I do have a hard time understanding the set this year in regards to the zoom, zoom, zoom. Zoom zoom. Who doesn't like to say the word Zoom? Anyhow, it seems markedly different than the 2011 set in this regard. I have realized I need to do a better job of figuring this out via more homework, and I have a plan. Unfortunately you won't see the results until next summer, because I will have to get my 2011 and 2012 cards nicely tucked away in a binder, and I have been too busy with those durn parallels to do that.

I often wonder what experienced card-collecting kids thought in the early 70s when the first live action shots appeared on baseball cards. I know in my first set (1975), I much preferred the action cards. They were almost more likely to be seen on the playoffs cards, and even the highlights cards, it felt like, but I treasured the ones I did find, and this remained true throughout my youthful collecting days. Playoff cards today are just dumb, usually. If Topps had any smarts about those they will put an image of Justin Verlander, In Action, on the Tigers' ALDS card next year, after 2 straight years of winning a Game 5 in dramatic fashion. But instead we'll get a bunch of Tigers mobbing together in the general vicinity of the pitcher's mound, maybe with Verlander visible, maybe not. And I've wandered a long way from the Bullpen. This is a bull session however...

Now here in the 20-10s, I think Topps probably has access to the best sports action photography of all the decades they've been in business. And we do get to see that on the cards, frequently. In fact, a posed shot in S1/S2/Update is a very rare item these days. The ball player photos on the picture cards are nearly all from a live baseball game, but are then zoomed in so far they effectively look like a posed card anyway. I just don't get it. Probably, a live action photo is cheaper than a portrait shot, as less photographer and ball-player time is involved to a huge degree. But I just wish we could keep a little more of the baseball atmosphere all around the player image. Many of the posed cards in Vintage sets did let you see a Stadium or Spring Training setting behind the player. This is now very rare any more in the baseball card standard known as The Topps Set.

Anyhow, that's my final on that, until next year sometime, when I can compare this across 4 sets at that point.

But, hey, it's past time to see another card. I did discover one other Bullpen Card this year:

Which can only be discerned by the loops of cable up against the wall of the Bullpen, seen at the top of the card.

Most Rookies get a separate card in Chrome, and some collectors even consider the Chrome Rookie to be a player's True Rookie card. Whatever. I've never understood the attraction to Rookie Cards anyway, aside from the fact that I know it's not wise to just leave them piled in with the rest of the base card commons for ever and ever, just in case.

I recently finished binder-izing the '13 Chrome set (I just bought it, cheap), and will have several of those cards to show you, and too many thoughts on Rookie Cards. But this Wheeler card is the only one I can think of right now with any interesting context, and even this one is zoomed in so far that this isn't a very striking card, from a baseball atmosphere regard. I do like the harmony of all the parallel lines, and though they lead the gaze down somewhat, at least they flow off the side of the card, rather than straight to the ground.

I will give this card one bonus point though - you don't often see a Starting Pitcher in the bullpen, except in the Postseason at times. Makes you wonder just what Topps is suggesting here, though only an odd little baseball card blog would ask that question, and probably the Topps photo editor won't be answering it either.

Phoning it in #2

I could add several more Chapmans like this from the last 3 years. I love the first one a whole lot.

And now ... Le Pièce de Résistance

Joy of a Completed Binder Page

Well I've been wanting to type that post title for a long time now. A title I borrowed from the always entertaining Card Junk blog.

I have been buying packs, single cards, lots of cards and have sorted them and typed out their numbers and re-sorted them and have finally completed the first page of my Parallel Project.

May I present 2013 Topps Series 2 Cards 350 ~ 358:

I have had several pages stuck at 8 cards for quite a while now. Henderson Alvarez no-Hit the Tigers on the last game of the regular season, and now he was no-hitting this project....until a lot of Series 2 Gold cards came in, and I decided to re-check each page in the binder. I had a /62 Black border card of Alvarez, but I also had one of Juan Francisco, and I was giving preference to the horizontal card on a slot for a Black card — my favorite of the parallels this year. Probably it was the Greg Dobbs card that became the keystone of completing the page. I had him in several colors ... I sorted the stacks .... I discovered a new /2013 Gold of Francisco ... but I already had Dobbs on the page for Gold ... I found a Target Red of Dobbs ... Get Down! Page Complete!

I especially like this page because it doesn't use any Emerald (my least favorite), thanks mostly to the /10 "Silver Slate" parallel I picked up on eBay. It also helps that I could use a card from the /2013 Blue Foil parallels from Opening Day, which is true on most pages in Series 1 & 2, but not quite all of them.

Along the way I discovered how tough it can be make a nice-looking page with these cards. As the difficult cards (Pink, Black, or Camo) on a page arrive, I can start placing the more easily acquired parallels. I realized I would have to buy the low /x parallels of common players and use the most printed parallels (Emerald, Wal•Mart Blue, Target Red) for the stars. I got lucky and pulled the Pujols card from a blister pack at Toys•R•Us. (Thanks Geoffrey!)

However when I can place the Red & Blue parallels I was surprised to learn I couldn't bring myself to just use any parallel I had laying around. I couldn't use a Target Red parallel of Asdrubal Cabrera up there....red-on-red does not a good parallel make. I also realized that the team colors and card border parallels are a bit like being able to make your own baseball cards, at least in terms of the color scheme.

I managed to finish 2 other pages shortly after that one; a second from Series 2 and my first in Series 1 as well. I'll shut up now....here are cards 458 to 466:

I might re-do parts of that page as I'm not sold on the Purple-on-Red of the Pomeranz card, which is actually one of the worst in either Series with print lines in the background. The Emerald would hide that perfectly; I like Orange-on-Emerald for the Orioles but I might order Hammel and Pomeranz to switch, we'll see.

Don't forget you can click on an embedded picture in a blog for a better view of it. I scanned these in their brand new binder pages where they will live for all eternity, but the upload process shrinks everything considerably.

That is cards 317 ~ 325 from Series 1. I'm not totally into Teal-on-Wal•Mart 'Blue' either, but it will do for now.

I still can't believe I finally have some pages done. Only 71 pages to go ... then 37 more for Update, and for that one I won't have access to 4 possible colors: Silver Slate, Blue Sparkle, Toys•R•Us Purple, and Topps Factory Set Orange. I'll probably have to cave in a little and use one white Base Card per page for that one.

So blow the dust off that PC Rainbow, Team Rainbow, Master Team Rainbow, whatever partially completed collecting project you lost interest in with these cards, and let's trade some parallels!

A card of fundamentals

I think most collectors like Bunt Cards. I like them so much I honored them with some capital letters there.

Bunting itself is a more controversial topic. Bill James and then the book Moneyball began the assault on the theology of "small ball'; I think the movie version of Moneyball really brought the topic to more casual fans.

However you may feel about baseball strategy, Bunt Cards will always catch your eye when flipping through a stack of cards. Probably because there are just so darn few of them. I have previously written about one of my favorite cards in Series 1, #284 Angel Pagan, which is a bit of a stealth Bunt Card in that Pagan has already left the classic bunt pose. #273 Dexter Fowler is a similar post-Bunt Card.

So it was wonderful to discover a quintessentially classic Bunt Card in Series 2, featuring Angels Shortstop Erick Aybar:

The Topps scribe even conveniently syncs up his prose with the imagery, explaining on the back that "Erick is moving up Angels career lists on some of the more subtle categories. He's their all-time leader in bunt hits (78); ..." You'll have to buy your own card to find out Aybar's other statistical subtleties. They are pretty cheap as this is just another useless Base Card.

Aside from being a fantastic Bunt Card, this card is also an outstanding illustration of photo editing, specifically cropping. Aybar's left foot seems to be resting on the frame, while the catcher even seems to be using the frame for a bit of support. Perhaps that left border could have been zoomed out 1% more for a little bit better masterpiece I guess.

Now when I set this card aside to babble out late some evening, I didn't really think it would tie in so much with the Angel Pagan card I like so much, aside from both of them being Bunt Cards. But when I started typing away about Pagan's card, I quickly wandered off into the theory of Photo Composition, something I am slowly learning via admiring my baseball cards. I think I have even managed to find something to take a picture of to put this knowledge to use; I'll share it with you some other evening whenever I find the time to unpack a bunch of 2011 Series 2 cards I bought real cheap even though I hardly needed very many of them. They were cheap.

Anyhow, in that post (relinked again here) I got a little closer to understanding a mark-of-good-photography called the Rule of Thirds, though concluding it can only infrequently be used with baseball cards. At least, until I showed it to my friend Jeff, who I had borrowed an illustrative train picture from. His comment got me much more discombobulated on the subject.

So tonight I buckled down and asked Google to tell it to me again. This time I went with a simpler link to the Wikipedia entry on the subject, rather than a more high-falutin' Art-Of-Photography type site. This one tells me that "The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections."

And this is exactly what the Topps photo editor has done. The subject of the photo, Erick Aybar, is not the center of the photo; he commands the right 1/3 of the image. Since the card has gone and scrolled away again, I'll post it again, since digital stuff is sorta free:

Indeed nothing is centered on this card; the center of it might be in the patch of grass below the catcher's (Joe Mauer?) left elbow, with a constellation of the elements of the photo circled around that point.

And with Aybar, the Umpire (I always like an Ump on a baseball card, even if just a portion of one), and the Catcher all making a nice set of vertical elements, we also have an excellent set of horizontal elements courtesy of the infield grass and the dirt. I think I detect the interlocked TC logo in that grass there. Plus we get an appearance by Home Plate, so very rare on baseball cards, even though returning a batter back to Home Plate is the very object of the game of baseball.

Recently I read a criticism of this year's "Sea Turtle" design as it has been dubbed. To wit, "there is too much wasted white space on the cards." But I think I disagree on that idea thanks to what I have learned studying this card. Perhaps the very layout of the cards themselves is part of what has made this set pretty popular with whatever collectors there are that actually care about these things. Perhaps that "wasted" white space actually helps get the image of the player more onto those tension creating, not-centered or squared parts of the card, and this makes them subliminally more attractive to us.

But then that might only truly work on the great horizontal cards. I would say that I am looking forward to finally assembling all the horizontal cards in Series 2....I had better get my butt in gear on that as Update drops next week sometime.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, enough with the Photography lesson already. What about the baseball game being played on this card here? Looking at the catcher's pinstriped white uniform, all classically accented with red white and blue, and my hunch on the logo painted on the grass there, makes me think this game features the Angels at the Twins. Aybar does seem to be wearing road grays, though of course the Angels® refuse to ever come clean with where exactly their hometown is.

But with the California or Los Angeles or Anaheim Angels being in the AL West and the Minnesota Twins being in the AL Central, that leaves probably only one visit by the Angels to Minneapolis in 2012, but actually Baseball-Reference.com informs me that the Angels visited Minnesota twice for a 2 game series each time. I bet the Angels were thrilled with that scheduling.

A bit worse for my curiosity on the impending bunt action by the Angels all-time Bunt Hits leader, Aybar bunted once on each trip to the Twin Cities, on both April 9 and May 9, 2012. So back to the card I went for more clues. Perhaps long sleeves would indicate playing on a chilly April day; this card is definitely shot in the daylight. But both days are weekdays - and the 2nd game of the set, played as "getaway" day games to facilitate traveling on to the next stop on the schedule. Baseball-Reference has everything though, reporting that April 9th was 45º while May 9th was 65º at game time.

At this point I'm leaning towards the May 9th date as Aybar is sporting the short sleeves here. But I keep staring at this wonderful card for more clues...hardly any shadows on the field, must be cloudy out. Baseball Reference is ready again, reporting that weather conditions were "Cloudy" on each day. I bet the Sabremetricians have a line in their spreadsheets for that too.

Me, I'm just a baseball card geek, not a stats geek. So I stare at this card some more and find the final clue...a uniform #. How does Aybar's # 2 tell me what day this photo is shot? It doesn't. The Umpire's #  there at the top of the frame - 72 - does. MLB Umpire #72 is Alfonso Marquez. No baseball cards for them of course; I had to ask The Google that too.

And that clinched it. Marquez called the game as the Home Plate Umpire on April 9th. Temps in the 40s must not bother the Dominican Rebublic born Erick Aybar. Tough. And now I get to see what happens when that pitch hits Aybar's perfectly squared bat there with one out in the top of the 7th, the Angels up 2-1 and a runner on third...

...it's a Suicide Squeeze! Aybar lays down a perfect bunt fielded by fresh Twins reliever Glenn Perkins, who can do little but throw Aybar out as Chris Iannetta races home and scores!

Perfect!

How Not To Do It #2

I liked this card a lot when I first saw it. It has a baseball on it. Those always catch my eye when I look at baseball cards.

It will be very hard to see when I finally show you the front of the card, but the card features a Special Uniform night. Not a Throwback Uni, but a special Uni some teams wear occasionally for Hispanic Heritage night, or however that team might phrase that certain theme night.

And I like cards where the player has at least a positive expression on their face, even if not actually smiling, though a player's demeanor isn't actually under their control during live ball game action.

I actually also like how Topps tries to show a player's position via what picture they pick out for them, though obviously they can't show only fielding images of the position players. And I really wish they would back off this idea for all the pitchers.

So I'll show you the back of this card first.

Keep this player's circled position in mind (2B for you squinters)...may I present Justin Turner:

What is Justin doing here? At first glance, he is demonstrating his perfect-for-an-infielder last name and I could triumphantly declare Aww Topps, You're So Punny! again. Launch a series of such posts even.

But upon the dreaded further review....

...we have no base runner trying to interfere with Justin's seemingly routine handling of a routine ground ball. Instead we have a blurry, lurking opposing player holding on second base behind Justin, waiting for the fielder to make his choice. No turning of any double play here. Although Justin has his eyes squarely focused on the photographer, err, the first baseman, his throw looks like it will sail off towards the pretty ball girl along the right field fence, unless Justin has a truly wicked curve ball. And this card collapses in a heap like an over-eager rookie swinging for the fences.

It does appear that Turner will stick around in the major leagues, after a decent enough season this year, improving his batting average 31 points in an around-the-infield utility role. Topps did miss the expected move to the outfield, where he only appeared in one game, so the Topps scouts were a little off there, as they were on several elements of a great baseball card. A great Special Uni ("Los Mets") - wasted. Great horizontal fielding shot - of a probable error. Possible visual pun of the entire set - nope.

But I'm sure he'll play second base again. There's always next year, Topps.

5 Cards challenge #3

This 5 cards, 1 buck pack seemed like a no-brainer at first. I pulled the outstanding horizontal card from sorta the end of Series 2 - #660 - Miguel Cabrera. Kinda a hero number card I guess, though Hyun-Jin Ryu at #661 is actually the last card in the series, due to the no #7 of course.

It would be fun to write about Cabrera and his heroic card. Easy too. Too easy. But I pulled 3 Pitcher cards as well. I'm supposed to challenge myself with this little blogging exercise, ¿Si? No? Heck, it's my blog and I'll blog how I want to. I decided to pick from only the Pitchers.

I have previously called out Topps for their lazy Pitcher cards in 2013. Enough with the zoomed-in torso shots already! Let us see the ball diamond some. Blogging all the Sea Turtles would be a serious challenge, wading through all of those. Update is probably about to shortly dump scores more on us when the middle relievers all finally get their 2013 baseball cards, now that the season is over for most of them.

But this card grew on me quickly. It is of course, due to the lines. X! I like X. Draws you in from the edges. Then bangs the subject into the action. This pitch is going to make the hitter look like a fool.

Which it better, with that possibly lurking runner on 2nd base mirroring Turner's silhouette there - a 2nd set of interesting lines. Is the lurker in grey, or white? Base-runner, or fielder? A mystery.

And unlike many an action shot which captures the player's uniform billowing out until they look like a football player, Turner's uni stays cool, as if it doesn't want to interrupt the perfect pitching motion seemingly under way here.

But back to the X. Yumm. At first I thought the Marlins stadium had something going on to create that certain blurry background imagery. It immediately brought to mind one of my favorite cards from 2012 Update, Nate Eovaldi's. I'll show you that card some future day and ooohhh and ahh and bloggle all over that one then. Then I thought, no, just coincidence, as Turner is wearing the road uni, with his team's city on it. Wait. Road whites?

So I had to ask the Google what was going on. Leave it to the Marlins to make a home uniform that looks like a road uniform....not to mention using black uniforms in one of the warmest cities in MLB. At least their players seem to get some good baseball cards.

Anyhow, the stadium lines in the background set it all up. Then the flow of the pitcher's arms keep it going, common enough on all the pitcher torso cards. But the icing on the cake is the eyes. Right on the line. And no Pitcher Face. Calm. Cool. Turner is no fireballing gunslinger, but I wouldn't want him shooting at me in the OK Corral either.

I also like the back of this card, where Topps informs me "In 2012, 21-year-old Jacob was the youngest pitcher ever to win a game in both current Leagues in the same season. (Back in 1887, Cannonball Titcomb did it in the NL and the American Association.)"

You can't beat a card that namedrops 'ole (young?) Cannoball, now can you. Well, if you bother to read the backs at least.

The final item pushing this card onto my really-like-it list is where Turner sits in the Major Leagues. As a former #1 draft pick for the Tigers, he has had plenty of cards already, with a pretty early Rookie Card complete with the official RC logo. At 20 years old on that 2011 card, it makes me wonder if we have had a teen-aged MLB, true Topps Rookie Card yet? (And how long till we have a pre-teen Bowman card? Can't have too many prospect cards can we?)

But that is not my final intriguing pondering over this card. With such a young starting pitcher, it is of course too early to tell what kind of career he might have. But Turner went to the Marlins (along with a catching prospect Rob Brantly, also in Series 2) from Detroit, my team. The Tigers got a brilliant half-season rental on Anibal Sanchez, and a season-and-a-half from veteran 2nd Baseman Omar Infante, who just had the best season of his career and will have a lot of value on the Free Agent market this winter.

There is a lot of history between the Marlins and Tigers of course. Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski used to be the GM in Miami. Jim Leyland managed in both cities with Dombrowski in the Front Office. Then there is a previous famous trade where the Tigers landed card #660 this year, in exchange for a couple #1 draft picks. (Cabrera for Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, amongst others).  How does he do it? Ownership changes make the Miami<>Detroit connection more coincidental than it appears on the surface. And the Cabrera trade will remain a bigger blockbuster due to the short contract terms left for Sanchez and Infante, for starters.

Perhaps unless Turner really blossoms on an apparently very promising young Marlins rotation. His 2013 Topps baseball card certainly bodes well for that, much more so than so many middling pitchers in all sets of baseball cards. This is just another one of those good baseball cards that never fail to famously remind me that in baseball, there's always next year. Especially for the Marlins.

5 Cards challenge #2

I can't really drive through civilization without stopping to see which baseball cards might be offered up for sale. I am on my way back to my baseball card collection...just in time for the playoffs.

But way out here at the very end of the consumer product supply chain (Michigan's Upper Peninsula), I didn't bother peeking in the big box stores for some 2013 Topps Chrome, even though I am pretty eager to see some blinged-out Sea Turtles. These places did eventually get those Topps Chipz, somewhat to my surprise, and of course the Qubi stampers too, even more of a surprise. Chrome should hit those shelves in another week or so I expect.

So I went with a sure, cheap thing - the Dollar $tore.

The repacks on offer, the 30 cards / one buck deal of course, didn't entice me with the uni-color Fleer offerings on top of the package. So I grabbed 5 cards of Series Two, just to pick up something to blog about.

And promptly lost the Topps lottery of the day. Two cards that had been the main subject of a post already (Michael Bourn and Juan Francisco), one that I hope to mention in a multi-card post (Phil Coke), and one with a special uni that I had already had fun with via another card.

That left just one card to blog about, and even that one has been mentioned here somewhat obliquely one rough day in July, courtesy of the great blog All The Way To The Backstop.

So let's Get Down! with Greg Dobbs and one of my favorite cards from Series 2:

Sorry I had to crib that image from eBay. Why do I type it with a capital B? I don't know.

If that turns into a red X or a blue ? someday I will replace that image with a quality scan when I get home. This card deserves a good scan.

Thanks to Backstop Cards, I will always think of this card as the Get Down! card. Are we going back to Disco Night at Comiskey? I'm not sure. Something exciting seems to be going on though, even if the fans seem to be watching a different part of the field than Greg is.

Seems that the Braves are visiting Miami for this image, and the poor ole Marlins can't even fill all the seats in the 3rd row. I think if I can ever get within a few hundred miles of Miami during baseball season, I will check out a game there. I like sitting right on top of the action.

And we have a night card, though not much of one to write home about. Just the stadium lights reflecting in the batting helmet tells us this.

The back of the card reveals a decent, mostly National League career, which is why I only know hardly anything about Greg Dobbs aside from the fact that he appears in my sets of baseball cards. Topps gives him a couple nice shout-outs with their text. Respect. A grown-up baseball card.

But after these basics, the mysteries begin. Someday in my not-voluminous free time I will be investigating this Only One Sleeve trend I see on my baseball cards. One elbow sleeved and one bare does start creating some imagery intrigue though.

Then we have the most basic mystery of the card. What is Dobbs doing? Is he covering for the third base coach, off taking a leak in the clubhouse for an at-bat? Ahh the irony of a third baseman seeming to give the STOP! sign to the runner rounding second.

Or is Dobbs at home plate, signaling a runner rounding third?

And what is he signaling anyway? The right hand, palm-out, is saying Stop! But what is his left hand saying? It kind of looks like C'mon down, the buffet is thataway. Very confusing. Maybe Mr. Dobbs is just trying to say Hi, but it's a little hard to do on a baseball card.

Meanwhile, whether he is behind third base, or behind home plate, how did the photographer sneak onto the live field of play to get this shot anyway? Or is Dobbs in the On-Deck circle perhaps. I'm kinda lost now.

Then we see he is yelling something. What? What? What should I do Greg? Ask Lassie? Look down the well for little Timmie first? Follow you to that bitchin' new club in South Beach with the wicked DJ later on?

If only baseball cards could talk.

5 Cards challenge

Well hello there, I sure have missed y'all. I'll just say that self-employment and blogging can be very mutually exclusive at times. I love to write, which you may have noticed, but I would write quite a bit more if I had a nice regularly scheduled work week.

I do have quite a number of posts figured out, but I also have a long stretch in nearly-no-baseball-access land coming up too. I am hoping Bob Uecker's broadcasts will come in at least, I think they might, and there is a cheap casino just down the road a piece. But I won't be around all that much until Update comes out, then I should be at home some, I hope.

In other blog news, I wish to note that I love it when I find out I am wrong about a baseball card. A part of the reasons I write about any card is an attempt to find out if I am really seeing what I think I am seeing on that card, or if the goofiness is taking over again. So you might want to check out how my previous blog post over a week ago actually turned out.

For tonight though I have plenty on the to-do list (such as packaging one trade and typing out details on another, hang in there), so I'm going with a trick I will probably try more often going forward. The first time I tried this it eventually led to a very long post on photo composition. Oops.

The idea is to pick the smallest possible pack of cards, and blog about one of the contents. How small do packs of the Topps Base Set get? This small:

Yep, that really says "5" there in the crinkle. Where does a 5 card pack come from? The Dollar Store, it turns out. So the cherished image of little Johnny saving his nickels dimes and quarters for taking old Mrs. Smith's garbage cans out to the curb and back and saving up for a pack of baseball cards is still alive, I guess.

I'm actually somewhat seriously considering buying my set this way next year. I was stupid enough to look at the sell sheet for 2014 Topps, a set I already know I will call the "Half Bowman," and I'm just not that excited about it. The inserts just don't appeal to me that much, and I don't see enough color synergy possibilities in the design to get very excited about the parallels. There is some sort of big Rookie theme across the whole set...as if we don't have enough baseball cards of kids not old enough to legally drink yet. That's not a clown comment, bro, that's an all too sober reality. So it might likely be pretty much a Heritage year for me next year.

But I can't really pass on a Base Set of Topps cards. Heritage will never have enough random baseball photos of random utility players to feed my jones. So the question becomes ... how to get those base cards? I like ripping packs, so perhaps a whole bunch of these 5-cards-for-a-buck packs are in my future. But the actual wholesale price of your Topps base showcase, contestant, is actually just 4¢ a card. That's right. If you go out to purchase base cards on the secondary market they run just about 4 shiny Lincolns each when purchased in bulk. That ripping jones is actually pretty expensive.

But all that's next year. It's just silly to know what next year's baseball cards will look like before the playoffs even start, fer-cryin'-out-loud. I'm going to try much harder to never peek at future sell sheets.

I do hope the 2014 wrapper is at least as good as this year's wrapper. I like that the Sea Turtle appears on most of the packaging this year. And I am a sucker for that classic MLB logo on anything. I do sometimes wonder which came first, MLB or the similar one for the NBA? Dunno.

And I have to wonder what is the deal with the Eye Black on the young stars; they sure seem to lay it on a bit thick. But now I'm wandering off into a future topic, and I've already blown the time budget for tonight. And aren't baseball card blogs supposed to be about looking at baseball cards?

So the winner of tonight's 5 card challenge is....Alexei Ramirez:

Tell Alexei what he wins there, Bob. Well Base Set, Alexei didn't manage to escape his fate at either the the traditional no-waiver Trade Deadline or the clear-waivers Playoff Roster deadline, so he seems doomed to be a solid middle infielder on a rebuilding team with a young manager for however long it takes for his contract to run out with hopes the eventual post-Jeter circus might still be in swing, so he wins absolutely nothing. He can have a big pile of duplicate Topps base cards if he would like I guess.

At least Topps handed him a good card this year. Though he is a very good top-of-the-order batter, Topps shows him fielding, in line with their themes for each position. As if they are saying, nope, we don't need to put the player's position on the front of the card, we'll demonstrate it for you in the picture and show slugger Clint Barmes batting instead.

And a good picture it is. I almost always like a horizontal card. There is one in Series 2 that is just stupid, but I didn't pull it in this pack so you'll have to find that one on your own time.

It seems the 5 card challenge does lead to a card with great lines. I'm already looking forward to ripping my next pack. I think I'll take it on the road with me and do a little mobile blogging. The idea of way over-paying for base cards with these dollar packs might be growing on me....

Here we have several examples of lines going from bottom right to top left, from the pinstripes on Ramirez' uniform to Joe Mauer's fingers. They are nicely complemented by just a small amount of not-quite-opposite, more-vertical lines. But the predominant flow of the lines lead straight to a baseball. On a baseball card. I always like seeing a baseball on my baseball card. Nice pick, Topps.

I also like Alexei's 21st century shades, and that little smirk on his face as if he is sayin' yep, All-American pretty-boy perfect baseball player Joe Mauer, you be Out! Not gloating, just a sly little smirk.  And now I'm gonna throw out that slow Willingham dude too! Ha!

The only downfall to this card is the same problem the White Sox always have, save when they bust out some special colorful uniform on special uniform day: monochrome. The Sox are the one team that just don't fare too well in the base Sea Turtle design. (They do pop very, very well in any parallel you wish however). You probably can't see it in the scan, but this card suffers even more as the Topps printer shorted the turtle of the right amount of ink and the Turtle's racing stripes are kinda washed out. Like how most Chicago fans are probably feeling by now.

What else did I pull? Not much to write out to the blogosphere about. 3 more torso cards (zzzzz), one of them Photoshopped (Torii Hunter - that certain shinyness to the cut/pasted uni from some night dome game they use every time always gives it away). Yet more proof that however much I admire the various set blogs and the 2013 Sea Turtle set, I just don't think I could ever pull off writing about all 990 of them with 600 torso shots along the way. Colorful turtles and logos can only get me so far.

Also another turning-two card, of Brandon Phillips and a camouflaged Padre. A nice enough card with Phillips' hat looking like it is a beer can that needs to be opened. I would be too tempted to crack that head open in a blog post, so I'll leave that one be.

So there you have it, another baseball card for another night in the 2013 baseball season. The teams keep on setting lines like a heartbeat on one of those heart machines at the hospital as they win and lose and race towards playoff eligibility. While they do it, I just hope to find the time to follow the lines on their baseball cards.

The Wal•Mart Blues

Here's a fun game you can play the next time you are in Wal•Mart. And I know you will be in Wal•Mart, because you buy baseball cards.

Sure, you can try and pretend you never go in there. You can tell me you only and always shop at Target, which would be wise, 'cuz the wimmins in there are way prettier. But I know you would be lying, because you buy baseball cards.

And my little game has nothing to do with the so-called "People of Wal•Mart" that you might be unfortunately picturing in your head right now. I'm not a fan of that website; I can have fun mocking baseball picture cards, but taking pictures of ordinary people to then publicly mock them on the internet is kinda mean really. Karma will find the people who take such pictures, I sincerely believe.

No, my game is one you can simply play in your head the next time you visit Wally World; and it is a simple one that is just simply a question: Is anyone happy in Wal•Mart?

Seriously. Just look around whenever you are in there. The customers? The employees? You?

I am happy at Wal•Mart - I am almost always only there to buy baseball cards. The fact that I can pick up a few groceries or some motor oil or a fishing lure or a pair of work gloves at the same time is kind of a time-saving bonus. No baseball cards, no Wal•Mart for me. Even though I know the other box stores I go to  instead are selling essentially the same junk manufactured by exploited workers in foreign countries.

But hardly anyone besides me ever is happy in there, despite all those smiley faces plastered everywhere. Mi amigos de Mexico y puntas sur, si. If you are in a Wal•Mart near much of an Hispanic immigrant population, you might notice they do seem to enjoy the place and their new American levels of purchasing power. So let me rephrase the question. Are any Americans happy to be in Wal•Mart? Perhaps small children being pacified with a purchase I guess. So one final rephrase - Are any adult Americans happy to be in Wal•Mart?

You be the judge next time. The results ... might surprise you. Or might not.

So I was mentioning that I pulled up to a Wal•Mart a week or so back now in the throes of baseball picture products withdrawal. And then the blog went dark for a few more days.

There is a heat wave gripping the area where I live this week, a rather northerly locale, so we don't really need central air conditioning save for a few miserable weeks a year, like this one, and it isn't built in to my house. And the room with my scanner and baseball cards was more intolerable than my enjoyment of writing this blog for y'all. Especially since the post I had lined up in my mind needs lots of scans. Because you want to see some baseball cards, not just read more wordy words on the internet. Right?

So, finally, let's look at a baseball card:

That's not a Wal•Mart Blue, man. Don't worry, I won't cheat yas, those were in the pack too. Along with my fix of Topps stickers, I picked up a 'fat' pack of Series 2 while I was visiting with Wally. Though this one didn't at first seem quite as 'fat' without Prince Fielder on the cover now.

Mr. Diamond here just seems to say America. Baseball. Wal•Mart. There's a diamond on his card and he's named Diamond. Lots of blue on there, like the store's signs. Minnesota. Is there a state more American than Minnesota? Seemed appropriate to get a Twins card when I had watched a Minnesota TV station to get my weather forecast the day before, despite being a couple state lines away from all those lakes.

I am more than a little burnt on the pitcher's torso framing so prevalent in 2013 Topps - this one lost some potential composition points by cropping off most of Scott's leg there, but gained a few back by leaving his uniform's leg stripe on the card.

I like this card anyway, because it is another one shot at Detroit's Comerica Park. That fuzzy white stuff behind him is part of the #5, retired by the Tigers in honor of Hank Greenberg, as noted on the center field wall. Where are all his vintage repros, Topps? Heck, his life story is so amazing there could be a whole set of picture cards about him. Topps, though, seems to think the only old-timey Detroit Tigers worthy of new cardboard are named Kaline and occasionally Cobb.

I also wonder if we have Tatooine cards, what can we call brick-walled cards? Not many of those around, I'm sure. That's all solid brick there behind Mr. Diamond.

And the Topps collating machine didn't let me down on my all-American box-store trip, with more red-white-and-blue, though I just can't scan and blog the whole pack. I thought about it. If I did that, I might as well just launch a whole straight-up Sea Turtle blog, which I have also thought about. But I just don't have that kind of time - you wouldn't see card #990, aka #US330, until sometime in the year 2019 perhaps - and I like to blabber about lots of different baseball cards than just these neat little turtles, like this one:

Who would vote against the idea of more head-first third-base slide cards? This one might appear on some best-of lists; especially since the slightly better card of Everth Cabrera was suspended for the rest of the season. Which coincidentally, seems to have tanked the prices on that Superman-like card, making it rather easy to rainbow if you wanted to. I briefly considered doing just that before launching head-first into my Parallel Project instead.

Usually sliding cards in the digital century feature a little dust going airborne as well, the absence of which makes the Florimon card that much more striking I think. I did quickly find a somewhat analogous card:

I always like the I'm-gonna-catch-that-ball, I'm-gonna-catch-that-ball, I'm-gonna-catch-that-ball baseball cards. The viewer is as entranced with the probability as the baseball player immortalized in time. On this one, Mayberry has run to make this catch so hard that the turf divots are still going airborne behind him. In action, indeed. Topps saluted Mayberry's father with a somewhat unexpected checklist entry in Archives this year.....I think it's time Topps busted out those nice Father/Son cards in a little subset next year. But they probably won't, cuz the 19 year old card dealers dealing cards of 19 year old minor leaguers could care less about major league parents.

I did escape from all-America colors for a few selections in the pack, courtesy of the New York Mets, who generally fare well riding the Sea Turtle:

Especially when the opposing player supplies plenty of their complementary base color, blue. This card did lead me to a bit of extra typing on this 'puter thing in front of me - just who is this mysterious Amarista player in the striking blue uniform? I knew he wasn't among the hallowed 660 in 2013 Topps; which turned out to be because he is a pedestrian infielder for San Diego. No room in the base set for them, unlike near-similar players in major media markets. Though I have to stick up for 1 Whitehall St. here in that no one expected Tejada to disappear from The Game this year after a promising first couple seasons in the bigs.

Though the Mets have that excellent Orange in their color scheme, their cards still scream America! Baseball! as much as the flag-color teams, such as this one:

A classic. Great Sox - old school, good supply of Met-blue. Wright has already taken his left foot-step forward - he's committing to swing at the pitch just about to enter the frame. The fully extended left arm further adds to the not-tense but excellent anticipatory tension of the shot. The Met's 50th anniversary shoulder patch is featured nicely. Just an outstanding baseball picture card; even though there have already been, who knows, a million different baseball cards produced (2 million?), and there is nothing new under the beautiful sunny skies at the ballpark that day, I can still enjoy a base set baseball card like this one. It also marks a return to "hero numbers" in Series 2 here, as this is card #400. I liked Topps' experiment with matching card #s to uniform #s in Series 1. I thought it was a nice way to honor more players than the limited amount of "hero" card #s in a set. I hope the tradition can continue right along with the new-fangled-ness next season.

And if you look real close at Wright's face (I won't crop it and blow it up for you - get your own card, it's a good 'un) you will notice that he has his tongue sticking out, like a happy cat or something. I think he is gonna smack that incoming pitch right over the outfield wall.

Of course baseball fans love sluggers, and generally love their baseball cards. But soon enough in this pack I got back to primary baseball colors, and a rather amusing card:

I don't think I've ever seen a slugger with a case of guitar face before -

It must have been a foul ball. Not sure I would hand Jay that card to sign, though he has a few other similar post-contact cards.

Sticking to an also more-common-than-I-totally-wish meme in Series 2 (as in Series 1) - showing a player's "unhappy" face (granted, an inescapable result of 'action' photography) - we find this card:

Normally these are found on the pitcher's cards of course, but Yunel there doesn't appear to be throwing from much of a stretch position, so we have to check the back of the card. Yep, an infielder. A basically unremarkable card really (too, too much blue), until another Tampa Bay Ray wandered into the pack a few cards later:

Another unhappy action shot. Both of these make you think the player is thinking, hey, the runner is already safe, but I have to throw the ball over there anyway. But you can't blame Kelly for being disgruntled at being photoshopped into a Tampa uniform despite being a Series 2 release this year. That's right Topps, a big fat Zero for this one, you graded it yourself there. The overly shiny uni and the too-bright hat are always a dead giveaway for a dead baseball card. I only had to look back a few cards in the pack to confirm I was being manipulated so you could have more time and production budget to put redemption cards in your expensive products.

Fortunately, Series 2 rarely disappoints for long:

My first thought on my first copy of this card a few months back now was that it could be a possible entry in the shoulder patch binder for that intricate Orioles patch. Or maybe an addition to the Shades page. Just today I noticed it's a second card with a touch of slugger face perhaps.

But eventually what really makes this card jump off the stack of baseball cards is the partially flattened baseball jumping off the end of the bat there. Even with the cutting edge camera equipment Topps gets in action these days, such intense motion can't be completely frozen and the ball seems to be departing the bat as if McLouth ignited the rocket fuel in the core. A pity such a great image capture is weakened by the way the ball hides in the white of the uniform. And the unfortunate way the lines of the composition lead the eye away from the baseball to such a degree that it took me 2 months of playing with Series 2 cards to even notice the incredibly rapidly accelerating baseball on it. So close, Topps, so close; much like hitting off the end of the bat like that is not just exactly perfect.

Did I just type 'perfect'? Yep. Like this card:

Yes we have made it to the Wal•Mart Blues at last. Though if you still have the blues after seeing this card, well, baseball cards just won't help. I featured this card before Series 2 even came out, I like it so much, though I did discover what happened to the ball on that card. Hint: don't hit the baseball off the end of the bat. This card is giving me the blues a little though, as I have realized that the best possible parallel edition of it would be the /62 black bordered version, which is basically true of all the Pirate cards. The black-border Alvarez card has been up on eBay twice in the last few weeks and gone for a little more than $25 and $20 w/shipping and I just don't want to spend that much on a single card. But oh how I desire to have it (and the McCutchen card) in that parallel. Donations always accepted. I think, though, that I will probably settle for tracking down a /2013 gold border version, like a few other classy cards this year. The gold always seems to work out nicely with any team colors.

The Wal•Mart parallels also bring me down a little with their pastel washed-out-ness. The basic, nearly-dark blue of the standard Wal•Mart logo would look quite a bit more striking on a baseball card. There was probably no way around that, given the nature of the colored Sea Turtle - i.e., to make a blue parallel either the border or the graphic frame has to be washed out compared to the other.

One of the blues in this pack -

- got me wondering about the colors of the Turtle, vs. the colors of the team logo. The "A's" there is a dark, dark green. It looks great on most cards, matching the tint of the Athletics' unis. And the Turtle is decently dark enough, but still not a match. Ahh, the mysteries of Topps sometimes. And the mystery of Brandon Moss and his little baby blue fore-arm bands, and how he cutely destroys Tiger pitching, and the mystery of how good Billy Beane is at reading the waiver wire all the time.

Which are frequently only matched by the mysteries of the Cubs:

Another probably safe-at-first fielding card, the nearly official meme for light-hitting infielders. You can't hardly put a bat in their hands on the front of their baseball cards when they hit all of .121 last year but are still expected to be part of the starting 9 come Opening Day. Perhaps the card farthest below the Mendoza line this year. And similarly indicative of Topps' luck with printing baseball cards with Cubs logos on them of players that actually end up taking the field for Chicago. There's always next year, when I expect we'll see more Vitters cardboard after an injury-plagued but healthy stat year in the minors. Maybe Topps should just wait and issue all Cubs cards in the Update set until Epstein somehow gets together more of a regular line-up around Castro and Rizzo. Maybe he should call Billy Beane, Epstein's original employer's first choice for the job.

Now of course once the Wal•Mart Blues roll out of the pack, we're due for even more excitement.

What could be more exciting than that Alvarez card up there? Why the generally pretty good crop of inserts this year, usually led off in the 'fat' packs by a '72 mini:

Can't beat a '72 mini of a player who actually played in 1972. I like the '72 design; despite my affinity for harmoniously synchronized team colors on a baseball card, I also like how back in '72 Topps just refused to use the color red on a Redlegs card. Lost in the trippy stars I guess. An added bonus was despite a more than passing familiarity with all the vintage Johnny Bench cards I have or still desire to acquire, and Topps' penchant for ridiculous amounts of photo repeats, this was a new image for me. Now there's an upside to avoiding all those gimmicky "high-end" ego cards. Just don't put this sweet new Johnny Bench card anywhere too close to his entry on the faux-high-end insert set in hobby boxes called "The Greats" or "The Elites" so clearly designed to entice you on to those surely extra-valuable "high-end" sets, or the spell of acquiring a brand new Johnny Bench card might fade a little.

After the minis appear the regular size inserts, such as Chasing History:

Though I have thought there is little more pointless than a card designed to hold autographs or "relics" that then hold neither and just take up space in the packs of the base cards I actually do want, the Chasing History set broke that sad mold this year. The card pictured there is right up there with the excellent Lou Brock edition on the checklist, and a few others. Another great, arm-fully-extended, I'm-ahh-gonna-hit-that-pitch batting card. Great light and shadows interplay and a sweet MLB shoulder patch. I'll need an extra copy of this one for the patch binder. I hope the Jr. Junkie might swing by and enlighten us on what year this great shot is from.

But much like the base cards in this pack, I decided against scanning all the inserts. Normally in a Series 1 or 2 'fat' pack, I like just 1 or 2 of 'em enough to want to comment on them. But this pack just kept on packin':

I've never had any die-cut cards before this year, I don't believe. I skipped those crazy 90s cards and most of those other card companies too. But I sure do like these Cut to the Chase cards, and I need to convince you to send me all of yours somehow. And no collector can have too many Mike Trout cards, now can they? I in no way would ever want to start a Player Collection of him, though I have been starting to think Topps just won't issue a card of him with his mouth closed. It's like he is always breathing like a fish or something.

By this point in the pack I was fairly satisfied by Topps' team-up with the Walton clan. But this Wal•Mart was so far off the beaten path I think, that those two corporations had a reward for me for loyally tracking them down at the very end of the distribution chain:

It's a hit. A retail hit. Aww, thanks Wally. Even though the back of the card has to remind me even more explicitly of a Series I'd just as soon forget even more than the 2006 edition. That's a trip to Wal•Mart for ya, always giving everyone the Blues.

Spring Training Cards

There used to be lots and lots of baseball cards sporting photos obviously taken during Spring Training.

And there still are of course, though they appear in the Archives and Heritage sets these days. That's partly by design I'm sure, to capture the feel of the vintage sets in those two new sets. I'm pretty sure most of the images in those two sets in 2014 have already been captured in Florida and Arizona this past spring. Hopefully the photog Topps uses for them will vary the direction he points his camera some, because the spring training cards are becoming soooo repetitive. Topps doesn't care, because Topps doesn't have to. We buy the cards like good little customers no matter what Topps does.

I would like to see the set I collect the most closely, the Topps set or the flagship if you must, include some Spring Training images. It would help break up that samey-same feeling on so many cards this year, something I will return to on some other angles another night.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover one Spring Training image in Series 2 this year:

Of course since Bourn signed with the Indians in February as a free agent, a collector's first thought on a new Topps card of a player on a new team is of course: Photoshop!

But I really don't think so here. This is a batting cage shot - an occasional baseball card image to be sure, but not seen on regular, all-action Topps cards in many a year. The card also has great light on it; that low winter sun makes for a different character to outdoor light in March. I work outdoors year round and can definitely see this in photographs. And the light is consistent on every part of the card; this isn't a Franken-image of a day backdrop with a night photo of a player, which has happened.

Another reason is a good half-dozen or more of the following type of card in Series 2. When I bindered them a while back, I took note of several of these for a post, but only need to show you one:

The author of the card backs in Series 2 semi-regularly mentions Spring Training 2013 stats, a player making the Opening Day roster, or, as here, even reports a bit of game-day action from Opening Day. Yes, Opening Day 2013.

So Topps has time in the production process to use information from Spring Training, and for a welcome change of pace, used a brand new 2013 photo of Michael Bourn in his new team's uniform via a picture from Spring Training.

Was that so hard Topps? Why can't we have some more of this? I know why, I think. Because Topps puts their production resources (staff hours, photo budget) into other cards. You know which ones. Why work very hard on those lowly base cards that just those "low end" collectors purchase? How I loathe that phrase. I know, the hobby has moved on to new and 'better' things at the "high end." I'm just a disgruntled baseball card veteran being pushed out of The Show by younger talent.

But I can hope to someday see a new Topps set of baseball picture cards made without cutting corners, as was done on this card:

Did the Yankees' uniform manufacturer forget to put the striping on Brennan's left sleeve? I seriously doubt it. The Topps Photoshop wizard was asleep at the big hi-res computer screen again. I wish I could remember which blogger pointed out a much greater classic, new Toronto Blue Jay Melky Cabrera's orange batting gloves. I liked that one so much I decided to use the Factory Set Orange parallel for Melky's card in my parallel project to really put attention on those gloves. I'm still looking for the card on the off chance a reader is picking up a '13 Factory Set.

Boesch was released by the Tigers in March and signed fairly quickly with the Yankees in their desperate scramble to replace so many injured veterans at once. Sure makes you wonder who has been running their minor league system the last few years. I liked Boesch when he was with the Tigers; I saw a slow motion view of his swing one time that was a thing of wonder. When he completed the swing and the tension flowed out of his grip on the bat, it was like seeing a tightly wound spring uncoil. He has tremendous power but of course has to be able to apply that power to a baseball zooming towards him, which has been a mighty struggle for him so far in his career. He might return from a mostly AAA-played, injury stricken 2013 and blossom into a power hitting outfielder perfect for Yankee stadium in 2014. I'm sure the Yankees hope that and will give him a shot, but the odds of it all working out are getting a little long I think.

Anyhow, Boesch climbed on-board the Yankee bus on March 15, 2013. It says so right on the back of the card. Plenty of time for Topps to get a nicely lit shot of Boesch in a Spring Training game. Heck they could probably just buy one from a press agency (I really don't know or care if they hire photographers these days but suspect they usually purchase from agencies).

Instead, we get a botched Photoshop effort. I could say "us low end collectors get a...", but one ironic thing about the Photoshop cards is there are plenty of them in other sets such as the in the world of prospecting, where draft picks are mocked up into a big league uniform. All kinds of goofy montage-like photos (storm clouds? really Topps?) are created for purchasers of "high end" cards who barely care what picture (goodbye floating heads, hello floating torso after floating torso) is on a card, as long as the # and the d in the #/d stroke their ego in that just exactly perfect spot. Oh yeah, good, uhhh-huhhh, oh a little more to the left, oh right there, YES! That relic is so HOT! Ahhhh, check out the curl on that auto! Anyone got a smoke?

I'm not totally anti-Photoshop either. It's not that big a deal, and frequently a card purchaser can not tell. I have even seen cards called out as being Photoshopped when I feel with 99% certainty that they weren't. 

It's more of an affront to the intellect. You know when the player was traded, released, etc., and whether there was any chance at all that Topps could have a real photo of the new uniform.

Photoshop cards could even possibly improve from a technological stand-point, but I doubt it. Perhaps the Topps employees manipulating the images will tighten up some and achieve a higher batting average than they did with Melky and Brennan here in this Series.

Or Topps could put resources into being a realistic, up-to-date chronicler of Major League Baseball, as much as they possibly can. But, they are Topps. They have that monopoly. They don't care, because...