2014 Donruss: Renewing a Love Affair

During the 1980s, Donruss was my favorite card manufacturer. Please don’t misunderstand, I didn’t think that they released the best set of cards every year. My feelings were more the result of the fact they were the ones attempting to modernize baseball card designs (at least, on the front of the card.) Some of the them were hideous, especially the 1988 Donruss Baseball’s Best which replaced the blue in the borders of the regular ’88 set with orange, thus providing a look so horrifying that the set should’ve been released on Halloween. But as I said in my review of 2014 Topps Turkey Red, I’d rather the card companies try something different and fail miserably than be absolutely lazy and boring. However, there’s no such issue with Panini’s resurrection of the Donruss brand. In fact, the 2014 Donruss set, the first in nearly 10 years, now makes Panini my favorite card manufacturer.

That’s quite the feat considering that they don’t have a license from MLB. However, over the past year in particular, Panini has shown exceptional adroitness, flexibility, and growth in figuring out how to properly remove team logos and insignia from the photos they use. I didn’t write a review about their 2013 America’s Pastime offering (although I did write about why I felt the John Kruk & Carlos Ruiz dual autograph card was by far the best Phillies autograph card of the year), but in my opinion it was actually the best high-end set of the year. In addition to assembling a complete team set, I also acquired as many of the inserts as I could. I’m sure my ability to purchase nearly every base card and insert was enhanced by the fact that so many collectors are turned off by the lack of MLB licensing, by I viewed that as their loss and my gain. In my opinion, if Panini continues issuing sets that exceed those produced by Topps, then collectors will force Topps and MLB to take notice.

After the release of 2014 Donruss, Topps and MLB should take notice. This is what a low-end set should be. Let’s start with the bast set. As other collectors have noted, the design uses elements of the 1987 set with a cursive script for the team’s home city. I’ve seen a couple different collectors refer to the script as reminiscent of that used on Topps’s 1978 set, and while I understand the sentiment, I don’t entirely agree. If you look closely at the script on the ’78 Topps cards, it is a different cursive font — all cursive fonts look vaguely similar. Really, the city name font on 2014 Donruss is the same script Panini used on America’s Pastime, only slanted and italicized. They’ve brought back the logo Donruss employed from 1982 through 1985 — though it’s much more prominent than it ever was on previous sets — and the backs look fairly similar those throughout the ’80s, though for some reason Panini chose to only list 2013 stats and career totals, rather than list the last five seasons of stats in the manner Donruss did 20 years ago. I also couldn’t help but notice that Panini jettisoned the “Contract Status” and “How Acquired” information from the design Donruss faithfully employed for nearly 10 years, starting in 1983. Beginning a theme that will start running throughout the insert sets, Panini mixed design elements from different year by coloring the backs blue like the 1986 sets, rather than the gold used on the back of the 1987 set.

Beyond the regular base cards, Panini also properly included Diamond Kings and Rated Rookie subsets, though the design of the Diamond Kings subset is clearly borrows from the 1984 set rather than the 1987. Unfortunately, Panini didn’t pay for original artwork for use on the Diamond King cards and instead relied on a photo treatment to make the photos appear vaguely like artwork. I suppose that’s just a sign of the times (Topps currently isn’t any better), but it would’ve been nice to see artwork, even if Dick Perez was either unavailable or too expensive. There are no foils or gimmicky variations to increase interest, and while parallels, as such, didn’t exist in the ’80s, the ones Panini issued — Press Proofs, Career Stat Line, and Season Stat Line — properly reflect the parallels created by Donruss before it lost its MLB license in 2005.

Panini continued paying homage to various Donruss designs from the ’80s with the insert sets. The Team MVP set, which includes Mike Schmidt and Ryan Howard, is nearly identical to the 1989 Donruss Bonus MVPs, with the MVP text moved from the bottom of the card to the top. The Rookies, which Donruss originally issued as a self-contained box set, interestingly utilizes the color-scheme of the 1988 Donruss set and the name plate from that year’s Diamond Kings subset to create another design that is both new and retro. The same applies to the No-No’s set, which superimposes 1989 Donruss border colors onto the basic 1986 Donruss design.

But it’s the Game Gear relic set that may possess the most interesting amalgamation of Donruss designs. It appears to use a variation of the 2002 Donruss Originals What If 1980 as the basic design, and then takes the team name font from the 1981 set for the Game Gear set name. I only call this one the most interesting because someone at Panini possessed enough knowledge about the history of the brand to make a connection to the What If 1980 insert set. Too bad someone at Topps wasn’t showing this level of creativity on this year’s Turkey Red set. The two remaining insert sets containing a member of the Phillies, Hall Worthy and Breakout Hitters, don’t appear to have any analogues to previous Donruss issues, but I’m willing to admit that it’s possible that my ignorance of such sets, certainly inserts of some sort, results from the lack of a Phillie in the originals.

In a set chock-full of things to love, I do have a few very minor quibbles with the final product. First, the main set is too small. At a minimum, the set should’ve been 660 cards, since it was Donruss, along with Fleer, who established that as an acceptable minimum for a comprehensive, modern set. Second, while I loved seeing each and every single one of the variations on Donruss designs from the ’80s, I personally would have loved to see Panini slowly tease them out over the course of a few different sets. On the other hand, it might be better that Panini issued the overt homages to Donruss’s en masse so that with future releases it could move the set forward in a new direction. Finally, I also noticed that the year was missing from its place next to the Donruss logo. Although Donruss stopped incorporating the year in such a manner in the mid ’90s, I always thought it was a nice touch that provided collectors, both new and old, with a very easy way to immediately identify the year the set was released.

However, those quibbles detract in any discernible fashion from my enjoyment of 2014 Donruss. It’s a wonderful reintroduction of the brand, and its creative homage to its past works quite nicely. Panini manages the neat trick of issuing a low-end set that contains the requisite parallels and inserts that many modern collectors expect, and Panini does this by employing designs for the insert sets that make it clear which set they accompanied — something that’s not always true with insert sets. Aside from my nitpicky criticisms, the only thing that could’ve made this set better was an MLB license. Alas, we have a Topps monopoly on that until the year 2020. It really is a shame we have to wait that long for Panini to potentially receive one — that lack of license is standing in the way of the hobby properly embracing these sets.

One Final Note: I couldn’t find a way to properly work it into the review, but Utley’s base card appears to have an uncorrected error: the back of his card lists his name as “Chase Cameron Headley.”

Featured cards: 1988 Donruss Baseball’s Best #184, Lance Parrish; 2013 Panini America’s Pastime #123, Steve Carlton; 2014 Donruss #111, Cliff Lee; 2014 Donruss #19, Chase Utley; 2014 Donruss The Rookies #11, Cameron Rupp; 2014 Donruss Game Gear #39, Domonic Brown; 2014 Donruss #151, Marlon Byrd

2014 Topps Turkey Red: Bringing New Meaning to “Turkey”

The truly ugly baseball card sets are an assault on the senses. After gazing upon them for just a couple of minutes you can’t help but feel you need to step away and start flushing your eyes out with Visine. Amazingly, Fleer managed to do this twice in just a five-year period, with two sets — the first in 1991 and the second in 1995 — which demonstrated that ugliness can be achieved in wildly divergent set designs. Whereas the blindingly yellow borders from the ’91 issue only required sunglasses in order to gaze upon them for more than a few minutes, one needs to drop acid in order to appreciate the design used for National League East teams in the ’95 issue. At least, that’s what I assume as I refuse to ingest it myself in order to test my hypothesis, but it’s the only method I can surmise that would allow anyone to enjoy those cards.

But, at least those nightmarish sets were completely original designs. True, they were abject, mockable failures. Yet, the Fleer designers responsible for those monstrosities at least exercised their creative talents — for evil, mind you, but creative nonetheless.

You cannot say the same thing about 2014 Topps Turkey Red.

I’ve given Topps some grief in the past in regards to its reuse of vintage designs. But in nearly every instance, my criticisms fall into the realm of being nitpicky in a manner that I wish Topps would embrace — a great example is my discussion of what was wrong with the Darin Ruf/Tyler Cloyd Rookie Stars card in the 2013 Topps Heritage set. With the extremely notable exception of their various efforts to create a 1973-style solo Mike Schmidt card — which The Phillies Room did a wonderful job of annotating — Topps generally puts forth a decent effort to properly recreate the original design when issuing its retro sets.

This was especially true back when Topps resurrected the Turkey Red design back in 2005. I loved the set and felt they did a wonderful job of resurrecting the design. In fact, my only real complaint was that they didn’t reprint more of the cards from the iconic original set. It was awesome to a have high-quality, standard-sized reprint of the Charles “Red” Dooin card alongside the 2005 Phillies team set, but it was also depressing that it lack accompaniment by similar reprints of Sherry Magee, William “Kitty” Bransfield, Mickey Doolan, & Dode Paskert.

As Topps continued issuing the brand in successive years, the design was tweaked slightly from year-to-year. However, unlike the Allen & Ginter designs, each of the Turkey Red sets were still recognizably using the same design elements from the original set (Wrigley Wax has a nice montage showing the evolution of the set over the years). Whatever your feelings may have been about the alterations, there was no denying that Topps was at least trying to maintain the spirit of the original set.

Then there’s 2014 Turkey Red.

I don’t know Topps’s reason for the utterly obvious laziness demonstrated by this year’s design. Maybe it’s the result of the fact that despite its comparatively high asking price, Topps knew the limited-edition product was almost certainly going to sell out — which it did. Maybe its because they decided to “modernize” the design somewhat. Regardless of the explanation, the design feels like someone just looked at the last seven years of product and attempted to reproduce it with as little effort as possible. The nameplate is completely gone, and there’s nothing about the border that suggests it’s supposed to be a picture frame. Furthermore, the only identifier on the front is the player’s last name — no team designation or first name. In previous years, Topps used either the player’s full name or the player’s last name and team designation. Using just the last name puts the final who-gives-a-fuck appearance to a product that just looks obscenely lazy, and to me that’s worse than ugly. Lazy suggests that no one gave a crap about what the final product looked like. There’s very little creativity in lazy — especially when you are trying to create something that is incredibly reminiscent of a previous product.

It gets worse for us Phillies collectors, however. Much like all the fans of National League East teams in the 1995 Fleer set, we have a special, albeit much more sublime, horror lurking for us in this year’s edition of Turkey Red. Look closely at the spaces in the “P” on the caps and inside any of the loops in the “Phillies” script on the jerseys. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you — that interior space is grey on the uniforms and blue/dark-grey on the caps. I can only assume that this is somehow the result of the computerized treatment designed to stylize the photos in some sort of retro, “drawn” fashion.* It doesn’t really matter, however, why it happened. The point is that it did, and once you notice it, it jumps out at you every single time. Mind you, this is not hideous in the manner of the retouching job on Roy Halladay’s 2010 Topps Heritage card, but nonetheless this type of production mistake is completely unacceptable. If there’s a silver lining to this mess, it’s that there are no Phillies autograph inserts. Completists such as myself don’t need to spend much money to assemble a master team set.

My only hope is that this marks the end of Topps’s Turkey Red sets once and for all. If this is what we have to look forward to with future releases, then I don’t want to see them. It takes a special effort to produce something as lazy as this, and I don’t want to reward Topps for it any further.

Featured cards: 1995 Fleer #405, Kevin Stocker; 2014 Topps Turkey Red #45, Domonic Brown; 2005 Topps Turkey Red #14, Charles “Red” Dooin; 2014 Topps Turkey Red #41, Cliff Lee; 2014 Topps Turkey Red #59, Cole Hamels

* Which, by the way, is also an obscene failure when you compare it to the artwork shown in the Dooin reprint.

2014 Topps Series One: A Phillies Collector’s Review

Featured Cards: 2014 Topps #4, Cody Asche; 2014 Topps Camouflage #180, Ben Revere; 2014 Topps #296, Domonic Brown; 2014 Topps 1989 Mini Die-Cut #TM-16, Mike Schmidt; 2014 Topps Super Veteran SV-8, Jimmy Rollins; 2014 Topps Before They Were Great #BG-20, Mike Schmidt; 2012 Topps Wal-Mart Blue Border #90, Ethan Martin

Now that I have a complete team set, all of the base Phillies inserts (not including memorabilia and autograph versions), and a few representative samples of the parallels in hand, I’m finally ready to write about this set. Unfortunately, I’m tackling this review about as eagerly as I actually awaited the arrival of the yearly Topps flagship product in recent years. This lack of enthusiasm results predominantly from my feeling like Topps just doesn’t put anything beyond a perfunctory effort into its primary brand anymore.

A lot of other collectors have already mentioned that the design of the set is rather bland and a little too reminiscent of last year’s set, and I am inclined to agree. However, I think this has become the primary feature of the flagship set — the fact is that Topps is now clearly heavily invested the idea that this set should be able to accommodate as many different colors/types of parallels as possible. Thus, blandness is essential. Once again, as with last year, counting the printing plates, you have 17 parallels of the base set. However, it needs to be noted that previously Topps has included parallels not initially produced in Series One into Series Two and the Update Series and then issued the necessary Series One parallels retroactively (the 2011 Topps Hope Diamond Anniversary parallel immediately comes to mind). When you consider that Topps has also sold 1/1 blank-backed parallels exclusively through it’s Topps Vault eBay account and the hobby factory-issued set usually contains its own orange-bordered parallel as well, it becomes a certainty that the final number of parallels will certainly go up and will easily be a new record for parallels in a Topps set. Blech.

This year’s two new entries, yellow and a clear acetate, only serve to increase my irritation with parallel cards. Although I don’t have any of the yellow cards yet in my Phillies collection, I own a couple in my other collection thanks to my buying packs in order assemble a complete Series 1 set. Thus, I can confidently state that Topps has proven to everyone that the 1991 Fleer set was no fluke — yellow has no business being used as the border to a baseball card. As for the clear parallels, I thought that the overwhelming shrug of indifferene the hobby gave to Fleer’s attempt at acetate-based card sets in the late ’90s was also sufficient to kill that particular idea. Shortening the print run to only 10 doesn’t make it any more attractive whatsoever. I don’t know why Topps is feeling the need to resurrect Fleer’s bad ideas from the ’90s, but it needs to stop before someone decides that Fleer was onto something with its 1995 design.

While the parallels just irritated me, I harbor pure disdain towards the two Phillies sparkle variations in Series 1. I didn’t like them the first time when Topps first tried them three years ago — especially since Topps royally screwed the pooch by using a photo on Domonic Brown’s card that had many collectors incorrectly thinking there was a sparkle variation. Well, this time around Brown actually has one, as does Cole Hamels. Although I don’t plan on acquiring either of them, I have been carefully checking the cards I get in packs to see if one does turn up. What I hate most about the sparkle variation is how carefully you have to look in order to determine whether you have the regular or variation. I’d much rather have different photo variations any day — I actually love them, even when they are extremely short printed (well, I love all of them except for that damn Kendrick card).

As for the inserts, the team’s continued downward spiral means that the number of Phillies inserts is down again for another consecutive year. I’m not a huge fan of Topps’s mini insert sets, but I enjoy seeing current Phillies in older Topps designs, so I’ve found them otherwise enjoyable. This year’s twist on the mini inserts — a die-cut, colored-border take on the 1989 Topps set — strikes me as overdone and removes what joy I got out of the minis. The fact that the only Phillie in this set, so far, is Mike Schmidt, only serves to compound the disappointment. However, I will give credit to Topps for the color choice on the border — it works nicely with this particular Schmidt photo.

The updated take on the Super Veteran subset from 1983 Topps helped to offset my disappointment in the 1989 Mini Die-Cuts. When I first saw the Rollins card, I initially felt that it was too modern an update — I really loved the original version of Super Veteran cards and thought that Topps made a small mistake in not being more faithful to them in last year’s Archives set. However, upon further examination and comparison to the ’83 cards, the new version grew on me quite a bit. In fact, it proves that nostalgia for older sets doesn’t necessarily require that we have to replicate them perfectly to create a proper homage. All the primary elements are still there — on the front, a much younger monochromatic photo alongside a current color photo, and on the back, an identical listing of career achievements. I’m hoping we see a couple more Phillies Super Veterans insert cards when Series Two comes out in a few months.

The other two non-memorabilia original inserts, Ryan Howard’s Upper Class and Mike Schmidt’s Before They Were Great, were rather run-of-the-mill and nothing special. Actually, the Before They Were Great set looks and feels rather similar to last year’s Topps The Elite and Topps The Greats insert sets — thus demonstrating once again that Topps really is putting minimal effort into this set and its inserts. However, there is one final insert set of note, however, and that’s the 75th Anniversary Buybacks, celebrating Topps’ 75th year as a company — not to be confused with their 60 anniversary of producing baseball cards, which they celebrated a few years ago. The 75th Anniversary Buybacks are much like previous buyback sets, only this time with an ’60-’70s era Topps logo foil-stamped onto the fronts. I have nothing against such inserts, per se, but I do wish that Topps would, at a minimum, actually provide a checklist of all the cards included. At this time, there’s no such list available, but I have taken the time to incorporate into the database all the Phillies buybacks I’ve seen on eBay. In fact, they should do this for all their variation cards as well — far too often collectors need to rely on postings on sites such as The Cardboard Connection to get all the necessary information. There really is no good reason for Topps to not be more forthcoming with this information.

In the end, there are really only two things that this set truly has going for it. One, it’s the flagship set; the largest set issued by Topps and the one with 60+ years of history behind it. The other is that for all practical purposes it’s probably the best value for your money as a collector, and that’s even when factoring in the amount of money set builders inevitably waste on packs because of the inordinate number of parallel cards they’ll receive. (All due apologies to Topps Opening Day, which is cheaper, but it’s really nothing more than a derivative of this set.) If it wasn’t for these two facts I’d be hard-pressed to work out any real excitement for this set. I feel that’s only fair though — based on the final results, Topps can’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for this set either.

Click here for complete list of all Phillies cards, including parallels and inserts, from 2014 Topps Series One. A newly updated version of the Phillies Baseball Card Database is going online this weekend.

The Parallel/Printing Plate Glut

Featured cards listed at end of post.

65,860. That’s approximately how many entries are in the version of the Phillies Baseball Card Database I posted last night. I am fairly certain it’s the largest Excel file I’ve ever worked with (my job requires me to work with large Excel files on a regular basis), but how many truly unique Phillies items are there really?

Well, if you filter out printing plates and parallels (not a perfect way to determine this, but it works nicely for my purposes here), the number drops drastically — to approximately 36,950. That’s still a lot, mind you, but it quickly demonstrates the extremely small possibility of someone actually putting together a comprehensive Phillies collection. What’s truly mind-numbing is that number also means that parallels and printing plates make up nearly half of the current content of the database. Worse still, that percentage is likely going to grow dramatically as I continue with the project and continue adding new material. For proof of this, look no further than the parallels from 2013 Topps:

The worst part is that there are still a few additional parallels missing from this collage. For the 20 Phillies cards (not counting the gimmick variations) in the 2013 Topps set, there are 340 parallels and printing plates — and each of those cards and plates has its own entry in the database.

I first attempted to assemble a comprehensive, unabridged list of Phillies cards back during my teen years in the mid-to-late ’80s. I still have an original printout somewhere in a box of mementos — I’ll have to see if I can find it and post a scan of one of the pages in a future post — and if I recall correctly, I was able to print out the entire list in roughly 30 pages, at two columns a page, in a nicely-sized, easily legible font. After playing around with the newest version of the database, I determined that I could probably port a legible printout in roughly 260 pages — but that really is a best guess.

This is the primary reason why this project has taken so long. I’m convinced that without parallels and printing plates I’d likely be done this project by now. As it is, 2015 seems like a reasonable estimate as to when I’ll finally have it at the point where I’m only updating for new releases. In the meantime, every time I see Topps announce yet another new parallel, I will be muttering curses under my breath.

Featured 2013 Topps Parallel Cards: Desert Camouflage #152, José Contreras; Emerald Green #646, Phillippe Aumont; Factory Orange #206, Jimmy Rollins; Gold #625, Domonic Brown; Silver Slate Blue Sparkle Wrapper Redemption #71, Kyle Kendrick; Silver Slate Wrapper Redemption #152, José Contreras; Target Red Border #424, Steven Lerud; Topps Toys “R” Us Purple Border #424, Tyler Cloyd; Walmart Blue Border #424, Tyler Cloyd

2012 Topps Golden Moments Autographs

Set Type: Insert
Card Dimensions: 2½” x 3½”
Parallel: Golden Sparkle, serial numbered to 10 on front of card.
Additional Information: Although Golden Moments Autographs were inserted in both Series One and Series Two packs of 2012 Topps, the Phillies appearing in the set were all issued in Series Two. The Howard, Schmidt, and Utley cards all essential use the same card issued for them in Golden Moments (Series Two), only with only with autograph stickers applied to them and new numbers on the back. Victorino’s and Brown’s cards, however, are unique to this set — they do not appear in either Golden Moments (Series One) or Golden Moments (Series Two).

GMA-CU GMA-DB GMA-MS GMA-RH GMA-SV

Chase Utley Domonic Brown Mike Schmidt Ryan Howard Shane Victorino

2012 Topps Gold Futures

Set Type: Insert
Card Dimensions: 2½” x 3½”
Additional Information: Cards were inserted in packs of 2012 Topps. However, Brown — the only Phillie in the set — was only available in Series Two packs. Brown’s card also serves as the base for his Gold Futures Autographs, Gold Futures Autograph Relics, and Gold Futures Relics cards.

GF-38

Domonic Brown

2012 Topps Gypsy Queen

Set Type: Primary
Card dimensions: 2½” x 3½”
Parallels: Blank Backs, serial numbered “1/1” on back of card; Framed Black, serial numbered “1/1” on back; Framed Blue, serial numbered to 599 on back; Framed Gold; Black, Cyan, Magenta & Yellow Printing Plates — each serial #ed “1/1”; Mini; Mini Black; Framed Mini Black, Cyan, Magenta & Yellow Printing Plates — each serial #ed “1/1”; Mini Green; Mini Gypsy Queen Red Back; Mini Sepia, serial numbered to 99 on back; Mini Straight Cut Back. Topps distributed the Blank Backs parallels exclusively on eBay via The Topps Vault and only issued them for the base (non-SP variation) versions of the cards.

Additional information regarding the Mini parallels follows the primary set checklist.

Inserts: Dual Autographed Relics, Framed Mini Relics, Indian Head Penny, Moonshots, Original Art Patches, Relics, Sliding Stars, Triple Autographed Relics.
Additional Information/14,000 Phillies Commentary: Unlike 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen, this set does not actually replicate any previously used design. Although Topps clearly attempted to replicate the feel and spirit of the previous year’s offering (as it has done with its Allen & Ginter’s sets over the years), when you compare the 2012 set to other cards issued during the 19^th century it certainly seems as if the border is just a little too ornate.

I love the fact that so many cards contain photo variations — this is completely keeping in the spirit of the very first Gypsy Queen set in 1887. However, there is no good reason for Topps to not just assign each of the variations its own card number — especially given the sheer number of variations in this set and the Mini parallel (again, more information on those after the primary checklist). Just giving each of the photo variations its own card number would make life a lot easier for collectors.

Another, incredibly small, quibble comes from the relative lack of Phillies autograph cards in this set. Maybe the 2011 edition spoiled me, but seeing none whatsoever in this set (outside of the incredibly short-printed Dual Autographed Relics and Triple Autographed Relics) was a huge disappointment.

2 10[a] 10[b] 30 83[a] 83[b] 113 131 141[a] 141[b] 159 170[a] 170[b] 171 258[a] 258[b] 277 286

Hunter Pence Roy Halladay (mid-pitch, home jersey variation) Roy Halladay (SP; running, alternate uniform variation) Cole Hamels Ryan Howard (finished swinging bat, home jersey variation) Ryan Howard (SP; running, alternate uniform variation) Carlos Ruiz Domonic Brown Roy Oswalt (mid-pitch, right hand behind head variation) Roy Oswalt (SP; beginning of pitch, ball below hip variation) Shane Victorino Cliff Lee (road jersey, mid-windup variation) Cliff Lee (SP; home jersey, throwing pitch variation) Jimmy Rollins Mike Schmidt (road jersey, fielding variation) Mike Schmidt (SP; home jersey, hitting variation) Vance Worley Chase Utley

Additional Information on Mini Parallels
With the exception of the Framed Mini Printing Plate cards, which are encased in clear plastic within a standard-sized 2½” x 3½” frame, all the mini parallels measure 1⁷⁄₁₆” x 2¹¹⁄₁₆.” All the non-SP cards in the primary set have a corresponding card in each of the Mini parallel sets. However, the regular Mini parallel set, and only the regular Mini parallel, contains all the variations in the primary set, as well as five additional Phillies: four variations and an extended series card. Unlike the variations in the primary set, all the Mini variations seem to be produced in equal quantities. To further complicate the matter and cause unneeded confusion, the four added variations do not appear in any of the other Mini parallels. However, the extended card — #325, Shane Victorino — does appear in all the other Mini parallel sets. The Mini additions are as follows:

2[b] 30[b] 171[b] 286[b] 325

Hunter Pence (hitting variation) Cole Hamels (retro uniform variation) Jimmy Rollins (hitting variation) Chase Utley (hitting variation) Shane Victorino

2011 Phillies Cards in Review: Card Back Designs

Back when I came up with my original list of topics for this series, I thought it might be fun to take some time to focus upon the part of the card that so many baseball card blog neglect. This blog is no exception — far more often than not, when I post a baseball card’s image, I only provide the front of the card. In fact, a review of all my 2011 Phillies Cards in Review posts thus far shows that I’ve posted the back of the card only once over the course of the series. However, now that I’ve made it to this particular topic, I find that my enthusiasm for it has ebbed significantly. Although I won’t be declaring any set as bearing the best back design of the year, I feel that there is still merit in noting some of the highlights from the side of the card you rarely see on the net.

For starters, Topps’s decades-long adherence to its classic layout on its flagship brand deserves applause. They did a wonderful job of adapting the design on the front for use on the back, and their decision to note players who appeared on the same card number in previous years was a nice way to incorporate its long history into this year’s product. For all my complaining about Topps appearing lazy, their effort on the backs of this year’s Topps cards certainly was not. The only thing that could have made the back of the Domonic Brown card better was knowing a year (and which player) a Phillie previously appeared on card #421. (That would be Doug Bird in 1980 and Curt Schilling in 1993.)

Along those lines, I feel like that Topps did a decent job of creating a back for its Gypsy Queen release. Like the overwhelming majority of cards issued during the 19th century, the original Gypsy Queen cards were blank-backed. If Topps was going for a faithful reproduction of the originals, I would likely have preferred their version of the card did the same. However, Topps put a modern spin on the photos in the design which justifies catering to modern collectors expectations regarding some sort of design on the back. However, I did have a minor complaint: their insistence on maintaining the block of legalese they’ve recently crafted for their cards really does detract from the overall look on the back. I do not know why Topps insists upon it — but if the lawyers from either MLB or the MLBPA insisted upon it, then the legal profession really has run amok.

For the It Just Needs to Be Said As Often As Possible Department: the backs of the Lineage design clearly suggest that after spending so much time actually caring about the backs on Gypsy Queen and their flagship Topps brand, Topps decided to phone it in and take it easy for a while. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that their graphic designers were required to focus their creative energies instead on either a WWE set, a Garbage Pail Kids Flashback series, or some other monstrosity that really wasn’t worth the time or energy wasted upon it.

Finally, the last card back I’d like to comment upon is the one Topps created for its Heritage Clubhouse Collection Game-Used Memorabilia inserts. I don’t know for certain whether Topps adapted the illustration from a vintage issue (it’s too detailed to be an original cartoon from the back of a 1962 Topps card) or created it especially for this particular series, but it was a really nice touch that helped ensure the cards carried the flavor of the 1962 design. It would have been nice to see something specifically tailored for the player on the front of the card — or even to have anything more than just the player’s name, team, and position — but when you compare it to what was created for the Lineage brand, it almost have to be thankful that Topps at least made the effort.

At this point, I’m down to just the Best Card of the Year and Set of the Year — the two posts I’ve been the most looking forward to writing. Furthermore, it looks like I’ll even get them finished before the 2012 Topps cards start appearing in my local Target.

Featured Card Backs: 2011 Topps Marquee #39, Cole Hamels; 2011 Topps #421, Domonic Brown; 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini Parallels #47, Jimmy Rollins; 2011 Topps Lineage #53, Mike Schmidt; 2011 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Relics #CCR-PP, Placido Polanco

2011 Phillies Cards in Review: Autograph Card of the Year

It’s come to my attention that 2012 Topps Series One hits store shelves in just one week, which means if I’m going to finish my 2011 Phillies Year in Review posts before they arrive, I better get about completing them. When I started this little endeavor, picking my favorite autograph card of the year seemed like an obvious category. However, it turns out that I did not actually collect very many 2011 autograph issues. The primary reason for this is the sheer expense of so many Phillies autograph cards — i.e., the small print runs and popularity of the players most likely to receive such treatment makes the cards somewhat expensive. Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Shane Victorino seemed to dominate the Phillies autograph issues this year — with Victorino easily being the least expensive of the bunch. Furthermore, this past year, there just weren’t any cards like the 2010 Topps 206 Brian Schneider or the 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Placido Polanco. In 2011 Domonic Brown was just about the only Phillie, other than Victorino, whom you could inexpensively acquire on an autograph.

Now, those aren’t the only reasons why I picked up so few 2011 autograph issues. The other is Topps’s unceasing fetish for issuing autograph cards of players who won’t, and this is if they’re lucky, step foot onto a Major League field for another 2-3 years — if ever. (The Justin De Fratus card may ultimately go down as Topps’s luckiest autographed Phillies rookie card ever.) Yes, I could easily and cheaply pick up autograph cards of Larry Greene, Domingo Santana, and Sebastian Valle, but thanks to the likes of Elio Serrano, Jorge Padilla, and Sean Gamble, I decided approximately a decade ago that I would never again purchase the autograph card of a prospect until it appeared, at an absolute minimum, that his debut appearance in an actual game in a Phillies uniform appears incredibly likely and/or imminent. Because of that, I didn’t pick up my first Joe Savery autograph card until three years after it was issued. This also led to my spending some time in December searching for a 2008 Bowman Draft Signs of the Future Freddy Galvis card before ultimately deciding to wait out and see if he will ever actually appear in a Phillies uniform in anything other than a Spring Training game.

For all those reasons, I find myself in a position where it turns out that in one form or another I’ve already discussed and/or posted my favorite autograph cards from last year. Rather than write all about them again, I’ll just link to my original post about each of the year’s nominees and just announce a winner. But before I do so, there is one card I want to write something about first: the 2011 Topps Lineage 1952 Autographs Victorino card. I know I’ve already written plenty about how much I feel that while Topps really screwed the pooch with the Lineage offering, the inserts helped save the set. However, what I have avoided addressing until now is the butchering of Victorino’s autograph insert. The reason for it was quite simple: Topps decided that they would just use an autograph sticker for this particular card, rather than have Victorino sign the actual cards. As a result, the white box containing his autograph is ridiculously oversized. It would be great if I could place it alongside all the other 1952-style autographs that Topps has issued over the past 10 years, but it looks comically grotesque next to them.

Thankfully, I have plenty of other Shane Victorino autograph cards in my collection, which makes it a lot easier to for me shrug off this travesty and accept it for what it is.

Now that I’ve gotten that therapeutic rant out of my system, here is my list of runner-ups for the 2011 Phillies Autograph card of the year (each linked to the post where I originally posted the card):

Cliff Lee, Topps 60 Certified Autograph, # T60A-CL(b)
Bob Miller, Topps Lineage Reprint Autographs, #RA-BMI
Justin De Fratus, Bowman Prospect Autographs, #BPA-JD

And our winner is…

Roy Halladay’s Topps Gypsy Queen Autograph

I really try to avoid reposting a card twice, but if there was ever a card that deserved it, it was this one. Given the cost of Roy Halladay autograph cards, chances are very good that this will be the only one in my collection, and as such it will always remain one of its centerpieces. There are a couple other Halladay Gypsy Queen autographs in different formats, and while I would love to have both of them, I don’t think either would have the same impact as this one did on me when I received it in the mail. In fact, there are very few cards at all (by that, I mean Phillies cards of all types) that would bring the same level of enjoyment that this one did when it officially became a part of my collection.

Featured Cards: 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Certified Autographs #GQA-DB, Domonic Brown; 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Framed Mini Autographs #AGA-PP, Placido Polanco; 2003 Donruss Team Heroes Authentic Signatures #390, Elio Serrano; 2001 Topps Heritage Autographs #THA-RW, Randy Wolf; 2011 Topps Lineage 1952 Autographs #52A-SV, Shane Victorino; 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Certified Autographs #GQA-RH, Roy Halladay

The Sad Joke That Is the “Rookie Card Logo”

Featured Cards: 2006 Bowman Heritage #225, Cole Hamels; 2002 Bowman Heritage #330, Michael Floyd; 2005 Topps Cracker Jack #209, Chris Roberson; 2006 Upper Deck #958, Chris Roberson; 2006 Topps 1952 Rookies #203, Chris Coste; 2009 Topps Updates & Highlights Chrome Rookie Refractors #CHR18, John Mayberry, Jr.; 2008 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCP199, Domonic Brown; 2010 Bowman Platinum #6, Domonic Brown; 2011 Finest #67, Domonic Brown; 2011 Gypsy Queen #336, Domonic Brown; 2010 Bowman Draft Picks #BDP28, Vance Worley; 2011 Topps Heritage #249, Vance Worley; 2011 Gypsy Queen Minis #336, Domonic Brown; 2011 Topps Update Series #117, Michael Stutes

In 2006, MLB and the MLBPA announced new industry-wide standards regarding rookie cards and the introduction of a new industry-wide stand “Rookie Card Logo”:

The centerpiece of these guidelines is a new “Rookie Card” logo which incorporates the MLB silhouetted batter logo. Under these new guidelines, licensees Topps and Upper Deck are allowed to produce Rookie Cards only after a player has been officially placed on a Club’s active 25-man roster. These new rules are designed to remove any uncertainty as to what constitutes a player’s Rookie Card, while the new distinctive logo will help fans and collectors easily identify an official “Rookie Card.”

Five years later, I think it’s safe to say that the new guidelines and Rookie Card Logo are an absolute and utterly abysmal failure.

It helps to remember that roughly 10 years ago, the industry-wide quest to produce the first Major League card of a player started spiraling out of control. In the overwhelming majority of sets, you could find players who would never appear in Spring Training game with the Major League club, let alone in an actual Major League game. For Phillies collectors, this meant oodles of cards featuring the likes of Mark Outlaw, Elio Serrano, Josue Perez, Josh Cisneros, Mark Outlaw and Michael Floyd (to be fair to the Phillies, they did draft him as a favor to his younger brother, Gavin, whom they made their #1 pick — at also allowed them to finally avoid the jinx of only employing the brother with lesser talent — but that doesn’t excuse Topps’s decision to put him on a Phillies card). The worst part was that these weren’t inserts — they were cards in the main set, and if you were a team collector, you had to collect these cards as well. While I like the idea of rookie cards in the abstract, what I don’t want to see in my collection are cards of a bunch of players who never actually appeared in a game with the Phillies. When the new guidelines were announced, I held out quite a bit of hope that such madness would come to a grinding halt.

Unfortunately, the new guidelines and rules had a grandfathering period, which portended the failure of the Rookie Card Logo, even though it is still used today. That grandfathering period meant that players such as Cole Hamels received Rookie Card Logos on all of his 2006 cards, which meet those guidelines, even though he appeared on plenty of cards issued before 2006 that didn’t match them. I’m pretty certain that to this day, most collectors still feel Hamels’s 2002 Bowman Draft Picks and Bowman Draft Picks Chrome cards are his rookie cards, despite the logos on 2006 cards. Chris Roberson, however, provided a more amusing example of the capriciousness of ignoring all previously issued rookie cards. On his 2005 Topps Cracker Jack card, Topps placed the words “topps 1st year” on the bottom of the card. I don’t know if this was in anticipation of the forthcoming guidelines and Rookie Card Logo, but it offers a peak at part of the strategy Topps would ultimately employ to work its way around the guidelines and render the new logo utterly meaningless — but more of that anon. Amazingly, despite the rookie mania that occurred over the previous few years, there were some players in 2006 who actually did receive rookie cards that accurately bore the Rookie Card Logo. The most notable (from the perspective of a Phillies collector) of these was Chris Coste. Amazingly, despite his long minor league career and the industry’s best efforts, he never appeared in a major league set before 2006.

Unfortunately, just as the overlap for players such as Roberson and Hamels began to wane and the Rookie Card Logo started developing some real meaning — although, it should be noted that as late as 2009 there were players receiving a Rookie Card Logo even though they had a card issued before 2006 — Topps figured out a workaround that resulted in the primary blow against allowing the logo to have any real meaning. They realized that the guidelines only applied to cards that appeared in the base/primary set, and by 2008 they started issuing cards of prospects as inserts to their Bowman brands (a logical step seeing as that’s where Topps historically overloaded its rookie offerings). Furthermore, Topps took the extra step of inserting the words “First Bowman Card” on all the first cards the prospects received. Suddenly, it was possible to purchase many different cards of players such as Carlos Monasterios, Chance Chapman, Matt Rizzotti and Anthony Hewitt.

Initially, I don’t think I cared all that much because Topps found a way to cater to the rather vocal rookie card collector segment of the hobby without upsetting the team collector contingent (which, truth be told, Topps hasn’t really given proper respect to us since… well… since it released the Topps Total sets). However, while this was keeping to the letter of the rookie card guidelines set by MLB and the MLBPA, it was also breaking the spirit of those guidelines. Despite what was intended with the Rookie Card Logo, Topps managed to muddy the waters once again as to what was a rookie card. There’s no better example of this than the mess it has made while issuing Domonic Brown cards.

I posted these four cards in chronological order to highlight a very important point: his first card depicting him in a Phillies uniform and stating he is a member of the Phillies came out in 2008. Do you think it matters to hard core collectors that there isn’t a Rookie Card Logo? No. However, Phillies team collectors are now forced to decide whether or not to add that 2008 Bowman Chrome Brown card to their collections. What do you think their decision will be as whether it’s his rookie card or not? If most of them are like me, and I believe that is true, then the fact that I have that card should answer the question for you.

The moment Topps first did this, the MLBPA and MLB should have swiftly rebuked Topps by threatening to take away or restructure their license. Instead, they did nothing (or, if they did, they certainly didn’t make any noise publicly about it) and we’re now right back where we started. Actually, it’s worse than where we were in 2006. Take another look at those cards again, and you will notice that the 2010 Bowman Platinum and the 2011 Finest both carry a Rookie Card Logo. This shouldn’t happen. I don’t care what season is a player’s actual rookie season, the year his cards first carry the Rookie Card Logo should be the only year in which it is used. It would be one thing if this was an isolated incident, but it’s not. Take a look at the following two Vance Worley cards:

Topps issued the Bowman Draft Picks card last year, and the Topps Heritage card is from this season. Anyone want to try to logically explain how someone can have a rookie card — as it’s understood within the hobby — in two different years? We can at least take some small comfort in knowing that the 2010 card is actually his rookie card.

To add further insult to injury, Topps cannot even bother to get the Rookie Card Logo consistently applied in the same set. Brown’s regular Gypsy Queen card doesn’t bear a Rookie Card Logo, but the mini does. Was anybody at Topps actually comparing the mini parallels to the cards in the base set to check for consistency? I’ve written quite a bit over this past year about how Topps obviously doesn’t care about proper quality control, but this particular lack of attention to detail manages to further depress their already low standards.

Clearly, the Rookie Card Logo is an utter joke. The unofficially clearly-sanctioned runaround by Topps and the company’s inconsistency in applying it has destroyed any helpful meaning that MLB and the MLBPA tried to imbue into the Rookie Card Logo. Serious collectors ignore it (anyone care to argue that Michael Stutes’s 2011 Topps Update card is his rookie card and not his 2009 Bowman Chrome Prospects card or that Joe Savery or Justin De Fratus haven’t had an official rookie card yet) and casual collectors will very likely find themselves very annoyed when they discover the card bearing a Rookie Card Logo is considered by very few to be an actual rookie card. It’s a meaningless construct. So long as MLB and the MLBPA continue to allow Topps to use it in the ridiculously capricious manner that it has demonstrated over the past few years, they are proving that they never really cared about addressing the problem the Rookie Card Logo was supposed to resolve. I, for one, wish it would go away, but like so many of the other problems not deeply ingrained into the hobby and industry, I just don’t see this issue getting resolved anytime soon.