It Was Bound To Happen

In the baseball card world, the news is out that Topps has filed suit against Upper Deck over the design used on this year's O-Pee-Chee cards.

For a brief historical background, starting in 1969, Topps has partnered with the Canadian O-Pee-Chee candy company to produce baseball cards in Canada. The O-Pee-Chee cards used the same design and photography as the American Topps cards with the exception of bilingual (English and French) text. O-Pee-Chee continued producing the Canadian versions of Topps cards through 1992. O-Pee-Chee produced its own original set in 1991 with O-Pee-Chee Premier, as well as the Topps-design regular set. O-Pee-Chee also produced O-Pee-Chee Premier and the Topps-design set in 1992. O-Pee-Chee broke off from Topps in 1993 with its own original set in 1993 and produced its final baseball card set in 1994.

In 2007, Upper Deck bought the rights to the O-Pee-Chee brand name and used the name for their hockey card product. In 2008, Upper Deck included O-Pee-Chee branded cards as inserts in Upper Deck Baseball. The design of the O-Pee-Chee cards mimicked the 1969 design, though not exactly. In 2009, Upper Deck included O-Pee-Chee branded cards that mimic the 1975 design, though still not exactly.

However, later this year Upper Deck has plans to release an O-Pee-Chee product which will include a parallel design of the 1971 set. There have also been images of a 1977 design floating around the internet, as well. Both designs happen to look exactly like the original Topps cards.

Here are some of my thoughts:

* First of all, even if you are trying to inspire the look and feel of the old O-Pee-Chee cards, why in the world would you want to create cards that remind collectors of your biggest competition?

* The new O-Pee-Chee cards are not even bilingual. The only thing that made O-Pee-Chee cards fun back when I was a kid was not because they had the same design as Topps cards... it was because they were bilingual. It made me think it was cool (when I was 10) to have cards that came from another country... even if it was Canada. The fact that the text on the card was in English AND French made O-Pee-Chee cards unique. Even after O-Pee-Chee broke off from Topps, the card were still bilingual.

Topps Factory Set Rookie Bonus Cards

I found the above Jason Kubel card at the Valley West Card Show earlier in March. Although it was priced at 75 cents, the dealer gave it to me free with the load of Torii Hunter and Topps Heritage SP's I bought.

A few thoughts:

* The Jason Kubel card is labeled as a Rookie Card. Kubel had his first cards produced in 2003, so here is a Rookie Card three years later. Of course, 2006 was the first year the MLBPA began applying a Rookie Card rule for baseball cards. While I do think the Rookie Card rule is a great idea in the long run, it brought a lot of confusion that first year.

* Technically, Jason Kubel was a rookie in 2006. He made his Major League debut in 2004 with a small number of at bats to remain under the rookie requirement and missed all of 2005 because of knee surgery. It still puzzles me to this day why Gardenhire would use Kubel to pinch hit in the ninth inning against Mariano Rivera with runners on in the 2004 ALDS.

* I first saw the design of this card in 2006 Topps Chrome. A card was sent to me by a fellow team collector and I thought at the time that I had missed the base version.



* While I cannot possibly collect all of the Twins cards from every year, I, at least, try to get every base Topps card. It hadn't occurred to me, until I got this card, that the Factory Set Rookie Bonus cards would be great additions to the Twins collection. The Factory Set Rookie Bonus cards are only found inserted into Topps factory sets, thought not all bonus cards are in every Topps set. Some of the cards are inserted in the Hobby factory set, others are inserted in the Retail factory set, and yet others are inserted in the Holiday set. If you are a Topps completist, good luck getting these cards if you don't want to buy and open three different factory sets.

2009 Topps Heritage - Box 2

Now for Box 2.

Base Set: 177/500
SP's: 7
New Age Performers:
Manny Ramirez
Dustin Pedroia
Then and Now:
Banks/Howard
Ford/Sabathia
Baseball Flashbacks:
Brooks Robinson
Bobby Richardson
News Flashbacks:
Fifty-Star Flag
John F. Kennedy
Chrome:
Nick Markakis
Mat Gamel
Jay Bruce
Carlos Zambrano
Brad Penny (refractor)
Clubhouse Collection Relic:
Dustin Pedroia

Twins:



As one of my team collector buddies had described his box, I would compare this box to a $70 blaster. While I do like the Flashback Relics, I don't really care much for the Clubhouse Collection Relics. The Clubhouse Collection Relics have no theme: just random jersey and bat relics from random players. One thing I do like about this year's set is that the SP's are easy to identify: all SP's are numbered 426-500 and all have brown backs. With the second box, I did end up with about 90 doubles.

I'm trying to remember from the checklist, but Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are both short prints, meaning they will be a lot more difficult to obtain than the other cards. All of the Twins cards in this set, except for the extra Delmon Young, will be going towards building the box. I'm sure I will get Twins card as I continue buying more cards and also from trading with the team collectors.

2009 Topps Heritage - Box 1

I bought my first two boxes of 2009 Topps Heritage more than a week ago and now I've finally gotten around to posting the results. One of the things I've wanted to do on my blog was to share box breaks. This is my first one, it may take some time to figure out a format, but I'll give it a shot. Since this is my Twins collection blog, there will be a special emphasis on Twins.

I will start with in this post with the first box and then start a second post with the second box.

Base Set: 176/500
SP's: 7
New Age Performers:
Mark Teixeira
Ryan Braun
Then and Now:
Banks/Howard
Friend/Santana
Baseball Flashbacks:
Bill Mazeroski
Ernie Banks
News Flashbacks:
Aswan High Dam
Weather Satellite Tiros-1
Chrome:
Jonathan Papelbon
Kosuke Fukudome
Kila Ka'aihue
Carlos Quentin
Gio Gonzalez (refractor)
Flashback Relic:
Luis Aparicio
Box Topper:
1960 Topps Al Smith

Twins:


Topps Heritage is always fun to open every year and challenging set to try an build. I do love the look of this year's set (based on the original 1960 Topps set) and I do not see any glaring errors so far. I like box toppers that are included in every other box (an original 1960 Topps card), although I wish Topps would not foil stamp them. The Luis Aparicio Flashback Relic (a relic from Briggs Field) is a fun card to have; I have grown bored of non-themed relic cards, but I like the Flashback relics with pieces from past stadiums. Overall, a good start for the set.

Box 2 coming next.

1962 Post Baseball

Last week, I bought these cards from my local shop. I am not sure if I paid too much or too little, but I was happy to add a couple of vintage cards to my collection.

Baseball cards from the 1962 Post set were distributed as cards on the backs of cereal boxes with a version of the Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris cards having been distributed in the April 13, 1962 edition of Life magazine. The set consists of 200 cards with 9 of those belonging to Twins players. I did not know much about the 1962 Post set before buying these cards, but there is an allure about adding cards that are older than myself to my collection.

For me, there is an allure about anything vintage. Although, now vintage is a matter of opinion. While many consider 60's and 70's cards as vintage, many others only consider cards older than 1961 as vintage. Regardless, there is just a different feel about the older cards. Maybe it is the way the cards look or how they were made or maybe it has more to do with how baseball cards were treated: as a hobby for the love of the game and not an investment for a big payout.

With Killebrew and Lemon down, I would have seven more Twins left in the set.