2011 Lineage: our first look.

When we asked you what cards we should look at now that we've reemerged, Topps Lineage was one design you described that caught our attention. Although we sought a blaster, all we could find in our puny little non-baseball card town was a rack pack. We grabbed one, opened it, and found some Toppsy looking cards at first--

but in the middle, a couple of interesting variants:

Tony Perez and a tiny little baby Johnny Bench...great vintage uniforms, logos, and the little gold all-star rookie symbol. Love how the older photography shows no concerns about the background--in fact, Mr. Perez has several random legs emerging from his elbow and little dot people in the distance. A+ for detail: Mr. Bench has a fantastically dirty knee and one of the big old catcher's mitts. His brow is furrowed, which it shouldn't be if he is looking into his own future.

Then there's the shiny:

Double rainbow all the way! This card made us remember that for a brief moment we actually felt sorry for the Rangers as their world imploded around them during this World Series. We doubt that Mr. Beltre takes much comfort from thinking, "well, at least there's that shiny card of me in Topps Lineage."

And, look:

A Mets card! A fake relic card! Well, it's a relic of something, but apparently not anything to do with baseball: "The relic in this card is not from any specific game, event, or season." Does that mean it's also not from any specific team or person? Anyway, poor Jason. Perhaps after they shrink Citi Field a little, he and David Wright will have a better year next go 'round. By the way, the relicky card is smaller than the others. What is the meaning of this?

Anyway, it was fun rackin' up a rack pack to make up for the recent lack of stacks and backs.

Girl sasses baseball players who wear glasses.



Orel Hayhiser's glasses here accentuate his earnestness. Do you love baseball cards that don't depict bats, baseballs, bases, or any facet of the game? Then this one is for you. Unfortunately, there is so much to say about this card we don't have time to list everything. It would take months.

It's Lowell "Wild Pitch" Palmer behind those Foster Grants. And what is the standout element of this card? We'll wait.


Tap tap.


Correct! Shea Stadium in the background. 

Question for our old baseball card friends.

And by old, we mean wise. Certainly, none of us is getting older.

If you hadn't bought any baseball cards in, ahem, quite a while, what blaster box, rack pack, hobby box, or, for that matter, eBay deal would you pounce on right now in order to get yourself all happily back into the swing of things?

What set or current design rocks?--yes, that's part of the question, but sometimes even if it's not the bestest set in all the world, there's a compelling buy out there--such as a hobby box that tends to be weighted with cool stuff. That's what we are asking.

So: what should be our first baseball card purchase in a long time that will return us firmly to a cheery mood about cardboard?

Joe Buck's eyebrows and other World Series questions.

Do Joe Buck's eyebrows look alarming to anyone? Not as alarming as Ron Paul's eyebrow actually falling off during one of the bizarro world Republican debates, but close?

Mr. Buck did a nice job of announcing this go-round, but there was something about those eyebrows that made us glad we didn't get many visuals. He has a sonorous baseball voice, though, and when he said, "We'll...see...you...tomorrow...night" after Mr. Freese's home run in Game 6, well, it almost made us sniffle.

Other questions that came up:

Texas blew the lead five times in Game 6 (!) and twice was within one strike of winning the World Series. How bad must the Rangers feel? It's not fun to lose, but to lose with ignominy, that's tough. We did not feel sorry for Nolan Ryan, though, because he looked like a thug in that dark overcoat.

Was there a Bill Buckner moment for the Rangers? 

Did everyone in the East stay up for the whole of Game 6?

The last team to win a Game 7 of the World Series was the 2002 Angels. Does anybody remember that? If not, what does this mean in the great scheme of our attention spans?

Future ingredients for the best jersey cards ever made.

The Before and After of David Freese's jersey, shredded by joy.

There's nothing like an epic baseball game to shake people out of their baseball doldrums...and last night's rapid-fire, bizarro-world, what are they thinking?, OMG World Series Game 6 did just that. After months of inexplicable torpor, suddenly we cared about baseball again. The corporate tinge faded, the overpaid galoot factor didn't matter, and everything crystallized into a perfect baseballian tangle of wonderful moments.

We hope you'll forgive us for disappearing and we hope you'll have us back, although there's no telling what we'll actually write about....bb cardboard is so well covered on the intertubes these days! Amazin'.

Photo: Off the Bench

2011 Topps Heritage coin cards: turnabout is fair play.

 The 2011 Topps '62 Mint cards are selling like gangbusters on eBay. Apparently, you can collect these in two categories, and we don't just mean coins and cards. First, the easy category, which is the coins that face every which way:



Or, second, you can try to find 2011 Topps Heritage '62 Mint cards where the coins face rightside up (we like this one because Ernie is smiling AND signing, and George seems to be attempting eye contact):

Best Baseball Player Names Department: a slugger named Belt.

And what a promising start at first base on a team that, until last year, hadn't seen a World Series win since 1954.

You go, Brandon Belt.

It's more fun card shopping when pack searchers go away: 2011 Topps Heritage.

Today we had reason to be in an entirely different town in our state, and because we had to get a new iron we stopped at Target while in this entirely different town. Oh by the way, the reason we had to get a new iron is that the one we owned previously turned into a fireball in my hand yesterday, causing a second degree burn and what the Urgent Care doctor called "a shrapnel wound." So really, the whole concept of pack searching is something we truly see in perspective, as we feel fortunate that a) our children were nowhere nearby when this happened and b) my injuries weren't far worse.

But I digress.

Since the one card shop we used to frequent closed a while back, and ever since I realized that the fellow who works at a store near our Target stops by there EVERY DAY to pack search and remove absolutely anything of extra thickness or weight, we've stopped spontaneously picking up baseball cards while on errands. Perhaps you've noticed this, as our grumpiness has contributed to our relative quietness. It's not that we only want autographs or game-used cards--that is not the case--it's that we want a fair playing field.

So because we were not on our own turf Target, I did in fact stick my uninjured hand into a box of 2011 Topps Heritage and remove a pack. I did not, even for a moment, feel up the other packs in the box.

When we got home, we opened the pack and there were three really fun cards inside: one was a Kyle Drabek. I dunno, we just wanted one, ok? Isn't it kind of great?:

Another was a handsome looking Michael Young card:

He just looks so darned classic: square jaw, muscles rippling, uniform logo, distant field. He brings to mind the distant era when baseball player men were, well, men rather than spoiled brats. It's impossible not to like this darned card. Also, the back is great

as it has a vintage style cartoon of a player signing autographs for kids. Also in the pack: a bat bit:

Sure, it's a bat bit of Scott Rolen, a player we don't care much about, but here's the thing. It has the classic Clubhouse Collection yellow bottom third in the red oval, and Mr. Rolen is smiling. AND on the back: more kids and a polite looking player!

Again, it's a cartoon and thus a fantasy, but we can dream, can't we? The overall Baseball Cardness of the Rolen bat bit card is very fine indeed. A wood shaving in a cardboard card works, doesn't it? All of a piece.

So that is what it must feel like to wander into a store, buy one pack, and be happy with the results. Hasn't happened in months and months. And months. The thickness of the cardstock is pleasing, too. We're going to go read your reviews of 2011 Heritage but our view is: five out of a possible five dings!

Baseball card simple gifts.

So I'm looking around to see if there's a neat new David Wright card I can pick up for the kid, something in the spirit she'd truly like, and come to find there are plenty of brand new cards I'd never laid eyes on.

 Some wth a strange egg yolky background:

Some alarming:

On the one hand, it's elaborate, red, and interesting. On the other, it brings to mind drapes that are too dark and heavy in a mahogany paneled room.

Then I found it:

 You know, sometimes it's still good just to go with plain old cardboard.

What Super Bowl moment will Allen & Ginter choose...

...this time around?