Topps 2014 Turkey Red

Underwhelmed.

I wanted to like the Turkey Red set.  I really did.  I suppose I was expecting the design to be different -- truer to the original Turkey Reds, which I suppose has been done by Topps already and therefore, in their minds, they needed to update the look.  So, seeing these for the first time (I avoided spoilers...) was a let down.

My "problem" with the 2014 Topps Turkey Reds is that they do not give me the feel of being "old time" baseball cards.  Yes, the colors are flatter and the photos are perhaps less three dimensional than you get from any of the usual base set photograph but this set could easily have a Stadium Club logo from the early 1990s on it and it would have fit.

I was sucked into the moment and bought six of these boxes.  In 6 boxes (and a total of 66 cards), I ended up getting duplicates of 8 cards.  I guess the random insertion factor comes into play with the base set boxes -- where I have gone entire boxes of 24 packs without getting a duplicate -- but that too was disappointing when you're paying $20 a box from Topps for these cards.

If you're interested, I got duplicates of Chris Davis, Justin Verlander, Jose Segura, Wil Myers, Jose Bautista, Jose Reyes (yup, two duplicate Blue Jays), and Matt Cain.  At least I got a Brewer duplicate in Segura, I suppose.

There were a few highlights in these boxes, to be fair.  Each box comes with an autograph.  Yup, they are the sticker autographs -- sorry all you guys who hate those.  My autographs:

Michael Wacha, 250/299

Nate Eovaldi, 78/99

Onelki Garcia, 461/699

Taylor Jordan, 279/499

Joe Kelly, 185/253

 The nicest of the autographs was the green variation for Danny Salazar.  It's serial number 7 of 10.

I'm not enthused by this set, to be fair.  I'm pretty much thinking I will use these cards other than one Jose Segura and my favorite PED user (Ryan Braun) as trade bait.  The downside: no Rockies, no Braves, and no Padres, among other teams.  

I'll post a list of the cards I do have on my Trade Bait tab -- comment or e-mail me and let me know if you think we can work out a deal that involves any of these cards.