After that post-a-day week for Gint-a-Cuffs, I was happy to take a break on Friday and Saturday from the blog and, instead, just read others' posts, catch up on e-mail, and work on my continual project of organizing my Brewers. Sometimes, I think I should change my blog name to "Organizing the Brewers." I probably would get traffic from folks thinking I was talking about craft breweries. Considering the number of different beers I have tried, perhaps I should start writing about that. Maybe. But not right now. During the Gint-a-Thon here, I actually received four packages from other bloggers. That's good, because otherwise I'd be putting up pictures of hot girls to draw web traffic. Unfortunately, the Brewers don't seem to have any female celebrity fans. Instead, we have a really cute dog.
So, with Hank the Dog's approval, I'm turning now to the package I got a couple of weeks ago from Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown. He and I have swapped cards a few times, and this one as far as I can remember was a "just because" package. First off, he sent some Archives Brewers, which helped push me nearer to completion on the Brewers for this year.
I'm pretty sure that these complete my Archives team set. I'm still looking for a silver parallel Robin Yount from that set, and of course I'd be happy to take any printing plates of any of the Brewers off someone's hands. I have one each of the Greg Vaughn and Jeromy Burnitz autographs, even. But in terms of the base cards, I'm good. Gavin also sent four great Bowman cards that I did not have, including one of those cracked ice variations:
Gavin even sent me a sticker I needed.
On the right side of that sticker is long-time Brewer stalwart Charlie Moore. Charlie is one of my player collections in part because he was with the team for so long and -- more to the point -- he was one of the nicest, most genuine guys I've ever met.
What started all this out, I think, was that Gavin had opened some packs of this year's Allen & Ginter and had gotten a base card of Jean Segura. I got one in the two hobby boxes I opened, but I needed two and asked Gavin if I could get Segura. He was happy to send the card my way:
I really liked the card when I saw it. Since this year's cards in nearly every Topps set have doubled up on photo use -- I'm sure it isn't laziness, but rather cheapness in not having to pay Getty to use different photos for all the different sets -- I paged through my Jean Segura cards to see what other card had used this photo before. I was surprised to see that I could not find any. Then, on Friday, I was on my way home from a morning doctor's appointment and stopped at the local Target (with the Starbucks attached) to get coffee for the day, ground coffee for the weekends, and a blaster of 2014 Topps Series 2 in my effort to collect the base set. I got home, went through the packs -- thankfully only 3 doubles in the whole blaster -- and found this insert:
I knew the idea that Topps might use a photo only once was too good to be true. Thankfully, the cards that came from the Breakdown were real and wonderful. Thanks, Gavin!
Now that the hot-pack euphoria has worn off, and I've opened all four of the Bowman boxes, in the level-headed view of day, how do I feel about the 2014 Bowman product? As with most card sets these days, there are things I like and there are things I don't like. Let's just go bulletpoints with illustrations here.
I'd say to imagine that you are at a seminar with a PowerPoint presentation going on, but none of you would read past this sentence. And, let's be honest -- the people who give presentations with PowerPoints that look like blog posts have lost you at the first slide for one huge reason: TOO MUCH READING. If you've got that much content on a PowerPoint slide, you're not presenting any more.
Anyway, I'll stop being "The Off Hiatus Guide to Effective Public Speaking" and go back now to being the baseball card blog.
So, let's start with What I Like about Bowman 2014:
Excellent Hits
First and foremost, this set emphasizes many modern collectors' desire to buy a box and sell a quarter or half of the cards on eBay, trade most of the rest, and keep their team/player/investment property. While that sounds like a criticism, it is not meant to be. The focus on having attractive inserts makes opening a pack exciting.
For example, the on-card autographs are superior to the sticker-graphs, definitely (though I will admit that whiting out the part where the autograph is on the card is not optimum in my opinion):
Gabriel Encinas, SN 5/150. And, as the card tells us, he "Enjoys carne asada."
Lewis Thorpe, no Serial Number, but one of his skills is that he is an "Upbeat teammate."
Daniel McGrath, no SN. An Aussie like Thorpe, but he is a "fan of frozen strawberries and British independent films"
Yes, the captions point out another positive, in my opinion -- the fun facts that are shared on the back. Sure, they are just fluff from some media guide or interview sheet, but it humanizes the player.
I mean, I selected a base card off the top of the stack of those at random, and suddenly I now have a reason not to like Josh Donaldson of the Oakland Athletics:
Being an Auburn football fan is not a good thing.
While I might have married an Auburn graduate and huge Auburn football fan, she also knows that the week leading up to the Georgia v. Auburn game is not a week during which she should be looking for reasons to have deep "discussions." And, after this past year's game, that extended to the week after too. In case you've forgotten:
It's too bad that Georgia had Afroman as our safety on the play. If you don't know, just check out this story about #25, Josh Harvey-Clemons, and his no longer being a Georgia Bulldog.
Anyway, still bitter.
Back to Bowman.
Another positive: usually two Chrome prospects in every pack. While that may not seem like a lot, it makes it possible for me with four boxes that I might have a complete set of those -- I haven't sorted them out yet to see. Same goes for both the base major leaguer cards and the base prospect cards.
It also means that I got two of each one of these:
Ignore those white pixels -- it's the scanning that put those on there from the background
The 1989 Parallels
I really like these things, for some reason, and I'm glad they are cut down to the regular size rather than being the same size as the 1989 set was. I wish I had pulled the Paul Molitor card of this one.
Final thing I like: the photography is pretty good generally. I don't mind the blurred backgrounds that much, either.
Now, we've patted Bowman on the back quite a bit, so what didn't I like?
Too many damn variations
That is demonstrated ably by this page at The Cardboard Connection. I'm not going to list all of them or what I got of each because that would bore me just to type it up. I mean, there are 16 variations of the paper cards for the main set, 12 variations on the prospects paper set, 16 variations on the chrome prospect cards/refractors, 4 variations on the paper autographs (which are retail only), and 14 variations on the chrome prospect autographs. Throw in 10 variations on 16 cards of the Chrome Rookies of cards from the base set. Mix with 9 variations on the 150 cards in the Chrome Refractor MINI set and another 5 variations on Chrome Refractor Mini Autographs. Then, add in the 1989 inserts...and 10 of those have an autographed variation....and the 1989 buyback cards, the AFLAC/Perfect Game/Under Armour autographs set, the autographed Ice cards -- again with 3 variations....I mean, I'm not even 2/3 of the way done with all the variations and inserts.
It's a positive to have nice inserts. It's a complete negative when there are so many damn variations that even a player collector will throw up their hands and say, "aw f*ck it, it's not worth it."
Damaged cards
The Chrome prospect cards will sometimes come straight out of the pack with vertical scratches on the card -- they don't come through very well on scans due to the scanning process causing other faults, but I have tried to highlight the issue with the arrow below.
It looks a bit worse in person, honestly. There were not a ton of these, but it got to the point of where I was concerned that I was causing it by how I opened the pack, etc. Again, I didn't see a lot of these, but there were a few, and seeing a few was annoying.
Conclusion
So, overall, I like this set and I don't. I'd rather have the set be one thing and not two or three. If it wants to be a nostalgia gig, do more than the 25 "ice" throwback cards. If it wants to be a rookies and prospects set, then do that and leave guys like Ryan Zimmerman out. Of course, like many collectors, all the parallels frustrate me. I opened four damn boxes of cards and didn't get even one parallel of a base-set Brewer. I felt privileged to find the one prospect parallel I did get.
Topps needs to follow the immortal advice handed out by Everclear in a song from 1997:
The key lyrics:
You do what you do You say what you say You try to be everything to everyone You know all the right people You play all the right games You always try to be everything to everyone
Topps needs to stop trying to have every set be everything to everyone. But, if you pushed me for an answer under oath, I'd tell you that I'd buy four more boxes tomorrow if someone gave me a good price on them.
Last night, it was all about the repack. Today, I got a delivery I have been super-excited about all weekend. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to buy a case of something. And I did -- it's the ho-hum 2013 Series 2 Topps base set, which Dave & Adam's Card World had on sale at below half price. At the same time as I ordered that, my wife encouraged me to get a second one.
Twist my arm.
But I didn't get a second case. Instead, I went with four hobby boxes of Bowman. And, I watched anxiously over the weekend as everyone went into full hysteria mode to open these packs and find the hits. I was not as lucky as William at Foul Bunt, meaning I have not pulled a Jose Abreu -- not yet, at least -- but I wanted to share a couple of quick things from just the first box.
The first few packs went by quickly. There were a few nice cards which I'll share when I get done with all the packs, but then I saw something shiny and very, very red:
I looked on eBay, and this card is running somewhere around $30 on one active auction with some Buy-It-Nows around $50 or $60. Not bad. Not complaining.
The Bowman hobby boxes promise one autograph per box. So, when I got to the next card, I have to admit -- I was feeling a bit disappointed in Bowman.
It's an autograph of a pitcher who was in rookie league last year (and don't forget the mantra: TINSTAAPP....there is no such thing as a pitching prospect) and it's numbered 30 of 500. I mean, it's an autograph, but I really was hoping for, well, more.
Ask, and ye shall receive.
The fourth last pack of the box was a hot one.
It's a chip off the Great One...
A Black Wave Brewer Prospect!
A Cuban Defector Black Wave!
Okay, he's alright. Nothing special...
A Silver Wave Cardinal numbered 11 of 25? Yes please.
There's more? Oh yes. Much more.
Maikel Franco of the Phillies, Black Wave, numbered 16 of 50. That one hit $225 yesterday on eBay. And that's where this one is going...but wow, what a hot pack!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some gold to chase.
