I thought the cards looked pretty cool, plus I collect Xander Bogaerts and have small, budding PCs of Trevor Story and Carlos Correa. The print run turned out to be 770 for this set.
The other 3 guys I like just fine, though am not currently PCing them (but no, sorry, I'm not breaking up the set so they're not up for trade). Let's be honest, I'm pretty much a "player collector slut" and may very well decide to PC these guys one of these days. Corey Seager seems to have NL ROY wrapped up this year. Nice to add one sorta-limited card of his to my collection.
The cards are printed on Heritage-style stock. Which is fine.. but since 1993 Topps was the first flagship set for the company to feature glossy backs, it's a bit of a disconnect to see the card with a dark, rough back. Overall, I'm happy with the purchase and wouldn't rule out snagging a future one of these Throwback Thursday offerings that jumps out at me.
And on the subject of print-to-order rookie infielders, I also recently picked up my second Topps Now card...
Love the brown Friday home alts. Ryan Schimpf, a 28-year-old rookie second baseman, came out of nowhere to give Padres fans an interesting story in an otherwise largely forgettable season. He was named the NL Rookie of the Month for July thanks to 9 homers and a slugging percentage of .705. This card commemorates a game-winning jack last month. He's literally got no mainstream cards at the moment besides this one Topps Now card. Not even a Bowman or Pro Debut or whatever. So right now, this is pretty much the only game in town if you want a Schimpf card. Which I did. So I bought it. (Update: And just hours after I originally published this post, he cranked a game-winning 9th inning homer with the Padres down to their last strike to stun the Giants. He got another Topps Now card out of it. Not sure if I'll go after that one. I consider the one I have to be his "true rookie card" since it came out first.)
It's card number 377 and had a print run of 378.. dang, so close to parity! I bought this off an eBay seller for a couple bucks less than the original 1-card price from Topps. Hopefully Ryan continues to develop and raise his average, sticking around with San Diego for a while, but maybe his longball luck this season is a fluke and he'll be out next year.. who knows.
That's it for this time. Thanks for reading.
The Next Generation Shortstops cards are cool! Wish they would throw inserts like that in the flagship set, or if they have to do Archives like it is, maybe put them in that set.
ReplyDeleteYeah, most of the Throwback Thursday sets would fit right in as Archives inserts.
DeleteNo Addison Russell? Although, I must admit, I don't know who he'd replace in that group. There's a lot of talent at short across the league!
ReplyDeleteThey probably should have bumped it up to 7 cards and fit in Russell.
DeleteIs that TBT card miscut or just curved? The photo of the back makes it look miscut.
ReplyDeleteNah, the card is fine, just came out weird in the photo somehow.
DeleteThose are probably my favorite #TBT cards so far. Thanks for showing them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really like your new banner... I knew it took some time to collect all those letters, but it was totally worth it.
I agree with Tom, this was my favorite TBT set as well.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really nice TBT set. I almost purchased these, but decided to save up for a different Topps Now card.
ReplyDeleteI grabbed a Bogaerts as a single
ReplyDelete