REVIEW: 2013 Topps Opening Day

 

It may be a few weeks into the season but I'm just not getting around to reviewing some cards again. Opening Day is Topps' lowest-end release geared towards getting younger collectors excited for the start of the new MLB season. I'm gonna pass over the base design since it's the same as the flagship series with only the silver foil subtracted and the MLB Opening Day logo added (plus some nice derp-face.) So let's move onto some of the inserts.

The blue-border inserts are a little different this year. Topps must have decided that the Emerald Sparkle from Series 1 was so nice they should try it in blue. I really like this decision as the blue they chose is really vibrant and pretty. Plus, it keeps us from getting them mixed up with the Walmart exclusive blue-bordered parallels. The Ballpark Fun insert features a lot of smiling and/or pie-covered faces which is best-suited for a release like this. We have a swirly team-color section at the bottom with a familiar mowed-grass pattern. Two complaints about this design: I've seen this free cursive font a lot of places so it kind of bugs me that Topps couldn't find a more refined alternative; secondly, the white grunge-feather border seems really unnecessary since the rest of the elements are decidedly clean (minus the pie face.) They've also updated the 3-D Opening Day Stars insert. Returning are the round edges and lenticular surface, but the rest of the design has been refreshed. I think it's an improvement from last year's design with more room for the photo and fewer unnecessary flourishes.

Next we have the Superstar Celebrations cards, which were included in last year's set. These are basically team-wide mobbings of players following what I presume to be walk-off hits. Design-wise, they're pretty standard with red bars across the top and bottom with some silver foil to add some sparkle. Topps decided to keep the fun elements to the photographs and play the rest pretty standard with works I suppose. Compare that to the Play Hard inserts which feature guys in the middle of some 'gritty' baseball moments such as sliding home, stealing bases or laying out to make a catch. The edges have been grunge-feathered which helps with the theme and stays away from a standard design.

I know the target for this set is a lot different than the rest of Topps releases and not all collectors even bother with it, but I usually enjoy spending $10 to take a look at something different like this. Design-wise, Opening Day seems to have a better rate of non-misses than even Topps' flagship. Everything is from decent-to-good and decidedly non-stuffy. In other words, it's fun.

Base cards: 4/5
Blue Parallels: 5/5
Ballpark Fun: 3/5

Opening Day Stars: 4/5

Superstar Celebrations: 3/5

Play Hard: 3.5/5
OVERALL: 3.75/5

No license? No problem.

This post comes thanks to a suggestion by way of Kyle from Juuust A Bit Outside. He challenged me to put together a design tackling the same restrictions as Panini and Upper Deck face regarding baseball cards. Without a license from MLBA, they're not allowed to have any depictions of MLB logos on their cards. Even with a licensing agreement with MLBPA, the players themselves can be featured without any problems, but any type of MLB franchise logo has to go. That means either some less-than-exciting airbrushing or some less-than-exciting wardrobe choices.

Rather than go to the trouble of making the unnatural seem natural, I thought the best method to work around this restriction is to use photos of the players before/during/after the actual games where they happen to not be wearing a hat or helmet bearing a team logo. The most frequent setting for such a photo is the dugout. In between at-bats or after climbing off the pitcher's mound, you'll find a lot of players letting their hair down so to speak.

So that's how the Dugout line was birthed. With these on-field or 'in-the-dugout' portraits, you still feel some attachment to the diamond and these guys a players. It's not too far off from the bat-on-shoulder portraits we see from 40-50 years ago. If anything, they're more candid.























As for the design, we've got the team color boxes to the left and below the photo. The one on the left has a wood/bat texture with the player's last name branded into it. Below is the full player name in a baseball-y script with position and team underneath. It kinda sucks you have to go with the team city instead of team name but oh well.

For one of the first times on this blog, I'm actually offering a parallel. Instead of just changing the border color, I'm removing the border altogether! It helps to put the player into the baseball environment with just a little bit more photo showing. Another feature here are the little designation tabs just above the name box. For Adam Jones above, he gets an all-star tab while Harper gets that along with his rookie tag. 

The back side is packed with information like a base card should be. The team color boxes are here again along the top and left edges. There's plenty of white space to keep things nice and readable.

Just above the stat block, we get an additional player portrait. Though small, this location helps keep them de-logo-fied. And below the stat box is plenty of room for a brief writeup about the card subject. Things are pretty clear and orderly. The front and back really match up for a cohesive design.

Though this started out as a set to get around the logo restrictions, I think it would actually be a good concept if Topps were to grab onto it and add some logos. As thrilling as it can be to see some outstanding on-field photography of players doing amazingly athletic things, a set like this that focused on catching players in those candid moments would be refreshing. The more connected a collector feels to the players depicted on these cardboard creations, the better for baseball.

REVIEW - 2012 Bowman

A full week after it hit shelves, 2012 Bowman finally made its way to the Walmart in my town, so this is the first chance I've had to take a look that the set.

Starting off with the base card design, the first thing you'll notice is the familiar black borders are gone. I'm a little torn on this one. For the last decade or so, Topps did a great job of branding Bowman with something as simple as having a consistent black border on the base design every year. Looking at these all-white borders, I'm kind of missing that Bowman feel. But on the bright side, the black borders are notorious for showing every little imperfection along the edges, so their absence here helps rectify that.

Another change of pace is the introduction of team-specific colors into the design. In years past, the only colors to go along with the black borders were a small bit of red for veterans or green for rookies. Now you'll find blue and purple and a whole host of other colors.  The team logos return in full color after showing up in gold foil last year.

There are a few things I'm not crazy about. The names being in silver foil on top of black is just as hard to read here as the the gold on black was on the flagship design. I'm also not a big fan of all the unnecessary bevels around some of the frame elements. Those are, however, small quibbles. Something that's subtle but really helps the players shine here is the light drop shadow you'll see around the guys. It more noticeable on lighter backgrounds, like the Utley one up there, but helps to add focus to subject of the card. If it were any heavier, I'd probably be bitching about it forever, but they got it about perfect here.

The back side of the base cards continue the same feel as the front, only the border here is gray instead of white. Can't figure that one out. Only having stats from the 2011 season seems like a trade-off they had to make for the veteran cards since Bowman's primary focus is prospects. The 'RESUME' 'SKILLS' and 'EVOLUTION' things are fine, though I prefer the 'UP CLOSE' section on the backs of the prospect cards, which replaces 'EVOLUTION.' One thing they kind of messed up on is having the card number in the right corner instead of the left. BASEBALL CARD LAW: horizontal backs have to be numbered in the upper left corner to help for storage box sorting.

The design for the prospect "inserts" is really, really similar to the base design. In fact, it's almost problematically similar. For the 2011 set, the prospect cards had a white border to differentiate from the black bordered-base, so it didn't really matter if the designs were similar or not. This year, though, the made the designs almost identical on top of having the same colored borders. Not sure what the thinking was there unless they're really trying to test the MLB's patience with the whole Bowman prospect worship thing. Regardless, I think it was a dumb decision.

There are parts where the designs differ, though: prospect has a symmetrically convex border compared to trapezoidally-shaped base border with the little weird notches on each side; the cutout for the position on the bottom is wider and rounder for the prospect design; the base set doesn't have those weird wing things on each side of the logo. I think if the base design didn't have those notches or if the prospect set didn't have the wings, you'd have an all-around better design for one or the other. But holy hell, they shouldn't look this similar.

I'll give them credit regarding the autographs, though. They did away with the facsimile autos on the 'base' prospect cards, which really helps the make the actual auto cards more unique.

Just like every other Topps product, this one comes with lots of parallels. Gold, blue, red, orange, green, blue, international, blue, red ice, silver ice, Dentyne ice, blue. I think the flags on the international is kinda neat. The silver and red ice versions are basically just atomic refractors. Really, they have at least twice as many parallels as they should, if not more. But in honor of the Preakness today, I'll refrain from beating that dead horse.

Finishing up here is this year's edition of the Bowman's Best insert. Again, they have the red version for veterans and blue for prospects. There are also die-cut versions, which have all kinds of crazy refractor parallels themselves. Design-wise, I like the different textures on the swoosh and the background. Along with the type and name bar, I appreciate the simplicity of the design.

Overall, I think there's some pretty good, modern design here even if it's not completely "Bowman."

Base cards: 4.25/5
Parallels: 3.5/5
Prospects: 4.25/5
Inserts: 4/5
OVERALL: 4/5