Set Appreciation Post #17 - Topps Lineage

Topps Lineage is really an off-brand version of Topps Archives.

Yes, there are positives here, but I think there are limitations because of its format.  

Same general idea as far as the checklist goes, but rather than recycling a bunch of their former card designs, Topps used the same border for all the cards. Looks like something that was likely a rejected design for one of their base sets at some point.  

Here is the basic design.  

I like the photograph of Koufax, but there is just nothing really special or interesting about the design of this card. It's just not very good.  

Back of the card.  

No stats on the back. I actually like this idea for this type of set, especially given the way that Topps wrote these snippets. If you had to summarize the career of Sandy Koufax in two sentences, it would be difficult to do a better job than what is on the back of this card. The modern players are just as well done. 

The card backs are a positive for this set.  

Similar to the Koufax card, there are plenty of other older players throughout the set. 

Whoever made the set actually did a good job of picking out former players. Nice mix from all different areas. The older players, such as Tris Speaker, are generally colorized, but the card photos still look decent. The photography on the older players is another positive in Topps Lineage.  

I like that Lenny Harris makes an appearance on the Ryne Sandberg card. He's a first ballot guy if someone ever makes a Hall of Fame for utility and bench players. Also shout out to Topps for not using the cringeworthy Milwaukee Braves logo from the 1950s and 1960s, even if they used the cringeworthy Cleveland Indians logo on the modern players.  

Any set that has a subset of cards with Topps All-Star Rookie Trophies can't be all that bad, right?  

Favorite Cardinals card.  

Bob Gibson.  

Favorite former Durham Bulls card.  

Evan Longoria.  

Best non-Cardinal/non-Durham Bulls card.  

An aquward looking, 21 year-old Freddie Freeman.  

How many Braves players have baseball cards with this same pose at the Braves Spring Training Stadium?  

It's a lot.  

Topps Lineage is still not all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.  

There is still the ever-present horrible airbrushing. I picked out two different examples. The Adrian Beltre card is just incredibly bad. The Damon card is not quite as bad, but they airbrushed him out of a Tigers uniform, but left Jim Leyland in the background.  

If Jim Leyland were smoking in the background, I would forgive the bad airbrushing.  

Topps used the parallels from their flagship sets on the Lineage cards. A bunch of sparkles and colors that do not look very good with this card design.  

Sparkly Lou Gehrig?  

No.  

However, I do like the cloth cards based on the old Cloth Stickers. Topps had some cloth/silk parallels around in different products around this time. Good looking cards that they should consider bringing back.  

I have thought about finding all of the Cardinals and former Durham Bulls cloth sticker cards from this set, but that is somewhere way down on the list of things to do. 

Let's talk about another positive.  

The inserts are great, but similar to the Archives sets, the designs are all borrowed from older Topps products.  

There are the 2011 Rookies insert that is a copy of the 1980s Rack Pack All-Star cards.  

Hank Conger with a Hooters ad over his shoulder.  

There are 1975 Topps Minis. Miniature in real life, but not here because of the scan.  

There are also relic cards with the 1975 Topps Mini design. I am sure that there are a few floating around in one of my boxes of relics, but I am not going to go surfing for one at the moment.  

We also have the 1964 Topps Stand-Ups.  

Love the green and yellow backgrounds on these cards.  

There are also autographs. There were some decent current player autographs in this set. Early autographs of Stanton, Posey, and Freeman. I bought a box of Lineage while I was on vacation in St. Louis back in the day and ended up with a Charlie Morton autograph.  

Charlie is pretty old now, but he's had some good seasons along the way.  Solid autograph. 

The autographs of the older players are really nice. I have a few of the players who appeared for the Cardinals. I will go with Duke point guard, Dick Groat for this post.  

The 1952 Topps design has been completely overused at this point, but what are you going to do?  

HOW DOES IT COMPARE?

 Lineage is essentially a Topps Archives set. I like that they do not recycle former flagship set designs on the base cards. I think that is the biggest positive here, along with some of the autographs. There is nothing here that really stands out to me, so I am going to go with the bottom half of my rankings.

In my opinion, it is not as good as the first four sets in the bottom half of my Set Appreciation posts. So, that's below the Heritage Minors, Emotion XL, Donruss, and Bowman. I thought long and hard about how this set compares to the Ionix and Bowman Platinum set. I was tempted to put it behind both of those sets, but I think the autographs are the saving grace here. 

Yes, copying the design of the 1952 Topps set is slightly annoying, but they are good looking cards. I am ranking the Topps Lineage set 11th.  

16. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

15. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

14. 2000 Topps 

13. Bowman Platinum 

12. 2000 UD Ionix

11. Topps Lineage   

10. 2002 Bowman 

9. 1988 Donruss 

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

A Giant Project

My first project for 2021 is going to be assembling a complete set of 1964 Topps Giants cards.  I do not own a complete set from the 1960s, so this is something different for me.  It's a small checklist and the usual really expensive players in the set are not really all that expensive.  

I posted one card from the set last week.  

I have four more that have shown up in the mail during the first part of this week with several more on the way.  Here are the first four new cards.   

First up is a pair of Milwaukee Braves.  I bought these two cards together.  I viewed it as a good sign that I was able to find a Hall of Fame pitcher and great player from the era for $7.  Here is the Joe Torre.....

I wish I knew the 1960s stadiums a little better. Torre is wearing a road uniform, but I cannot figure out the stadium in the background.  I had thought that the square object behind him might be a blurred out Anheuser-Busch sign that was in left field at Sportsman Park in St. Louis, but I think the scoreboard was under the sign.  Not quite right.  

Back of the card.  

Next.  

The centering top to bottom is a little off here, but no complaints.  This was from the end of Spahn's career, definitely looking older here.  Love the hat brim. 

Next up is a St. Louis native.  

I have picked up a few Elston Howard cards over the years.  St. Louis produced a lot of baseball players during the 1950s and 1960s, kind of a fun to pick up their cards from time to time.  Elston Howard is not a Hall of Famer, but definitely a great from his era. 

Nice write-up on Elston Howard's 1963 American League MVP season on the back of the card.  

Last card for this post.  

I think Freehan was in the 1963 Topps set, but it had three other players on the card.  So, 1964 was the first year he had a stand alone card.  His regular Topps card is a really goofy posed shot where he is half squatting down, but half-heartedly.   This is a much better card.  

and the back.  

I know that it is not going to be too difficult to find the majority of the cards, but I am going to put this project at roughly 6 months.  There are short-printed cards in the set and there is also a budget here.  The wife is not going to be happy if I drop a couple hundred dollars on some high grade copy of the Mickey Mantle card.  Here is the checklist.  Cards I own are highlighted in red.  

1 Gary Peters
2 Ken Johnson
3 Sandy Koufax SP
4 Bob Bailey
5 Milt Pappas
6 Ron Hunt
7 Whitey Ford
8 Roy McMillan
9 Rocky Colavito
10 Jim Bunning
11 Roberto Clemente
12 Al Kaline
13 Nellie Fox
14 Tony Gonzalez
15 Jim Gentile
16 Dean Chance
17 Dick Ellsworth
18 Jim Fregosi
19 Dick Groat
20 Chuck Hinton
21 Elston Howard
22 Dick Farrell
23 Albie Pearson
24 Frank Howard
25 Mickey Mantle
26 Joe Torre
27 Ed Brinkman
28 Bob Friend SP
29 Frank Robinson
30 Bill Freehan
31 Warren Spahn
32 Camilo Pascual
33 Pete Ward
34 Jim Maloney
35 Dave Wickersham
36 Johnny Callison
37 Juan Marichal
38 Harmon Killebrew
39 Luis Aparicio
40 Dick Radatz
41 Bob Gibson
42 Dick Stuart SP
43 Tommy Davis
44 Tony Oliva
45 Wayne Causey SP
46 Max Alvis
47 Galen Cisco SP
48 Carl Yastrzemski
49 Hank Aaron
50 Brooks Robinson
51 Willie Mays SP
52 Billy Williams
53 Juan Pizarro
54 Leon Wagner
55 Orlando Cepeda
56 Vada Pinson
57 Ken Boyer
58 Ron Santo
59 Johnny Romano
60 Bill Skowron SP

60s Cardinals In 1964

This is going to be a pretty quick post.  I am excited to be here for my third post of the month!  I hope this isn't my last post of 2020, but it seems like a real possibility.  My quest to find older Durham Bulls cards skewed off course a few weeks back when I found a few really nice Cardinals cards for sale on Facebook.  All the cards are from 1964 Topps sets, some of the players are pictured as Cardinals, some are not.  

Let's start out with the 1960s Cardinals players who are pictured on other teams.  Both of these cards come from the 1964 Topps Pop-Ups. 

 

 

First up is long time Reds outfielder Vada Pinson.  He only played on the Cardinals in 1969 after being traded to the team for Bobby Tolan.  Pinson filled the hole in right field for the Cardinals after Roger Maris retired from baseball at the end of the 1968 season.  He was older at this point and had began to decline, so he was not the extra base machine he was for the Reds throughout the late 1950s and 1960s.  Pinson finished in the top 10 in doubles and triples eight times during his first 10 years, while hitting more than 20 home runs 6 times.  

Not a Hall of Famer, but a really good player from his era. 

 

Speaking of Hall of Famers, I also picked up a Topps Stand-Up of Orlando Cepeda.  He was a really good player while he was on the Cardinals, winning the National League MVP during the 1967 season.  That was after spending a decade being paired with Willie Mays in the middle of the Giants line-up.  I really like the picture on this card.  It took me a few minutes to figure out what was happening here, but I believe he is throwing ground balls warming up the other infielders before an inning, or taking infield practice before a game.  Not something you see very often on a baseball card.  

One more Topps Stand-Up. 

 

Former Duke basketball player Dick Groat.  

This is one of the worst airbrushed card of all-time.  The STL on the hat is something.   Clearly an old Pirates picture that was taken while he was wearing one of the sleeveless vest style uniforms like this......

Love that they got the gold stripes on the socks red and blue, the sleeves on his shirt red, but then left the gold and black piping around the arm holes and neck line of the vest.  Regardless, good player for the Cardinals and an important member of the 1964 World Series winning team.  

Last card, the best one in this post.  I don't need many words for this card.  

 

 

This is a 1964 Topps Giants Bob Gibson.  Great looking card of the Hall of Fame pitcher.  Love that light shade of gray the 1960s Cardinals had on their road uniforms.  

We Don't See Each Other Much Anymore

It is really hard to find a direction with blogging when you do not do it on a regular basis.  I used to have regular posts with themes and everything.  There were Monday posts about 1980s Cardinals players.  I still get to those sometimes.  Those ones with the early 1990s Skybox basketball cards that were made by a tobacco company in Durham.  More recently, I had posts rating baseball card sets, and a bunch of Durham Bulls projects.  

I do not write enough to make those posts anymore.  

My desk is covered, to the annoyance of my wife, with a large stack of baseball cards that I do not have the time or energy to write about at the moment.  I know that I have taken a break from my blog before, but I am not going to do that at the moment.  I still enjoy coming here, but I am going to give up on having the sort of order or established schedule that I have had in the past.  

The pandemic has stressed people in many different ways.  For me, I have gone from being a teacher who relied heavily on low social interaction and building rapport with my students.  There was some screen time, but it was limited.  Now, I am sitting in front of a computer from 9:45 until 4:00 everyday.  That does not include prep time or grading.  After sitting in front of a screen for 8 hours hours at work, I find it hard to get back in front of computer when I get home.  

I know I have touched on this topic several times over the past few months.  Some of you are probably tired of reading about it.  From this point forward, until I feel better about my quantity of screen time, I am just posting cards that catch my eye.  They are going to be random.  

Today, I am posting three new cards and two cards in my collection that I am thinking about selling for a small fortune.  There is also a plug for a podcast.  

First up is a Bob Gibson card that was recently released as part of Topps Living Set, or the set that never ever ends.  This is a great card.  

Might be one of my favorite cards that I have added to my collection this year.  I have a bunch of new Gibson cards this year with him being one of the twenty players in the Project 2020 set.  This is better than every single one of those cards.  I still love them, just not as much as this card.  

Anyone watching the World Series?  

This card has a connection.  Not really a good one for me as a Cardinals fan.  I am not sure how I feel about it's recent arrival after watching the first two rounds of the playoffs and the first four games of the World Series.  This is one of those coin cards from Topps Heritage Minors.  

Love that the nickel is upside down.  

Liberatore is a Top 50 prospect with every publication that puts out a set of rankings.  The Cardinals picked him up from the Rays last year in exchange for two outfielders.  One was Jose Martinez.  Yes, he can hit, but he does not really have a defensive position.  Strictly a DH.  

Here is the back of the card.  

Always like that you can see the back of the coin on these cards.  So, I was telling a story about the Cardinals trading for Matthew Libertore.  I think he's going to be a solid pitcher at a minimum.  Maybe possibly a front line starter.  Pitching is never really the problem for the Cardinals though.  They can't hit.  So, the other player they gave up for Liberatore was Randy Arozarena.  

The Cardinals likely would have found a way to screw up his swing, or they would give him the same role as Lane Thomas and let him pinch hit once a week.  I have never posted any Randy Arozarena cards on here, but there are several floating around in my collection.  He was a really inexpensive Cardinals autograph about two months ago.  

Not anymore.  Here are two that I scanned the other week.  

Love the top Stadium Club card with him sliding into second base in Wrigley Field.  That's a quality baseball card.  These are selling for a small fortune on Ebay at the moment.  Thinking of maybe putting one of these up.  

Last card.  

I have written about Gene Tenace several times on my blog.  

My one sentence summation: 

As a child Gene Tenace was the backup catcher on the Cardinals, so I naturally thought he was a complete bum until I got older and learned more about him.  

This is from the Upper Deck Timeless Teams set that was released in 2005.  Solid product with a lot of good on-card autographs.  This is my second Tenace autograph out of the set.  The other one is a different card from the 1973 A's team.  

Back of the card.  

I was looking at some Tenace cards last month after listening to the Beyond Batting Average Podcast, which had an episode about underrated baseball players from the 1970s.  Some good names on there, even if they left Rusty Staub off the list.  Tenace is one of those players who has really been helped out by some of the advanced statistics.  I am not going to rehash the argument, but there is one to be made for someone who has a .241 career batting average. Both hosts, Mark and Andy, who have a really cool baseball card related accounts if you are on the Twitter.    

There Are Enough Baseball Cards For Everyone

 Have you tried to find baseball cards recently? 

There are not any for sale in retail stores these days.  I am certain they have all been bought in bulk and are all currently being resold on Facebook and Twitter for twice the price.  I am not going to provide an examples, or call out anyone's social media posts.  They are plentiful if you want to find them.  

All this craziness over a White Sox prospect/rookie who has been in baseball card products the last two years.  As a baseball card collector who does not do "prospecting", but watches a lot of Minor League baseball, you should buy cards of prospects who the Cardinals are too cheap to sign.  Like Luis Robert.  

Sure bet they are at least a solid Major League player.  

Here's another Luis Robert gem from my collection.  

    

My teaching assignment for the coming school year has changed a few times over the past few weeks, a little stressful, and slightly time consuming.  I have picked up a few new cards over the past two weeks, but have not had the opportunity to sit down and write anything about them.  While people can buy out all the packs of 2020 Topps cards at Target, there are still plenty of baseball cards out there in other places.  There are enough baseball cards for everyone.

My first pair of cards are from the 2020 Topps Heritage set, both autographs that I found on the cheap.  

First up is A's pitcher A.J. Puk.  I saw him play for US College National team while he was in college at Florida.  I saw him pitch a combined no-hitter, so I am collecting his card regardless of how well he pitches in the Majors.  For what it is worth, he off to a good start during the first few weeks of the 2020 season.  The A's are using him as a reliever, but he's done well in that role.  I am probably biased to some degree, but he is going to be a really good pitcher.  Hopefully he gets back into the rotation.  

Next.  

Everyone's favorite Cardinals shortstop who strikes out way too often.  I am not a huge Dejong collector, but if the cards are there, cheap, and I can use combined shipping then sure, I will buy them.  I do not own many DeJong autographs.  Maybe only two or three, which is a low number for a modern Cardinals player with a high number of certified autographs.  I think this might be the nicest one in my collection.  Love the 1971 Topps design.  

I saved the best cards for last in this post.  I was really excited to add these cards to my collection.  I have been working on the 1970 Kellogg's passive-aggressively for the past three or four years.  They are more expensive than the other Kellogg's sets, but they are a personal favorite.  So, I picked up three cards.  Two of these are new, and another is an upgrade over another copy I own.  

This Gibson card is my upgrade. 

This is a pretty clean copy.  The bottom border is a little discolored, the scan did not pick it up, but that is much better than having a giant crack in the middle of the card.  

The last two Kellogg's cards are former Durham Bulls.  

Again, this is a passive aggressive attempt to collect the 1970 Kellogg's set.  If I end up with the whole set at some point, these cards will fit into the set.  If I never quite get there, then they are nice additions to my collection of former Durham Bulls cards.  Morgan played for the Bulls in 1963.  This card has a really clean surface, but again the border has some discoloration.  You can see it a little better on the right side of the card.  It's hard for a white border to stay white for 50 years.  

Last card. Lolich was on the Bulls in 1959 and 1960.  Really unrated pitcher from the 1960s and 1970s.  Much more deserving Hall of Fame candidate then Jack Morris, right down to the Game 7 pitching heroics in a World Series.  Of the three Kellogg's cards that I have posted here, this is by far the cleanest of the group. 

Where Have You Gone Sam Perkins? Our Lonely Nation Turns Its Eyes To You.

I have been posting some old Skybox NBA basketball cards here for the past month.  Something a little different just to mix it up.  I did not post any cards last week, and I am not going to post any this week either.  Why?  It's a long story, and at the end I am posting a baseball card.  

I have two children.  My son just turned 10 on Wednesday, my daughter is 3, turning 4 later in the summer.  They are completely different kids with completely different personalities.  When my son was younger, he generally left my cards alone and did not touch them.  As he has gotten older and taken an interest in them, he has no problem going in my card closet and taking out a box to look through. He puts the cards back in the box and the box back in the closet.  No problems.  

The youngest is a different story.  

Since the moment she was mobile, cards have been fair game.  

We have lost a few along the way, the best card being a Jose Cruz Sr. autograph that was bent in half and scribbled on.  I have been saved numerous times by top loaders, one touches, and boxes that she was unable to get open.  She still has her moments.  Most recently, she used a stack of my boxes to build some sort of tower.  I picked up most of the boxes, but I have two that are missing.   

Where are they?  She forgot, but she did put them away.   Somewhere.   

One of the missing boxes is my Skybox basketball card set.  I was really looking forward to this week's post too.  It was a lot of Dallas Mavericks cards, including Sam Perkins.  He jumped an inch off the ground to shoot the ball.  Not quite an old school set shot, but really close.  

So, one day in the near future I will stumble across my box of basketball cards and post some more of that Skybox set.  I am sure they are still in my house, just a matter of where.  At least, that's what I am hoping.  Maybe next week.  

In the meantime, since I cannot give you a Sam Perkins card, I will have to post a new baseball card.  I actually just got a new Project 2020 card.  They are suddenly cheap.  

Never saw that coming.  Eye roll.  

I have been sticking with the Gibson cards.  This is my latest one....

The artist for this card is Ermsy.  He always has the little clouds/bubbles on his artwork.  I liked the play on the Birds on the Bat with the "Robert" going in place of the word "Cardinals".  He still kept the pink frame around the card, the old Cardinals logo in the bottom, and the picture of Gibson in the middle.  

Considering they are selling for less than what Topps sold them for originally, why not.  

The artist bio is on the back.  Yes, Ermsy does work with popular cartoons.  No, you should not look at his art on your work computer, or in front of your kids.  

Let's go find that box of basketball cards.  

Baseball Cover Songs Part 4

I picked up a few baseball card "covers" last week.  Both were direct sale cards from Topps, with one card coming from the Throwback Thursday set, and the other from the Project 2020 set.  Both are good looking cards.  I think I actually like the Throwback Thursday card a little more, so I am going to start there.  

The Throwback Thursday card is an on-going set that borrows the card designs from previous Topps products.  The designs for Throwback Thursday come from old baseball cards, football cards, hockey cards, and other pop culture sets that Topps has made over the years.  The design on this Gibson card comes the 1959 Topps Football set.  No, I do not have a 1959 Topps Football card.  

I love the bright background and alternating colored letters on his name.  It's a really simple design, but comes together well.  I think this might be my favorite Throwback Thursday card that I have picked up during the last few months.  I wish the logo in the corner matched the era of the card and player, but I can live with the STL logo being there.  Great looking card.  

Back of the card.  

I kind of wish that Topps did something more with the backs of these cards outside of just putting a "Topps TBT" stamp on the back.  Since I do not own a 1959 Topps Football card, I went on COMC to find one.  It's a nice looking card back.  

I love the front of the card, and I do not regret buying this for a second, but maybe they should try duplicating the back design too. I am sure a creative person at Topps could do something catchy with transitioning this over to a baseball card, and still squeeze in the 'TBT Thursday" stamp on there too.  

Next.  

I liked this design, which is why I decided to purchase this Project 2020 card.  It's a 1987 Topps Mark McGwire rookie card made out of a bunch of triangles.  How much did I pay for this card? A crisp $20 bill, but you know that someone spent a ridiculous amount of money on this card at some point during the last month.  I think finding the high auction sale on Ebay might be a feature of all my future Project 2020 cards.  

I guarantee this person returned this item.  

I like the parts of the picture that are made out of triangles.  There are a lot of really obvious triangles in the picture, but there are also some really subtle ones too.  The writing, numbers, and A's logo made out of triangles kind of bothered me at first, but they are better than I expected after seeing the card in person.  

The artist of this card is Naturel.  Biography is at the bottom of the card.  You can find his artwork online, and this card is very true to his style.  Overall, I am happy to own this McGwire Project 2020 card.  This is my third one overall, but my first non-Bob Gibson.