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 

Great Art. Well, Mostly Great.

Virtual school is wearing me down.  I didn't think I was that tired on Friday night, but I spent all of yesterday sitting around resting.  Maybe it was the combination of virtual school and the fact that my own children required a trip to the emergency room (dislocated elbow) and we had a pet pass away (Rita The Betta Fish) this week.  

Elbow is back in place.  We now own Alexander (Hamilton) the Betta Fish.  

Anyway, I am well-rested and ready to do more school work today.  Also write about some baseball cards.  

This is my second Project 2020 post in a row.  These cards have gotten to be pretty inexpensive.  I spent a little time the other week circling back and trying to pick up a few more cards that weren't Mark McGwire or Bob Gibson.  I think I did pretty well here, until you get to the McGwire card.  

First, is a Roberto Clemente card from Sophia Chang.  

She definitely has a similar pattern on her cards with the bubble letters, quotes, and backgrounds made up of small baseball/player related items.  I like that she keeps some of the elements from the original card, like the player photo of Clemente.  

The home run quote at the bottom is a little suspect, but I like the overall appearance of the card.  Clemente was not really a home run hitter, more of a line drive/slash hitter with speed.  Great defender.  Maybe a quote about those skills would fit better.  

"I Was Born To Play Baseball" is a good, but I would have considered using the quote that the Pirates have hanging in the tunnel in between their locker room and dugout.  I like this one better..... 

That's a little thing.  I am being picky.  

Overall, really good looking card.  

This is the back of the card, which has the artist bio on Sophia Chang.  I really like her baseball cards, I would put her second behind Efdot with the artist on the Project 2020 cards.  

Speaking of Efdot, here is my second card for the post.  This is really good art work.  

The small circle in the corner and border are trademarks of all his cards.  I like that he blended in the football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and golf ball on the lower right side of the border.  Those were the other sports he played at different points.  You've also got a Kansas City Monarchs logo in his name, which is done in UCLA colors.  There is also a faint Army color pin on the right side of jersey. 

There is a lot here.  It feels like one of those Highlights magazines hidden picture pages, but you can step back and appreciate the entire picture if you don't want to find all the little hidden things inside.  Those Highlights pages are garbage if you ignore the small pictures hidden inside.  

Back of the card.  Overall, this is very well done.  

Which brings me to my last card. Mr. Cartoon's recreation of the 1987 Topps Mark McGwire rookie card.  How did we get here?  I was buying two cards, and the seller told me he'd throw in a McGwire card for next to nothing.  I said sure without even searching the card.  I appreciate the generosity, but I am here for the art this morning.  So, I will just say that I see why this was practically a give-away.    

If you don't know what the 1987 Topps McGwire rookie card looks like, this isn't it.  

I see there is an A's logo, kind of.  You've also got a picture of McGwire.  Those are the two similarities between the two cards.  

How bad is this card?

My 10 year old has a small collection of cards.  He's picky about who he puts into his box of cards.  I was recently given an Andrew Knizner card because he's a back-up catcher.   I was also given an Edwin Diaz card because everyone knows he's terrible.  Tyler Chatwood.  Nobody says anything nice about him.  

I offered him this McGwire card.  His first reaction?  "Is this a team checklist?  I don't collect those"  

Vernon Wells has better artwork, but seems fair.  

Artist bio.  Sigh.  I see.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 73 - Jose Oliva

Since it is Jackie Robinson Day, I thought I would do the last Cardinals player who wore 42 prior to Major League Baseball retiring the number across the game. The Cardinals would later retire 42 a second time for Hall of Fame reliever Bruce Sutter.  

The last player to wear 42 prior to Jackie Robinson Day in 1997 was Jose Oliva, who has no relationship to Tony Oliva.  He played for the Braves in 1994 and 1995, before he was traded to the Cardinals in August of 1995.  The Cardinals stuck him at third base for a few games the last few weeks of the season.  Oliva hit .122 with 2 home runs in almost 100 at bats during his time with the Cardinals.  

The brief stint earned Oliva a few cards in 1996.  I have three of them, I know I am missing one or two.  My favorite is his 1996 Collector's Choice.  

It's a simple card with him looking at the third base coach, or something like that.  You can see the 42 on the front of his jersey.  By the far the best picture on any of his Cardinals cards.  

Next.  

This is my least favorite card of Oliva.  Who puts a check swing on a baseball card?  Donruss.  Did I mention they went bankrupt?  It feels a little lazy to make a card of a player with this type of action shot.  I'd rather take the Collector's Choice card above where he is just looking at the coach.  

Last.  

This card has a lot of potential.  I want to like it more than the Collectors Choice.  The photo is clearly taken in Wrigley Field, but I don't love that the ivy walls in the background are blurry.  I thought the picture of Oliva might actually be airbrushed.  He did play a game with the Cardinals against the Cubs in Wrigley, but his hat looks off.  Still think this might be a Braves picture that was airbrushed.  

Oliva played in the Cardinals Minor League system during the 1996 season, and was out of professional baseball in 1997.  He was killed in a car accident in December of 1997.  

Here is the 42 on the outfield wall of Busch Stadium.  

A Lazy Morning

It was a really busy week.  No time for baseball cards.  I slept in the last two days, my wife made a good breakfast, and I spent time time with the littles this morning.  I am sitting in my office watching episodes of Tiny Desk Concerts and looking at some the new cards that showed up in my mail recently.  

If only there were more time for baseball cards.  

There is always time for cards on a lazy morning.  

First up, I picked up another Anthony Banda card about two weeks back.  Weird thing is that I got it off of Ebay, half asleep, I did not realize that I bought it from my local card shop.  Probably could have saved myself a little shipping and them an EBay fee.  Not my finest moment.  

Banda has been my Durham Bulls player of choice this season.  He was not on the team long before the Rays called him up to the Majors, but tore up his elbow and ended up missing the rest of the season.  Last season, Anthony Banda pitched for the Diamondbacks and was traded to the Rays for Steven Souza.  A huge chunk of his Topps cards have still had him a Diamondbacks uni.  Better than some bad airbrushing.  

The coloring of the card feels really off.....

It's in the colorized movie neighborhood.  

I also added a few more Kellogg's cards from 1983 to help out with my set.  I will have more of these later in the week......

These were three that I needed for my set.  Love the Greg Minton card with the orange Giants jersey and cool mustache.  Moves me a little closer to finishing off my set.  No time for checklists this morning, but I am in good shape with finishing this off soon.  

I also got a big envelope of random cards.  A thank you for helping out another collector with some cards for a set.  It's hard to post all the cards from a big random envelope, but two stood out to me.  With the 1983 Kellogg's set being close to completion, both are candidates to be projects over the last two months of the year.  

There were actually four of these in the package, but I have enjoyed the 1983 Kellogg's set, so the 1982 version would probably be fun too.  I am actually a lot further along, starting point wise, then I would have imagined before I went to look.  The time spent looking is also part of the reason you're only getting two cards out of a big envelope.   Roughly 50% is already here.  

I don't love this scan, but these cards are hard.  

The last few Denny's sets were actually pretty nice.  This is from the 1997 set, which has a SportsFlix kind of design.  Not a very big set, not hard to find the cards, and most are inexpensive.  Again, this is a set that own a good chunk of already, might be fun to finish off.