The Retail Card Aisles of Northern Michigan - Part 2

On the previous post, I shared a few of the cards that I picked up while visiting my in-laws in northern Michigan. The card aisles of the two large box stores in town, Meijer and Wal-Mart, both had more packs of cards than I have seen living outside of Raleigh during the past year and a half to two years.  

A quick refresher. 

 

The Meijer card aisle is on the left, Wally World on the right.  

For this post, I am just breaking the cards into brand rather than by location purchased.

First up is another pack of the Panini Chronicles cards. Again, I am still confused as to whether or not these cards all come from a single set or they are different sets packaged together. I don't care enough about Panini to research the answer and I fear it's a rip off of the 1998 Donruss Collections product.  

If you don't know that one, the card manufacturer Pinnacle re-released all of their Donruss and Leaf products at the end of that year, but they put some foil finish on the cards. In my opinion......

I have three highlights from this pack of cards. 

On the left is Akil Baddoo. I saw him with the Tigers this summer and enjoyed his style of play. I am looking forward to picking up some more of his cards this year. More Akil later in the post. 

In the middle is Clayton Kershaw. This is the same style card as AJ Puk and Gregory Polanco cards from the previous post. Again, the card has a nice finish on the surface and the thick card stock is always a plus. The Pete Alonso is another acetate card, but it's different from the three in the previous post. Are the acetate cards supposed to have variations like the Topps Tek cards?  I love acetate baseball cards, but the line pattern on this one is boring.  

Next up is a few cards from Topps Archives. I have really become torn on this product in recent years. Topps has gone completely overboard with reusing former designs in current products. At some point they are going to completely ruin the Topps Heritage product. However, for the moment I still really enjoy the autographs and a few of the inserts in this product. Topps does come up with some nice cards here.  

Topps did a really good job of picking out photos for the 1970s players. Not a Nolan Ryan fan, but good job putting him in an Angels uniform. Dick Allen and Mike Schmidt have great 1970s hair. The uniforms in the picture are an added bonus. The red version of the White Sox uniforms is underrated. I felt like the 1970s players had the best looking cards in this year's set.  

Next up is a pair of Movie Poster inserts. These are really neat.  

Most of the cards are team themed, like the A's card on the left. However, I do really like the Black Aces poster card.  The black and white photo with the red background really pops. The term "Black Aces" was coined by long-time Indians and Twins pitcher, Mudcat Grant. There are players who fit Grant's description left off of the card. One of those players was Grant himself.  Give credit where credit is due.  This would be a better card if Grant had been included.

Just my two cents.  

I did not land many Cardinals cards in my packs of Archives. My only two options were Lou Brock and Paul DeJong. I am sorry, but Paul DeJong is a no at the moment.  

Lou is an easy choice.  

My favorite Durham Bulls card....

I am going with this Evan Longoria insert, but let's talk about this card for a minute. This is card is the direction that Topps should take the Archives set.  This is a modernized version of a 1989 Topps Big card. They were a kid-friendly oddball set released that ran for several years. 

This is the original design.  

Topps always uses past oddball designs for insert sets in Archives. They should just make them the base set design for the entire product. Small change, but it would help to preserve the former flagship brand designs for future Topps Heritage sets. Again, just my opinion.  

Onto the last group of cards. These are out of the Update Series. I got two of these box toppers.  

I like the Satchel Paige card.  Big Papi.  Meh.  

I also ended up with two more Akil Baddoo rookie cards. Did I mention I hate when Topps overuses former designs?  I am going to ignore that for the 1986 Topps card on the left. That is a good looking baseball card.  

I also picked up a pair of Luis Patino rookie cards. He has been my go-to Durham Bulls player of sorts during the past year. However, the card on the right is a little ridiculous.  

Topps made Rookie Debut cards for a handful of players in the 2021 Update set. Read the small print there and you can see that Luis Patino actually made his Major League Debut in August of 2020. He was traded to the Rays in December of 2020, started the year in the Minors, and was called up by the Rays. I get the card on the left since Patino was both traded and called up to the Majors in the past year. I do not understand why he is getting a Debut card from a previous season.  

Favorite Cardinals cards.  

Ignore the previous comments about Topps reusing old designs here too.  The Molina has a Chrome finish, Arenado and Carlson are the regular card stock. I love the 1992 Topps cards. 

Favorite former Durham Bulls players in this set....

I am going with Blake Snell and Jake Cronenworth.  Easy choice.  

That's it for the card aisle. 

My Top 50 Players on Cardboard-#42 Mike Schmidt

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard
#42
Mike Schmidt


1973 Topps Mike Schmidt

Hobby Impact-
Schmidt has always been a pretty popular player collect across the hobby.  One of the most feared hitters of the 70s and 80s and a class act.  Schmidt earned a good following, not only with Phillies fans, but across the hobby with fans across baseball.  As a Cardinals fan, I remember Schmidt being one of the first autographs I added to my collection in the late 90s when I started to really get into finding certified autographs.

I am not a huge fan of Schmidt's rookie card.  Ron Cey is okay.  John Hilton?  Hmmm.  As cool as the 70s and 80s prospect cards were to collectors something about them always bothered me about these cards when they would include a really scrubby player.  It's not like these cards were like the Bowman cards of today and Topps was projecting players out from Rookie League and A Ball.  Topps has done several reprints of this card in Topps Archives sets and they always cut off Cey and Hilton.

The coolest thing about Schmidt in my opinion is his autograph.  Schmidt is one of those guys who takes a lot of pride in what he signs and how he signs it.  Take five minutes on Ebay to scroll through some Mike Schmidt autographs and you will be hard pressed to find one that is the least bit shaky.  In fact, Schmidt spent a little bit of time last year blasting modern players for their poor and hard to read signatures.  Here's a look at one of his autographs.


2002 Topps Team Legends Mike Schmidt Autograph

On The Field Impact-
As stated earlier, Schmidt was the most feared power hitter of the seventies and eighties.  The Phillies third baseman won a total of 8 home run crowns during his eighteen year career.  His totals for his home run titles were as low as 31 in the strike shorted 1981 season and as high as 48 in 1980 on the way to helping the Phillies win their first World Series.  While it seems commonplace for power hitters to slug thirty home runs out in a season nowadays, Schmidt hit his thirty home runs when the number was still an impressive plateau.

In fact, when Schmidt hit his 500th home run the feat had only been accomplished a dozen times.  The size of the 500 home run club doubled after Schmidt's retirement.  Besides the home runs, Schmitty also picked up ten Gold Glove awards and also managed to snag three MVP awards.  The JAWS rating system has him rated as the best third baseman of all-time.  Here's a look at Schmidt's sweet home run swing on the final dinger of his career.

Favorite Card-

1977 Topps Mike Schmidt

This is my well loved 1977 Topps Mike Schmidt card.  It's always been my favorite Mike Schmidt card.  I remember seeing Schmidt play when I was a kid, but he was an old guy by that point.  The prime of Schmidt's career really happened when I was probably a little bit too young to remember much about him.  Despite being a little too young, I think this card gives a good picture of Schmidt in his prime.  The shaggy air, cool 70s mustache.  I dig the powder blue Phillies uniform with the cool bi-centenntianal patch and zipper.  I think the Phillies were the only team to wear uniforms with zippers.  Maybe.  The batting gloves are also clearly from yesteryear and the bat is an older style Rawlings Power Stick with the color ring much lower.  I am pretty sure this card was taken in Shea Stadium, powder blues were road jerseys, and the background shows a triple deck on the stadium.  Really cool card in my opinion.