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.  

Baseball Card Cover Songs Part 3

Topps has always dabbled in pop culture and non-sport cards.  Some of their more recent customer direct products have borrowed designs from these sets.  Obviously, I was a baseball only collector the majority of my life.  No chance that I bought any packs of this product......

The 1985 Cyndi Lauper set. 

I am not even really a fan of her music outside of that song from the movie Goonies.  That was a decent track. 

The design of the cards are everything you'd imagine them to be.  I didn't have one in my collection, so I had to borrow a picture from COMC.  

Would I buy a card because it borrowed the design from a Cyndi Lauper set?  

No.  

Would I buy a card of a player I really liked even if it borrowed the design from a Cyndi Lauper set?  

Yes.  

Like all Throwback Thursday cards, this was sold with a small set of cards on the Topps website.  I did not really care about most of the players on the checklist, so I just picked up a single card of Rays infielder Brandon Lowe.  He was one of the better Durham Bulls players over the last five years.  

This is the card.  

Very true to the design of the original card.  

The back of the card.  

Lowe actually has a second Throwback Thursday card that borrows from the 1984-1985 NHL Hockey card set.  I picked up this card too.  I do not have many hockey cards, and certainly not any from the 1984-1985 set.  A friend helped with a scan of a Bernie Federko card.  

Nice looking design.  

Here is the Lowe card that borrows this design.  

Good looking card.  

Between the two new Brandon Lowe cards, I like the NHL borrowed design much better.  Feels and looks like a 1980s baseball card.  I like the small portrait photo in the corner with the larger action photo above.  Feels like it fits in well with the 1983 and 1984 Topps designs.  

The back was not quite what I expected it to be.....

I sat and looked at this for a few minutes.  I think that I am just used to the landscape set up on the back of the Topps baseball cards, and that is what I was expecting here.  I guess there are a few less stats on the back of a hockey card.  

Here is the original card back.  

I like how they switched out the hockey stick for a baseball bat.  Would have been a cool touch to include the biographical information on the remake card, but that's a small thing.  

Baseball Card Cover Songs Part 2

Reading Time: 3 minutes.

You get 3 minutes and 21 seconds of Radiohead covering a Carly Simon song from a James Bond movie to listen to while you are reading.

I guess you could also just read the post.

I have enjoyed the Topps Project 2020 cards that they have been putting out.  People seem crazy about them.  I have posted one so far, but have others sitting on my desk.  I also have a few that will be here shortly.  They will all get posts in good time.

In the meantime, I have found some other cool Topps cards that were consumer direct products from recent years.  I am going to spread them out over a few posts, but I really like the Throwback Thursday cards.  They use designs from previous Topps products, but they are not necessarily baseball.

My two cards for this post are actually a baseball card design from the 1999 Topps set that were released last year.  Specifically, the Mark McGwire Home Run card.  I have written about the card several times on here over the years.  You know the card with all of the home run variations from 1998.

The orginal.

The two cards were included in a set that originally featured Sammy Sosa, Aaron Judge, and Pete Alonso.  I just went for the two Cardinals cards though.  

The first cover, or redo, is a Mark McGwire card.  

A few minor differences here with the change up in the picture of McGwire, and the different and darker color scheme being used for the card.  I didn't mind the darker color scheme on the front of the card.  I actually thought the contrast between McGwire wearing a home white Cardinals uniform, and the darker background colors worked well.  

However, when you flip the card over, it does not work as well for the back.  

Topps used a thicker card stock for these than the original 1999 Topps.  It's got the old school 1980s Topps texture to it, but the darker color on the back does not look great in my opinion.  It's my lone criticism of these cards.

The second card is Albert Pujols.

I really like the looks of this card.  It has good curb appeal.  I have no idea why Topps picked his 47th home run from the 2009 season to feature on a baseball card.  It was not a career high, which was 49 in 2006, and it was not even the most important 47th home run of his career.  

I think most Cardinal fans credit this 47th home run as saving the 2006 Cardinals season.  They went on to win the World Series that year.  Albert's 47th home run of the 2009 season came in the middle of September off of Chris Narveson of the Brewers.  

Not seeing the importance, but again I love the design of the card.  

Overall, these are nice additions to the old Cardinals collection.  I still wish they would have done a little bit better at picking an important number for the Pujols card, but I am honestly just happy to add a nice Cardinals card of him.

I will post another Throwback card, or Project 2020 card next week.