So how do we remedy the situation? There's the argument that companies create less of these cards, but telling someone interested in making a profit to create less of something rings too naive. Instead, what if companies begin Game-Date Stamping?
A year ago I was all up in arms because Topps rammed the Generation NOW insert set down the hobby's throat. But there was an interesting idea at the root of those cards: the celebration of an individual achievement. The problem was that it was replicated ad nauseam. But what if companies married the two––relic cards and Generation NOW--together?
I read yesterday that Major League Baseball is asking teams to collect all the bats that break over the course of this season. Card companies should buy up those broken bats, keep records of those games in which they broke, and then serial-stamp the date of the game onto cards containing a shaving of the broken bat.
Let me put it another way. Which would you rather have: A bat card of Jason Varitek, or a bat card of Jason Varitek stamped with the game date of the bat's final use? I think Game-Date Stamping would inject life into the state of game-used memorabilia cards.
I'm not trying to say that this is the worst set--in the grand scheme of cards this set (series? subset of regular set? its own set?) is rather important. But 'grand scheme' symbolic strength and actual, measurable set strength are two very different things. This set is ugly. And ugliness matters. So does checklist strength. Despite a checklist of 40 cards (relatively big for a late-season subset), there are only seven big names: Marichal, Santo, Felipe Alou, Lou Piniella, Mike Marshall, Reggie Cleveland and Willie Davis. Then there's Nelson Briles, Tommie Agee, Steve Stone and Lindy McDaniel (of 'Lindy Shows Larry' fame). After that you're scraping the commons barrel (actually, you're scraping the commons barrel nowadays from Mike Marshall on, but for the sake of argument, let's forget that all but two or three of these cards can be had for less than a dime). Anyway, that line-up may have looked impressive as a launching checklist for Topps in 1974, but it translates to a success rate of just 28% for the set (success rate = # of good cards / total # of cards in set). Even when we factor in the coolness factor of getting a Traded card in your pack, well, it's still not that great. I can think of only one reason why Topps expanded the neat little Traded subset from 1972 into its own series: to sell more cards at the end of the summer, a time when kids have moved on to football cards, hockey cards, sniffing glue or whatever it is little kids do at the end of summers. 
When, in the course of baseball card set ranking related events, a person comes upon the 1980 Topps set, what does that person think? Does this set resonate or does the person even care? I, for one, never realized how much I cared until I spent a little quality time with it and now I realize that this set is one of the most underrated of the decade. It lacks the splash of later-decade Topps sets as it has very few subsets, the All-Star denotation is on regular cards and rookies (for the most part) are not announced. But it makes up for this lack of pageantry with a strong checklist, including the desirable 2nd year Ozzie Smith and third years of Molitor, Trammell and Murray, plus great cards of hobby powerhouses Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Yount, Winfield and a cache of others like Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose and Bench, Fisk and Yaz. And how could we forget: this set features the rookie of, according to Bill James, the fourth greatest left fielder to ever live, Mr. Rickey ‘Refers to Himself as Rickey’ Henderson.
I think that these last two points are huge. I started collecting right in the thick of things: there were already three card companies going strong, an upstart was encroaching on valuable space (Sportflics) and it would be less than three years before there would be 5 major players vying for my baseball card dollar. If I pined for a Bo Jackson card, I was pining for as many as six Bo Jackson cards, all of them with a legitimate claim to being his rookie. But with Rickey, there was only one set, so there’s only one rookie. And for there to be only one rookie of Rickey Henderson seems fitting, as he broke every mold the game had to offer. (And by the way, when Rickey finally gives up the ghost and officially retires from showing up newbies at Spring Training, he should call up former SuperSonic Michael Cage and they should join the WWE circuit as the tag team Steal Cage, and the WWE scriptwriters could pit them against other tag teams and then at Wrestlemania Cage could turn on Rickey and Rickey would enlist Dave Henderson (who would be a plant in the audience, much like Hasselhoff was at the American Idol finale) and Hendu would come in the ring and rip off his tear-away warm up pants to reveal yellow and green wrestling tights and stomper boots, and thus Steal Cage would be dead and the Flying Hendersons born. I don’t know what would happen to Michael Cage…maybe he could get Old Man Larry Nance off the couch to tag team as Achilles Knees…You know, you could put together a formidable pro-wrestling circuit made up entirely of former legitimate sports figures. Tree Rollins and Jon Koncak would be Ebony & Ivory, Dan Majerle and Darryl Dawkins would be ‘Thunder Brothers’ and Kurt Rambis could wrestle on his own as Oculoptopussy, cause Rambis wore glasses and because I personally hate the Lakers. In fact, I might pay around $10 to watch a battle royale featuring Hot Plate Williams, The Refrigerator Perry, Stanley Roberts, Don Baylor, Gabe Kapler, the Phillie Phanatic, Kevin Duckworth, Leon Lett and Rickey Henderson. I would bet Rickey would win that one, even if he was scripted to lose. He’s just that good.)
It was a fun design element that added a personal touch to the cards, blurring the line between player and collector, like the player had held his card only moments before you got it in your pack. The fact that Topps didn’t use this feature on any design after 1982 (I can only think of the silver and gold signature cards in Upper Deck’s Collector’s Choice series and one or two of Leaf’s Studio sets in the mid-1990s that did) leads me to believe that autographed baseball cards sets are so ludicrously popular today because my generation didn’t know cards could feature facsimile autographs. Can you imagine a clunker like 1990 Topps with facsimile autographs? I would argue they’d be more desirable than the quick-fix mudroom insulation they’ve become.
looking for a weird photo or a weird name or a player that’s especially hairy or ugly? Of course you have (maybe it was the reason you started collecting in the first place, to feel better about yourself). Usually any given set will be split 50/50 between weird and normal players, but if you take a look at the Atlanta Braves team, it’s like there was something in the water down there. Pull out their cards the next time you’re going through your box of 1980 Topps and you’ll see what I mean—it’s like a lineup for a less-intimidating version of The Dirty Dozen. No wonder they finished in the basement (even though Phil Niekro won 21 games, he lost 20. Now that’s some Hall of Fame pitching!).
