June 24, 2008

Some Things I'd Like To See Happen

Besides 0/0 cards of rejected card art, here are a few things I'd like to see happen:

• Swatch Shirts How many more years of game-used shirts and pants cards do we need before there are more of them than regular cards? I'm guessing we're two or three years away, so in three or four years I'd like to see an artistic-minded individual crack open a whole lot of swatch cards and sew together a shirt, or a handkerchief, or a pair of socks. The artist will need at least 2,000-3000 swatch cards to make this work (and that's a conservative estimate). Think of how cool that would look. What kind of value do you think something like that would hold?

• Ozzie Smith Home Run History insert set The Hall of Famer smacked just 28 career home runs, so that would be a fairly manageable insert set, plus it would be a little tongue-in-cheek reference to the gargantuan, soul-crushing Bonds, Rodriguez, and Mantle HRH sets it followed.

• O-Pee-Chee Heritage Baseball Who do I need to talk to for this to happen? I know I'm on record as saying that this year's Topps Heritage should be the last one for the brand, and I stand by that. But OPC Heritage? That's entirely different. I guess Upper Deck owns the OPC rights now, so it's to them I say: we need OPC Heritage '71.

• A National Sports Card Show in New York City Especially this year, with the All-Star Game in Yankee Stadium, the National definitely should have been in New York City. The city's got the space (Javits Center), it's a transportation hub, it's Topps' hometown, and it will be the center of the baseball universe this season. It's an obvious choice.

• The Return of Topps Posters Fold 'em up, shove 'em in packs at random. The original 1967 insert had 32 subjects, a number that could be met easily. Here's my checklist on who to include:

1. Vladimir Guerrero, Angels
2. David Ortiz, Red Sox
3. Brian Roberts, Orioles
4. Roy Halladay, Blue Jays
5. Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
6. Carl Crawford, Rays
7. Ichiro, Mariners
8. Michael Young, Rangers
9. Nick Swisher, White Sox
10. C.C. Sabathia, Indians
11. Magglio Ordonez, Tigers
12. Joe Mauer, Twins
13. Alex Gordon, Royals
14. Rich Harden, A's
15. Kosuke Fukudome, Cubs
16. Ken Griffey Jr., Reds
17. Albert Pujols, Cardinals
18. Rafael Furcal, Dodgers
19. Johan Santana, Mets
20. Jake Peavy, Padres
21. Lance Berkman, Astros
22. Chipper Jones, Braves
23. Ryan Howard, Phillies
24. Hanley Ramirez, Marlins
25. Prince Fielder, Brewers
26. Barry Zito, Giants
27. Jason Bay, Pirates
28. Matt Holliday, Rockies
29. Brandon Webb, Diamondbacks
30. Ryan Zimmerman, Nationals
31. Evan Longoria, Rays
32. Jay Bruce, Reds

1967 Topps Posters visual checklist

1 comment:

mmosley said...

The guy from The Hobby Box in Wilmington, NC sewed something like 500 game-used swatches onto a shirt. Dr. Wax battle ended up buying it. (There is still a video link to it on his site. The shirt was also featured in Beckett.

I still want to see 1970 Topps Heritage! But no 1990, that would be going too far.