Topps Total is back for 2020 - the design is simple, I like the color gradients as they move around the card. This photo looks like it was taken before Cruz sprained his wrist so bad that he tore a tendon last year.
Here's the back, and just like last year, there's a player specific blurb followed by a promotional statement for the set the card is a part of.
Wave 1 of 9 features Nelson Cruz, Taylor Rogers, and Kenta Maeda. Usually 3 to 4 players per team per wave. Nice to get a Maeda Twins card early on!
The mail also had a couple more surprises for me. The 2020 Topps NOW Road to Opening Day set arrived, with Nelson Cruz once again front and Center.
Some fun shots from Spring feature the reigning AL Central Twins, all looking ahead to the 2020 season (whenever that might be).
Dangit, I made myself sad with these! Luis looks so happy here, now the season might not happen at all. Josh Donaldson, the big name free agent, might not get a chance to show Twins fans he was worth the big investment. As for Byron Buxton? Man, that's just not fair. He was healthy again and ready to prove that he is one of the best players in baseball. I hope he gets a chance soon.
There was no option for an autograph this year for the Twins set, I guess the demand was too low last year, and everything happening in March derailed the usual release of the autograph option for all teams. It was about half and half when I bought this, about a week before the deadline, and still just the base option. They did throw in this parallel, however, featuring Twins' Ace José Berríos.
The backs all have a "player spotlight" to go with the same sentence about the Twins, who not only led the League in homers, they set a new All-Time record...
Speaking of all-time records, here's the last piece of mail today, a sweet Rickey Henderson from Topps Project 2020. I think the consensus is that some of these cards are awful, some are ok, and at least one of them is awesome. The other thing that everyone agrees on is that everyone's Awful/OK/Awesome cards are different. I think this particular one resonated with me because it felt like an 80s remix of an 80s card of an 80s icon. Matt Taylor did a nice job of honoring the original subject while making it his own.
Sorry for the shaky photos, I literally phoned it in. There are millions of better images of these online, but I just wanted to give a rough idea for the blog. This one might be the only one I add to my collection. Of course, before this card appeared, I was content to not add any of them, so who knows?
Have you found your "Awesome" card yet from this set?
I like what topps is doing with their turn back the clock series. Sort of a "topps then"
ReplyDeleteI bought the Ichiro card from that series, it has balloons!
DeleteI would love me some Topps Total. But online only?? A mortgage payment to ship it to Canada?
ReplyDeleteThat's going to be a no from me dog....
I bought the topps total on eBay instead of directly from Topps, saved a few bucks, but yeah, shipping and buying from Topps can't be fun for international customers.
DeleteI can't say I'm a fan of the Project 2020 stuff. Just too jarring.
ReplyDeleteMost of the cards so far are not what I would want to collect, that's for sure
DeleteI couldn't complete my Braves Topps Total team sets before they were on demand, let alone now. Congrats to you.
ReplyDeleteI grabbed the same Rickey! Also the only one I've bothered with.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize Topps Total was making the rounds already this year. I like design, but I'm still disappointed with the cost per card and that you can only get them through Topps' website.
ReplyDeleteThe Luis Arraez is a great spring training card!
This Rickey is pretty cool. There's another one of him done by a different artist who just outlined his card in black Sharpie that is pretty laughable. That card pretty much soured me on the whole Topps Project 2020 thing. But then I saw a Gwynn last week that looked interesting. I didn't end up buying it, but maybe I'll pick it up off of eBay at some point.
ReplyDeleteThe Sharpie artist has a few cards out already, not sure if he would have done it that way had he seen the other cards first (or seen the Baseball Vandals website https://baseballcardvandals.com/). I can't say what effort was put into the work, but the result, particularly in comparison to the other entries, looks underwhelming.
DeleteYeah. Good point. I've actually been in that situation where I didn't realize people were going to put in a certain level of effort... and I looked silly.
DeleteMy vote goes to the Rickey card. Clearly the best player of the group. Not a big fan of the fake auto cards, but nobody else stepped up.
ReplyDeleteThose spring training shots are great!
ReplyDeleteI just can't get into those 2020 cards. I think they are so ugly lol. Never been one for artist type cards though either, I prefer action shots
ReplyDelete