A Proud Heritage of TransAtlantic Triple Breaks

Matt Olson is fired up because it's time for another Transatlantic Triple Break! We've been doing this since November 2015 and it's still a big hit at the 'ol Arbitrary. Along with Matt from Bob Walk the Plank, and Kevin from The Card Papoy, every few months or so we take turns getting a hobby box and splitting it three ways. We roll the dice looking for autographs / relics and short prints, but more than that, it's an opportunity to keep a round-robin trade going. This time, Matt busted open a box of 2019 Topps Heritage.

The backs are all super bright compared to the 1970 Topps cards in my collection, but they retain all the design elements that marked the original set.

We divvy up the cards by division- I went out West panning for Gold(schmidt) and hooked a Trout!

We also keep our home teams, Twins for me, Pirates for Matt, and Blue Jays for Kevin.

Just like the original set, the playoffs get their own subset.

New Age Performers - Heritage has been running this insert annually, merging the Heritage style with a modern touch. Khris "Khrush" Davis was the MLB home run leader in 2018. The back makes that point and compares him to Johnny Bench, the 1970 MLB HR leader. Neat!

The 1970 Topps set had this insert as well, a scratch off game to play with your friends.

Rules on the back - play nine full innings! The rules are the same as baseball, but do they have a DH or not? Is Instant Replay allowed?

Here's a handful of my favorite base cards from the break.

Matt also tossed in some extras in trade, and per usual they were stunners. This Bonds card is numbered to 66, a 2003 Leaf card that kinda sorta resembles Exhibits.

Glen Perkins is a local hero, coming from Brooklyn Park / Park Center and attended the University of MN. He got the save in the last All-Star game hosted in MN and played his entire career for the Twins. He drops in every now and then to the Twins' booth pre-game and post-game.

Kennys Vargas checks in with a Gold Signature - Kennys is having himself a rough one across the Pacific, he was demoted to the Chiba Lotte Marines' minor league affiliate. His last appearance in the Japanese major leagues was on May 30th. It's early, he's got time to work it out.

I always save the best for last - this card, like Kennys, is also numbered to 25, and includes an autograph of Hall of Fame Twins' legend Harmon Killebrew! The scan is a little blurry as I didn't want to take the card out of the one touch holder.

Thanks again, Matt, for another successful Triple Break! I'll be on the lookout for our next box.

Worth The Wait?

2019 Topps Heritage was released on February 27th - but the first day I saw any for sale was during a trip to Target this afternoon,

When I saw the Mookie Betts preview card for the set, I was concerned that Topps had made the photo smaller and made the grey border much wider. I was happy to see that was not the case, at least not to the scale of the Betts card. The 1970 version had plenty of centering issues, but so far so good for me on the 2019 heritage version.

The Sporting News is back for the All-Star squad- and they even pulled the same headlines in 2019 as they had in 1970! "Forfeit O----er Champs Plan." Another plus is that it seems like the new heritage set made an effort to emulate some of the poses from 1970. Let's look at some of the backs.

Both A's pitchers had card #41, that was cool. The Coloring would probably be closer if I had higher grade vintage cards, but the ones I have are pretty faded on the back. Weird grammar thing on the All-Star cards. In 1970, they made a complete sentence starting with the player's name- "Willie McCovey . . was named the N.L. Player of the Year in 1969!" But in 2019, there's the player name, then another sentence. I like the 1970 version better, as repeating the player name just seems like a waste of real estate on the back of the card, which is already scrunched by all the legal disclaimer language that crowd card backs now.

Hey, they forgot to include the bat rack cards!!

Good News - Pat Neshek has a card that is almost identical to Lowell Palmer's from 1970.
Bad News - I didn't pull that card.

Good News - the 1970 Harmon Killebrew 1970 Topps Card is one of my favorite cards of all time.
Bad News - Topps didn't make a Joe Mauer card to mirror it.  Rats.

I hope the back of the Neshek card shares that his hobby is collecting cards!

I did pull one interesting insert item - this is a Target exclusive insert, a faux candy lid. Topps made some candy packages in 1970 and 1973 with a baseball player under the lid- there were 24 in the 1970  set.