Alas, All-Star!

The scan is a little off, but I think it will underscore the point I want to make about the All-Star game. Let me clarify, not the game itself, but the way it is represented on cardboard. Topps used to make a point of having a different design for the All-Stars, and we can look back 30 and 60 years to prove the point.

Red White and Blue dominate the design, with AL All-Stars getting a red background and Blue lettering. The NL All-Stars do the opposite, with a blue background and red letters. The photos are more conservative head shots rather than in-game action.

The backs have a relevant leaderboard with the All-Star somewhere in the top ten. Add in a little season highlight blurb, and you've got yourself a clean and classy tribute to the game's best.

Guess what? The '88 Topps set was no stranger to good ideas from past Topps sets. The base cards owed a bit of their look to 1967, with big bold colors for the team names. The All-Star Sub-set in '88 went back even further, with a nod to the 1950's.

The backs have a longer run on sentence / paragraph about the player, and then a breakdown of each player's performance by opponent, a grid that would resurface in 1989 with Topps' resurrection of Bowman.

The Topps Update All-Star cards of the last decade or so aren't terrible - I just think they could learn a bit from their past successes. It would be great for the cards to have a unique design (they could even be an insert, you know how Topps loves insert sets) compared to the base cards, and celebrate the event a little more than a logo. I do like the event specific photography, and I do like that the backs usually talk about what made the player an All-Star.

What do you think? Should the All-Stars get their own design?

Classic Car(d)s Weekend

There's a big classic car show at the MN State Fairgrounds this weekend - people from all over the region show off their custom rebuilds, classic vehicles from the last 100+ years. The 1950s and 1960s are usually very well represented, like the 1958 Corvette above. I picked up a few 50's of my own this weekend, but you can't drive them.

Also from 1958 in that deep blue,  it's Willie Mays! I think it's probably a bad idea to compare people to cars, so it's enough to say that Willie Mays was a perfect mix of speed and power, grace and strength.

See? Topps knew what was up, along with the Editors of Sport Magazine. Willie was really good at baseball.

not exactly Dodger Blue on this 1959 GMC Pickup

I am making progress on my 1959 set build. You could probably compare rebuilding a classic car with building a vintage set. Finding all the parts in good condition at a fair price can be daunting. This Duke Snider has been through the ringer, but it still runs ok.

The big crease in the corner by the card number doesn't bother me much. It's almost invisible on the front of the card.

There were 4 different copies of this card at the shop, and this was the best bargain. The color has faded a bit, the corners are rough, and the back is miscut - but it's still a gorgeous card!

I do really like the cards in the 1959 set, especially when they all feature the same team on the card. I decided to organize my 1956 set by team, and I'm starting to do the same with the 1959 set. There are a couple pesky duo cards that have players from 2 different teams on them... not sure how I'll handle that!

How do you organize your sets?