Frankenset Page 20

The most exciting part of the baseball season is among us. It's September, which means playoff races are in full effect.

Rather your team is cruising to the top or on the outside looking in, I think we can all find something to enjoy about September baseball. The division races get even more exciting, and whether it be the AL West race or the teams fighting for the NL Wild Card spots, there's never a dry moment in these last few weeks of the season.

Likewise, this is also an interesting time of year for baseball cards, but for other reasons. Sets like Heritage High Number and Panini Chronicles look to be major improvements over last years' sets, with Chronicles, in particular, captivating my interest. As for other sets, we're left wondering if they will make a return in 2018 at all.

Topps Gallery was by far one of my favorite releases of last year, earning the #2 spot on my top sets of 2017 post, with Topps Archives being #1. Even if it requires me finding a Walmart that actually sells baseball cards unlike the one closest to me, I'd be more than happy to complete the drive if this previous Walmart-exclusive set returns this year.

In the meantime, I can at least keep on doing these frankenset pages while waiting to see how the final few baseball card releases measure up. For now, here's the 20th page of my frankenset. As we get further and further into the set, you'll start to notice changes, specifically way more cards from larger sets with smaller sets being represented less.

#172 2017 Topps Heritage Cristhian Adames

Sky shots in 2017 Topps Heritage and High Number were a dime a dozen. However, it was something about the Adames card that made it slightly more interesting than all the other sky background cards. Maybe it's the sunlight. It could also be the pose he's taking. Either way, it's one of the better cards you can find in the 2017 set.

#173 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Chin-Lung Hu

Originally a part of the 1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes set, these cards returned in 2008 as a part of the Timeline product. The black and white cards featured names of up and coming players like Mark Teixeira in 2008, while the original set focused on legends and some fan favorite players including Vida Blue.

#174 2005 Donruss Team Heroes Lyle Overbay

For the few years it existed, the Donruss Team Heroes set was a consistently pretty good set. It always had a pretty good set design, interesting photos in every set, and a well-selected checklist of both retired and current players. 2005 was the last year of Donruss and the last year of the set. Since Panini has brought back multiple Donruss products, why not attempt a Team Heroes revival?

#175 1959 Topps Dick Farrell

This must be the oldest card in the entire frankenset. A card that will shockingly be 60 years old once 2019 comes around. I'm a huge 1959 Topps fan and I was extremely happy to see it brought back in 2018 Archives, even though it wasn't replicated exactly the way I would've liked. Overall, Topps still did a nice job.

#176 2005 Bowman Heritage Zack Greinke

The '05 Bowman Heritage set was a set that included multiple interesting backgrounds that highlight the set's focus on art. Somehow, using a brick background for this card of Royals pitcher Zack Greinke works very well, making 2005 Bowman Heritage my favorite year of the product.

#177 1989 Topps Monty Fariss

Landing multiple spots in the 1989 Topps set, the draft pick cards showed recently-drafted players in their college uniforms while representing the team that drafted them on cardboard for likely the first time. Something about the Oklahoma State University uniforms interested me enough to choose this card for spot #177 in the frankenset.

#178 2016 Panini Donruss Kirby Puckett

Seeing this card reminds me to add Kirby Puckett to the long list of players who I should collect, but don't for whatever reason. I think I should just do it already and go through and see what I have for Puckett, Gwynn, and Yount cards and finally just collect cards of these 3 Hall of Famers, officially. Their undeniable talent merits player collections to be formed of them.

#179 2004 Fleer Tradition D'Angelo Jiminez

The 2004 Fleer Tradition set seemed perfect for these 2000's Reds jerseys with the top of the sleeves being red and the stripes going down. The '04 Tradition set is most notable for its red banners, which I think go perfectly with the jersey that Reds 2nd baseman D'Angelo Jiminez is wearing on this card.

#180 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Evan Longoria

I guess it didn't click at first that I had selected 2 cards from the 2008 Upper Deck Timeline set for the same page, especially 2 modeled after the '94 All-Time Heroes set. Anyway, there really aren't any rules when it comes to my frankenset, and the cards are nice enough for me to be able to look past it.