The New Frankenset: Page #6

The last 24 hours have been the craziest in terms of sports events that I can recall. Virtually all events, including the rest of the NBA and NHL seasons as well as the much-anticipated March Madness, have been canceled.

Spring Training is finished and the MLB season will be delayed at least 2 weeks. College sports have also been shut down, but truthfully, the Coronavirus issue goes way beyond the sports world.

I don't want to get too much into the details of the pandemic. After all, this is a Baseball card blog, and my goal is simply to provide interesting content related to the greatest sport in the world.

However, it's imperative that everyone is aware of the symptoms and stays safe during the foreseeable future. Awareness and proper hygiene is the #1 thing that each and every one of us can do to prevent it from spreading even more.

Now that I've addressed the unavoidable, I would like to move onto the 6th page of my new frankenset, the subject of today's blog post. As I mentioned, my goal is to (when I can) write and provide interesting content about various topics within the hobby as well as Baseball as a whole.

Hopefully, this frankenset page, featuring cards #46-54, can do that, and we can all take a 5-minute break from thinking about the Coronavirus.

#46 1974 Kellogg's 3D Super Stars Bert Blyleven

My dream of a Kellogg's 3D card revival seems highly unlikely unless Topps reaches out to form a partnership, but I can't help but want something like that to happen given the caliber of the original cards from the 1970s and 80s.

In my eyes, Hostess and Kellogg's are the top oddballs in the history of the hobby, though I'd give the latter of the 2 the edge if it came down to it. Although a few designs, most notably those with blue borders, blend together in my mind, certain sets, like 1981, stand out to me.

#47 2007 Bowman Heritage Mark Teixeira

If Topps actually wanted last year's Bowman Heritage release to be a success, it should've come out earlier in the year (not at the same time as Bowman's Best, an anticipated and popular product), and they should've included a retail format so the set would appeal to a wider audience.

It's challenging for a lot of collectors, myself included, to get behind purchasing and collecting prospect cards. However, if Bowman used a more interesting format, like Heritage, they'd be able to draw my interest toward the entire field of prospect collecting.

#48 2016 Topps Stadium Club

Produced before he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Harold Baines' 2016 Topps Stadium Club card is one of my favorites from the entire set, and that's a bold statement given the sheer caliber of the '16 product, specifically the checklist and photography.

It's impressive enough when Topps captures shots of current players using all sorts of different angles and so on, but it's the enhanced photos from decades prior that elevate Stadium Club to the top tier of all releases.

#49 2005 Upper Deck ESPN Scott Podsednik

I feel like this collaboration between card producer Upper Deck and TV/news network ESPN had strong potential, but the duo failed to give the cards an identity/concept in addition to the modern design.

I'm not exactly sure how I would design/market these cards so that they were more than just a set with the name ESPN attached to them, but there's definitely a whole lot more that could've been done to enhance the quality.

#50 2003 Fleer Authentix Jorge Julio

Seeing this ticket emulation from Fleer Authentix brings me back to the same idea that I started this post by talking about: the fate of sports, particularly the new MLB season, in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak.

I'll be watching to see whether MLB pushes the schedule back to get all 162 games played or if they opt to cancel the first several weeks and, thus, have an abbreviated 2020 season.

As far as I know, something like this is unprecedented in its effects on sports, particularly baseball, so there's not necessarily a proper way to handle things.

#51 1984 Donruss Dave Winfield

First came Blyleven, then Baines, and now Dave Winfield: half of the first 6 cards of this page feature members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and while the final of the 3 doesn't have quite as interesting of a card, it's still nice to have some superstar representation.

I actually appreciate the choice to feature this type of image with the '84 Donruss design, one that allows for photographs to take up most of the card. With that being said, the set itself is rather uninspiring, so the pictures need to blow me away to make up for it.

#52 1966 Topps Power Plus

It doesn't matter if the condition is a little worse for wear or if I don't even collect either of the players featured: I will always have a profound appreciation for combo cards from the 50s, 60s, and 70s Topps sets, as well as the, recreates in today's Topps Heritage.

As fabulous as vintage Topps sets are, the base cards, like any set, can get rather repetitive after a checklist of several hundred. Breaking up the set to avoid becoming boring is essential, and that is exactly the role that combo cards like the one above play.

#53 2016 Panini Donruss Clayton Kershaw

It might just be my personal dislike for the 2016 Panini Donruss set, but I feel like this card stands out like a sore thumb among the rest of this page. Even the Podsednik and Winfield, 2 cards that I'm not exactly crazy about, fit better with the page than Kershaw's from '16 Donruss.

The reason for this, simply put, is licensing. The less than stellar design/photograph is only made worse because of the fact that Panini, to no fault of their own, cannot use the MLB logos.

Thankfully, they've stepped up their game in the years that have followed with products like Leather & Lumber and Prizm. Hopefully, MLB will reward them with the license as soon as Topps' exclusive rights end in a few years.

#54 1963 Topps Rookie Stars

Last up, a good old-fashioned rookie stars card from 1963, a title that seemed to almost doom the career of anyone it was applied to.

Although none of these guys became superstars in the MLB, it's certainly worth noting that Dave Debusschere eventually became a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.