Topps Baseball Cards Bring Out The New Set

David Reel of Mason, Ohio was signing players to the contract to use their likeness on baseball cards this morning.  Reel is the Director of Sales for Topps Company, the oldest publisher of baseball cards.

He brought a box of samples for the new set.  The slogan for the set is "The Chase".

There is a career chase written for every player in the set.

"We have an editor write the back of the cards," Reel said.

Some are a little over the Topps, if you will pardon the pun.  The card for Tony Cingrani, for instance had the Career Chase: "With nine strikeouts, Cingrani is 5,705 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714"  Oh brother, talk about pressure.

What else can an editor say about a 23-year old with five innings in the big leagues.

"Tony relishes the toughest of challenges; as a high school senior, he threw a 20-strikeout no-hitter against the top-ranked team in Illinois.  These days, wielding a whistling fastball and solid change-up, the 22-year old led the Minors in ERA in '12 to earn a late invite to Cincinnati.  The line in his debut: three innings, one hit, zero walks, five whiffs."

I was wondering what tune his fastball whistles.

The Reds players have been opening packs of the cards and had them strewn around the newspaper table in the middle of the clubhouse.  Todd Frazier opened a pack with one of our childhood wishes.  "I hope I get some Reds," Frazier said as he removed the cards.  He got no current Reds.  The first card in his pack was Yonder Alonso. A  Drew Stubbs card was later in the deck.  Stubbs' card is in a Reds' uniform but he has been traded to Cleveland.

Dusty Baker remembers collecting cards.  "As a kid you kept the good players in the box and the bad players on the spokes," Baker said.  "You did that too?" Baker asked some of the writers in the room.  "You tell a kid you put them on with clothes pins now, they won't know what you're talking about."

 "I remember when I signed my contract with them," Baker recalled.  "They gave you the choice of   $500 or a set of golf clubs.  I took the $500.  I remember my rookie card.  I was on with Don Baylor and Tom Paciorek.  It shows you've arrived."

Baker referred to baseball cards as 'bubblegum" cards but they no longer put bubblegum in a pack of baseball cards.

"It leaves marks on some of the cards," Reel said.

That ruins the resale value in this age when collecting and selling cards is more important than "souping up"  a bicycle.

Professionally edited by ML Schirmer
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