heritage highlights, lowlights, and bad lights

it's been long enough since 2023 topps heritage was released that i am definitely late to the party with this post that expands on my first thoughts of the product. sorry in advance, but i am going to show some cards you've no doubt seen somewhere else already.

first up is the card that is currently the frontrunner for my favorite non-dodger card of the year

davey lopes congratulating hank aaron for breaking babe ruth's career home run record makes a great baseball card. i picked up two of these cards - one for the lurker collection and one for the memorials collection as this is by far the best card printed from that night showing the black armband that the dodgers wore in memory of teammate ken mcmullen's wife bobbie. i've updated my previous memorials post to include this card.

speaking of lopes, i was able to land his first solo card in "50th anniversary" buyback form

and the same goes for ron cey

i had thought i might see lopes' 1973 rookie card show up last year, but i never did. i had no such hopes for either of cey's multi-player rookie cards from 1972 and 1973, so was happy to finally add a heritage buyback card of the penguin to my collection. i don't expect to see any steve garvey buybacks this year as i am guessing all of those went to the ssp mvp year buyback autograph series.

garvey was featured, however, in the same baseball flashbacks insert set as the aaron above

and it's essentially a repeat of the topps now turn back the clock card topps issued last year.  the back does mention his status as a write-in starter

which i believe the topps now card omitted. i had figured i would have to wait for high numbers to see an all-star game related card and now i am wondering if another garvey card awaits me with that release.

i picked up a news flashback in the packs i purchased

and it reminded me that the early 1970's were kind of bleak. i don't remember too much but i do recall a lot of consternation around inflation and gas prices and shortages. sort of like 2022.

then and now remains my favorite heritage insert set, and i found a johnny bench/pete alonso card

that connects them as rbi leaders. i hope to see davey lopes on one of these cards in a few years...

new age performers is another mainstay of heritage

i found one of the better cards, i think, in julio rodriguez. i plan to go see the mariners when they come to the twin cities to face the twins just to see this guy play. i know i am not alone in the fact that rodriguez makes me want to be at the ballpark.

the 1974 stamps are an honest recreation of stamps that were issued back in, well, 1974. i believe those came with a booklet, but the ones in heritage do not. plus there aren't as many players featured per team - just four this year. here's the red sox stamps: 

and here are the mets:

and here are the dodgers:

i guess the red sox of 2023 aren't too appealing so they get two team legends while the mets and dodgers only get one. i was very happy with the dodgers' choice of garvey to join mookie betts, clayton kershaw, and walker buehler for sure!

the stamps also come in blue

and red 

variations that stem from walmart and target blasters (i think), respectively.

the dodger stamps were purchased on ebay while this one

came from target. minnesota twins from a minnesota brand.

those blasters also included red border parallels - here is one of the four i received

jose quintana is also a high number, so i think this parallel is also short printed.

speaking of which, there are three versions of steve garvey autographs in this year's heritage. the "real one" autograph

was/is the easiest one to find. there are also red in real ones and the aforementioned mvp buyback autographs. both of those are limited to 70-something copies. topps didn't ask me to sell them my wallet card, so i have it to compare to the newly printed cards for the real one autos

you can see that the new card is cropped differently, and for some reason topps went with a slash between positions instead of the dash. i suppose that is to accommodate the larger font for the name.

many folks have already presented comparisons between 2023 heritage cards and 1974 topps cards, but i will say that when i first saw the betts and trayce thompson cards, 

my immediate thought was of cey's card.  the betts card shares a number with the cey card, and here they are together

close, i guess, if you really want to see it. like cey, betts is featured this year as a boxtopper, except his is of the oversized variety

that boxtopper was the big hit for me in the team break i participated in.  here it is next to the regular mookie card

i think i would prefer the boxtoppers to be altogether different cards, like topps does with other products.

some non-dodger highlights for me included the aaron judge card that is number 1 in the set

a perfect homage to the hank aaron card that leads off the 1974 set! i wonder what topps would have done had judge not hit 62 last year to break roger maris' league record.

this vinnie pasquantino card

had me immediately picturing the 1974 john mayberry, which is also card #150 in the set, while cody bellinger's sad photoshopped card

dashed any hopes i had of a tribute being done to willie davis' card. i was surprised to see bellinger in the set as a cub, but there are still plenty of opportunity for guys who were shown with their old teams to be featured in new uniforms in high numbers like david peralta and maybe even "traded" cards for guys like luis arraez.

i was excited to see bobby witt's card

since jackie robinson day cards are usually a short print variation when the number 42 is visible. into my "42" collection it goes!

speaking of mini-collections, this justin turner card (which looks very weird by the way) goes in my memorials collection

that's because the umpire behind the plate is wearing a "bh" patch on his left sleeve for former umpire bill haller (tom haller's brother). the patch is just above the ftx patch that the umpires couldn't ditch quickly enough this year.

jon berti's card is giving off dick green vibes so it goes in my double play collection

but i have a second copy for the memorials collection, too. that's because the umpire in this photo is wearing the "tc" patch for former umpire terry cooney. finding umpire memorials is sometimes tough, but the photo style of 1974 topps helps quite a bit!

there were a bunch more cards that i really liked from my packs like this matthew boyd card

and this jordan montgomery card

and this cole waites card

in fact, i would have loved to see heritage this year go completely landscape. that certainly would have addressed the issue with angels cards like this mike trout

topps should have at least made all the angels cards horizontal and saved us from the empty top banner that looks so dumb.

it was nice to see topps leave kenley jansen a brave for his league leader card

even though they screwed up the banner colors for each league. they did the same for the all-star cards

i just don't know how topps functions sometimes, but then they give us this card of keston hiura

which almost matches george scott's 1974 card but is great on it's own for giving off a true 1974 vibe.

ben deluzio's card

had me thinking of glenn beckert (even though deluzio is still a cub), and jazz chisholm's card

does not look out of place at all with the 1974 design.

same for the multi-player rookie cards, although the one that i found was all marlins

and i am not familiar with any of them.

one thing that i didn't care for was the poor lighting in photos featured on some of the cards. matt wallner's card

is a real night photo (i've sent the card to night owl) that features the north shore of minnesota in the background (from the minnie and paul display in the target field outfield) but it looks bad on cardboard.

freddie freeman's card

features a photo that was taken in a studio with a lot of unnatural lighting and then slapped on a card with a fake background.

fake backgrounds abound, and when i saw tommy edman's card

the angularity of the colors in the background had me thinking of the dire straits "money for nothing" video. early computer rendering at its best.

a bunch of dodgers got the fake background treatment, including james outman

and first time all-star will smith

at least topps "moved" max muncy

to a different spot via his background.

the most unusual background i saw belongs to noah davis' card

davis got slapped in front of a tarp. i don't think i've seen the tarp on a card in a long time. in fact, thurman munson's 1975 topps card is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. are we supposed to believe, topps, that davis was posing for this photo somewhere between the covered mound and third base? dumb.

after giving him a nice action shot in 2022, topps put walker buehler back in his old spot - here are his 2021 heritage high number and 2023 heritage cards 

with the identical backgrounds.  dumb.

that's not the only thing i noticed about buehler's card this year. here is his hot box chrome refractor parallel

here's the back, along with the back of his short printed base card:

his refractor is number 348 but his base is a short printed 432. why topps, why?

we all know it doesn't matter because i'll be back looking for that bill russell buyback and maybe another garvey insert when high numbers comes out - assuming it does.