no value in precedent

i know it's old news at this point, but i feel the need to express my frustration and disappointment with topps in terms of one of the most integral subsets of their 1975 baseball set and how they bungled it in this year's heritage release.

i am, of course, referring to the mvp subsets. once i found out that topps did in fact include mvp cards in 2024 heritage, i assumed and hoped that it would include all of the mvps from 1975 through 2023, bit they didn't do that - instead providing cards for a smattering of years between then and now. i suppose this has something to do with barry bonds and not putting him on new cards, but in an even more headscratching move, they reprinted some of the cards that were included in the original 1975 topps set.

i don't know why i am surprised. topps reprinted cards from the 1962 subset babe ruth story in 2011 topps heritage, but then again they updated some of the award cards in 2021 topps heritage as well as some of the all-time leader cards in 2022 heritage. 

at any rate, i decided to complete the subset, and i've finally tracked down all the cards. before i get to the set, i just have to point out how bad this card is

i know night owl already pointed out just how lazy and maybe even ignorant this card is. the person who laid it out should have to take the stage at the national and suffer the slings and arrows of disappointed collectors. maybe this was meant to be a placeholder - that could explain why it is crooked - but there is really no excuse. topps has, in the past, created two solo versions of fred lynn's 1975 rookie card. once for the 1982 kmart set and then again in 2001 for the inaugural archives set. either one would have worked here instead of the nonsense that topps sent to the printer.

and then there is this swing and a miss

topps apparently forgot how to handle a card that featured a landscape and portrait card in this design, even though the 1974 mvp card in the 1975 set had the same issue. did they even bother to review the 1975 set before developing this year's heritage set?

and then there is the heritage logo. one would think that they could have moved the logo so as not to interfere with the american league mvps, but they didn't bother. kind of like how they no longer both to rotate the 50th anniversary stamp on the buybacks between the horizontal and vertical cards.

ok, let's just see the full mvp subset from this year's heritage with minimal comment:

five reprints, including the 1951 mvps which includes a "card that should have been" roy campanella 1951 card. it would have been interesting to see if topps would have corrected their error on the 1955 mvp card had they chosen to reprint it.

this is a good set for mike schmidt player collectors

it's worth pointing out that neither the 2006 ryan howard card nor the 2009 albert pujols card that were used here are their actual base cards. howard's card is recognizing his rookie of the year campaign in 2005 and pujol's is doing the same for his 2008 mvp award.

you can see here that topps also failed with the color layout on the 2013 mvp card. the american league mvp gets the narrow band of color on every other card.

i suppose that the high numbers set could fill in some of the gaps missed here - i would be especially interested in seeing the 1988 mvps on a card - but i am not holding my breath.

i hope topps gets its act together because i am looking forward to a refresh of the all-time all-stars subset that should show up next year.