heritage high apple pie in the sky hopes

i was looking forward to busting my 2025 topps heritage high numbers box that i ordered directly from topps because we are heading into the era of baseball that i began following, and i was hoping for some cards that featured some of the players of my youth - preferably dodgers. i was also hoping to see some cards in the "traded" design.

i found the former (not dodgers) but not the latter. i don't understand how topps ignored the "traded" cards with 2021 heritage (they did have some in the minor league version) and now again in 2025 after remembering about them in 2023 (but as super short prints). anyway, i still really enjoyed opening these packs! here's my take:

cards like trevor story's

give me hope for the upcoming heritage releases. tightly cropped candids were all over the place heading into the later 1970s. josh rojas' card

goes full profile a la bobby bonds, steve braun, and george brett in 1978. i can't wait for 2027. i also like how the rojas card captures the white sox' 125 year anniversary patch. to me, baseball cards work best when they document the individuality of each season in terms of players and uniforms.

kiké hernandez' card is another good unposed candid example

and i was lucky enough to find it in chrome, too

for what it's worth, kiké has a nice photo variation in the set, showing him in one of his mop up pitching appearances with his pitching helmet on his head. it's a bit pricey at the moment so i am hoping that things settle at some point in the future and i can find one for my collection.

the other dodger chrome card in my box was alex call's blue chrome refractor

call is a guy that could have had a "traded" card, but i am glad to see him in the set in any fashion. fourth outfielders don't see a lot of checklists these days.

harrison bader, whose light blue sparkle chrome refractor is shown below

is an interesting case in this year's heritage high. he's a phillie there, as he finished the season in philly. he began the season here in minnesota, and he actually has another card in the set showing him as a twin

that's the chrome parallel of his short print card. here are the backs:

the backs are pretty similar, with the acquired text being updated along with the birth and home states for some reason. the bullet text at the bottom is different, too. i am guessing that topps was too far along with printing to remove bader's twins card? not sure how that would be the case though since they printed phillie cards of him, too. 

time out for some dodger base cards. their team checklist is mostly rookies, including a guy who was a real headscratcher for me. more on him in a bit. here's jack dreyer

and kirby yates

you can see the tried and true heritage backgrounds for both of those guys courtesy of the camelback spring training complex. inserted backgrounds still abound - check out omar cruz

for example. i sure do hope these go by the wayside in the future but photo day will likely remain indoors so they are likely to remain.

i came across these four cards back-to-back-to-back-to-back in a pack

overexposed or washed out? they were the only four cards in the pack like that so i am guessing this is how all of their cards look.

let me show a few packs as they were when i opened them to give you a better feel for the product, starting with the first pack i ripped.

pack 1

good luck for me with the dreyer chrome refractor. the "perfect 10" insert (hello mike trout) might be a replacement for the "now and then" insert? the design (top border, at least) seems more 50's than 70's but that's just me.

pack 2

the jose quintana is a short print, and it's really the only straight up "base" short print i got in the box.

the others were all varieties of some sort. another dodger base card and a logan vanwey chrome refractor.

pack 3

the nootbaar card is also a short print

but it features the "cartoon" variation which is the position icon. i like how his glove is color coordinated with the card. the yoshinobu yamamoto perfect 10 card is appreciated, as is the matt gorski base card. gorski was the headscratcher i mentioned earlier. he made his big league debut with the pirates early in 2025 and then was released and signed by the dodgers. he hasn't appeared in any games for any team in the dodger organization, as he was injured for the majority of the season. cool that he has a card though.

pack 4

one more dodger base card with evan phillips and a nice action shot of mike yastrzemski (they spelled it correctly) to break up the posed monotony. the christian koss (double play second base icon!) card is a chrome parallel (i'll revisit that card in a future post) and rich hill's card is another light blue sparkle chrome refractor, the back of which confused me initially

topps decided to truncate hill's big league record in favor of legibility and single team line items rather than smaller text and combined team stats for each year. that's fair, but when i saw that he had a nickname variation, i went looking for the "dick mountain" card. instead, topps says his nickname is "field of genes". i hadn't heard that one before.

here are some of the other parallels that came my way - the dark blue borders

more light blue sparkle refractors

a couple more chrome parallels

and another blue refractor chrome parallel

justin turner's card 

is a standout for me because it's not posed, and it features the tokyo series patch.

there were quite a few second basemen in my box, so i pulled their cards for the double play icon

i especially appreciate the luke keaschall card.

these late season sets are always ones that i scour for other mini-collection cards, such as memorial patches. the ke'bryan hayes and craig yoho cards

both show patches that the reds and brewers wore for pete rose and bob uecker, respectively. the hayes is a great example, with the yoho image not being a strong contender for my collection. i'll hope for better with 2026 flagship.

brett baty's card

would have been a perfect option for ed kranepool's patch, but the image is cropped just a bit too closely.

two more base cards that i took note of - travis d'arnaud

and robert hassell the third

the d'arnaud card gives us a good look at the pitchcom system earpiece which i haven't noticed on cardbaoard before, and hassell sees and raises nootbaar's glove game.

inserts! inserts! inserts! i really was looking forward to finding some bicentennial stars, and i wound up with steve carlton

whom i considered to be the best pitcher in the national league back then. i also found one of hank aaron's "76 retirees" inserts

from early in his career. the other players in this set are tony oliva and billy williams. no frank robinson?!

the award winners inserts still exist - here's chris sale

as do the rookie performers (my find was james wood)

but i think the combo cards are gone.

i did find a pair of cards from the "undefeated" insert set - both joe morgan

one "base" and one holo parallel. these are the cards that resulted in me learning about pete rose's card that i posted about last week.

i will wrap up this long and winding post with the last two packs of the box

pack 23

hey now! there's my guaranteed auto or relic, and it's both! plus a dark blue short print parallel of nick kurtz! here's a closer look at the auto relic

this is a great pull for the release - a through the years autograph relic of ronald acuna jr numbered to 25. here's the back:

funny enough, my mega box of the regular heritage also netted an acuna hit.

pack 24

and we finish with another blue chrome refractor of a red (old friend connor joe) and a light blue sparkle chrome refractor of kurtz.

all in all, i am very pleased with this box. so much so that i've pre-ordered my 2026 series 1 stuff to keep the good mojo going!