Random Topps Team Set of the Week: 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Team Set of the Week:

• Team: 2006 Pittsburgh Pirates
• Record: 67-94, fifth place, NL Central Division.
• Manager: Jim Tracy
• Card on the Top: Jason Bay

The checklist consists of the following players:

• PIT1 Jason Bay
• PIT2 Zach Duke
• PIT3 Oliver Perez
• PIT4 Kip Wells
• PIT5 Jack Wilson
• PIT6 Jose Castillo
• PIT7 Freddie Sanchez
• PIT8 Jody Gerut
• PIT9 Chris Duffy
• PIT10 Joe Randa
• PIT11 Daryle Ward
• PIT12 Sean Casey
• PIT13 Jeromy Burnitz
• PIT14 Ryan Doumit

The cards in order from the set (the checklist at the end was cut from the back of the package. What, you don't do that?):

Key differences between the team set and 2006 Topps eponymous set:

• While Topps spelled his name as "Freddie" in the team set, third baseman Sanchez' first name in the base set is "Freddy":
  
  

• Joe Randa strikes a spring training pose in the base set:
  
  

• Daryle Ward played for the Pirates in 2005. But if you're going to look for a 2006 Topps card of Ward celebrating with his Buc's teammates, forget it.  He isn't in the base set at all.  He does make an appearance in the Updates & Highlights set...as a member of the Braves:
  
  

• Sean Casey also gets his picture taken by a chain-link fence in the base set:
  
  

• As does Jeromy Burnitz:
  
  

The other 9 cards in this 14-card set use the same pictures as in the base set, and as you can see, three cards in the base set were taken along the same fence.

I have to disclose that Daryle Ward signed with the Nationals as a Free Agent in January 2006 and was traded to the Braves at the end of August. So why is it that Topps managed to get a picture of him in a Braves jersey, but nothing with the Nationals??! And shouldn't this have meant that Ward should have been included in the Nationals' team set?  They certainly had enough time to get him in there.  The funny thing is that it looks like the same picture that was used in the 2006 Topps U&H set was also used for the 2007 Topps set...but this time he's in a Cubs jersey.

Next week's featured set will be the 2012 St. Louis Cardinals. Hope you'll be here when we compare the cards from the retail set to their counterparts found in Topps and Topps Update Series.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama