Random Topps Team Set of the Week: 2008 Topps Washington Nationals

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

• Team: 2008 Washington Nationals
• Record: 59-102, fifth place, NL East Division.
• Manager: Manny Acta
• Card on the Top: Ryan Zimmerman

The checklist consists of the following players:

• WAS1 Ryan Zimmerman
• WAS2 Elijah Dukes
• WAS3 Matt Chico
• WAS4 Dmitri Young
• WAS5 Paul Lo Duca
• WAS6 Austin Kearns
• WAS7 Felipe Lopez
• WAS8 Shawn Hill
• WAS9 Chad Cordero
• WAS10 Lastings Milledge
• WAS11 Wily Mo Pena
• WAS12 Ronnie Belliard
• WAS13 Jason Bergmann
• WAS14 Jon Rauch

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 2008 Topps eponymous set:

• Jon Rauch started his year with the Nationals before being traded to the Diamondbacks.  And while Rauch was included in the Updates and Highlights set as a D-Back, there is no card of him in the base set as a National.  The retail set is the only place you will find a 2008 Topps card of Jon Rauch as a National.

• Matt Chico's retail card was bit of a close up to his base card. Want proof?:
  
  

• And so was Paul Lo Duca's card:
  
  

• Austin Kearns? Same thing:
  
  

• Lastings Milledge played for the Mets the year before and is pictured (appropriately) with the team. However, there is no Update and Highlights card of him as a National (or for that matter at all). So if you want to remember him as a National, the retail set is the only place to do it. And unlike in recent years where it would have been routine to photoshop the jersey onto the picture used in the regular set, we get a brand new image in the retail set:
  
  

So of the 14 players included in this set, two feature pictures of players that you will only find in the retail set. The rest are either close ups of their base cards.

Next week's featured set will be the 2006 San Francisco Giants. Hope you'll be here when we compare the cards from the retail set to their counterparts found in Topps and Topps Updates and Highlights.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama