Random Topps Card of the Day: 2011 Topps #328 David Price Season Highlights

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Monday, October 7, 2013:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 2011 Topps #328.
• Player Name, position, team: David Price, pitcher, Tampa Bay Rays.
• Special: Most Single Season Wins in Franchise History.
• It was 2001 when Topps decided to stop the practice of including checklist cards as part of the eponymous set. The checklists literally became filler cards that could be tossed away with the wrappers because they technically weren't part of the set unless you wanted to include them in your binders or boxes. And to make it more interesting, depending on where you bought the packs (hobby or retail), you got different colored checklists. But in 2010, Topps added checklist cards back to their base set. But instead of featuring them as such, they were placed on the back of season highlight cards. Such is the case with this David Price card. The front of the card indicates that Price in 2010 became the Rays/Devil Rays all-time single season winner in wins. Topps doesn't mention the number of wins on the back of the card (19...a career high at the time...he won 20 in 2012), nor does it mention the team or the game he achieved this feat (a September 28 shutout against the Baltimore Orioles). Instead, this card is checklist #5 of 5 for the 2011 Topps Series 1 set. Now until Topps added the checklists back into the base set in 2010, the checklist cards (the ones people would toss aside like yesterday's news) would include all the insert cards, autographed cards, relics, you name it, if it fit, and it was announced, you pretty much had a full checklist of the cards in each series (the practice started in 2001...but I digress). Since 2010 though, only the 330 cards that make up the series were included. In this case, card #'s 265 (John Danks) through #330 (Derek Jeter), a scant 66 cards are listed on this card. I don't even know why Topps bothered to put the squares that you're supposed to use to "check off" the cards you have...I haven't seen a marked checklist card in years. Now I'm sure that people still do this, as long as they have an extra set of checklists. But does anybody really do this anymore with the cards as long as people can create spreadsheets and such? Oh well...
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $0.40-$1.00.

Tomorrow's card will be: 1983 Topps Traded #22T. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. Flash back with the blog tomorrow.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama