Random Topps Team Set of the Week: 2008 Topps Chicago White Sox

(That Dr. Who thing got contagious as it delayed a day-and-a-half worth of posts...)

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

• Team: 2008 Chicago White Sox
• Record: 89-74, first place, AL Central Division.
• Manager: Ozzie Guillen
• Card on the Top: Nick Swisher

The checklist consists of the following players:

• CHW1 Nick Swisher
• CHW2 Paul Konerko
• CHW3 Carlos Quentin
• CHW4 Javier Vazquez
• CHW5 Orlando Cabrera
• CHW6 Joe Crede
• CHW7 Josh Fields
• CHW8 A.J. Pierzynski
• CHW9 Jerry Owens
• CHW10 Jim Thome
• CHW11 Mark Buehrle
• CHW12 Jose Contreras
• CHW13 Bobby Jenks
• CHW14 Jermaine Dye

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:

• You see more of Nick Swisher on his regular card than you do in the retail one...and its the same picture too:
  
  

• Same for Carlos Quentin:
  
  

• Orlando Cabrera played for the Angels the year before, so he is depicted as an Angel. His traded card shows him with the Pale Hose jersey:
  

• Joe Crede's base card uses the same picure but different cropping:

So of the 14 players included in this set, four have picture variations of which only 1 can only be found on the retail sets. The three other pairs of cards feature different croppings of the same picture, which is often the case found in some of these team sets.

Next week's featured set will be the 2008 Seattle Mariners. 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 sets.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama