Update on the Quest for the Series II Six.

Captured!!!

• 2008 Topps Al Gore Presidential Candidates for $45.44

• 2008 Topps Arnold Schwarzanegger 2012? for $49.99 BIN

• 2008 Topps Kosuke Fukudome Japan WBC for $49.99.

Three down, three to go!!!

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

The Quest for the 2008 Topps Series II SP Six Has Begun!!!

The hysteria has finally subsided, and prices for the infamous Series II Six (think of Spider-Man's Insidious Six, without the evil) have gone down. Now is the perfect time for me (and others who waited patiently) to go after these cards with reasonably reckless abandon.

As you know, the Series II Six are:

• 2008 Topps Kosuke Fukudome Japan WBC


• 2008 Topps Alexei Ramirez Cuba WBC


• 2008 Topps Yasuhiko Yabuta Japan WBC


• 2008 Topps Al Gore Presidential Candidates


• 2008 Topps Arnold Schwarzanegger 2012?


• 2008 Topps Johan Santana Mets Season Highlights

The hunt is on. For those who are also attempting to capture the Series II Six, I wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Topps Set of the Week: 1999 Topps Traded and Rookies

After a three year hiatus, Topps brought back their Traded set into production. Now called 1999 Topps Traded and Rookies, this 121-card set was once again sold in complete set form only (in 1995, the cards were sold in packs, no factory complete sets were produced). And instead of sequencing the players in alphabetical order by last name (like they did from 1981-1992), or in a blatant random pattern (1993-1995), the players were seeded in this order:

• Rookies in alphabetical order by team (Angels, Astros, Athletics...) are #'s 1-65


• Draft picks in order of selection (10 players from the first two rounds) are #'s 66-75


• Veteran players, regardless of team or last name, came afterwards as #'s 76-121


• This was the first year that a checklist was not included with the set.

Every complete factory set included one autographed rookie card. Just like the 1999 Topps set, the cards had gold borders, surrounding very large pictures (for a baseball card set with borders, these were pretty big pictures. The player's name is printed in gold foil near the edge of either side of the card and does not obstruct the player's picture at all. The backs of the cards are horizontally based, with a second picture of the player on the left with his statistics/bio taking up the rest of the space.

Most of the rookies in the set are now some of the more recognizable names in baseball. Players like Alfonso Soriano, Adam Dunn, C. C. Sabathia, Carl Crawford, Sean Burroughs, A. J. Burnett, Corey Patterson, and Mark Mulder all have rookie cards in this set, while veteran players such as Paul Konerko, Jose Canseco, Albert Belle, Brian Giles, Tony Batista, and Mo Vaughn made their first card appearance with their new teams.

This set also includes the rookie card of one of the feel good stories early in the 2008 season, Josh Hamilton. His return to the game after years of substance abuse and other demons, has reignited interest in his rookie cards. And this set had it. His comeback began with the Cincinnati Reds in 2006, after being selected by the Chicago Cubs in the Rule V draft and then subsequently traded to the Redlegs moments later. After a year that saw the potential that he flashed when he was first drafted, but unfortunately no room to play, the Reds traded him to the Texas Rangers, where he has since exploded. In 62 games so far this season, he has hit 147 home runs (he hit 19 in 90 games with the Reds), driven in 68 runs (47 rbi's the year before), and is sports a .322 batting average. Fans have eaten up this kid's story, as he has now surged into second place in the AL outfield All-Star voting.

Unopened sets are getting increasingly harder and harder to find as the rookies of 1999 have become the stars of today. But the set itself is still reasonably priced. Get them if you can find them. It makes a nice addition and closes out the 1999 baseball card season rather nicely.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

An Open Letter to the Topps Company.

To Whom it May Concern:

Dave Winfield, Hall of Famer, and now serving as Vice President/Senior Advisor for the San Diego Padres, had this brilliant idea. To honor the memory of Buck O'Neill, and salute the surviving players from the Negro Leagues who were denied the right to play "organized" major league baseball, he proposed a ceremonial draft where the existing MLB teams would select a player from the Negro Leagues. While team participation was voluntary, all 30 teams agreed to be a part of it. So before selecting players who are to embark on their professional careers, Major League Baseball drafted 30 Negro League ball players to be welcomed into the MLB community.

So what should Topps do to commemorate this historic event? How about create an insert set for the 30 draft picks!!! It wouldn't be the first time the company would honor Negro Leaguers within their eponymous baseball cards. In 2001, Topps created a 10-card set called "What Could Have Been." Teeming with Negro League superstars like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Mule Suttles, "Judy" Johnson, and others, this set honored the men who SHOULD have been playing baseball in the majors at a time before Jackie Robinson. These were the men who paved the way for players like Robinson, Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, and all the others who made their way into the National Pastime. So why not a set honoring the men (and woman) selected in this special draft? Cast aside Presidential history for a minute, let's talk about BASEBALL HISTORY!!!

I want to open packs of cards with the following players in them (for a list of each player's accomplishments, click here:

• Bob Mitchell, P, Arizona Diamondbacks
• James "Red" Moore, 1B, Atlanta Braves
• Bert Simmons, P/OF, Baltimore Orioles
• Jim Colzie, P, Boston Red Sox
• Walt Owens, P/1B, Chicago Cubs
• Hank Presswood, SS/3B, Chicago White Sox
• Charlie Davis, P, Cincinnati Reds
• Otha "Li'l Catch" Bailey, C, Cleveland Indians
• Mack "the Knife" Pride, Jr., P, Colorado Rockies
• Cecil Kaiser, P/1B/OF, Detroit Tigers
• Enrique Maroto, P, Florida Marlins
• Bill Blair, P, Houston Astros
• Ulysses Hollimon, P, Kansas City Royals
• Neale "Bobo" Henderson, SS, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Andrew Porter, P, Los Angeles Dodgers
• Joseph B. Scott, OF/1B, Milwaukee Brewers
• Bill "Lefty" Bell, P, Minnesota Twins
• Robert Scott, P/1B, New York Mets
• Emilio "Millito" Navarro, SS/2B/3B, New York Yankees
• Irvin Castille, SS, Oakland Athletics
• Mahlon Duckett, 2B/3B, Philadelphia Phillies
• James Tillman, C, Pittsburgh Pirates
• "Prince" Joe Henry, 2B/3B, St. Louis Cardinals
• Walter McCoy, P, San Diego Padres
• Carlos Manuel Santiago, 2B/SS, San Francisco Giants
• John "Mule" Miles, 3B/0F, Seattle Mariners
• Walter Lee Gibbons, P, Tampa Bay Rays
• Charley Pride, P, Texas Rangers
• Harold Gould, P, Toronto Blue Jays
• Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, P, Washington Nationals

If you can't include them in as an insert set, why not include them in the base set. You can't create cards of the Beckham brothers, Pedro Alvarez, Eric Hosmer, et. al, for your eponymous Topps set because of the MLBPA rules (although I'm sure you will with the Bowman line...back to the point), I'm sure even they won't mind if you put the 30 people in the list above in the base set. For pictures, if you can't find any from their playing days (which in some cases is totally understandable), get your photographers to take new pictures of them NOW! With the team logos, caps, uniforms, whatever it takes to show that they're now part of the team.

As Dave Winfield envisioned, it would "serve as a bridge between baseball's past and its present." What better way to continue the theme by creating, and inserting, baseball cards of the legendary players who MLB paid tribute to on Thursday, June 5, 2008. I would definitely pay to see that.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Topps Insert Set of the Week: 2002 Topps East Meets West

It seems that from the moment the season ends to the beginning of spring training, one of the biggest news stories in the off-season is who is coming over from the Pacific to play baseball in the US. Japan and Korea are two countries who have embraced the National Pasttime and have been playing for many decades. Japan, especially, has been enamored with the game going back to the Babe Ruth era. And since then, they have established their own brand of baseball that as a gaijin (foreigner in Japanese) is incredibly unique. From the organized cheering sections to the presents given whenever a player hits a home run, things you don't normally see in the US are common in the Japanese game.

On September 1, 1964, Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese born player to make his major league debut when the San Francisco Giants called in him to pitch in the eighth inning against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. He pitched a scoreless inning, and was not scored upon in his first eleven innings of work. He quickly became a hero to the Japanese community in San Francisco and a cultural icon back in Japan. He pitched in 45 more games the following year, with a 4-1 record, 8 saves and a 3.75 ERA. He returned to Japan after the 1965 season, and continued his career in the Nippon Pro Baseball league.

Thirty years later, a "Tornado" landed in Los Angeles. Hideo Nomo, after a five year career with the Kinetsu Buffaloes, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The media frenzy was incredible as both US and Japanese media stormed Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, as Nomo went about his business to earn a spot on the Dodgers roster. Nomo-mania had just begun. He won the NL Rookie of the Year honors, he was named the starting pitcher for the NL in the All-Star game, and finished the year with 13-6 record, with a 2.54 ERA and 236 strikeouts. If anything else, he opened the floodgates for the influx of players from Japan and Korea that have come since.

Inserted in 2002 Topps Series I baseball (1:24 regular hobby/retail packs) was an eight-card set called 2002 Topps East Meets West. This set was created to honor those players who have come from Japan to play in the United States. The set uses the 1965 Topps card design and each card includes a picture of Murakami paired with eight current (as of 2002) Japanese ballplayers. While for the 1965 Topps set, Murakami was joined by Dick Estelle on the rookie card, this time, he was joined by:

• Hideo Nomo


• Makato (Mac) Suzuki


• Shigetoshi Hasegawa


• Hideki Irabu


• Masato Yoshii


• Tomokazu (Tomo) Ohka


• Kazuhiro Sasaki


• Tsuyoshi Shinjo

The backs of each card features the minor league statistics of both Masanori Murakami and the featured player, again in the design of the 1965 Topps cards. The most notable exclusion in this set is Ichiro Suzuki, whose arrival (along with Shinjo) made the arrival of Japanese position players possible. Others who made their big league debut prior to 2002 who did not appear in this set include Takashi Kashiwada, and Masao Kida. And since 2002, 24 other players from the Land of the Rising Sun have made their big league debut. There have also been 12 players from South Korea, and 5 from Taiwan.

A very inexpensive set, it will be found on eBay every once in a while. A good insert set to complement your 2002 Topps Baseball set. Honoring the pioneers of baseball who have paved the way for today's stars like Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima, Tadahito Iguchi, and Kosuke Fukudome, Topps did a good job with this one.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

If You Want Something to Do With Your 1991-1993 Topps Micro Sets

Found on the Topps Message Boards. If you've ever wanted to put those Topps Micro cards to good use...



Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

And the 2008 Topps Red Hot Rookie #1 Card Goes To...

Those holding those Red Hot Rookie Redemption cards better get them logged in to Topps quickly as it has just been announced that card #1 belongs to none other than Jay Bruce of the Cincinnati Reds.

What a run he's had so far. In eight games (as of June 4, 2008), Jay Bruce has hit three homers, driven in seven runs, hitting at a clip of .552, and stolen two bases.

Folks, it doesn't get any hotter than this. And to make it all the more worthwhile, the card is autographed!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, START REDEEMING!!!

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama