And In The End, It's Finally Over!

Congratulations to our new President Barack Obama, and his Vice President Joe Biden. In less than 77 days, the White House, and our Nation, will be in your hands. Good luck to you both. And we'll see you again in our Topps products in another four years.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

Before You Read Any More of My (or Anyone Else's) Posts...

GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!!!

I actually had scans of both my Obama and McCain Presidential cards ready for this post, but forgot to get them onto the blog. So to make up for it, here is a scan of what could have been a very interesting product in honor of said election had it not been cancelled:

Good luck. I'm just glad it's finally over. May the best man (I'm not going to specify who I'm for) win.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

PUNK'D Edition!!! Introducing the Design for 2009 Topps Baseball!!!

UPDATE: Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

I was PUNK'D!!! In my over-enthusiasm, I was led to believe this was the real thing. And I will admit that I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. But after reading comments on JT's site last night before turning off the computer, I was beginning to become skeptical. So I made slight adjustments to my post here and on a couple of message boards, ensuring that he gets credit for the piece.

At least my daughter's design still has a shot...(read below to see what I mean). jba

2009 Topps Jay Bruce. Welcome back to 1979 Topps Fans!!!
Thanks to the gentleman over at Writer's Journey and the anonymous poster (you know you've got to tell me who you are so I can thank you publicly for this) who pointed out that JT broke the news.

If the story is true, this design hearkens back to their 1979 effort (funny, that would be 30 years ago when this comes out). What immediately stands out is the amount of space reserved for the picture. It's a simple design. White borders (thank you), player name and team name unobtrusive from the picture. It just screams simple. Don't know if foil printing will come into play (most likely it will somewhere).

Now for those who may say that it looks any kid could have done a better job designing the card for 2009 Topps, rest assured that my eight-year-old daughter was paid lots of money to come up with option number two (see below):

My daughter's 2009 Topps Card design. Looking back now, this actually looks better than the one above!!!

Seriously folks, in a time where every collector wants a nice clean design, you couldn't ask for anything more than this.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

P.S. This is JayBee's daughter. He does not know that I am adding a picture of this necklace that I made to his blog. Don't tell him. Thanks. L. A.

Now how did this get on here...jba

So When Will We Get to See Them???

In our continuing efforts not to glorify the dreaded other company, I'll make this post pretty easy. If anybody from Topps reads this (is there anybody from Topps who reads this?), the other guys have already spilled the beans on their 2009 design.

WHEN WILL WE GET TO SEE WHAT YOU'VE COME UP WITH FOR NEXT YEAR??!

That is all. We now return to your regular scheduled blog reading.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

The 2008 Topps U & H WalMart Checklist is Now Complete!!!

2008 Topps U & H WalMart Dick Perez Ryan Braun, Johan Santana, and Josh Hamilton insert cards. Three of ten cards that finish off the 30 card set.
It only took a day, but we now have confirmed the final checklist for the ten insert cards that are exclusively found in blaster boxes and packs sold only at WalMart.

• WM21-Ryan Braun
• WM22-Johan Santana
• WM23-Matt Holliday
• WM24-Ervin Santana
• WM25-Daisuke Matsuzaka
• WM26-Josh Hamilton
• WM27-Chipper Jones
• WM28-Lance Berkman
• WM29-Hanley Ramirez
• WM30-Mariano Rivera

Remember, if you buy these at Walmart and you don't collect any of the above ten players, or you don't plan on collecting the set, but still want to give these insert cards a home, please send me an e-mail and I will be more than happy to take them off your hands. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

If This is His Topps Card, Then What Card is This?: Angel Pagan

After a couple of weeks off, it's time to bring this feature back into circulation. This week's subject began his year as the starting left fielder for the New York Mets. Prior to that, he was a backup outfielder for the Chicago Cubs. And even before that, he was a career minor leaguer with the New York Mets. So it took the Mets eight years, mind you two years away from the franchise, but they finally were able to get him onto the major league roster. He has one of the most unique names in the majors because of the possible religious contradiction to it. This week's subject is none other than Mets outfielder Angel Pagan.

In his two years with the Cubs, he hit 9 home runs and drove in 39 rbi's in 148 games played. The highlight of his brief Cubbie career, which was featured in the KMart exclusive 2007 Topps Generation Now Variation set (only Cub to be featured) was hitting two home runs on his birthday (07/02/2006) against the crosstown Chicago White Sox. Traded back to the Mets in January 2008, he only appeared in 31 games in April and May before being placed on the disabled list for the rest of the year.

So anyway, onto the game. Here is his 2008 Topps card, from the just out Updates and Highlights set:



Nice blue jersey, must have been from a spring training game, does not look like there was any photoshopping here. He is pictured here hitting the ball and is on his way to first.

Now here's card number 2:

This card was probably taken during the first week of the season, when the Mets took two out of three against the eventual World Series Champions some time between April 8 - April 10. In this series, he started all three games, and wound up with five hits in 11 at bats and drove in three runs.

So now it's time to ask that all important question...

What Card Is This???

I'll leave this up for a day or so for everyone to ponder. This should be an easy one (if you're a Mets fan anyway). Good luck.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

UPDATE: Thursday, November 6, 2008.

Friend of the blog the drizz was the only person to respond this week. While I don't know what the 2008 Topps Mets exclusive cards look like, I can tell you that this card came from the 55-card 2008 Topps Mets Gift set.

Thanks for playing. We'll shoot for next week. jba

My Post-Halloween Post

Last year, I took Supergirl and a cowboy while my wife stayed home to wait on trick-or-treaters and cook the traditional Halloween spaghetti dinner. Yesterday, I got to watch my wife, a snow princess, and Batman, go on their annual Trick-or-Treat walk around the neighborhood while I stayed home and cooked. And all that time I realized that I didn't post anything special for Halloween. This hopefully should make up for it.

I'm not too much into the Halloween spirit (no pun intended) since I was in 6th grade. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I dressed up for Halloween since then (and even then, I hated it...not good for a theatre worker in high school). But all the same, stories of ghosts, monsters, and mysteries of the unknown always fascinated me. I don't mean the stories that were made up (okay, few exceptions here), but real stories about ghosts and haunted houses and buildings. I try not to scare easily, but when there is a good real ghost story on the television or a book that I'm reading, I let all of that go, and just get spooked.

While I don't have any Halloween themed baseball cards, here are some cards that could pass, especially with their involvement with the unknown...(cue Inner Sanctum crypt opening music...)


There have been many stories about visitors seeing the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House. While he is probably the most famous ghost residing at the Oval Office, there are others who haunt the Presidential Mansion.


Okay, there were those on the Topps Message Boards who questioned the sanity of the Topps Company when they created this card for the 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter set. Why glorify a murderer was asked a number of times? There wound up even a guy who signed on as Satan (or a reasonable facsimile of) and said that he had an autographed copy of the card. Funny stuff.

The fact is that because Topps was honoring the Allen & Ginter sets of the 1800's, it only made sense to include important events of that time. And sadly, this was one of them. I was going to provide a link that showcases the history of the Ripper Murders, but due to the subject matter, and the fact that the one site I went to goes into really graphic detail on the subject, with pictures, I'm going to pass on doing so.


Whether or not you believe in vampires, you can thank Bram Stoker for giving the world Dracula.


And who knew back then (remember, this is the late 1800's) that a teenaged woman could create one of the most complex and terrifying tales of all time with the classic "The Modern Prometheus." This was just the subtitle to Mary Shelley's classic tale of a mad scientist's quest to give life to the monster known as Frankenstein.

Victor Hugo showed us all that not all "monsters" are bad when he wrote his classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So that ends my little jaunt into Halloween. I promise that next year I'll do better.

(Previewing another What??! of the Week)

Topps, he's been with the Yankees, since the 50's. He's wathced everyone from Mantle and Maris, to Jeter and ARod, and everyone in between.

What were you thinking when you picked THIS picture of the "Voice of God" Bob Sheppard??? He looks like the Crypt Keeper. Wasn't there a better picture to use. This one scared my daughter when I opened the pack in 2004. I know Mr. Sheppard's health is deteriorating (as noted at the All-Star Game this year), but was this the way to include the guy in a set called "All-Time Fan Favorites??!"

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama