Old vs. new in our first battle, as Topps faces off in a fight to make the final four.
The packs:
2007 Topps
124 Huston Street
26 Jason Jennings
103 Pedro Feliz
330 Ryan Howard
106 Ryan Garko
130 Albert Pujols
WM16 Albert Pujols
204 Juan Rivera
42 Livan Hernandez
160 Justin Verlander
76 Lastings Milledge
275 Greg Maddux
2006 Topps Update & Highlights
UH142 Anibal Sanchez RC
UH158 Russell Martin RC
UH150 Stephen Drew RC
UH138 Matt Kemp RC
UH170 John Maine RC
UH130 Dave Bush
UH122 Ronny Cedeno
MHR183 Mickey Mantle
UH255 Scott Rolen All Star
UH216 National League Strikeout Leaders
UH294 Braves Team Leaders
UH310 Orioles Team Leaders
Number of Cards:
Both packs have 12 cards, so this is a push.
07T: 12, 06TU&H: 12
Number of cards that are actually good:
The 06 pack netted a Mantle Home run insert, a Scott Rolen All Star card, 2 team leaders (Orioles & Braves), National League strikeout leaders, 5 Rookies (Anibel Sanchez, Russell Martin, Stephen Drew, Matt Kemp & John Maine) and 2 boring ol' commons.
The 07 pack turned out to be the Pujols pack. Albert's base card turned up along with his Wal-Mart Baseball history insert. Other notables include Ryan Howard, Greg Maddux and Justin Verlander (with rookie cup!).
06 Topps gets credit for 2 Smoltz cards (team leader & league leader cards), the Rolen All-Star, Mickey and one of the rookies. I'm too lazy to check if any of them are legit rookies so I'll assume 1 of the 5 probably is.
07 Topps gets 5 for the stars listed above, unfortunately the rest of the pack is commons and minor stars that just don't quite cut it in this tourney. Sorry Lastings Milledge, call back when the Mets trade you or actually gives you some PT.
07T: 17, 06TU&H: 17
Inserts and Short Prints:
No short prints in Topps, so the Mantle and Pujols inserts go head to head. Mickey hit his 183rd home run against Pedro Ramos of the Washington Senators on May 29th, 1957. Unfortunately it was a meaningless solo shot in the 9th inning of a 6-2 loss by the Yanks.
Pujols' insert is a replica of the 1949 Bowman set and is just as blurry and off-register as any in the Bowman heritage set. Advantage: Albert.
07T: 22, 06TU&H: 20
Attractiveness of the design:
Weird squares notwithstanding, black borders kick ass. Plus the more I look at it, the more I think Topps went overboard on the foil last year. 06 gets bonus points for having cartoons on the back. I really like the grass & dirt motifs on the back of the 07 Topps cards though. 2007 gets major points for actually having the card number being the same size on every card. I hate the weird random font changes on the card numbers on the 06's. And c'mon, dude, black borders.
07T: 27, 06TU&H: 20
Best card in the pack:
06: Atlanta Braves Team Leaders #UH294
07: Albert Pujols #130
I'm a diehard Braves fan, so any card with Andruw and Smoltzie wins. Dear Jesus, please let Liberty Media open the pocketbooks enough to keep at lease one of them here next year...
The Pujols card is pretty sweet though, the only way it could look any better is if Stan Musial and Scooter Libby were photoshopped into the stands.
07T: 30, 06TU&H: 25
Spokesman on the pack wrapper:
07 Topps has the MVP, Ryan Howard on the front of the pack. Interstignly, the photo is the same one used on the base card.
06 Topps gets a needed boost by having not one but three players on the front of the pack, Pujols, David Wright and Big Papi. Sorry Ryan, three is better than one in this case.
07T: 32, 06TU&H: 30
Intangibles:
Poor 06 Topps. They claw their way back in the game only to be slaughtered in the last 2 minutes. First of all it's Topps TRADED, not any of this Updates and Highlights gibberish. And the UH prefix on the card numbers is just silly. Just make this Series Three this year, number the cards 661 to whatever and do us all a favor. Five rookies in a pack is nice, but it would be nicer if they were legit First Years and not the new 'maybe' RCs. It's gonna take 5-10 years before you can be reasonably sure a card with a MLB Rookie Card Logo is really the guy's first card. Assuming you just ignore all the Bowman 'Insert' cards, that is. It was actually a relief to not see any Rookie logos in the 07 pack. Plus Huston Street has an awesome looking signature. This category is uglier than the Georgetown - North Carolina overtime.
Final score:
2007 Topps 40 2006 Topps TRADED 30
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