2007 Baseball Card UnAwards part 1

I tried to do yearly awards like everyone else, I really did. But when I tried to fill out the ballot, I choked. I just couldn't pick just one favorite set or the one worst new hobby innovation and some stuff I didn't mess with at all this year so it was just way too difficult to choose. I always over complicate easy stuff, so forget it. No awards from me, I'll leave that to the less neurotic bloggers out there. Instead, I'm going to do a list of all the stuff I liked and didn't like in 2007. I might still be updating this in May, so don't assume what you see here is everything I liked or hated. This is just what has occurred to me while writing the post.

What I Liked In 2007:

My favorite 2007 cards:

This was actually one category that was easy for me. Hands down my favorite card in '07 was the Allen and Ginter card of Torii Hunter. Every time I see this card I smile. Every time. If I watched my momma get shot point blank in the face by Dick Cheney then sent to a hospital that was operating under Hillary's health care plan, you could show me this card and I'd still smile. I even put it in my title graphic, I like it so much.

Here are other cards I liked this year:

• Upper Deck Basketball Al Horford Santa Hat
• Topps Distinguished Service Warren Spahn
• Upper Deck Legendary Cuts Yogi Berra
• Goudey base cards Johan Santana, Lance Berkman and Yogi Berra
• Goudey Heads up Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson
• Goudey Jeff Francouer Jersey relic
• Allen & Ginter n43 Bruce Lee and Ryan Howard
• Allen & Ginter National Pride with Webb, Verlander, Maddux and Smoltz
• Allen & Ginter Dick Perez "Tribute to Howard Finster" Jim Edmonds
• Topps Heritage Lew Burdette and Warren Spahn inserts
• Pretty much every David Ortiz card I pulled

Cards I didn't like this year:

Another no-brainer on this one. Topps Chrome Michael Vick. That card single handedly caused me to stop buying 2007 football cards in protest.

Other ones I hated:

• Ubiquitous A-Rod Bullshit Waste of Space
• Topps Updates & Highlights Barry Bonds Home Run King
• Any card from a pack that costs more than my car payment

My Favorite Set:

This one is a virtual tie between Allen & Ginter and Upper Deck Goudey. There's no way I could choose because both changed in some way how I collect. A&G was the first set since Topps205 to get me really focused on building and completing a set with short prints, plus it indirectly caused me to start buying cards from the 1880's. UD Goudey was the set that brought me back to Upper Deck. I hadn't been remotely interested in anything from UD with the exception of Fleer since about 2005. I bought some Goudey in part to help me get a free autograph of Yunel Escobar from my local card shop, and as soon as I ripped it, I was hooked. If you would have told me last year if I would have two UD sets mostly finished and I would be working on a third, I would have thought you were nuts.

Other sets I liked:

• UD Masterpieces
• Bowman Heritage
• Topps Basketball
• Topps Heritage
• Topps Series one and two
• Topps Finest
• Topps Chrome
• Upper Deck Artifacts
• Upper Deck Legendary Cuts
• Upper Deck First Edition

Sets I didn't like:

A lot of these can be lumped into the "expensive pack, ugly card" category. Sport Kings is the most disappointing. It could have been an epic set, but they short printed it to hell so they could charge a fortune, the inserts look ugly and the artwork is brutal. I can't fathom why people are up in arms about sketches Dick Perez drew on tiny pieces of cardboard that had to fit inside a rip card, while paintings done for a pack that costs 300 bucks and up can look like dogshit and mostly get a pass. While I'm not crazy about Turkey Red, Dick Perez did his homework on those paintings and they compare very favorably to original Turkey Reds while still maintaining Dick's style. Sport Kings look like an art student aping the original Goudeys while copying a bad photo of the player and managing to miss on both.

Sets I didn't like with explanations:

• Sport Kings - complete disaster
• Topps Co-Signers - all silver design is ugly
• Upper Deck - a thousand card set packed out at 8 cards for 3 bucks, No thanks
• Topps Updates and Highlights - shoulda bought the factory set
• Topps '52 Rookies - if Topps mails in this set next year and does the exact same design again I'm going to beat Michael Eisner to death with a Mickey Mouse plushie
• Bowman - this set needs an overhaul, stat
• Turkey Red - more disappointed than anything, it could have been a great set, but the checklist is too small and completing the SP's is impossible

That's enough for now, I'll get to inserts, designs and trends later.