Remember way back when Topps showed off a few cards from National Chicle and everyone was like ewwww what's Ichiro doing in a Pilots' uniform and then like a dumbass I had to chime in and went for a joke that flopped instead of saying what I was actually tying to say and then everyone lost they damn minds and some dude from a national baseball card publication e-mailed me a couple dozen times and the artists got all pissed off at me for speaking truth and I ended up becoming the poster child for BOOOO NATIONAL CHICLE when all I was trying to say was chill homies National Chicle is gonna be a sweet-ass looking art set and that Chipper Jones card looks mighty fine but why did they put Babe Ruth's name on it?
Remember that?
No?
Good, maybe that mess has finally blown over then. Anyway, Topps is steadily releasing more and more images of the base cards (remember them? base cards? Beuller?) and my predictions were 100% accurate. It really is an excellent looking card set and the paintings for the cards look fantastic.
In the middle of that brouhaha, artist Dave Hobrecht e-mailed me and offered to give me a sneak peek at the artwork that he contributed to the set once he got the OK from Topps. He got the OK and e-mailed me images of the artwork he created.
(I'm guessing on a lot of the names here, if I'm incorrect please let me know)
Shane Victorino
Rich Harden (in Texas uni?)
Orlando Hudson
Miguel Cabrera
Michael Saunders
Marlon Byrd
Kosuke Fukudome
Josh Thole
Jonathon Broxton
David Wright
Babe Ruth (for reals!)
Ty Cobb
Alex Fraudriguez
Josh Beckett
Walter Johnson in a Nationals uni maybe?
Hunter Pence
Carl Crawford
Joey Votto
Asdrubal Cabrera
Russell Martin
Jayson Werth
Johnny Damon
Reid Gorecki (oh, that's why)
Aaron Hill
Victor Martinez
Ok, why is Reid Gorecki in every damn Topps set? He played about three games for the Braves last year and isn't even in the organization anymore. I'll admit I cheated on a lot of these by going off the names listed on Dave's eBay auctions.
What's that I say? EBay auctions? Why yes! Dave got to keep the artwork and is selling much of it on eBay.
Here's Russell
And Jayson
And Crawford
And Pence.
You can look over his entire eBay store if you like, there's lots of cool goodies there.
SO WHAT I'M A TRYIN' TA SAY HERE is that National Chicle is going to rock your ass with ART. All you fellows out there who are bored with the utterly subdued '61 Heritage set might want to give this color explosion a try when it comes out. When does this come out anyway? Please let it come out after payday. Make that two or three paydays. I need to save up for a box. Even if they don't correct the error on that Chipper Jones card. Yay National Chicle!
ALSO: Some of you weren't happy with Crawford's beady little eyes. Um, Crawford's eyes actually do sort of look like that. Here's the black & white original for comparison.
Seriously, do a Google image search for Crawford, dude's got jeepers creepers peepers.
