Bowman is still being difficult

In honor of the official announcement Monday that Stephen Strasburg will be called up to the majors and start against the Pirates on June 8, I thought I'd actually go through with my threat of attempting to name some of the Bowman sets of the last 10 years.

Strasburg, after all, is the face of 2010 Bowman, which should appear on shelves in my neighborhood by, oh, say Strasburg's fifth major league start.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the original Define the Design post, those Bowman sets aren't easy to name. Even after opening it to suggestions, there weren't a lot of confident answers. I fully expected that. There is not a lot of design to define.

But I will name three of them. I'm not married to any of them, so if something cool springs to mind, don't hesitate to let me know. If you didn't see the original post, go here. Maybe you have an idea on some of the other ones, too.

OK, these three have names, and they're on the sidebar:

2003 Bowman: The red-bordered tombstone set.

2005 Bowman: The brick wall set.

2009 Bowman: The vertical Etch-a-Sketch set.

The last one just came to me the other day. As much as I'd like to name it The Party Trailer set, as suggested by Two Packs a Day, I have never seen a trailer featuring dancing girls in a plexiglass booth in my life. Sadly, I live a sheltered and boring existence.

But my childhood WAS exciting enough to include an Etch-a-Sketch, and the set does look like one of those tilted on its side.

As for 2005 Bowman, the middle part of the card looks exactly like the outside of my grandmother's brick home, so I'm going with that. And I think 2003 Bowman is the most obvious.

But the others -- 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 -- have me stumped.

So just to make me feel better, I'm naming another Bowman set:

1955 Bowman: The TV set.

Sue me. I needed an easy one.