I'm guessing that most people who collected the 2024 Heritage set have moved on to other card ventures by now.
We're even past 2025 Heritage appearing on store shelves, at least where I live -- it sure could hang around a little longer, I don't think flippers are gobbling up Heritage. I'm still chasing short-prints in '25 Heritage though and I'm still keeping my eye on what's interesting to me in 2024 Heritage. Mostly I'm still thinking about chasing the high numbers set and pondering what other Dodgers parallels I want.
So I was looking through my '24 Heritage in the Dodgers binder yesterday, getting an idea for what I could shop for, when I suddenly realized that there was no Max Muncy in the set.
"That's funny," I thought. "I'm pretty sure I've completed both the main set and the high numbers set." But just to be sure, I looked on TCDB and COMC. Sure enough, Muncy is nowhere to be found in 2024 Heritage.
Weird.
And, yeah, I probably should've noticed this before. I'm slow to pick up on such discrepancies -- I've got too many things going on.
As a refresher because I know not many of you are Dodgers fans, Muncy was fairly notable on the team in 2023 -- the year that 2024 Heritage reflects. He was second on the team in home runs, RBIs and walks. He was third in runs scored. OK, so his batting average was .212, but I hope Topps wasn't penalizing him for that. This is only the 1975 design, it's not actually 1975.
Back in 2018 I was whining about Heritage not appearing in Topps products as they seemed to be slow to the switch in including him. But since Muncy's been a regular, he's appeared in Heritage every year -- except for 2024.
Here is a list (another list!) of the Dodgers players who appeared in the most games during 2023 and 2024 who are not in 2024 Heritage:
1. Miguel Rojas - 227
2. Max Muncy - 208
3. Chris Taylor - 204
4. Jason Heyward - 187
5. Austin Barnes - 113
OK, Miguel Rojas probably has a case to complain, too, but he was still considered more of a defensive role player at the time, same with Taylor. Jason Heyward hurts -- he should be in the set, too, especially if Heritage High Numbers is including somebody named Andre Lipcius, who never played for the Dodgers.
But no Muncy is baffling.
I'm going to assume this was just a whiff by Topps/Fanatics and not a license issue. Muncy is in 2024 flagship and other Topps sets that year.
I probably didn't miss much with Muncy not appearing in '24 Heritage. Muncy's 2025 Heritage card is not very exciting and actually none of his Heritage cards are interesting:
If it wasn't for the 60 years of the L.A. Dodgers patch Muncy is wearing on the 2019 Heritage card at top left, I could be convinced that all of these pictures are from the same photo shoot from like five years ago. We all know the backgrounds are fake.
At least I'll always have this Max Muncy Heritage card.
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