All of my favorites

 

Today is one of my favorite days. It's been one of my favorites since 1976, the first year I watched the All-Star Game.

I have posted about the All-Star Game many times, often at this time of year. And I've mentioned many times that I will continue to watch the ASG no matter how much it wanders away from the game I knew as a kid and while growing into adulthood. I am determined to have fun because it's such a favorite of mine.

That's why it bothers me when people say "it's not the same, I won't watch" or "I haven't watched it in 17 years" or "it's boring" or "I watch soccer instead." I want to shake them.

That may seem severe, but think of one of your all-time favorite activities, something you've loved since you were a kid and continue to love. Now imagine someone dismissing that thing that you love. That's the All-Star Game to me.

 

I will do a lot of my favorite things on this day. I'll watch baseball until the very end ("I went to bed after the 5th inning" is another thing that hurts my ears). I'll  root for the National League. I'll eat some of my favorite snacks and drink one of my favorite beers. And maybe I'll page through some of my favorite card sets in between.

One of them is bound to be one of Topps' All-Time Fan Favorites sets. Because I just completed all of them recently.

These were the last cards I needed to finish the 2003 Fan Favorites set. I had wrapped up the '04 and '05 Fan Favorites several years ago. And then I sat on that '03 want list for too long.

These are really wonderful sets and as I've said before, it is the set that helped get me back into modern collecting, along with those 2006 Topps rack packs. While on summer vacation in Buffalo in 2004, wandering through a Kmart that I had never been in before, I discovered something called "Fan Favorites" in the toy aisle (my daughter was 6 then, toy aisles were a regular stop).

 

I was fascinated by the familiar players on familiar Topps designs but with different photographs. I bought a few packs. And I liked them so much, I had to go back the next day and buy some more.

For that reason, the second Fan Favorites set from 2004 will always be my favorite. But I love them all.

 

Since today's the All-Star Game I thought I'd go through the Fan Favorites sets and find the cards that used one of Topps' all-star designs and do a little critiquing.

 

Here are the 2003 Fan Favorites using All-Star notation:

In typical Fan Favorites fashion, some of these designs don't look quite right. It's not enough to bother me because, oh my goodness, the set is glorious (this is back when they weren't skimping on card stock). But that '76 All-Star logo on the Nettles card is far too small and the wording is spaced out.

The Concepcion card features a photo that's likely from 1980 or 1981, his hair wasn't that long at that time in 1977. I do like the Musial card a lot, better than the original 1958 All-Star card, even if he isn't nearly as smiley as on the '58 card.

 

But the Rod Carew card is my favorite All-Star card in the '03 Fan Favorites set. This is an image that was used for a Time Magazine cover in mid-June of 1977 when Carew was chasing .400. It's not an image that would have ever appeared in the '77 Topps set, but it's won me over and I'm so glad we can put photos like this on cards now.

Here are the 2004 Fan Favorites All-Star cards:

Rod Carew shows up again, this time in an Angels uniform. Reggie Jackson gets two All-Star cards in the same set, one as an Oakland Athletic and one as a California Angel.

The Mark Fidrych card is a tribute to his "rookie cup/All-Star banner" 1977 Topps breakout card. It's kind of an odd photo (he was right-handed) but I am too happy that there is another Fidrych card. It took about 25 years for people to realize that there weren't enough Fidrych cards.

 

The Angels Jackson is my favorite All-Star card from this group. I love the 1983 All-Star design and capturing a dugout scene along with Jackson's salute to the fans is interesting. I do like the 1970 Jackson All-Star, too. I think there should have been more of those cards in Fan Favorites. But the criminal oversight in Fan Favorites is that the 1969 All-Star design was never used. (Neither was the 1968 one). The '69 look is one of my favorites.

Here are the 2005 Fan Favorites All-Star cards:

Just three this year. They could've produced more than that.

In general, the 2005 Fan Favorites set is my least favorite of the three. You can see signs of Topps starting to mail it in, it's a bit sloppy compared with the others. The Rod Carew card is almost jarring as Topps used an image of Carew that looks like it's from the 1970 ALCS on a 1976 design.

 

The Johnny Bench card this year is weird as hell but it's still my favorite. The hesitant look on Bench's face as disembodied hands thrust out toward him makes for one of the stranger cards that I have seen. Obviously it's nothing that would ever show up in 1975.

So there you are. That's a look at one of my favorite aspects about cards -- the All-Star cards -- from one of my favorite card brands -- the All-Time Fan Favorites -- on one of my favorite days of the year -- the day of the All-Star Game.

 

Also I just finished one of my favorite activities: I completed a set, actually a series of sets.

If you're still not sure about what I think of this day, here's a fact:

I used the word "favorite" or "favorites" 32 times in this post.

 

Now, don't bother me with your contrarian words. I'm too busy doing all of my favorite things.