The obsession begins

 

Many readers have probably been bracing for this year. They know my love for 1975 Topps and that I have been looking forward to 2024 Heritage for that reason for as long as the blog has been going.

For the rest of you? I apologize for my behavior in the months ahead.

 

This is the first of many obsession posts about 2024 Heritage. The checklist was released yesterday and, well, I absolutely have to pick that apart. This is the perfect thing for a blog, no other social media outlet can handle breakdowns of a set checklist, other than, "hey, the checklist is out!"

So, I will begin.

1. Let's start with the SPs.

I've referred to these already, discussing the clamor about the SPs being moved to the first 100 cards of the set rather than the back 100. Where they show up in the set doesn't bother me. The fact that there are SPs, when 1975 Topps had absolutely none -- it was not a set broken up into series -- is what's irksome and exposes Topps as squeezing us for every last dollar. But it's a set that exists in modern times, so there's going to be a lot of disconnect here.

The SPs consist entirely of non-rookie cards. They're all veteran players, which also bothers me. The rookie card hobby obsession is a plague that continues to spread. Heritage, at least in past years, is not a set popular with rookie-hunters, but Topps has to wedge them into everything, and making them easier to pull is not appealing to me. Going through the checklist, I recognize about five of the approximate 90 rookie cards in the set (my eyes began to blur, so it's not an exact count). So I will be collecting cards of players I don't know -- it will be my least favorite part of collecting this set, easily.

 

One of the players listed in the SP portion of the set, the Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi at card No. 82, is not short-printed. I don't know why. However, the Rangers' Leody Taveras, at card No. 407 is short-printed, the only SP not in the first 100 of the set.

The SPs include no Dodgers except for the Freddie Freeman and Clayton Kershaw Highlights cards -- there are seven Highlights cards to start the set, just like in 1975. I can't remember a Heritage set that included just two short-printed Dodgers, so I am going to assume this is Topps Fearing The Wrath Of Night Owl. Notable players in the SP portion include: Gunnar Henderson, Mike Trout, Nolan Arenado and Randy Arozarena. Everyone is recognizable in the SPs, but they're mostly mid-level players/stars.

2. Dodgers in the set

 

Like many team collectors, one of the first things I do when I see a new set checklist is review who from my team in in the checklist. It's pretty straight-forward. However, in the last couple of years, Topps -- in order to attract more collectors to its High Numbers release -- has stashed certain star players in High Numbers, regardless of whether those players switched teams or not. Clayton Kershaw has been a High Numbers resident each of the last two years, and he's played for only one team.

 

This is the checklist for the Dodgers this year:

 

2-Freddie Freeman, Season Highlights (SP)

4-Clayton Kershaw, Season Highlights (SP)

116-Bobby Miller

178-Gavin Lux

187-Emmet Sheehan

232-Tony Gonsolin

248-Freddie Freeman

333-Joe Kelly

356-Will Smith

363-Walker Buehler

371-Shohei Ohtani

377-Amed Rosario

386-Clayton Kershaw

413-James Outman

434-J.D. Martinez

475-Enrique Hernandez

499-Mookie Betts

 

There are also some Dodgers in the MVP subset series, but I'll get to that in a minute.

 

I was relieved that Kershaw was not reserved for High Numbers for a third straight year. I was going through the list from the beginning, so panic started to well up as I didn't see Betts' name until the next-to-last card.

 

The Dodgers, with their offseason moves, have plenty of candidates for High Numbers with Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Teoscar Hernandez. The most notable missing player from the Heritage team list is Max Muncy. Also, Chris Taylor and Jason Heyward are missing. Meanwhile Joe Kelly is there for some reason, yet it doesn't look like we'll ever get an Evan Phillips card.

 

Amed Rosario and J.D. Martinez are no longer with the Dodgers. I could have told Topps in September that Rosario was not going to be a Dodger in 2024 so I don't know what they're thinking. The major inclusion is Ohtani, who no doubt will feature photoshop action.

 

3. The subsets

 

There are 5 subsets in 1975 Topps -- Highlights, past MVPs, Leaders, the Postseason and Rookie Prospects. Topps is including all except Rookie Prospects in Heritage. I sure wish it would have continued the 4-player Rookie Prospects that it did in 2023 Heritage, it may have cut down on the number of rookie cards forced into the set (but I doubt it).

The MVP subset is the most interesting. It's a 24-card subset, just like 1975 and it uses the same card numbers, from 189 to 212 like '75 did. The subset opens with 1951, just like '75, but then skips around after that, using the years 1957, 1959, 1967, 1971, which also were included in '75, but then going with more modern cards, such as 1975, 1980, 1981, 1986, 1999, 2014, 2022, etc. I'm sure the years used hinged on whether Topps had the rights to use particular players. It will be interesting to see and I'm glad the cards aren't short-printed.

Dodgers included are Roy Campanella (1951), Clayton Kershaw (2014) and Cody Bellinger (2019).

4. Weirdness

The weirdest aspect of the checklist is that there are manager cards in this set.

No, Topps hasn't resurrected the team checklist cards that used to appear in Heritage. You may recall that the manager appeared as an inset photo on the team checklist cards in '75. Instead, Topps is creating random stand-alone manager cards THAT DID NOT EXIST in 1975.

Most of the managers included were active managers that appeared on team checklist cards in the '75 set. All of them are in the Hall of Fame (or will be), which makes me assume it's a licensing thing again, Topps has all the HOF people under contract.

Manager cards (still weird) included are: Sparky Anderson (No. 111), Yogi Berra (123), Dick Williams (134), Whitey Herzog (146), Red Schoendienst (149), Earl Weaver (153), Dusty Baker (283).

There are two managers out-of-kilter with '75. Yogi Berra is listed with the Yankees. He wasn't a Yankees manager until the 1980s. He was the Mets manager in the '75 set. I'm hoping this is a misprint but knowing Topps, it's not. The other oddity is Dusty Baker. He was in the '75 set, but as a player. All of the other managers are listed with the team that they were shown with in '75.

As strange as these are, I'm interested to see them. I often wish all the vintage Topps sets had manager cards, now I get to see what they'd look like in the 1975 set.

5. Card number matching

I haven't had time to go through the checklist and see whether any of the card numbers line  up with 1975 Topps card numbers. That will be more for when I open my first packs. I looked quickly through the Dodgers and didn't notice any matches. James Outman is one card number off from Manny Mota. Geez.

6. Error variations

I normally wouldn't address this because the two variations listed are 1:4081 hobby packs but this is 1975! One is the Royals' Cole Ragans at card No. 120, which was the famed Steve Busby card featuring Fran Healy. So I wonder if a Royals catcher will appear on the Ragans variation? The other card is No. 372 Corbin Carroll. 372 in the '75 set is John D'Acquisto. I don't know any error related to the D'Acquisto card.

7. Inserts

My major focus for Heritage this year is the base set/SP set. Inserts will just get in the way. But since it's 1975, I'm interested in seeing what they look like, especially the Flashbacks cards. Also, the New Age Performers look quite time-appropriate.

I could be collecting that -- and singing The Electric Company theme song while doing so.

8. All-Stars and color combos

This doesn't have anything to do with the checklist because they haven't been revealed yet, but I want to see every single color combination in the Heritage set that appeared in 1975. I will definitely be documenting and if any combo is left out, it will become My New Cause.

I also really hope that there are the yellow-and-red All-Star cards with the large five-pointed star. This was a major part of the collecting experience in 1975 and there will be a big hole in Heritage if they aren't there.

Release date for this set is April 10. I'm glad that I won't have to wait until the end of May like last year. April is a great time for the release of a new set, in fact, there were many times in the '70s when I got my first cards for the year in April.

I realize with Heritage -- even more than ever now -- that I am collecting the design more than the subject matter. The subjects don't really go with the set tribute. I'm hoping the pictures do, although the images of Mike Trout and Elly De La Cruz standing-and-staring don't inspire confidence.

But I'll try to overcome all the modern trappings, like I did last year. This could be the last Heritage set that I go all-out for (though I still do really like the '76, '77, '78 and '79 sets from my kids days). So I'm going to make it count.