Fixing my complaints

Yesterday I wrote a return post that included a lot more complaining than I would have liked.  Yes, it feels kind of normal to complain about Topps because they are honestly not doing a very good job with their product recently.  However, I decided that instead of complaining and just being negative, I would do something about it.  I would remake a Series 1 team set using only guys that made their Rockies debut in 2020.  I also decided that instead of using a stolen 2020 Donruss design like Topps did, I would use a stolen 1977 Topps design like I did in 2013.  I used the relatively simple, but much more eye appealing, design from my 2013 Quarry Unlimited set to showcase the Rockies from the truncated pandemic season.  

As an aside, was any word more overused when describing last year's season that truncated?  Until 2020, that was a word that you maybe saw 5 times in your life, but last year it felt like every hack sportswriter got the same word of the day calendar and just beat it into the ground describing the 2020 baseball season. Can you think of any other words that you feel like came out of nowhere to be used only in one relatively small situation in life?

Anyway, no one came here to talk about vocabulary, so let's take a look at the debuting Rockies of 2020 in all their purple (and red) majesty. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Unfortunately, only one of these guys, Ryan Castellani, is in Series 1 and he had quite a few Bowman cards already.  Owings was in 2020 Update, Kinley was in 2020 Topps Total, and Doyle had some cards in Bowman Draft and Panini EEE a couple years back, but the rest of these guys have had no Rockies cards made.  I enjoy getting cards of my TEAM, not just the superstars of the team.  I ended up making these in about an hour while I had on a rerun of an 80s cop show in the background.  So why does Topps act like it is such a hassle?  I love to collect Charlie Blackmon, but as glorious as his beard is, how many cards does he need each year?  I would much rather have one of these guys instead of my 75th Blackmon or 125th Story or 50th UTROY (ubiquitous team rookie of the year).  

 

As an aside #2, the website where I used to get my card photos has apparently not been adding sports photos since mid 2015, so I had to just go with Google searches here.  Easily found images, but a couple of them are still pretty cool.

 

What do you guys think?  Would you rather stick with current superstars and rookies only pattern or see a switch to an all inclusive style?  I think based on my memory of the community here I already know the answer, but I still think it needs to be said again and again.

As a bonus, here is a 2020 Topps Update card of Kevin Pillar that I was noodling around with a few weeks back.  I'm not 100% happy with it, but it's not horrible either.  I am not a fan of the design and this is probably the only custom of the 2020 design I will ever do, but Pillar definitely looks better in purple than in the Giants garb he sports in the actual 2020 Update set.

 

Not a bad custom, but I would hate to do an entire team set in this design.  It is just not good.  Kind of like the bastard child of 1992 Score and 1993 Ultra.  But I hope you like it anyway.

 

 

Let me know what you think and thanx for reading.

2013 Quarry Unlimited - The Grand Finale

Another year of baseball is officially behind us again.  They say sequels are often inferior to the original, but I believe this year's installment of the Quarry Unlimited set was superior to the original.  I learned more about making the cards and they look a lot more uniform.  Once I figured out why my posts were not updating, the process was a lot simpler as well.  (By the way, that had to do with Google AdSense)  Before we put the 2013 Quarry Unlimited to bed, let's take a look at the top 12 cards chosen by you, including a surprise at #1.

3 votes

 4 votes

 5 votes

6 votes

 7 votes

 AND THE BEST IN THE SET WITH 8 VOTES

My personal top 5 was almost exactly the same as the vote, just in a slightly different order.   I had it
1. Ben Revere
2. Mike Moustakas
3. Joe Mauer
4. Ryan Howard
5. Todd Helton (yes I am a homer)

Last year the Royals had 2 of the top 4 to claim the 2012 Team of the Set.  This year the Phillies went one better by claiming 3 of the top 5 spots and are obviously the 2013 Team of the Set.  I am a bit surprised that Howard won over Revere, but it is still a gorgeous card.  I would say that if people ranked the cards as they voted for them then there would probably be a different winner.  Once again, you guys made some great choices and I hope you enjoyed this set.

As of right now, I am leaning toward doing a 2014 Quarry Unlimited set.  I'm sure I can have my arm twisted one way or another if enough people ask.  One thing I am sure of is that I will be stepping away from a Topps set, because Topps is reprinting their designs enough for everyone.  If there is a 2014 Quarry Unlimited set it will most likely be modeled after one of my favorite sets of all time.

There is definitely going to be some tweaking involved since I am only doing card fronts and 1988 Score is more known for a tremendous card back, but I think I can make it look good.  It is a relatively simple design, but it is also missing a key element that needs to be worked in somewhere, a team name or logo.  If I can't get the design to work the way I want it to, I have another idea, but I would rather have this one work.


Thank you guys so much for making this a wholly enjoyable project once again. 


Thanx for reading.

2013 Quarry Unlimited - The Index

One last time, don't forget to vote for the top 10 in the 2013 Quarry Unlimited set on the right sidebar if you haven't voted yet.  I'd like to get as many votes as last year and we are a little short right now.

Last year I did a Traded set, but it didn't really work as well as I was hoping and it didn't really fit into the whole theme of everyone on a card that appears in a game that goes along with the Quarry Unlimited set.  So then I had to decide what to replace it with on Thursday.  One thing I realized I was missing was an index which could take you to whichever team you wanted to see very quickly.  I am going to rectify that now.  I will also make it easier for you to find your team by division rather than my likability scale.



NL CENTRAL
Brewers     -           Part 1                          Part 2
Cardinals   -           Part 1                          Part 2
Cubs         -           Part 1                          Part 2
Pirates       -           Part 1                          Part 2
Reds          -           Part 1                          Part 2

NL EAST
Braves        -           Part 1                          Part 2
Marlins       -           Part 1                          Part 2
Mets           -           Part 1                          Part 2
Nationals    -           Part 1                          Part 2
Phillies        -           Part 1                          Part 2

NL WEST
Diamondbacks    -           Part 1                          Part 2
Dodgers              -           Part 1                          Part 2
Giants                 -           Part 1                          Part 2
Padres                -           Part 1                          Part 2
Rockies              -           Part 1                          Part 2

AL CENTRAL
Indians             -           Part 1                          Part 2
Royals             -           Part 1                          Part 2
Tigers              -           Part 1                          Part 2
Twins              -           Part 1                          Part 2
White Sox       -           Part 1                          Part 2

AL EAST
Blue Jays        -           Part 1                          Part 2
Orioles           -           Part 1                          Part 2
Rays               -           Part 1                          Part 2
Red Sox         -           Part 1                          Part 2
Yankees          -           Part 1                          Part 2

AL WEST
Angels             -           Part 1                          Part 2
Astros             -           Part 1                          Part 2
Athletics          -           Part 1                          Part 2
Mariners         -           Part 1                          Part 2
Rangers          -           Part 1                          Part 2


SUBSETS
Big League Brothers
Four Paneled Rookies
League Leaders
Postseason Highlights
Rookie All Star Team
Manager & Coaches Cards


RECAP
Part 1
Part 2
Grand Finale



I am also going to retroactively put an index on the 2012 Unlimited set this weekend, just in case anyone ever wants to revisit that collection.  I will also repost this one after the Grand Finale, so they will be the first thing that pops up when you click the Quarry Unlimited link on the left sidebar. 


Thanx for reading.

2013 Quarry Unlimited - The Recap Part 2

Don't forget to vote for your top 10 cards in the 2013 Quarry Unlimited set.  Check out the nominees here.

I was hoping to be finished with the Quarry Unlimited set before 2014 Topps became the hot topic of the blogs.  In fact, the main reason for me doing this was to take up the boring final two months of the card year before flagship is released.  I got a little bit behind, so hopefully this post will make it through the 25 posts about people having or not having 2014 Topps in their are.  For the record, I have not even looked mainly because it is way too cold, but I doubt I have Topps in my area.  My Wal Mart is usually about 3 weeks behind getting the new stuff.  However I have already ordered the Rockies team set off eBay, which I will show off when it arrives.

Anyway, back to the Quarry Unlimited set.  Today I am going to show some facts and figures about the set along with showing the FINAL card from the 2013 Quarry Unlimited set.  It is an accidental homage to both Al Leiter and Jose Gonzalez.  Hopefully you get those references.  Let's check out some (hopefully) fun trivia.



First player alphabetically 

David Aardsma    (David Aardsma in 2012)

Final player alphabetically 

Mike Zunino         (Ben Zobrist in 2012)

Team with the most cards
(tie) New York Yankees & Chicago Cubs (57)  (2012 - Red Sox, 57)

Team with the fewest cards
(tie) Detroit Tigers & Cincinnati Reds (40)  (2012 - Mariners & Reds, 39)

Team with the most players in first year with the franchise
Chicago Cubs (35)

Team with the fewest players in first year with the franchise
Detroit Tigers (9)
 

Total # of cards in this set
1478      (16 less than 2012)

Total # of unique players appearing in the set
1304      (20 more than 2012)

Total # of Q.U. "rookie cards" in 2013
300   (Including such youngsters as Scott Kazmir, Ramon Ortiz, and Miguel Tejada)

Total # of 2012 players that didn't appear in 2013  
280   (There will be a decent Hall of Fame ballot in 2017 led by Chipper Jones and Omar Vizquel)

Total # of players appearing with multiple teams
98          (19 less than 2012)

Total # of players appearing on 3 or more teams
6            (same as 2012)

Five players appeared in major league games for three different franchises in 2013.  They are shown in chronological order for the player.

There was also one player that appeared in major league games for 4 different franchises in 2013.  I remember Dave Kingman famously did this in the 70s, but I'm not sure of the last player to play for this many teams in one year.  Does anyone have the answer?

Total # of players sharing the same name
8           (2 less sets than 2012)

Interestingly there were 6 sets of same names in 2012 and only 2 of these were a part of that group, David Carpenter and Henry Rodriguez.  Of the other 8 players (7 players and 1 manager) that appeared in the same name group last year, only Chris Young of the A's appeared on a Quarry Unlimited player card in 2013.  Former Astros manager, Brad Mills also appeared as a coach on the Cleveland Indians team card.  Neither of the Chris Carpenters nor Rich Thompsons played in the majors in 2013.

The Henry Rodriguezes were a pain to search for photos.  Not only did they share the same middle initial with each other, but also with the Henry Rodriguez that played for the Dodgers and Expos in the late 90s.  All 3 of them are Henry A. Rodriguez.  The first two cards here are Henry Alberto Rodriguez and the final card is of Henry Alejandro Rodriguez.

Team write ups with the most pageviews
1. Tampa Bay Rays Part 2  (The bots caught this one)
2. Baltimore Orioles Part 2
3. Team Cards
 
Team write ups with the fewest pageviews
1. Arizona Diamondbacks Part 1
2. Boston Red Sox Part 2
3. Cleveland Indians Part 1

Total # of teams with color changes from 1977 Topps
3 (Brewers, Astros, Dodgers)

Total # of "rare" corrected error cards created
1

First the original error which actually showed Dustin Pedroia. 

(I blame Getty Images which had this photo mislabeled)
Thank you to Swing And A Pop-Up for the heads up.

Now the corrected version which shows the real Daniel Nava.

Once again don't forget to vote along the right sidebar.

Thanx for reading.