The Top 5 Reasons to Love 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball

Topps resurrects their 1969 design with the release of 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball. This set is beloved by collectors for a variety of reasons, primarily due to the fine details they replicate as an homage to the throwback issue. We cracked open a fresh box of 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball and found these five hallmarks that will make you fall in love with this year's set.

5) Player Checklists –
Trying to keep track of your 2018 Topps Heritage set? How about some help from Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, and Kris Bryant? Staying true to form of the 1969 Topps protocol, 2018’s checklist cards feature face shots of today’s top stars, providing collectors with an additional look at their favorite players while they mark off their progress towards a complete set.

2018 Topps Heritage Aaron Judge Checklist / Topps

4) Seattle Pilots Autographed Tribute Cards –
A Ball Four revival anyone? Jim Bouton leads the signers from the limited edition 1969 Seattle Pilots 50th Anniversary tribute autographed cards. Former Pilot Steve Whitaker once referred to the team as, “the orphans of the league.” Fifty years later, Topps proves they still have a home in the hearts of fans and collectors with these special autographed cards.

Jim Bouton Seattle Pilots Autograph / Topps

3) Imperfections –
Most modern sets are bred to perfection with borderless images, high gloss finishes, and centered designs. While going through the first few packs of this 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball box, I drew the occasional off-centered card. By the time I opened the last pack, these 60/40 or 70/30 centered cards averaged one per pack. With so many modern issues made in perfect symmetry, pulling some cards that had centering flaws only added to vintage experience that Topps Heritage provides.

2) Variations –
Funky nicknames? Action shots? Color swaps? Newly traded players? Solo rookie prospect cards? Topps has all of the bases covered with the short printed variations in 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball. These detailed variants force collectors are to pour over the details on each card, savoring the nuances to see if they have landed one of these scarce issues.

Victor Robles Image Variation SSP / Topps

1) Shohei Ohtani –
Would it be anyone else? Topps wasted no time getting this year’s most coveted rookie in their 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball set by including Ohtani as a last minute short printed variation to the set. Early sales of his short printed rookie are selling for $200 each, while his autographed versions have sold for in excess of $3,000.

$3,000 anyone?

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Jim Bouton reflects on Ball Four as he auctions its recordings and manuscripts

Jim Bouton, the author of the revolutionary baseball book, Ball Four, has placed all of his audio recordings, notes, original manuscripts, and the subsequent letters from Major League Baseball urging him to retract his work, up for auction. The 77-year-old retired pitcher, who spent ten seasons in the major leagues with the New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros, and Atlanta Braves, entrusted his collection to SCP Auctions, who expects the memorabilia which also includes some of his game-used items, to fetch in the neighborhood of $300,000.

Jim Bouton - 1965 Topps / Topps

Ball Four provided a look inside the major league clubhouse, with Bouton jotting down notes about anything of interest that happened during the season, whether it was on or off the field. In addition to Major League Baseball, Bouton’s work aroused the ire of the New York Yankees, who allegedly banned him after the 1970 publication of Ball Four from attending Old-Timers’ Day for writing about Mickey Mantle’s drinking habits.

In 1998, Bouton’s son Michael wrote a passionate letter to the New York Times to make the case for his father’s return to the annual Yankees Old-Timers’ Day. Published on Father’s Day, his son’s letter tugged at the heart strings of many, including the New York Yankees, who quickly welcomed Bouton back into the fold.

“That was sort of a bittersweet thing,” Bouton said when we spoke at the 2010 BAT Dinner in New York City. “I had been uninvited for 28 years, so the circumstances of me being invited back had to do with the fact that my daughter Lauren had been killed in an automobile accident the year before.

“My son Michael wrote a letter to the New York Times to be published on Father’s Day and said, ‘The Yankees should let bygones be bygones and that Old Timers Day was always a time for families, as he remembered when we had Old Timers Day when I was a player with the Yankees. So Michael ended the letter, ‘My dad can use all the hugs he can get right now.’ It was such a sweet and beautiful letter. The Yankees read it and invited me back.”

Forty years after his landmark work was published Bouton was still excited to discuss its merits. He explained why Ball Four has persisted despite his uncertainties about how it would be received.

“I thought it would cause a little excitement because I knew I was writing some things that hadn’t been written in a sports book,” he said. “I thought after a year or so it would die down, but it hasn’t. It didn’t hurt that I wrote an update in 1980, 1990, and 2000 to keep it alive. I think the characters in the book are so interesting and so funny; I think that [is what] resonates with people.”

While Bouton didn’t set out to revolutionize the world of sports writing, he acknowledged that Ball Four opened up a new world for authors to explore. Capturing the life of an athlete away from the stories told by box scores and game recaps became of greater interest to both sportswriters and fans alike.

“I think probably after the book came out, it was no longer possible for a sportswriter to be an extension of the team’s public relations department, which is what it usually was,” Bouton said. “Now I think reporters said, ‘Ok, people want to know more about these guys and their batting averages; they want to know what kind of people they are.’ I think because the players are attractively interesting with wonderful backgrounds, the more people know about them, the more they’ll become interested in the game.”

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Former New York Mets catcher Greg Goossen passes away at 65

Greg Goossen

Greg Goosen, who was one of the earlier catching prospects in the New York Mets organization died Saturday at his home in Sherman Oaks, CA. He was 65 years old. Goossen played for the Mets from 1965-68 and then with the Pilots and Senators before ending his major league career in 1970.

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