Tuesday, February 7, 2012

MLB.com fantasy report feartures 1986 Topps knock offs

MLB.com publishes a fantasy baseball preview profiling the leagues players, In a nice nod to baseball cards of the past MLB creates custom cards of each players to accompany their player summaries. 

This year they sort of used 1986 topps.  While the 1986 Topps design is somewhat minimalist, due to the sheer volume of 1986 cards it is quite memorable.  I am not as enthralled with this years sample as past years, but they are interesting to check out.  

Every year these cards sort of appear like UD Vintage or OPC cards where they try to recycle an old Topps Design, but change it just enough that it isn't really "stealing".  Not sure why MLB.com chooses to do this.  They are already in cahoots w/ Topps, so why not just use the design or build it into the partnership.  You would think Topps would be all for the idea. 

Faux 1986 Topps Cole Hamels
You can tell they are going for 86 topps, but right away you can tell that things are a bit askew.  The Fonts on both the team and player names are way out of whack - A subtler difference is the position is in a box while in 1986 Topps it was in a circle. 

For a more detailed look at 86 Topps - check out the 1986topps blog

New Phils
Faux 1986 Topps Jonathan Papelbon

I think this is the first card of the closer as a Phil!
Faux 1986 Topps Dontrelle Willis

And dare I say Super Short Print #333??
Faux 1986 Topps Prince Fielder  

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1 comment:

Phil said...

Looks like they fixed it: now I see the cool angular typeface (pretty close to the original) and the position is in a circle.

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