Topps Ignores All Named HUDSON and Swag from Thorzul Will Rule:

Was in a recent Multi-Sport Group Break run by Thorzul Will Rule.

2012 Topps Chrome #HP94 NL Pitching Leaders

This is a nice one for us Phillies fans as we begin the 2015 season with so much dread. The card serves as a reminder of the good old days way back in 2011 when the Phillies had a rotation so stacked that Cole Hamels was relegated to #3 starter behind Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.

Topps packed this League Leaders card with SIX bobbing heads to match the design of the original 1963 Topps #7 NL Pitching Leaders Card. The trouble is that the NL had a 3 way tie for 6th plays in Wins in 2011. Zack Geinke, Daniel and Tim Hudson all had 16 Wins.

Topps decided to go with six heads rather than stopping at 5. Greinke got the floating head and the Hudson's got snubbed.

An oddity in all this is that the Original 1963 Topps League Leaders cards each had 5 players with the exception of ties: The aforementioned card #7 and Card #4 AL Home Runs leaders.  For Heritage Topps had to decide to either A) Echo the original six heads and snub two players or B) go with the default 5 head design and ignore the oddity of the original set.

I think the wrong decision was made. I would have gone with 5 rather than put myself in the position to pick and choose which player gets on the card.

Another observation is that on the original 1963 LL cards, the player in the center was the overall Leader. On this card Topps either elected to or accidentally place the pitchers in order from top left to bottom right. Ian Kennedy led the league in Ws, while our hero Roy Halladay finished 3rd.

Flip

2012 Topps Chrome #HP94 NL Pitching Leaders (b-side)

There's your proof of the double Hudson Snub. Both players sit there at 16 Wins with Zack Greinke on the back of the card. 


Hoop and HandEgg
This was a four sport break, I had the Vikings and Celtics in the break. I think my Hockey team may have been the Flyers, but it doesn't matter here as like the 2014-15 Flyers we came up emtpy on the ice. 

2002 Donruss Gridiron Kings #GK-8 Daunte Culpepper

I have seen a handful of Vikings games, I am pretty sure Culpepper is the QB I have seen most.

Bigtime violation on Donruss' part here as the Kings part of the Gridiron Kings flair overlays the artists' signature.I did some hunting around to identify the snubbed artist but was unsuccessful.

2008 Topps Baskeball #160 Chrome Kendrick Perkins (#d 61/288)

2008 Topps baseball was a disaster for a variety of reasons. The shame of it is that there is  a distinct design with the carnival letters however  there were at least two big missteps. 1) The photography for the set was abysmal and 2) The Topps logo being placed Top Center made for ridiculous cropping issues.

By the time the Basketball set was issued Topps had corrected the logo issue by moving it to the lower right. Additionally the Hoop Photography is an improvement over baseball.

Fleer Game Time Michael Bennett (#d 712/2001)

I have a minor college cards collection which this Michael Benntte card will fit into nicely. The design on this Fleer card looks like somebody tried to modernize 1956 Topps and failed miserably.

Sources and Links
Trading Card Database

Thorzul Group Break Swag

Over the Holidays, I got involved in a couple of Group Breaks hosted by Thorzul.  I enjoy the Thorzul breaks because they are generally reasonably priced and with interesting products.  If your interested Thorzul is having last call for His January Break right now - I am particularly looking forward to the 05 Topps Pristine break. 

Here are some of the Highlights from last months break. 

Phillies 

 Jim Bunning, Lefty, Former Phil Matt Maloney, and Richie Ashburn

The HOFs are from SP Legendary Cuts.  The Maloney card is from Bowman Sterling.  

Cubs

Prior, Sosa, Zambrano, Cubs Quad, Castro, Sandberg, Hornsby, Soriano

For a second break the Phils already taken so I took the Cubs.  Some interesting stuff here - The Prior Card is an X-Fractor.  I am a fan of both the Goudey cards.  Always liked the Heads up cards.  Rogers Hornsby is from this years Vintage Legends set.    


Annoying Card

2010 Topps Tales of the Game #MTOG-3 "Seven Touchdowns"

This cards which came as part of my Cubs bounty commemorates the Cubs beating the Phils 26-23 on August 25th 1922.  When I think of high scoring Cubs v Phils games I prefer to remember the game on May 17th 1979.

Thanks Thorzul and looking forward to the January Break. 

Swag from Thorzul UD Piece of History Group Break

Bill over at Thorzul recently ran a group break involving several boxes of Upper Decks 2009 Piece of History. In addition to picking up all 4 of the Phils card in the set, I received the cool cards featured in this post.

MMMM Serial!!

2009 UD PoH #71 Chase Utley (Turquois #d134/150)
2009 UD PoH Box Score Memories #BSM-PB Pat Burrell (#d 447/999)

The Box Score Memories cards all have the box of the game on the reverse. The Burrell card salutes a Phils playoff victory over Thorzul's Brewers October 5th 2008.

2009 UD 20th Anniversary Retrospective

#565 Julius Erving
#765 Mike Schmidt

Two pretty cool cards for any Philadelphia fan to get out of this set.

And a Hit!
2009 UD PoH #124 Lou Marson Autograph with Base Card

And I was lucky enough to get one of the autos from out of the set. Lou Marson was involved in the trade that brought Cliff Lee to Philadelphia and is no longer a Phil, but it is cool to get an autograph card of his. Marson is struggling at the plate for the Indians, but he is still getting the bulk of the playing time at catcher.

Thanks to Thorzul for running a fun break that fell within the Phungo Budget.

Thorzul $5 Fiddy Group Break

1999 Stadium Club #39 Bob Abreu

Late last year Thorzul ran a $5.50 group break. Unfortunately there weren't a ton of Phils this time around, but this sharp looking "Bob" Abreu card was among them. I picked up roughly a dozen cards in the break most were the 1999 UD MVP set.

The 99 Stadium club Cards feature some great action shots. I tried to play Name the Game with the Abreu card but unfortunately found two possible games. June 13th and 14th 1998. Abreu and Mickey Morandini played in both games. Both Games were day games and Abreu was on 2nd base several times between the two games. I am betting it is the 6/13 game as Abreu did everything but make the post-game buffet during that game.

This one was a little slow but I still always love the Thorzul group breaks, unfortunately I was out of the country and missed out on his latest one, but plan on getting involved in future breaks.

Phungo 5 with Thorzul Will Rule

This week the Phillies and Brewers meet for the first time since the 08 NLDS. Milwaukees still appears to be a good club but they have a dramatically different pitching look without CC or Ben Sheets in the rotation. In addition at some point Trevor Hoffman should bolster their bullpen.

Team Phungo recently sent out a Phungo 5 for the always witty Thorzul Will Rule crew and got the following responses:

1) The Brewers seem pretty loaded for hitters, what is the
situation with the Pitchers - Gallardo is pretty good.
how do you feel about Parra and Bush? Has anybody ever
sought out a Jeff Suppan Card?

You're right about the offense being loaded. It's going to be a fun
team to watch hit this year, but then you'll have plenty of time to hit the
restroom during the top half of each inning. Gallardo should be good, and Dave
Bush is probably the most underrated guy on the staff. And Jeff Suppan...all I
have to say is that his 2007 Topps Heritage card (and I had at least five of
them) was good for use as a bookmark for the duration of Summer 2007. I read
some good books that summer, including "Cross-X," the true story of an
inner-city high school debate team, which I highly recommend. Jeff Suppan helped
me never lose my spot.

2) You have been doing the cardblogging thing for a while,
do you ever get bloggers block and have to resort to lazy
gimmicks like interviewing other bloggers?

Thorzul Will Rule will celebrate (or has celebrated, I'm not sure) its
second birthday sometime this spring. There have been some lean periods, sure,
but I think the secret is not to post something just for the sake of posting. I
guess part of my fallback strategy is to haul out another page from my sticker
book whenever I can't think of something else to write, but that's
actually gotten some of the most positive feedback out of all the content so
far. I've tried to establish my own niche in this baseball card world, and
I think comedy has been the way to go. I could really care less about breaking
news on a sell sheet or some new product or something like that. If
someone's coming to Thorzul Will Rule for information, they will be
disappointed 99 times out of a hundred. I'm all about the fun of baseball
cards, and hopefully I can make somebody laugh at some point during the
soul-sucking existence we call a workday. I guess I could always fall
back on posting some Brewers card or another, but I really don't want to
get pigeonholed as a Brewers blog. There's way better and more insightful
stuff out there if that's what you're looking for.

3) I don't want to steal any of your thunder but what
can you tell us about the next $5 group break - I like them
and am happy to see that they appear to be pretty successful
so far.

The cheap group breaks will return. They actually turn out to be a lot of
work. I've purchased other lots of cards, but some of them just didn't
turn out to be right for the promo, too much 1990s junk and stuff like that. I
guess I'd like to try doing it three or four times a year from now on. I
really hope everyone has been satisfied so far if they've taken part.



2006 Fleer #267 Randy Wolf
2007 Upper Deck #178 Geoff Jenkins 2008
Topps Flight to 420 #BF-401 Brett Favre 2006-09-24
(Click photos to Enlarge)

4) Do you think Geoff Jenkins looks more like Brett Favre
or Randy Wolf?

Brett Favre.

5) Which is better the Bernie Brewer Slide or the Sausage
Race

The Sausage Race by a mile! Each school year I plan a field trip with my
class that involves a tour of Miller Park. The kids always ask about the slide
and if they can go on it, but there's too much liability involved to let
them. Keep in mind that Bernie used to slide down from the barrel and land in a
glass of beer, but I guess that's too non-PC to fly at the moment. At the
Sausage Race, a true fan needs to pick one variety of sausage to cheer on and
stick with it. I'm a Bratwurst man myself, an homage to my German heritage.
He rarely comes in first during the games I attend. Readers who haven't
been to Miller Park should also know that during the seventh inning stretch, in
addition to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," we also sing "Roll Out
the Barrel," a polka-infused ode to alcohol consumption. Good times.


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Thanks Thorzul - Another Great Phungo 5, Alas we can only award 4 out of 5. As a Vikings Fan, I cannot give a point for Brett Favre, just typing his name irks me - although I did appreciate his cameo in "Something About Mary".

For a look back at a previous Phungo 5 click here.

I am also pleased to let you know that this weekend we are planning to have the prolific Mario from Wax Heaven on the hot seat for the next Phungo 5.

Thorzul $5 Group Break - Chase Utley

2006 Topps WalMart WM17 Chase Utley

Thorzul Will Rule recently held his own Group Break. Thorzul is very creative and ran a totally different spin on the group break. Instead of getting a High End product and having everyone put in $20 or $30 for a chance at a couple of Autos, he went the direct opposite route. He went low-end very low-end. Thorzul busted open about a bushel of cards from various repacked products. For Five count-em just five bucks you got into the group break and received all the cards from a specific team.

Naturally I picked the Phillies and I got 29 of em.

The Utley WalMart card above was the Highlight of the set for me. I love the Heritage sets, in 2006 Topps put together a WalMart only insert set of superstars on different Topps designs from the past. This was basically the predecessor to 2008's Trading Card History, I suppose. One interesting difference between the 06 WM cards and the 07s and TCH is that the 06 versions come with stats on the back.

One of the other highlights was an 06 Turkey Red Utley Insert which Thorzul featured. Thorzul is correct btw, For about a month after the World Series nothing bothered me - but the High does wear off. I have tried not to get to involved in worrying about Hot Stove topics etc, but slowly I have returned to my crumundingly normal self - still if I ever get down, I always can think of the World Series and it helps.

The remainder of the lot consisted of a nice mix of Phils past (Bedrosian), Present (Victorino), Retro (Ashburn), Gems (Daulton) and Duds (Freddy Garcia). Out of the 29, 20 to 25 were new to the Phungo Collection and well worth the price of admission.

Thanks to Thorzul for dreaming this up and going through all the work of sorting packing shipping etc. I hope he runs one of these again in the future.