Phungo's Two Cents - 2010 Upper Deck

I am going to dedicate way to much time to this post - I found little to like about my first sample of 2010 Upper Deck Cards.

Full disclosure - if your here and have read much of my card specific commentary, it is likely evident that I am at Topps guy. Topps cards simply have history on their side - these are the cards of my youth and I enjoy that sense of history. So anything I follow up with here is likely tainted somewhat my a personal bias.

Ok now that I got that out of the way....

I had a fear that ones Topps got the exclusive MLB license that they would mail in the 2010 set. I think it is far more accurate to say that Upper Deck was the brand that mailed it in. I found 2010 UD boring and uninspired. I don't going with the Green Motif - which I have dubbed Green Eggs and Spam. if you know your not going to be able to use logos, why not use the team colors or at least the crayola crayons 8 base colors. Perhaps this would have been a violation of the Topps Exclusivity agreement - I don't know.

It's a Hit - Camden Yards Card


I don't really like the stadium cards, and I will get to that later, but this one here is a dandy.

Foul - First Card


Thumbs down on my first UD card of 2010 just because he is a member of the team that beat Phils in the World Series. The card is ok, the opinion is purely personal.

Mixed - Phillies

I picked up 3 Phils cards which is better then the 1 card I got out of 5 topps packs. A couple of set up guys and Jayson Werth. All three were members of the 2008 World Championship Phillies squad. I really like the Romero photo and consider it one of the better ones in the pack.

Foul - Tape Measures


These cards from this post are all from a pair of rack packs ($10.58 including PA Sales Tax). The UD Racks seemed to always have a lame insert. These cards are ok, but why not have the city name of the players? I mean they went to the trouble of naming the pitcher and the hand he throws with. Magglio Hit hist dinger on the Road, pictured in a Home Jersey. Votto hit his at home, here he is featured in a roadie. That to me is laziness on UDs part - Insert cards are supposed to be special treat them as if they are. The other two are probably 3rd jersey's so I am not sure on those two.

Mixed - Biography
I actually don't mind these - The two I got were probably the 2 furthest apart magnitude wise. Buerhle's card commemorates a great event while the other card is a footnote for a team that had little to cheer about last year. My biggest issue is that I have seen a lot of folks that have praised this set, yet 2008 Topps Year In Review was universally panned - it's the same stinkin set.

Home Run - Catcher Cards

UD knew that catchers in gear would not have many logos in view and they took good advantage of the situation. There were several good action shots of catchers in the 2 rack packs I opened.

Foul - b-sides


As usual UD left a good bit of exciting white space on the back of their cards.

Foul - Hidden Ball Trick?

I just got done praising the Catcher cards above then UD does this to me. The profile photo is in the way of the action in both catcher cards above and obscures the ball in the Inge shot. This is similar to something that handicapped 08 Topps when all the players had to "duck" out from under the Topps Logo.

miscellaneous nits

I don't like the cropping on the Samardzija. That may be nit-picking though. The stadium cards are generally boring. The under construction Target Field may be top of the list. And finally in general I do not like the Two player Team Checklist cards. I have almost always liked them before with only one player. maybe these will grow on me, but right now they are a thumbs down.

Phungo Cards JC Romero and a tainted title

It has been an eventful week during the off season for JC Romero. As has been reported JC was suspended for 50 days due to a violation of the MLB substance abuse policy. It has remained somewhat unclear as to what Romero was taking and whether or not he knew the substance was illegal.



2009 Phungo #18 JC Romero
2008 Unknown Unnumbered JC Romero

I am curious if anyone has obtained a license for the commercial card. It only says that the Photo is courtesy of the Phillies. The card is apparently from a religious set of cards. Romero lists two scriptures that have inspired him Matthew 5:16 and Phillippians 4:13. The latter scripture is a little curious considering the predicament that Romero finds himself. Some folks not familiar with the 2008 World Series may dismiss Romero as merely a set up guy, but baseball has changed. JC Romero was an absolute critical piece of the Phillies World Series Vicotry. He won two World Series games and served has a quality left-hander out of the bullpen. The season, playoffs, and Series could have been significantly different without him.

There is definitely something odd about how the whole suspension has transpired and the lawyering done by the Phillies, MLB, and the Players Union. Why was Romero offered a lighter penalty, why did the players union offer up only a muted opposition. Where are the Phillies trainers in this whole situation. It is all pretty sordid. Going forward the Phils will be without Romero for 1/3 of the '09 season and will need Scott Eyre to step up and the rest of the bullpen to step up.

Finally I am getting to the Phungo Card. I have used the designation RP for Relief Pitcher. Remember from the Rollie Fingers post that there is a separate abbreviation, CL for Closer. I elected to crop this picture smaller than the typical frame for Phungo Cards - I most likely took the shot from a distance without using the zoom so Romero came out quite small. The card number is 18 matching Romero's uniform number and the picture was taken on July 6th which was a tough extra innings loss to those stinkin' Mets. It rained a lot that day and the game took forever.