If you thought Upper Deck was holding anything back inside its first baseball card offering for 2010, you better think again. The industry leader not only released a stellar, 600-card hardball collection earlier this month, but also sprinkled in super-rare, short-printed inserts that will surely create a stir with collectors.
“We are very excited to announce the unique short-prints as well as some of the more coveted autographed inserts that baseball collectors will be discovering as they crack packs of Upper Deck 2010 Series One Baseball,” said Gabriel Garcia, Upper Deck’s Baseball brand manager. “We’ve provided a lot of special chase cards for collectors to keep everybody on their toes.”
There are actually four “retail-exclusive” short-printed cards in this year’s flagship brand featuring some very newsworthy individuals. The card quartet includes Sarah Palin, featured on a card celebrating her “upcoming” 2012 Presidential election; Joe Jackson, the former Chicago legend who sported a .356 career batting average; Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader with his record 4,256 hits called out; and a special five-time world champions card (1998, ’98, ’99, ’00 and ’09) highlighting New York teammates Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte. The Palin and Rose cards can only be found in random packs purchased at Wal-Mart, while the Jackson and Yankees cards will only be available through random packs in Target stores.
The insert lineup includes 20th Anniversary Heroes Art cards, which celebrate the hobby’s first-ever certified autographs introduced by Upper Deck in 1990 with its Reggie Jackson signatures. The 10-card lineup is headlined by the likes of Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr., Chipper Jones, Evan Longoria and Cole Hamels and the autographed versions of each player are appropriately numbered to 90. With yet a further tribute to yesteryear, Upper Deck has included a highly sought-after “Baseball Heroes” cut-signature card (numbered to 56) of none other than the late Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio! Can you believe it’s been 69 years since Joltin’ Joe set baseball’s all-time 56-game hitting streak? A special “Piece of History” 500 Home Run Club Bat card of Gary Sheffield, numbered to 350, is also included in the mix.
What’s more, “Celebrity Predictor” pairings showing some of Hollywood’s most celebrated couples in caricature form are included as short prints. The perforated tandems include couples like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer; Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise; and Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon. There are a total of 10 such duos, so keep your eyes peeled and join in the chase.
So what do you think? Another boring “gimmick” or is this something you like? I personally don’t like the whole “retail exclusive” thing such as “The Palin and Rose cards can only be found in random packs purchased at Wal-Mart, while the Rose and Yankees cards will only be available through random packs in Target stores.” However, I do like the fact that you have the chance to pull some rare cards and I also like the fact the UD is at least trying. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section!
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