The Start of an Era

What were you doing 33 years ago today?

If you were a Tigers fan you were probably listening to Ernie Harwell describe the simultaneous debuts of a young Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell in Fenway Park. Or you were one day away from reading about it in the newspaper. It was, unbeknownst to us at the time, the start of an era that included a World Series victory (1984) and the most prolific double-play partnership of all time.

I won't go into how Tram has been under-appreciated by Hall of Fame voters. I certainly won't talk about how Lou was criminally disrespected by the committee when he was booted off the ballot in his first year. Are they Hall of Famers? Maybe. This is neither the time or the place. Do they deserve consideration, discussion and respect beyond what they have received in retirement? Absolutely.

The cornerstones (yes, two) of the Tigers for eighteen years, starting 33 years ago today:





A big thanks to 30 Year Old Cardboard for pointing out this Anniversary to the rest of us!

Tigers Checklist: 2009 O-Pee-Chee

Doing the long drive home for the holidays, during which time I expect posting to be scarce (but you never know). To tide you over I thought it would be nice to show off one of the larger sets produced this year. Lots of Tigers in this one.

I have trouble gauging exactly how I feel about O-pee-chee. I like the makeup of the set, I like the design, I like the refreshing absence of inserts, relics and autographs mucking things up. This is a team/set collector's set, which gives it bonus points. Big checklist, nice feeling cardstock, all good stuff. The downside is that I find a lot of the photography lacking, with too many gray-background studio shots, and other pictures that are so bad that it is borderline absurd (feeling OK, Dontrelle?) In all, I could never bring myself to pull the trigger on a team set because I just didn't find the photography appealing enough. Take this design with all in-game or candid shots and I'll be there 100% of the time.

With that, your 2009 O-Pee-Chee Detroit Tigers:

Base Set

#24 Carlos Guillen	#32 Magglio Ordonez	#92 Brandon Inge
#114 Gerald Laird	#165 Edwin Jackson	#178 Placido Polanco
#207 Jeremy Bonderman	#234 Fernando Rodney	#314 Zach Miner
#320 Miguel Cabrera	#331 Curtis Granderson	#362 Adam Everett
#413 Marcus Thames	#414 Dontrelle Willis	#426 Justin Verlander
#488 Armando Galarraga	#525 Detroit Tigers CL	#533 Cabrera/Rodriguez/Quentin
#535 Morneau/Hamilton/Cabrera	#573 Ryan Perry RC	#594 Rick Porcello RC

Inserts The "Face of the Franchise" is the big insert here. The OPC throwback design has a mix of baseball and hockey players, with Detroit getting the hockey end of things. Box Bottoms were found on the side of blasters, at least, I'm not sure about Hobby Boxes and Miguel Cabrera is featured. This is presumably the same as his base card, but until I see it...

#FF-27 Miguel Cabrera	#RM9 Henrik Zetterberg (Red Wings)	Box Bottom #2 Miguel Cabrera

Relics These are all of the "OPC Materials Variety"

#OPC-EFG Ellsbury/Figgens/Granderson	#OPC-HMC Hafner/Morneau/Cabrera
#OPC-PCF Pujols/Cabrera/Fielder	#OPC-VWB Verlander/Weaver Buchholz
#OPC-DLO Dye/Lee/Ordonez

Autographs How refreshing is it to have autographs only seeded at one per case?! Of course, it makes pictures pretty hard to find. Update 2/2/2011: Thanks to Ken in the Comments for the image link!

#OPCS-JB Jeremy Bonderman

This Just In: Bonjour, Curtís

Ok fine, the new O-Pee-Chee cards aren't just french versions of Topps cards anymore, relax. However, they are (sometimes) really nice. I've battled over whether to pick up an OPC Tigers team set this year. It's about $9 plus shipping and gives out 20 cards (there are actually 21 cards in the set, but nobody is including the Miguel Cabrera RBI leaders card) and includes a good selection of this year's team, including newbees.

Of the few O-Pee-Chee's that I have, all of the game action shots are really nice looking, but the studio portraits are less than impressive. From what I can tell, the Tigers have a disproportionate amount of studio shots which is something I'm none too enthused about. This isn't one of them though:

2009 O-Pee-Chee #331 Curtis Granderson

That there is one of the better posed baseball card shots that you will find. The cropping works well, his body is at a slight angle to make it more interesting, he isn't looking right at the camera, there is something other than a gray curtain in the background and oh, did I mention--he has the largest smile ever seen on a Curtis Granderson card? Look it up.

Not to be outdone, the black parallel counterpart checks in very highly as well. I go back and forth between which card I like better, so we'll call it a draw.

2009 O-Pee-Chee #331 Curtis Granderson Black Border

I've yet to see a mini black border or a blank back black border surface, but seeing as how they will all look the same as these cards, they're probably pretty nice.