I wish he would have posted a pic of the Andy Marte card.

This was my first thought as well. I need help.

I’ve had this same temptation before. Though I’d probably buy a whole case and rip through it.

Also, there are some very touchy fans of Span and Guzman out there.

The Jerome Walton comment is terrific. His was once a highly sought after card—IIRC the newly formed Upper Deck supplied a lot of the hype.

Man, if I opened a pack I would definitely go into relapse

The nerdbaseball.com site mentioned in the comments is hilar.

Growing up in a small town, a newspaper with a crap sports section, and no TV, baseball cards were my passion. I still have them, boxes and boxes of 50s Topps (and Bowmans), most of which are worth just about zilch now (anyone want a ’54 Topps of Bob Kuzava? How about 8?).

Every so often I take them out and thumb through them, recalling the buzz of anticipation each new unopened pack brought (so much bliss – despite the gum – for just a nickle!).

I still buy a new pack every year. It’s a ritual I suppose, and I still feel anticipation before opening the pack, but it seems like I always get the Indian players the year after they leave: Thome, Manny, (Please, God, not CC this year).

Well, like every other Topps set since the early ‘90s, it’s generic, white, crisp, glitzy, hard to read and, ultimately, forgettable.

Um, no. All respect to the author, but this shows that he hasn’t been paying attention all these years. 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2009 featured white designs. That’s hardly every year since the early 90’s. In fact, I’d argue that these cards aren’t white. They have white borders. Take a look at this 2004 card below for an example of a truly white card. This one, I think, is elegant.

This is my favorite modern card design. Sure, it’s white, but it’s also beautiful. Look at all the detail on that card – Team, name, position, uniform number, team logo, and that cool outline of the player in the same pose as on the card – all while looking clean and uncluttered

I will admit that many designs suck (2007 Topps comes to mind). But there are plenty of good designs.

You also don’t want to focus just on Topps – Upper Deck has been producing the best sets for the past four or five years. Their photography is unmatched.

I am a baseball card nut and current collector, so take this all with a grain of salt. I love me some baseball cards.

That is a striking design (pun not intended). There’s nothing wrong with a white background IMO. It doesn’t compete with the photo or the framing graphics…and the text looks clean.

This is the card of my childhood, unfortunately:

No comment.

My abiding baseball-card memory of my childhood is, of all things, the “cards” you could get on the bottom of a Hostess Twinkies box. Maybe it was the abiding smell of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, or the way the edges were only as straight as my seven-year-old scissoring skills would allow, or the very real risk of paper cuts, but I loved those things, and still have at least 50 of them.

Here’s another memory from that time. The infamous Billy Ripken card.