Was Topps Reading Our Blog?

The answer, of course, is most likely no.  Still, humor me.

When Series 1 of 2012 Topps was getting ready to hit the shelves and our grubby little mits, Topps made an announcement regarding the two big name off-season free agent signings.  Jose Reyes and Albert Pujols were going to have “Super short prints” in the product.  These extremely rare cards upset a segment of collectors and we here at Community Gum tried to play peacekeeper.

Sure, the damage was done upon the announcement, but we offered up suggestions that hopefully wouldn’t alienate anyone (or maybe less people).  One of those suggestions was to avoid the terrible practice of photoshopping new uniforms on old pictures.  I offered this as an alternate approach.

Talk about bad photoshopping skills!

Fast forward to the release of Series 2.  This is where the regular Albert Pujols card could be found, presumably in an actual Angels game-taken photograph.

Still, that didn’t stop Topps from issuing a second short printed card of Albert.  This one is a little more common, and honestly looks the best of the three versions.  We found this in one of our cases.

Pujols for President

Okay, so obviously Topps did a better job than I did with the framing and whatnot.  I would have preferred the Angels uni and hat like my stolen picture features, but let’s just say I’m flattered that Topps liked my idea enough to turn it into a reality.

Now, the next step is to give these different numbers in 2013.  Let’s see an SP1, SP2 type system.  I bet Albert would make that part of his political platform.

What do you say, Topps?  Are you listening?

P.S. Mark & Clay & Hiring Managers, I’m available for hire.  You can contact me via email here.