Best and Worst of 2009: Topps Flagship Series 2

Topps series 2 continued to impress with it's wide variety of inserts and hits. To this day, I still have had the most fun cracking boxes of Flagship and look forward to the 2010 set coming out soon. Here are some of my favorites from Series 2...

I think Alfonso might have one of the nicest cards in the set. Again, the photographer of the A's did an excellent job as here are another couple of nice A's cards. The Soria is a nice, sharp card of one of the most under appreciated closers in the game.

A lot of the Diamondbacks cards looked great with the gold dirt popping off of red jerseys. This Whitesett Rookie really stood out. Cust in full, majestic swing. Jose Contreras and Bengie Molina also are sharp images with a great color-scheme.

Here are a couple of my favorite action shots. I don't think I have ever seen a normal Jered Weaver card, but at least this one takes advantage of his anti-gravity epic hair. Russell Martin about to feel a whole lotta hurt also is captured nicely.

Again, the vertical cards were my favorites of the set. Most of the manager cards in this set are terrible, but these two of Girardi and Macha are pretty well done. I had to include Varitek and Fernando Rodney. And as much as I hate to admit it, yet another Yankee image (Alfredo) really looks the best of the bunch and takes full advantage of the horizontal frame.


And here are my favorites of the set

The Sung Baek is an instant classic, right up there with the David Price of series 1.

Ramon Hernandez has a throwback look to it. It's borderline creepy, but also brilliant all in one.

And card #660 goes to Jacoby Ellsbury. A nice horizontal shot with a red color scheme.



So what about the bombs of the set? Here are but a few...

Mark Henderson is one of MANY of posed shots that just look awful. many are overexposed or just plain goofy looking. They remind me of the O-Pee-Chee curtain background shots. Ian Snell signing autographs is just a lazy choice. Luke Scott bent over....and another superstar Jeter in a less than impressive choice.

I left most manager cards alone, but this Charlie Manuel is just horrible. I am not exactly sure what is going on in the Carmona card, and most of us don't picture Joey Votto in a lunging bunt attempt.

Saving the absolute worst for last, here are a couple of AWFUL posed shots of Marcum and Redding, as well as an unfortunate scoreboard shot of German, and a Gary Matthews in a very poorly placed angle behind the mystery pitcher.

That wraps up Flagship. A lot of hits and misses in this set. It was fun to go through them all once again now that I have a bit more collecting and product knowledge under my belt. Overall, I still think flagship is the most fun to collect, but I am hoping for a much kinder numbering system for 2010. I don't know how much more my eyesight can take of tiny numbers in the corners.