|
|
Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Starting a job at Topps was stressful. I was about to enter, as an adult, a place I’d always imagined as a gum-scented, Willy Wonkafied dream palace. Before my first day of work, I pictured packs piled in leaning towers, slides from long-ago Darryl Strawberry photo shoots, game-worn Mickey Tettleton jerseys. When I showed up, I found a standard corporate office: cubicles, recycled air, bad carpeting, worse lighting.
kthejoker
Posted: September 28, 2006 at 04:22 PM | 13 comment(s)
Login to Bookmark
Tags:
general
|
Bookmarks
You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.
Hot Topics
Newsblog: OTP 2018 Apr 23: The Dominant-Sport Theory of American Politics (331 - 12:08pm, Apr 24)Last:  Stormy JENewsblog: Brandon Belt sets MLB record, sees 21 pitches in AB before lining out (14 - 12:04pm, Apr 24)Last: gef the talking mongoose, amorphous lefty blobNewsblog: OT - 2017-18 NBA thread (All-Star Weekend to End of Time edition) (2524 - 12:01pm, Apr 24)Last:  abergNewsblog: OT - Catch-All Pop Culture Extravaganza (April - June 2018) (192 - 12:01pm, Apr 24)Last:  PreservedFishNewsblog: Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-24-2018 (14 - 11:50am, Apr 24)Last: salvomaniaNewsblog: Long-Term Battery Combiniations (1 - 11:46am, Apr 24)Last: Man o' SchwarNewsblog: ESPN's top 50 players (68 - 11:31am, Apr 24)Last: Moses Taylor, aka Hambone FakenameingtonNewsblog: Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-20-2018 (40 - 11:15am, Apr 24)Last: crictGonfalon Cubs: Riding the Rails of Mediocrity (14 - 9:58am, Apr 24)Last: Moses Taylor, aka Hambone FakenameingtonNewsblog: Forget that one call; Sean Manaea deserves our full attention (13 - 8:06am, Apr 24)Last: Bruce MarkusenNewsblog: Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-23-2018 (18 - 2:06am, Apr 24)Last: Hank G.Newsblog: Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to OMNICHATTER, for April 23, 2018. (64 - 11:30pm, Apr 23)Last: Dale SamsNewsblog: 'Family' and sense of 'brotherhood' has Diamondbacks picking up right where they left off (16 - 8:47pm, Apr 23)Last: Dr. VauxHall of Merit: 2019 Hall of Merit Ballot Discussion (110 - 8:35pm, Apr 23)Last:  Bleed the FreakNewsblog: White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar in critical condition after suffering ruptured aneurysm (24 - 5:25pm, Apr 23)Last: Batman
|
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Slinger Francisco Barrios (Dr. Memory) Posted: September 28, 2006 at 06:43 PM (#2190547)Now, he's a seaside sittin', just a smokin' and a drinkin';
he's ringside, on Topps of the world.
I know, and I'm sorry.
Needless to say, I never heard back.
But I couldn't understand why they'd feature things like "Jeff got his first big-league hit on July 16, 1988." This would be on the back of a card of a guy who maybe set the team's rookie record for doubles, or who had hit for the cycle, or who had a 48-game errorless streak---you know, interesting stuff.
When I was a kid they'd feature real info on the backs, intersting stuff that made the player stand out. Now you could throw all the comments into a hat and reassign them and nobody'd knbow the difference. And the little cartoons: when I was akid, the cartoons related specifically to the text; now it's some generic graphic of a guy hitting or pitching that's, again, totally interchangeable with another guy's cartoon.
Just mindless crap, and really disappointing, considering that there are talented people out there who'd want to crank out cool content. I could do 800 unique cartoons---totally individualized (I'm a graphic designer and a damn good cartoonist)---in about a month, I'd guess.
"Terry works as a gas station attendant during the off-season."
Brett Myers 2006 card
Henson has been hitting better lately. What's his average now, .280? Still has a lot of SO tho...
1) I didn't give a #### after Diver Down. Wasn't even trying, really. I think that's obvious.
2) I didn't take any of the baseballs, because they actually inventoried those. I've got a decent card collection based mostly on stuff that was going to get thrown out from the back room.
3) Olbermann was around the office fairly often. He still writes historical inserts for Topps in sets like Allen & Ginter and Turkey Red, the retro products.
4) Salvomania: until about ten years ago, card copy was written by people around the office, and there were no writers in-house or copy editors or anything, and the backs were admittedly garbage, if also kind of intriguingly non sequitur. For the most part, though, it was just random rip-and-run #### from the media guides, and yeah, it was terrible. Inanity is kind of a fact of life with these, though -- it's hard to say anything in 40 words, but some of the wordier backs (the Turkey Red retro cards have about 120 words of text on the back) I think can be pretty good. I'm writing them now myself, as a freelancer. I can't vouch for the cartoons, which are done on the cheap and are definitely interchangeable, but I promise to try to keep the inanity to a minimum.
Thanks to Repoz for letting me know you all were talking about it. And thanks for the link. -- David
stuff that was going to get thrown out from the back room.
You would think that Topps would have learned a lesson...after throwing all those '52 Mantles into the river.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main