A look at 2010 Upper Deck Baseball
Over the last few weeks we’ve been picking up some Upper Deck baseball cards. As many of you know, UD lost their MLB license, which prevents the use of MLB logos and copyrighted material on cards. I thought this would affect the quality of their cards, but that wasn’t the case. 2010 is another quality release, and UD has boldly included the logos of teams it wasn’t supposed to use. As you can see in the picture here (courtesy of the Shot Not Taken blog) logos in pictures are usually only slightly or partially visible. Many thought UD would airbrush the uniforms clean, but obviously their legal folks felt this use was within proper boundaries. Personally, I like the picture selection.
That didn’t stop Major League Baseball from suing UD, and the to recently settled out of court. Apparently UD will not release some future baseball product as part of the settlement, so this may be the only baseball cards we’ll see in a while. I wish there would have been bolder graphics, but I do like the use of two photos. Picture selection is excellent as usual, and the cards remain among the highest in quality for a non-premium release. My only criticism is the subsets. Everyone does them, and I’ve never been a big fan of most. I don’t need cards of ballparks or celebrity caricatures, and the All World subsets (featuring die cutting) is a bit annoying and prone to damage. I’d rather see smaller sets or cards of more players. A subset like Topps’ Turkey Red would have been cool. Even so, Upper Deck’s offering is still a winner, and with some decent shots at “hits” in hobby packs, well worth the money.
