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Yankees News: Derek Jeter Honored By Topps…One More Time

By Billy Brost

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As I sit here in central Wyoming, snow coming down faster than I can shovel it off of my walks and deck, one of the things I look forward to besides the snow finally melting away, and preparing for another baseball season, is when Topps releases Series 1 of their new baseball card set each year. Personally, I’ve been collecting since 1985, and it’s never been an investment. It remains a hobby. I rarely, if ever, purchase a complete set, but rather, I enjoy putting a complete set together pack, by individual pack. It is a hobby that I have continued with my 5-year old son Braden, who lives and breathes baseball and the New York Yankees, just like his Dad. Okay, he lives and breathes Batman too, but that’s for another day.

Topps, remaining at the forefront of baseball card companies, has outdone themselves once again, announcing yesterday, that recently retired Yankees’ Captain, Derek Jeter, will be honored by being card #1 in Series 1 of the 2015 set that is forthcoming. MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch had the story, and spoke to Clay Luraschi, Vice President of Product Development at Topps about why Jeter was selected as the #1 card in this year’s series, even though he is now retired:

"“Being a New York company and being that Derek was the captain of the New York Yankees, we felt that card No. 1 should be Derek Jeter this year. We captured him, I think, perfectly on this card.”"

Luraschi told Hoch that the head people at Topps had spent months discussing who might receive the honor of getting the #1 card, and the decision became obvious when Jeter drove home that game-winning run in his final at-bat at Yankee Stadium. Topps says this year’s Series 1 and 2 sets, will be the largest they’ve issued in more than a decade, containing over 700 cards in total. Just to give you some backstory, when I began collecting, the Topps set wasn’t split into series, but were simply available in wax packs and cello packs, and every single year, the set contained 792 cards.

Now that baseball cards are big business and big money, companies such as Topps want to maximize both their product and their marketing, splitting up their sets, and inserting different types of promotional cards, such as this year’s “First Pitch” cards, which will highlight interesting first pitch attempts by entertainers such as 50 Cent at Citi Field.

For Derek Jeter and the millions of fans and collectors that have appreciated what he has done over the past two decades not only for the Yankees, but for baseball, there isn’t much bigger honor than the appropriate send-off of being given the #1 card in the 2015 Topps Series 1 baseball card set.

Next: Derek Jeter To Appear On SNL In 2015

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