Pack of the Day 91: 2014 Topps Heritage High Numbers Box Set

The 2015 sets are rolling out now, but my mind has been on the past. Thinking about completing upcoming sets serves to remind me that each passing year adds a number of partially-completed sets to my card collection. One of the worst examples from 2014 was the Topps Heritage set, with cruddy collation and those damnable short-printed cards (SPs). I determined that since I am not extremely fond of this year's Heritage design, I would instead focus on finishing off my 2014 set. I ordered a bunch of the SPs I was missing from sellers on Check Out My Cards, but none of those appear in this post.

I had thus far avoided the Heritage High Numbers box set as an extraneous and irritating addition to an already frustrating set, but I kind of like some of the players included in the checklist. The set was packed out as a 101-card box set, with the 100 cards from 501-600 in the checklist and one autograph card. I shopped around and tried to decide whether I should order a sealed set or an opened set that had the autograph already removed. Eventually I decided to place a Best Offer with Dave & Adam's eBay store for a sealed set. It wasn't that much more than a set missing an autograph, and there was a chance I could pull something good.

As far as I know, you get the same 100 cards in every set. I don't think there are photo variations or anything tricky in the Heritage High Numbers set. I heard rumors of sets showing up with a lot of damage after the release last year, but mine arrived in great shape. I pulled a few cards and scanned them for this post. Tanaka was one of the Big 2 rookies last year, pitching extremely well prior to his arm injury. Dee Gordon had a good year for his fantasy baseball managers, stealing approximately ten thousand bases. Collin McHugh had a pretty good year for the Astros last year. Hopefully he can keep it up this year. Oscar Taveras had a promising career (and life) cut short by making a poor decision about alcohol and driving, and unfortunately also wound up killing his young girlfriend in the wreck, too. It's to bad, but it's hard to feel overly sorry for a guy who gets himself into that situation.

Doolittle had a pretty solid season in 2014, making the All-Star team, but he is injured and will miss some amount of time. The closer role is one that can be hard to reclaim if your injury replacement is lighting it up, so we'll see what role he gets this year. Billy Hamilton is the super-speedy prospect who is projected to steal approximately 5000 bases per year, but last year he got caught stealing a whole lot and had a hard time getting on base so that he could actually run wild on the basepaths. Neshek is a very good reliever who signed with the Astros and might even get a chance to close for them this year. He also is a card collector and a friend to hobbyists. Mike Morse just gets included because of his card photo, in which he is channeling the spirit of a sleepy Keanu Reeves.

George Springer is one of the Astros other hot young players, and hopefully this year the team will take some steps forward. Betances had ridiculous numbers last year, and will hopefully be able to keep it up this season. I think he is going to get a shot at the closer role with the Yankees now that Robertson has moved on. That should be a pretty good gig. Samardzija got into some sets as an Athletic after his mid-season move from the Cubs, but now he's with the White Sox. Hopefully he does well with his new team. Jose Abreu should provide plenty of run support for Samardzija's starts as he was last year's big story, mashing the ball all over the place on his way to an All-Star berth, a Rookie of the Year award, a Silver Slugger award, and a 4th-place finish in the MVP race. That's all the base cards I scanned, which leaves me with just the autograph. Unfortunately my autograph was a redemption card...

...but it was a pretty good one. I got a Real One Autograph of Jose Abreu. It's the base version rather than the photo variation or the short-printed Red Ink version, but this is one of the best cards I could have pulled from this set. It looks like there are some of these live at the moment, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting the card from Topps. I am pretty happy that my gamble to go with the sealed set paid off. I am not sure whether I will sell the card when it gets here. It might be kind of cool to keep it. I don't have an Abreu auto, and the Heritage autographs tend to look pretty nice.

That's it for my Heritage High numbers box set. I imagine I will do a post on the Abreu card whenever it arrives in the mail. Once my COMC order comes in I should be pretty close to finishing my 2014 Topps Heritage set, with just a couple more cards to locate.