Pack Break: 2011 Topps Heritage

It's a beautiful day here in Boston, it's perfect weather for baseball. If only Opening Day wasn't still 2 weeks away...

Today I picked up three packs of 2011 Topps Heritage from my local card shop, Kenmore Collectibles. Topps decided to do away with the gum in every pack this year, so the shop owner suggested I just gnaw on a card for the same flavor and texture.

Here's a breakdown of the 3 packs:

Pack #1, aka "Pinstripe-a-palooza":

• Mark Teixeira
• Shane Victorino
• Ian Stewart
• Mark Teixeira
• Joba Chamberlain
• Rick Porcello
• "Babe Joins Yanks" Babe Ruth Special
• Andrew Romine RC
• Marco Scutaro

Pack #2, aka "The Crisis"

• Freddy Sanchez
• CC Sabathia
• "Cuban Missile Crisis Begins" News Flashbacks
• Brett Myers
• Chase Utley
• Tommy Hunter
• Dillon Gee RC
• Cliff Pennington
• Jeremy Jeffress

Pack #3, aka "Shiny and Sweaty"

• Miguel Tejada
• Dusty Baker
• Phil Hughes
• Jose Bautista Chrome #1691/1962
• Adrian Beltre
• Matt Cain
• Joey Votto
• Scott Rolen
• Fausto Carmona

I really like the design of these cards much more than last year's. The pictures on the cards are hit or miss. Miguel Tejada is sweating like a pig, and Brett Myers looks like he's been out in the sun way too long. Matt Cain looks like he's posing for a 3rd grade class photo, cowlick and fake sports backdrop included. I really like the card of Rick Porcello, who looks like he should be on a tourism poster for Hawaii with palm trees in the background.

I'm not sure why Mark Texeira has two cards in the base set, and neither of them are short prints. It's worse that I pulled both in the same pack. I'm not a big fan of non-baseball insert sets in baseball products, so I wasn't thrilled with the Cuban missile crisis card. Besides, they're not the easiest cards to get signed. Anyone have the mailing address for Castro?

The nicest card I pulled was definitely the Bautista chrome. The blue background in the photograph lends itself well to a sparkling ocean effect on the card.

At $4.50/pack for 9 cards, this is usually the product I buy the most of throughout the year besides the Topps base set, and it looks decent so far. I'm interested to see if Upper Deck tries making a retro product in the near future since Topps seems to have command of the vintage-looking market right now.