2008 Goudey

For the second year in a row, Upper Deck has come out with the Goudey line. I love the look of the retro sets. They remind me of my childhood days when I would spend hours looking at magazines and books full of pictures of vintage cards. Those were the days.

By doing this, I was familiar with older issues long before I had the money to buy them. Now, the vintage look is more affordable with these homages to classic sets. This 2008 Goudey set hawks the 1934 Goudey design. It does an admirable job in doing so.

Last year's cards were mini cards. While the mini cards are still here, they are pushed onto a mini parallel similar to Allen & Ginter, but not as wee. 2008 brings the cards to the standard size, which is fine by me. I do like the mini cards, but I prefer the minis to be a parallel or a subset. I enjoy having the main sets similar in size. Call it a quirk.

The 2007 set was hard to keep in the collection. They bounced around more often because they were smaller than the rest of the cards. They were also a little harder to fit in a nine pocket page, since they tended to slide ever so slightly. The 2008 set corrects those issues by conforming to standard size.

There are seven regular White Sox cards in the 2008 Goudey set.

39 - Luis Aparicio
40 - Mark Buehrle
41 - Orlando Cabrera
42 - Paul Konerko
43 - Jermaine Dye
44 - Jim Thome
45 - Nick Swisher

Two things save this release from being another 2008 issue with the same White Sox players. The design makes this set stand out. There is nothing like it on the market as a regular set. The second factor would be the inclusion of Luis Aparicio. That definitely makes this set worthwhile to collect.

There has been a flooding of Luis Aparicio cards in the past few years, but I enjoy him as a player, so I don't mind as much. I would hope that other White Sox greats or White Sox regional stars from eras gone by would be included in future releases. I'm not sure how the rights issues would pan out. Personally, I would love to see cards of Ted Lyons, Luke Appling, Nellie Fox, Ed Walsh, Gary Peters, rent a player Richie Zisk and many others be incorporated into retro sets.

Luis Aparicio is a great player, but I thnk it's time to give him a rest as a White Sox. He did play for other teams, like the Orioles and the Red Sox in his career.

Overall, this is a great set. I look forward to these retro releases every year. Let's hope that next year will bring more praises for the 2009 release.