Barry Larkin Collection 764: 2004 Topps Total - #296

Barry Larkin

Year:  2004

Brand:  Topps Total

Card number:  296

Unlike a lot of people, I never got overly excited by the Topps Total brand.  Sure, it's definitely nice to have a comprehensive set full of all (or at least most) of the MLB players of the time but most years of Topps Total I find the card design lackluster.

For 2004, I have to say that I actually like the front design quite a bit (though changing out the gray for a little more color would have been preferred).  Unfortunately, for as perfectly lovely as the card fronts are, the back is equal parts hideous.  Based on what I can tell, I'm assuming there is some sort of game here where (maybe?) you roll a D10 and then look at the result and play some sort of baseball game.  If that's the case, I don't think it'd be worth putting Barry's card in your "deck" since he only gets on base 30% of the time and all of those are measly singles.  

The game bit is actually kind of interesting to me but it's the rest of the back that I hate.  First, how many different fonts are used here?  Ugh. Second, those "Topps Tracker" factoids are both hard to read and incredibly stupid.  "Logged many games at SS"  Seriously Topps, that's the best you could do for a Hall of Famer shortstop in the twilight of his career?!  Finally, I even kind of hate the write-up under the "role" portion of the card...Larkin is a "competent shortstop" sounds like a backhanded compliment if I've ever heard one.

One good thing about Topps Total is that it's a pretty simple set if you only care about a single player.  For example, Barry has only two cards in the set - the base card you see above and a silver parallel.  The silver parallels were seeded one per pack, so they aren't rare exactly but given the size of the set (880 cards) it isn't easy to find the parallel of the one guy you are collecting!