My reason is very simple.
Your hand.
Baseball cards are meant to be held, to be handled. I love having a stack of cards in my hand and then thumbing through the stack. And it seems that a stack of vertical cards fit perfectly in any sized hand. They fit in my hand when I was eight years old. They fit now.
Horizontal cards don't fit in you hand the same way. It is very awkward to thumb through a stack of horizontal cards.
In the series one Cubs cards there are three of these horizontal abominations.
They must be changed.
A quick trip to Getty Images got me the original photos use by Topps. A little more playing around and, voila!
Vertical cards!
I don't know if it was the first time it happened but I distinctly remember 1991 Topps having a mix of horizontal and vertical cards and the horizontals were reserved (in my opinion) for some really incredible photography. The Cubs had some nice shots in that set that would have only worked horizontally. The Carlton Fisk play at the plate card with Cecil Fielder and the Roger Clemens leaning against the Green Monster/scoreboard come to mind as well.
ReplyDeleteI preferred them when they were an exception and as you point out, these three are perfectly suitable as verticals. Personally, I would have used a different photo for Bryant, vertically or horizontally. That just doesn't scream iconic card #1 to me.
You're doing the Lord's work here.
ReplyDeleteI"m not a fan of the "horizontal" or "landscaped" cards either. Mostly for the same reason the "HANDLING" of the cards. Also it seems that they can't decide how to orient the relationship of the back to the horizontal card. Is it oriented so that it is right side up while on your left, or on your right? If they orient them the same way and keep it consistent within a set I don't mind too much but some years they can't even do that. It isn't just Topps the other card makers do that. I usually like them when they are right side up when in your left hand. Probably since I am left handed and tend to riffle through cards from right to left.
ReplyDeleteI hate horizontal cards - The Topps sets of recent years just have too many and make the set disoriented. It began in 1991 and has been that way ever since. Some years there were very few (I think 2006 Topps did not have any???) but starting with 2009 - at least 30 cards or more are horizontal in the set and it is increasing towards 100.
ReplyDeleteIf you have to have any horizontal cards they should be few and far between, less than 5 per set. We remember the 1971 Munson and the 1991 Clemens but the above three did not have to be horizontal.
I could see using horizontal cards as a variation to an all vertical set. Easy to understand and identify.
I hate them because my OCD wants them all to be facing the same direction but my OCD also doesn't like having card backs upside down. I wouldn't mind them as much if there were a standard direction everyone used...
ReplyDeleteHorizontal cards are actually more beautiful than vertical cards. Landscape cards are always horizontal. I love them.
ReplyDeleteThe mixing of horizontal and vertical is not ideal, but I must have less OCD than others, I'd hate to live in a world with no horizontal cards.
P.S.: 2017 Topps horizontal cards are not good horizontal cards.
There have been some truly beautiful landscape cards. 1955, 1956 and 1960 Topps immediately come to mind, and amongst the tons of foil garbage in the late 90's, there were some notable exceptions.
ReplyDeleteBut mixing orientations within the same set is unforgivable. I could almost let it slide "back in the day" (ie 71 Munson) due to the fact that there really was only one set of any consequence. Nowadays, with multiple sets, and multiple inserts within each set ... there's really no excuse for it. If you want to make landscape cards, fine ... but give them their own set or insert set and be uniform about it!