If Topps Lost Their License

 Topps has been pumping out baseball cards since 1952.  They had to compete with Bowman for the first few years and then had a monopoly until 1980.  For the next 30 years they had to deal with Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, and just about anyone else who wanted to crank out cards.  They regained their monopoly in 2010.

Panini entered the card market in the 2014 season, but without a license from MLB.  I collect their cards but have never liked them due to the lack of logos.

But what if the roles were flipped?  What if Panini had the license and Topps did not?  Would Topps continue with baseball and make logoless cards?

In my pretend world, I'm saying yes, Topps would still be in the baseball business. What would their cards look like? I took to Photoshop to make up logoless Topps cards.

When selecting pictures for the cards, I was on the hunt for pictures in which the players covered up their logos by their natural actions.  I wanted to doctor the pictures as little as possible.

Here's my attempt at a 2020 Logoless Topps card.  See how his arm and mitt cover the lettering across the uniform.  The only Photoshopping I had to do was to remove the C on his hat.  

But to me, the logoless hat looks so unnatural.  And that makes the card look bad.  To be natural, the hat has to have a logo.  I decided to try something.

I put a Topps logo on the hat.  It is in the same colors as the C on the Cubs had.  To my eye, the card now looks much more like a baseball card.  

I don't know what the legalities are.  Panini can remove things, but can they add?  If so, they should put a Panini logo in team-appropriate colors on the hats.

Below I've got three more Cubs cards, using the Topps 2020 design, with logos removed and the Topps logo on the hats.  What do you think?