More than just a shinier cousin to Bowman Baseball, this year's Bowman Chrome Baseball set finishes off the run of Bowman Chrome Prospects cards with 110 more recently drafted young players. The autograph checklist gets a boost from the rapid ascent of Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain and Astros slugger Hunter Pence.
Hobby boxes of 2007 Bowman Chrome Baseball hold 18 packs of four cards each, with two Bowman Chrome Prospects cards per pack. Each box should also contain one autographed card.
Base Cards and Parallels
If you've seen the design for 2007 Bowman Baseball, you know what these base cards look like. A total of 190 veterans and 30 players on cards with the MLB Rookie Card logo make up the base set, all set on Topps' Chrome stock and with color-coded frames: red for veterans, green for first-year players. Two notable names who are actually appearing on their real Bowman Chrome rookie cards are Red Sox hurlers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima.
It wouldn't be a Chrome release without Refractors, the even shinier parallel versions that are instantly familiar to long-time collectors, and they once again come in a wide variety. From most common to least common, the 2007 list includes Refractors (four per box), X-Fractors (numbered to 250), Blue Refractors (#'d to 150), Gold (#'d to 50), Orange (#'d to 25), Red (#'d to 5) and hobby exclusive Super-Fractors (1-of-1).
With relatively few base cards per box, putting the Bowman Chrome set together will take some effort. My sample box yielded 26 veterans and three veteran Refractors, plus two MLB Rookie Cards, a Jerry Owens Refractor and a Troy Tulowitski Blue Refractor.
Prospect Cards
The heart of Bowman Chrome Baseball is the Bowman Chrome Prospects subset, which gives 110 players the chance to appear on their first MLB-licensed cards before they even make it to the big leagues. The card design is similar to that of the base cards, save for the white borders and blue frames that easily distinguish the prospects.
As the first 110 players appeared in 2007 Bowman Baseball, the numbering for the prospect cards in this set starts at BC111 and goes to BC220. Chrome Prospects come in the same range of Refractor parallels as the base cards, though the regular Refractors are numbered to 500.
Since Bowman Chrome costs more than regular Bowman and has fewer packs per box, the second half of the BCP run actually costs more to assemble, something to take note of if you are planning on opening packs to obtain most of the prospects. The About.com review box served up 35 Bowman Chrome Prospects, along with one X-Fractor and a Gold Refractor (Karl Gelinas #'d 31/50).
Autographed Cards
An autographed card in each box is a pretty common trait among sports cards of all types in 2007, but Bowman Chrome Prospects Autographs stand out by capturing signatures from players before they get their first taste of the major leagues. Or at least that's the plan, though fast-rising youngsters like Chamberlain and Pence have changed it up a little by making it all the way to the bigs in 2007.
This year's autograph checklist also features the top two picks from the 2006 draft, Luke Hochevar and Greg Reynolds, as well as former two-sport Notre Dame star Jeff Samardzija. My sample box contained a single autograph as expected: Astros pitching prospect Sergio Perez.
The autographed cards also come in all of the various Refractor forms, with print runs ranging from 500 down to one. Especially fortunate collectors will pull one-of-one autographed printing plates - four different colors for each autographed prospect card in the set.
The Last Word
Bowman Chrome Baseball isn't bringing too many new elements to the table in 2007, but the dependable mix of prospects and Refractors should please the brand's loyal fans. The regular Bowman set looks like slightly better value for the collecting dollar, though as mentioned above, you need to sink some money into both brands to get all 220 prospects.
All told, this is a product that stands to leave its intended audience pleased with most boxes and ecstatic if one of the better autographs is inside.
