Speculators love Bowman. Since Major League Baseball changed the rules on rookie cards a few years ago, players need to play in their first big league games before they appear on their first RCs. But Topps has a contract that allows it to make cards of prospects just beginning their journey to the bigs, and 135 of them are the centerpiece of 2007 Bowman.
Hobby boxes of 2007 Bowman Baseball have 24 packs of 10 cards each, while HTA Jumbo boxes contain 12 packs of 32 cards each. Collectors can expect one autographed rookie or prospect card per hobby box and three per jumbo box.
Base Cards
Even with its focus on the future of baseball, Bowman's base set begins with 200 commons that picture MLB veterans. The commons have a red frame for the player photo surrounded by a black border, with the player name and position at the bottom in silver foil. A facsimile signature of each player - a staple of the brand's design - is included once again, but team information is absent.
A scouting report for each player is the focus of the horizontal card backs. They are well-written as always, and can help you learn something about even the longest-tenured veterans.
Cards 201 through 220 sport the MLB Rookie Card logo and a green frame, and though some of the players have had rookie cards in previous years, others have not - most notably Red Sox import Daisuke Matsuzaka. There are also 16 players who have autographed MLB Rookie Cards, with some players (like Philip Humber) appearing on both signed and unsigned cards. It will be interesting to see how the hobby treats these occurrences.
Topps exclusive Barry Bonds rounds out the base set on card 237.
Unsigned base cards have four levels of parallels that change the color of the card borders: Gold (unnumbered), Blue (#'d to 500), Orange (#'d to 250) and Red (1-of-1). The autographed cards share all the levels but Gold.
A sample box provided by Topps yielded plenty of base cards and parallels but still left some work to build the set. All told, I found 99 commons (plus two duplicates), 14 Gold and two Blue parallels. I also pulled 11 rookies, with two Gold parallels and an Orange Jerry Owens autograph.
Prospect Cards
Once upon a time, Bowman often scooped all other brands and gave collectors rookie cards of players years before they made their MLB debuts. That's no longer possible, but the first cards of prospects are still the heart of Bowman Baseball and should prove as popular as ever with collectors.
As in 2006, Bowman Prospects are numbered as their own insert set with a 'B' prefix in front of the card number. The design of the cards is identical to the base cards, with the very obvious exceptions that the borders are white and there is more silver foil along the bottoms. A logo in the upper left corner identifies the cards as the players' first Bowman cards.
There are 110 regular prospect cards plus 25 autographed prospect cards in this year's set. Notable names on the autograph checklist include high 2006 draft picks Evan Longoria and Tyler Colvin. All of the prospects can also be found in the same parallel levels as the base cards.
Every pack of 2007 Bowman Baseball also holds two Bowman Chrome Prospects cards. These depict the 110 regular prospects on black-bordered cards with Topps' popular Chrome technology, and are numbered BC1 to BC110. When Bowman Chrome releases later in 2007, the prospect cards will begin at BC111. The Chrome cards have six levels of parallels, including refractors, with numbering ranging from 500 down to five.
The About.com review box churned out 48 prospects and 47 Chrome Prospects, as well as eight gold parallels and one refractor numbered to 500.
Insert Cards and Box Toppers
p]Bowman is a focused product that concentrates on prospects over inserts, but Topps did include one continuing insert set that runs through all of its baseball products. That would be the Alex Rodriguez Road to 500 set, this time capturing career home runs 126 through 175. I found three A-Rod cards in my sample box.HTA jumbo boxes also have an extra bonus in the form of Signs of the Future autographed cards inserted as box toppers. Fittingly, the checklist is made up of 37 young players who have appeared in Bowman within the past few years.
The Last Word
Bowman Baseball appeals to a specific kind of collector, one who wants the first baseball cards of prospects and is patient enough to see how they pan out. If that sounds like you, the 2007 set shouldn't disappoint. With a design that is classic Bowman, regular and Chrome prospects in every pack and autographs of the MLB stars of tomorrow, this year's release continues the legacy of the brand in fine fashion.