Even with Bowman and Bowman Chrome Baseball already in collectors' hands, Topps isn't quite done with the Bowman name for 2007. Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects is the final chapter for this season, offering new cards for top 2007 draft picks and players in this year's Futures Game.
Hobby boxes of 2007 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Baseball contain 24 packs with five Bowman and two Bowman Chrome cards per pack. On average, each box will hold one autographed Chrome draft pick card.
Base Cards and Parallels
Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects uses the same color-coded design as this year's Bowman set, which makes sense since this is kind of a continuation of that set. I say kind of because the DPP base set is numbered on its own starting at BDP1, allowing it to stand on its own. The only exception is card number 237, a guy you may have heard of by the name of Barry Bonds.
Aside from the home run king, the other 54 base cards carry the official MLB Rookie Card logo. As with most 2007 baseball products, some are true rookie cards (Joba Chamberlain) and others are not (Ryan Braun).
Parallels are a big part of the mix, with Chrome cards in every pack and several levels of other variations ranging from Gold (extra-thick and falling one per pack) to Red (1-of-1 and found only in hobby boxes). And where Chrome cards are found, there are also Refractors, in this case seven different versions in all.
A random hobby box opened for this review produced most of the base cards (48 of the 54 rookies plus Bonds) and a generous helping of parallels. Along with 24 Gold cards, I found 15 Chrome cards and two Refractors.
Insert Cards
DPP Baseball continues the white-bordered, blue-framed prospect cards that Bowman began, but gives them their own numbering and focuses on 2007 draft picks. Top overall pick David Price is among the players receiving their first Bowman cards in this insert.
There are also 45 players who appear on similar cards - minus the "1st Bowman Card" logo - with photography from the 2007 Futures Game. Some of the hottest prospects in baseball are on the checklist, like Evan Longoria, Justin Upton and Cameron Maybin. All of the draft picks and Futures Game cards can be found in the same Chrome and Refractor versions as the base cards, and some of the Futures Game players have Relic versions with pieces of game-used bases or jerseys.
It wouldn't be a 2007 Topps baseball release if there weren't A-Rod Road to 500 cards on hand, in this case two per box. Career home runs 426 through 450 are the subjects this time out.
Just over 40 percent of the draft picks and Futures cards were in my sample box, along with 29 Chrome parallels and an X-Fractor numbered to 299.
Autographed Cards
A total of 25 players selected in the 2007 amateur baseball draft signed Chrome draft pick cards, including first-rounders like Daniel Moskos. Most boxes will contain one of these cards, and my review box produced a Ben Revere card with an on-card signature.
Four former No. 1 overall picks signed Head of the Class autographed cards, which feature two players per card and are numbered to 174 copies. This year's combos are Jonathan Gilmore/Jason Heyward and Luke Hochevar/David Price.
The Last Word
Even though it stands on its own, completists will want to pick up Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects to finish off their Bowman sets for 2007. The small base set makes finishing off either the regular or Chrome versions possible without too much cost or difficulty.
For everyone else, the late-season 2007 rookies and draft picks are the draw. Collectors who focus on having the first cards of tomorrow's stars may find this set essential, while others are likely to see this as just a solid, by-the-numbers finish to Bowman's baseball season.
