This was a tough one to re-create. It has an inset picture like 83-84 Topps, a very thin pinstripe around the baseball field shaped picture and name block, a two tone Topps logo, a rounded corner and a white glow around the edge of the picture. All this adds up to a difficult card to create. I cropped a picture that would have fit better on a sideways card to fit a portrait card. I think this makes the card really nice. You don’t see many cards cropped like this but I feel it really works. I think I will pull this template out and do a few cards with it because it looks so nice.
Archive for the ‘Joakim Soria’ Tag
History of Joakim Soria: 2002 Topps 1 comment
Histroy of Joakim Soria: 1966 Topps Leave a comment
1966 Topps is not the most thrilling of cards. It is very plain and simple, which isn’t always bad. Topps has had a ton of memorable designs, this is not one of them. There just doesn’t seem to be anything really distinct about the card design. I’m not calling it bad, just boring.
History of Joakim Soria: 1984 Topps 5 comments
It has been way too long since my last “History of Joakim Soria” post. I have a lot more years ready to go I just get distracted with my other projects and don’t get them posted enough. This post is dedicated to 1984 Topps. Definitely one of Topps classic designs but I am not a huge fan of it. I actually consider it the retarded cousin of 1983 Topps. 1983 Topps had a smooth, curvy design with the nice inset picture and Topps tried to go back to the same design template and just square things up. It ends up being too rigid in my opinion. I also do not like the font for the team name or the pink background behind the mugshot. I’ve picked on it enough, it is still a classic Topps design no matter my opinion. I like the picture here and how it fits on the card, I’ve often said how much I like pictures that are a little unusual and this one fits the bill. Look for another “History of Joakim Soria” installment soon.
History of Joakim Soria: 1982 Topps Leave a comment
I just re-discovered my “Just Fair” series with a new post yesterday and today I will do the same with my favorite feature on my site. “The History of Joakim Soria” is a series where I make a Joakim Soria card for every Topps base set over their 60 year reign. Today’s installment is 1982 Topps. Another classic design. It wouldn’t crack my top 5 Topps designs of all-time but it would be close. They are a very clean and simple looking card and look great.
When I think of 1982 Topps I think of Cal Ripken. Ripken was and is my favorite player and 1982 was his rookie year. He has a multi-player rookie card in the base set and a card all to himself in the traded set. The traded card is one of the most iconic cards in history in my opinion. So this is why this set has always held a special place in my heart.
I like the powder blue shot of Soria here. His high leg kick leaves a great space to display the autograph as well. This is a card I will have to make more variations of, look for it to pop up as a “Custom Card of the Day” soon.
1983 Topps Royals: Aaron Crow and Joakim Soria Leave a comment
QUICK THOUGHTS: This Soria card has now been posted by me either 3 or 4 times so you may have seen it before. Aaron Crow is almost unrecognizable without a beard now. That is all.
1983 Topps Eric Hosmer custom card 2 comments
Alright, this is my favorite card from my 1983 Topps tribute Royals set. I think it is a great shot of the hot young rookie for the Royals. Hosmer had his first career walk-off hit today so I figured it was only fitting to post this card. Hopefully this win will slingshot the Royals back into playing decent baseball again. Oh yeah, don’t look now but this was a 3rd consecutive really good outing for Joakim Soria. Please don’t rush to get him back to the closers role though, make sure he is comfortable before that happens.
History of Joakim Soria: 2001 Topps; What’s wrong with Joakim Soria? 4 comments
Alright, I have avoided this long enough, it is time to talk about what is wrong with Joakim Soria. I have posted several Joakim Soria cards without really discussing his terrible year to this point. The truly sad thing is that the bullpen for the Royals has far exceeded expectations except for Soria.
Aaron Crow has been so good this year that people are starting to talk about making him the closer. This is a bad idea in my opinion. Crow is the logical “backup” for Soria but I really think he needs to stay in the setup role. If Soria struggles through the entire season, then you can talk about making him the closer in 2012. That being said, that won’t happen. Joakim Soria is not right right now, he just isn’t and hasn’t been all year. I think it is a problem that will go off like a switch someday, hopefully soon.
He will recover from this. Right now he is unreliable though. I don’t know what the Royals should do but I don’t want him to lose his role as closer. If he keeps blowing saves and losing games that the Royals have fought hard to be ahead in what else can you do? I still believe one day he will come out of the bullpen and be the Joakim Soria we all remember and we can concentrate on the Royals real problem; starting pitching.
Now that is done. This card is from the 2001 Topps set and I really think it is a good one. The design itself is not one of my favorites but for some reason this card really works for me. I have a hard time showing gold foil many times but I think I found a good mixture for this 2001 card. The picture is from early in the season in 2009 when it was really cold and one game actually ended with the Royals closing it out while snow was falling. I believe that is the snow you can see in the background of the picture. It could be rain but if memory serves it is snow. This card added a little extra challenge in re-creating it. Topps did a “50 years” logo and I had to do it instead of the traditional Topps logo. It was much easier to do than the “40 years” logo I recently had to do for the 1991 Topps card I posted.
History of Joakim Soria: 1991 Topps 4 comments
Here is 1991 Topps, a good looking card. This is one of the many designs I never really appreciated until I tried to re-create it. This is another History of Joakim Soria project that Goose Joak has already tackled. In fact he has done several of them including Brayan Pena, Mike Aviles, Zack Greinke and most recently Eric Hosmer. I think he has the better Soria card, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Look at his card here.
History of Joakim Soria: 2011 Topps Leave a comment
This card has appeared on my site before but I thought I would officially induct it into the “History of Joakim Soria” set. It is originally from my 2011 Royals spring training set that was all Royals, all from spring training and came in at a whopping 55 cards, wow, good times.
This Soria was one of my favorites from the set. I was actually forced to use a picture that I normally wouldn’t. I like to give the picture room to breathe and I had to crop really tightly on this one. I had the same issue with Brayan Pena’s card from the same set. In retrospect, those two cards are likely among my top 5 from the set.
The 2011 Topps design got mixed reviews from me. I like that it is not drenched in silver foil and that it has a big picture on it. The bad points were more minor but annoying nonetheless. I hated the fact that it said Kansas City Royals around the baseball on top and bottom in addition to having a Royals logo in between the two. Not too bad though, I am anxious to see what Royals are included in series 2, could there be an Eric Hosmer rookie card? We can only hope. June 6th you can get your grubby little hands on them and find out.
History of Joakim Soria: 1981 Topps Leave a comment
1981 Topps was never a card design I liked a whole lot. I didn’t like all of the orange, I didn’t like the hat. I don’t like when a baseball card set has a really cartoony feature like this. It made the set have sort of a “cheap” feel I guess. To make matters worse, like 1972 Topps, the set was bookended by two very nice sets. 1980 Topps is a classic set that has to be a top 10 Topps set and 1982 had the subtle stripes going down one side to frame the card nicely.
This picture is not a high favorite of mine either. It was from the series in Detroit earlier this year, one of the few days the Royals wore the solid blue uniforms. The picture itself isn’t bad, it is just the fact that all I can see when I look at it is a Goose Joak custom card. He used the picture on one of his excellent Goose Joak originals around the same time I made this card. His has been up a while now so he definitely beat me to the punch. I am low of pictures of Joakim for this “History” project so I decided to leave it.
A Hair Off Square 