Upper Deck Channels the Heritage Spirit with Series Two Baseball SPs

This afternoon Upper Deck announced a quartet of shortprinted inserts for 2009 Upper Deck Series Two Baseball. The cards use the company's debut design from 1989 and, as Upper Deck puts it, ask "What If?"

There's Griffey in an action pose instead of a portrait and Randy Johnson as a Mariner instead of in his Expos garb. Surprise, surprise, the remaining two slots are reserved for a couple of Presidents: Reagan and George H.W. Bush, which pay tribute to the fact that politicians are over-used in today's sets.

The cards are numbered 801 through 804 so that, in theory, you could bookend your original 1989 Upper Deck Baseball set with them.

  

  

While this concept is mildly interesting, Upper Deck's recycled the 1989 design before as early as their Fifth Anniversary inserts. The Reagan card makes me think of Nixon getting on his chopper more than anything else. The Bush - something tells me there'd be little interest in any card featuring the elder matriarch other than maybe one where he's buddy-buddy with Saturday Night Live alumni Dana Carvey.