When it comes to sports cards, I tend to be a logo snob. But every now and then... a logo-less product comes along that I enjoy. Actually... obsessed might be better way to describe my interest in 2013 Hometown Heroes. Anyone remember me busting several boxes of that stuff?
Two years later... it happened again when I saw someone open a blaster of 2018 Sage Sport Kings on YouTube. They're logo-less too, but I'll let the scans explain my obsession rather than words:
2018 Sport Kings #1
2018 Sport Kings #1b
There were two players with image variations in 2018. Ty Cobb was one of them. Walter Payton was the other.
2018 Sport Kings #9
2018 Sport Kings #14
2018 Sport Kings #16
Sage's artists tend to push the boundaries by painting partially exposed logos and team names on jerseys and hats.
2018 Sport Kings #25
2018 Sport Kings #30
2018 Sport Kings #31
You might have noticed that there are a bunch of missing numbers. That's because this set contains athletes from a variety of sports ranging from bowling to swimming to beach volleyball. There were 48 athletes representing twenty-five sports in the 2018 set. Football was king with ten different athletes represented. Technically there are eleven. Tom Condon also has a card in the set, but he's listed as an agent instead of a football player.
Baseball slid into second place with seven representatives and the only other sport with more than two athletes featured in this set was basketball (4 athletes).
Most of you are baseball fans, so only scanned baseball cards. Moving along to Volume 2:
2021 Sport Kings #52
Sport Kings returned last year during the pandemic after a two year hiatus. I must have been distracted by Covid, distance learning, and hoarding toilet paper, because I completely missed the release of this product. It's a shame it took me so long to get my hands on some, because this Babe Ruth wearing pinstripes is a great looking card and is the first baseball card in the 2021 Sport Kings Volume 2 set.
2021 Sport Kings #54
Instead of restarting the checklist with card #1, they decided to make this a living set... which means the numbering continued from where they left off in 2018.
2021 Sport Kings #58
Volume 2 was reduced from 48 (50 w/variations) cards to 38 and contains cards #49 to #86.
2021 Sport Kings #61
2021 Sport Kings #69
The card's design is based on the Goudey Sport Kings from 90 years ago. I'm a big fan of the little icons at the bottom of the card that represent the athlete's sport.
2021 Sport Kings #76
2021 Sport Kings #83
2021 Sport Kings #84
Baseball was king in Volume 2... as it beat out football with 8 players in this set.
Several months ago, Sport Kings released Volume 3. This time around there were only 36 cards on the checklist, but a whopping 11 featured baseball players.
2022 Sport Kings #89
2022 Sport Kings #93
Volume 3 also featured full body paintings of baseball players in action... which I hope continues into the future.
2022 Sport Kings #102
2022 Sport Kings #104
2022 Sport Kings #106
2022 Sport Kings #110
2022 Sport Kings #112
2022 Sport Kings #114
2022 Sport Kings #117
Between eBay and an online store, I was able to find a bunch of 2021 and 2022 blasters in the $17 to $18 shipped price range.
2022 Sport Kings #120
2022 Sport Kings #122
If anyone else out there are building these three sets, hit me up and maybe we can help each other out. Here's the link to my set needs.
So those are my thoughts on this logo-less living set...
What's yours?
Looking forward to reading and responding to your comments. Until then...
Happy Thursday and sayonara!
