Upper Deck's latest baseball card launch has a bit of the past, present and future.
Upper Deck's popular Legendary Cuts line has returned to the hobby, with the 2009 product going live this week.
The 100-card base set has numerous randomly placed inserts featuring game-used memorabilia cards as well as autographed and signature-cut cards. Some of the “Legendary Cut” signature cards include autographs from deceased baseball icons such as Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Roberto Clemente, as well as deceased MLB executives including former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley.
This year's issue uses a postage-stamp type design. Legendary Cuts includes four memorabilia cards and seven Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Retrospective inserts in every box. The “Legendary Memorabilia” insert lineup boasts four distinct color parallels (Blue, Olive Green, Brown and Red) to keep pack-cracking duties at a fever pitch.
“We had our third annual SP Legendary Cuts case-cracking party on Sunday,” said Chuck Nieman of Newhall, California-based Card Connection,” and just about every one of the 60 customers who showed up commented on how much they liked the design of the cards. And even though we didn’t pull any major deceased player’s card, we did pull a lot of recognizable players who haven’t made appearances in SP Legendary Cuts for years.”
The hard-signed autographed component in the 2009 product is comprised of: “Classic Signatures,” numbered up to 99, with names including Ernie Banks, Carl Yastrzemski, Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton; “Future Legends,” numbered up to 149, including Josh Beckett, Derek Jeter, Cole Hamels and Ken Griffey Jr.; and “Generations Dual” signature cards, numbered up to 99, boasting combos like Nolan Ryan/Randy Johnson, Don Mattingly/Derek Jeter, Carlton Fisk/Jason Varitek and Reggie Jackson/Prince Fielder.
Top pulls from the “Legendary Cut” collection will be found coming from the likes of DiMaggio, Williams, Clemente and O’Malley. These sought-after cards fall at an average of two per case, while special “Mystery Cut Signature Redemption” cards fall at a rate of one per case, on average.
Read 4,000+ More Stories 
Upper Deck's latest baseball card launch has a bit of the past, present and future. 
This year's issue uses a postage-stamp type design. Legendary Cuts includes four memorabilia cards and seven Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Retrospective inserts in every box. The “Legendary Memorabilia” insert lineup boasts four distinct color parallels (Blue, Olive Green, Brown and Red) to keep pack-cracking duties at a fever pitch.