puig and ryu update explosions

there are 17 cards in this post, and that is ridiculous.  it is ridiculous because this post is only about yasiel puig and hyun-jin ryu, and only about 2013 topps.  2013 topps update, mostly.  and, i'm not even going to show puig's base or rookie debut cards from the set.  crazy, i tell you.  but, i bought into it.  after refusing to chase the dodger super short prints in 2012 topps update, i went ahead and bought the ssp's in 2013.  a big part of my decision to do so was the photography - topps used some nice (meaning not boring) photos on the ssp's...

...like this one, featuring puig in his walk-off slide

yes, i know that the term 'walk-off' refers to the other team.  anyway, that was one of three puig super short prints in update last year.  more on that later.

here are the puig inserts from the set - a franchise forerunners card with matt kemp

a 1971 style mini

a chasing history card

and a making their mark card

here's one of the three puig base cards in the set - a record chase/checklist

to go along with his regular base and rookie debut cards as mentioned earlier.  you may have noticed that those four cards shown there feature pretty much the same type of photo.

here's the second of the puig short prints.  i think this one was just a short print - not a super short print.  anyway, he's got that big glove that makes an appearance on cards every once in a while

here's one of the two for sure super short prints.  although i like the sliding card up top better, this one with his arms raised is pretty good, too.

so that was puig in last year's update.  there were a lot of cards, but at least they were all update cards.  that wasn't the case with hyun-jin ryu, as we'll see in a moment.

first, here are the ryu inserts from update - franchise forerunners with sandy koufax

had topps followed the same model for that card as they did for the puig/kemp card, clayton kershaw would have been featured.  and, if they had done the puig card like this one, we would have seen duke snider, i suppose.

here's ryu's 1971 topps style mini

and his entry in the chasing history insert set

along with the making their mark card

now things get interesting.

this is ryu's base card from the update set (he was already featured in the flagship set as card 661 so he only gets a rookie debut card)

so far, not so crazy, although it's just a bunch of cards showing ryu pitching. this next card is thankfully different, and it was also found in update packs, but it is a short print and is numbered 661.

same goes for this short print.

found in update packs, but listed as number 661.  that means that the two short prints are actually short prints to the flagship set, not the update set.  that is ridiculous.

and then there are these two cards as well - ryu's 2013 topps mini

which is pretty straight forward, actually, and this 2013 topps factory set exclusive

also numbered as 661 in the set.

i understand that there is an explosion of short prints in 2014 topps as well, but i am not pursuing any of them this year.  not yet, anyway.