Derek Jeter - The full Project 2020 rundown

After over a year of waiting, Derek Jeter will finally be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

Sadly, I am traveling during this time and will probably miss most of the ceremony. I'm sure I'll catch the replay of his speech.

Jeter was a special player for me as a kid. I feel like we are up together. I was in the 6th grade when Jeter took over as the everyday shortstop on Opening Day of 1996.  I was in seventh grade when the Yankees won the World Series later that season. I was in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade when they three-peated from 1998-2000. I was an annoying Luis Gonzalez single away from seeing the Yanks win the World Series every year I was in high school.

He wouldn't win another until 2009. By that time, I was a young professional living and working in NYC. College had come and gone, with Jeter still entrenched on the left side of the Yankees infield. I was at Game 6 of the 2009 World Series when the Yankees clinched the title. My date for the game was the woman who would soon become my wife.

Derek Jeter was the Yankees shortstop from the time I was in junior high through the time I was married with two kids. That's pretty insane, any way you look at it. So while it'll be trendy over these few days to knock him as being a overrated slap hitter or that he couldn't play defense, that's going to fall on deaf ears on this blog. It's rare to grow up with a player and have them being linked to nearly every baseball memory you have.

I have that with Jeter.

While he has always been a more secondary part of my collection compared to Tino Martinez, I have about 1,000 different Jeters, give or take. But in 2020, Jeter was the focus for me during Covid-fueled trading card boom.

Why?

Because I completed the Topps Project 2020 full run of Jeters.

It was expensive, but I don't regret it one bit. The funds were there. The retail cards weren't on the shelves. So this took the place of what I might have normally spent on cards. 

All together, they create quite the masterpiece:

Just look at those! Maybe by themselves they don't equate to much, but when viewed as a collection, it's an incredibly unique piece.

Over the last couple days, I went back and looked at these for the first time in months. They had been stored away, but it was fun to go back and enjoy them with Project 2020 a distant memory. And while Project 70 is doing it's best to beat artist renderings of cards into the ground, these will always hold a special place.

And do you know what? My tastes changed over time. Some I loved at the time, I found myself perhaps not feeling the same now. Some I barely remembered now really popped for some reason. So with that, here a few categories of the Project 2020 cards after I revisiting my collection:

Favorite card: Tyson Beck

This one was always one of my favorites, but I feel it holds up. There's a lot going on, but I like how the full piece comes together. The iconic Draft Pick text from the back of the card is there. Jeter's RC image is there on the right, although he's holding Lady Liberty's torch. The colors are vibrant, the card is busy, yet captures Jeter well with his smile and his swing.

Card that I like more now than before: Jacob Rochester

I don't know why, but I kept coming back to this one. I think the sea foam green is what has attracted me to the card. I don't know if it'll ever be my favorite, but when I saw it I definitely felt more attracted to the simplicity of the design than I had remembered.

Least Favorite: Keith Shore

Oof. Moving on.

Missed the mark the most: Oldmanalan

I shouldn't be THAT surprised by this, as this artist was often out to lunch on most of his cards. And while this was definitely not his worst card, I found it odd that he didn't use the image from Jeter's RC at all.

Most surprising: Don C

This was another polarizing card, but I liked it immediately and still do. It's obviously a homage to Seinfeld, where Jeter made an appearance on the show after the 1996 season. What was most surprising about it to me was how different it felt from Don C's other cards, which were a bit more artistic.

I could take a look at these again next year and feel completely different. Regardless, the full run is now a cornerstone of my entire card collection, and something I'm grateful I decided to follow through on.

Congratulations to Derek Jeter!