Babe Ruth Marks a Super Debut Baseball Vinyl Figure for Upper Deck

Upper Deck recently released photos of their upcoming Babe Ruth All Star Vinyl figure and I'm giving it a big thumbs up.

For player choice in a baseball product line, you can't find someone better than Ruth - especially for larger-than-life figures like the All-Star Vinyls. Even better, Ruth starts a new line of figures called "Best of the Bronx" that will include legendary Yankees. I'm not a dedicated Yankees fan but you can't dispute that no other team has a legacy for legends like New York does. Think about a series of figures that includes Yankee greats - I'm hoping to see Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra . . . THAT is a powerful series that would be fun to collect. Larger than life player, larger than life team - a perfect match for the vinyl figures.

The concept artwork that was previously released looked promising and the photos did not disappoint. Ruth is shown with bat in hand, tipping his hat to the crowd. The pose offers a nice contrast to the "just standing there" look we've seen in the NHL figures. An alternative to this might have been the "called shot" pose; that's been done quite a bit but it would have been a worthy choice as well. The facial sculpt itself is probably the weakest aspect of the figure; Ruth ended up with a somewhat piggish nose that doesn't look very good. The rest of the sculpt looks just fine, however.

The regular figure shows Ruth in home pinstripes, always a popular choice. Rather than going with the away gray flannel uniform for the alternate version figure, Upper Deck gave the limited edition figure a sepia finish. Another winning choice. Hopefully all the alternate version figures in the Bronx line will have the sepia finish.

Great selection, great pose, great uniform selection . . . all in all, a great figure. I collect very little baseball stuff but I am seriously considering getting this one, with the intent of buying all the figures in the Best of the Bronx line. I'll give this figure an A- . . . fix the pig snout and it bumps up to an A!