One of the biggest disappointments of 2008 for me was not being able to bust a box of Baseball Heroes. I literally watched dozens of box breaks and watched several busts on message boards. It’s a crying shame that Upper Deck discontinued the brand in baseball.
While the Heroes brand did make it to football in 2009, there is one really big upgrade to the brand. This year collectors are treated to 100% on-card autographs instead of the stickers from Heroes Baseball. It always seems that Upper Deck more than any other company is doing their part to save on-card autographs in The Hobby.
As for the product itself, it was lots of fun even to a non-football fan or collector. I received close to 200 cards with 2 relics, 2 autographs, and five parallels. Best of all, for those collectors who miss the retired Masterpieces line, you will find the first Masterpieces inserts in Heroes.
Currently, you can pick up Football Heroes for around $85 dollars on-line. While I wouldn’t mind paying a slightly higher premium for a product that features on-card autographs, Heroes would be a perfect product at around $70 dollars. It was one of the more fun Upper Deck products I have had the chance to bust in quite sometime.
Collectors, you be the judge. What do you think of Football Heroes?
(thumbnails lead to full-size scans)
The Baseball Card Blog 
I dont collect football, but this kind of product makes me want to. all the cards look great, the only thing i see is if they had the balls to not only have on-card, but to get rid of GU. the swatches dont make sense, but i love the woodstock and beethoven , + on card!
nice pat white.
I picked up a retail pack recently. The base cards look hella good, the best looking 2009 cards I’ve seen by a mile, and I am seriously drooling over that Hometown Heroes card.
Lonestar, send me an SASE and all the Masterpieces inserts are yours.
As for the “hits”, they will be given away in a contest tomorrow!
2008 heroes football was on card as well. The 2009 heroes are awful compared to 08. The autos look ttm quality when compared to 08. The 09’s are very hard to see. I’ve busted 12 08’s and 7 09’s. No contest 08 is better. I generally like the 09 design . The 09 boxes are ok at $50 like I paid. No way they are worth 70+
The multiple cards off the same player at the exclusion of others, particularly with regards to the retired “Heroes” makes the checklist totally atrocious. Kudos to the on-card auto and base design but that checklist is UGLY
I have always liked the Heroes set, but I wish UD would have kept it as an insert. Having it as its own set kind of makes it loose it’s mystique to me.
consest? woohoo! this is going to be fun!
what time do we have to be here, or is it an all day thing/drawing?
All day thing starting tomorrow morning or as early as midnight tonight.
I bought a couple boxes of this for no damn reason, and it wasn’t awful. It’s definitely an odd set that needs some spice though. There are some super cool on card autos of strangely appealing offensive linemen.
I pulled a Clinton Portis auto and was excited enough until I realized they were selling for like 5 dollars on eBay. Terrific Player, Numbered to 10, On Card Autograph….for under 10 bucks. Obviously collectors aren’t all that fond of this set.
cool Mario, i will have to check if its up tonight as i have to go to seattle all day tomorrow until late. i will give it my best!
Kris, consider this: your card was numbered to 10, but there’s a parallel numbered to 15 as well. Portis personally has 4 auto cards in the set and each of them have the 10 and 15 parallels in addition to a 1/1. There’s at least 104 out there. I bought one, but I’m a little disappointed. As joeC pointed out, they really do look like TTM base cards because the auto wasn’t factored into the card design at all.
Hey Mario,
What kind of Browns did you get? I may be interested in them.
More UD Garbage. Football players please, if they want to release a Pop Culture set, then release a Pop Culture/Historical set. God, I wish UD would go under.
Love the Jenkins. As a huge OSU fan, I can’t deny my envy. I did get the Laurinaitis auto, though.
Groat, I agree. The sad thing is, these autographs even if they were stickers, look better than the black auto on brown-back that Classics implemented.
This definitely seems like one of those sets that’ll be terrific to collect once hobby boxes experience a 30 or 40 dollar price drop.
Go Bucks! I gotta win that card! What a good looking set though, and the pulls i thought were very nice.
Will do. Thanks. 🙂
08 Heroes baseball is one of my favorite sets from last year, no doubt partly due to my collecting heyday being the early 90s and pulling Heroes inserts in Upper Deck.
I don’t collect football cards, but these are nice nonetheless.
Rminus you are usually just a flamethrower, spewing your hate and contentious tripe, but this time I have to agree. The product is FOOTBALL Heroes, yet it is loaded with hairmetal ZEROES and other nonathletes. UD needs to clean up Spectrum, APOH/Artifacts/Legendary Cuts, Heroes, and whatever other products they have been passing off as sportscards. Leave the Americana sets to Donini and Razor OR make a product that focuses on nonsports. I prefer a 1/4 in. thick slug of stock over a Warrant AU.
I like the inserts more than the set. But overall it’s a nice release.
I think the base card is slightly better designed that last year’s offering. Personally, I could do without the non sports stuff. Last year I pulled a Tony Iommi Guitar Hero card, which I thought was sorta cool since I like Black Sabbath, but it really didn’t belong in my football box. I think this product would be better at a lower price as well, as it’s more of a fun product for kids to buy (like Skybox Thunder/Z-Force back in the late 90s). If that means fewer “hits”, I would still like to see a lower price.
I don’t suppose there were any Emmitts to be had from your box?
😉
Rminus, I like that. The only contempt I feel is for UD and Gellman. Mario’s ok in my book, great blog, very informational and not hating on the hobby all the time.