Happy Topps Release Day!!!

To be fair, I was able to find the cards I'm going to share here on Monday this week but haven't been able to write about them yet. Today is the day that so many collectors anxiously await, the release of the year's first baseball card product. It's Topps series one release day! As mentioned, I was happily surprised to start my week by finding some new cards sitting on the shelf at Target on Monday.

I decided to try a blaster and a hanger box to kickoff the new collecting year. I was happy to see the 'Target Exclusive' Derek Jeter Highlights cards advertised on the front of the blaster. Others may be tired of new Jeters or new Yankees in general, but I'm excited to chase more cards of the Captain. I was just hopeful that the card design would look nice. I guess its an added bonus that there are also some coupons to use later. I decided to rip into the blaster first.

Here is a representation of the different subsets to be found. Future Stars, League Leaders, World Series Highlights, and team cards are all available. I scanned the Hosmer and Ozuna because I thought they were some of the more interesting photos from the blaster. I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about the design this year. I've heard some people refer to it as the 'Aquafresh' set or the 'wave' set. So far, for me, the design element that my eye tends to be drawn to is the effect found on the right side of the player and team name bars. It reminds me of the movie 'Pixels'. The more I look at it, the more it grows on me.

Here is a smattering of different inserts that I found. We've got Award Winners, Opening Day, Topps Salute, Superstar Sensations, 1983 35th Anniversary, and Legends in the Making. I was really happy to pull two Judge inserts after not having much luck pulling his RCs last year. I love the early career photo of the Straw-Man they used on the Salutes card. Across the bottom row, I scanned Verlander and Darvish because they show them in their new unis. While they may not be the first pieces of cardboard to do so, I still thought it was nice to see. I pulled 4 of the 1983 cards. I decided to scan Devers(despite being a Red Sox) because he is one of the most exciting young players to have RCs in series 1. I really like the way these look. However, they used a more modern card stock which leaves them a bit too slick feeling for my liking. I'm not sure if I'll make even a half hearted attempt at putting that set together. I feel like it would have been a real winner if they had used the same 'old school' card stock they used on the 1987 set last year. 

The Captain!!! I was thrilled to find 4 of these Derek Jeter Highlights cards in the blaster and I'm really happy with the simple, jersey-inspired design. I will definitely need to track all of these down.

While I was excited to be opening packs of the first set of the year, the blaster had left me a bit underwhelmed until the second to last pack I opened. I had only pulled a single gold, a single rainbow foil parallel, and only a few rookies(none of which were the ones I really wanted to pull). However, right in the middle of that second to last pack was a card that helped redeem the box.

Willie Calhoun has been a pretty highly touted prospect in the Dodgers system over the past few years. The Rangers acquired him in the Yu Darvish trade and he was one of their September call-ups, playing in 13 games. This is the Mother's Day Pink parallel and is #/50. I beat pretty astronomical odds finding this in my blaster as they fall 1:694 packs. I still had the 'relic' pack to go too. This year, series 1 includes Manu-relics featuring the altered MLB logo that was used during Players Weekend. I thought this was a pretty fun idea for a 'relic' set which is the main reason I opted to go for the blaster and not just multiple hangers.

I still like the design of the card and I have no issue with pulling a Josh Donaldson. I do have an issue with their photo selection though. One of the most fun aspects of Players Weekend was the use of nicknames on the jerseys. Why have a set that is supposed to highlight Players Weekend if the photo selected doesn't showcase one of the main aspects of said weekend? I just don't get it. I have yet to  see the Yankees from this set, but I sure hope that their nicknames are visible, especially since there is the added novelty of the Yankees never wearing names on their jerseys. I'm hoping they'll be really cool additions to my collection once I track them down. Let's move on to the hanger box.

Ahhh, finally a few of the RCs I will be chasing made an appearance in the hanger box brick. Since I'm a fan of any WS Highlight cards, I had to scan the WS MVP. As I'm sure anyone reading is aware, Kiermaier is one of my favorite players in the league. Robbing HRs has become fairly common for him, but I never tire of seeing photos of him in action. This particular one looks like he is doing his best MJ 'Jumpman' impression. I decided to include the newest Yankee for exactly that reason and I love the gritty detail on that Tapia. It's just a great baseball card. There were no inserts that I felt the need to scan, but there was one card I thought looked a bit different as I flipped through the brick of cards. A quick scan of the minuscule codes on the card backs confirmed my initial suspicion that I had uncovered one of the lower tier photo variation SPs.

I can't even put into words how thrilled I was that I had pulled an SP that would immediately slip into my PC. This is the variation on card #1 in the set. Obviously I love Judge(otherwise this wouldn't be his third appearance in this post), but am I the only one that can see Cameron(Alan Ruck) from Ferris Bueller's Day Off here?

It's not too much of a stretch, right? Anyway, to all who are searching for new product, I hope you find some and have great luck as you rip into the first cards of the year! I think I'll go searching for some loose and fat packs so I can use some of my coupons from that blaster. Thanks for reading.

Late to the 2017 Topps Party

I know I'm probably the last to get his hands on some 2017 Topps. I've got a jumbo box waiting for me at my LCS, but haven't been able to make it there to pick it up yet. During release week, my entire family was pretty ill so I had no chance to even grab a retail pack or two. This week has been much more normal and I happened to be at my local Target today and I was chomping at the bit to pick out whatever my first exposure to the product was going to be. As I walked in, I was trying to decide whether to go with a blaster, hanger box, rack/value pack, or just a few loose packs. However, when I made my way over to the card aisle, I was met with an alternate option:

There were 9 or 10 of these hanging on a few pegs. Once I saw that This Kiermaier was showing on not only one, but two of the packs, I decided to go with this option. I figured, even if the packs don't yield anything exciting, at least I would be guaranteed to add a new, retail-exclusive card of one of my favorite players in the league right now. I'll admit to a bit of 'searching' in that I examined the two Kiermaier face cards so I could pick the one that appeared to have e least amount of damage on it. Truthfully, they were equally clean looking so I grabbed one and hung the other back on the pegs. Once I got home I cautiously and excitedly opened the blister packaging and removed the Kiermaier. I honestly don't remember tearing into each pack. It seemed to take all of 10 seconds to flip through the four packs. In reality, I know I did take some time to try to enjoy the experience, but the excitement of new cardboard(and a decent rip) overtook me. Let's check the highlights, shall we?

My first base card(technically, my first 2017 card was the Kiermaier insert) of 2017 was Jon Gray. For me this is the middle of the road. It could have been better and it could have been way worse! The Josh Bell was the best of the three RCs that I pulled. I had to include the pair of Tanaka cards as the best of the Yankee cardboard from the packs. I included the anaquin and the amurphy in the scan because they are two of the best photos from the four packs.

I've really been digging a lot of the team card photo selections over the past few years. Shots like these are so much better than the old school, posed, full team pictures or team leader pics that used to appear on these.

I happened to pull two of these ad cards in the four packs. I can understand the point of view that these are pointless/shameless product plugs and I would probably be none too thrilled if these

actually counted as cards, but seeing as how they are seeded in addition to the normal number of cards in the pack, they're a nice 'bonus'. As far as I'm concerned, that's a new Donnie Baseball for my collection!

Here are the best of the inserts. Besides these but not scanned, I received a 1987 Rediscover Topps buy-back common and a 5-tool Buster Posey. I too pulled the rather depressing Jo-Fer award card. That he won the comeback player of the year in the season he wasn't able to finish due to his untimely passing just re-raises all of the 'what could have been' thoughts. The mMyers and Jackie Robinson are decently designed. I like the concept of showcasing the Mother's Day/Father's Day/JR Day uniforms in their own inserts rather than only on the incredibly rare(expensive) SSP photo variations. I've read a lot of negative print about the 5-Tool design. I, for one, really love it! This would have been a moderately successful break if this was all, but fortunately the goods didn't end there.

Tucked right in the middle of the third pack I ripped was this monstrosity! For a standard relic this thing is thick with a capital 'T'. When I saw this sandwiched in the middle of the pack, I thought it was something more substantial than this. Don't get me wrong, I really thrilled with this hit. Heck, I pulled a Playoff hero relic with a slight hint of a pinstripe on the right side of the window from one of my first retail packs of the year! It makes me really look forward to picking up my jumbo box and seeing what's hidden in all of that mylar.

So there you have my first 2017 Topps experience. You've all read more than enough critique on this year's design so I'll simply leave mine at this: it's a decent design. Not great, but certainly not horrible. I'm not sure I'll go out of my way to try to complete any of the sets, but the design certainly won't keep me from busting a decent amount of series one, two, and update. In all honesty, I'm just happy to be at the beginning of a brand new collecting year! Thanks for reading.