Some of My Favorite Cards from 2017 Topps Stadium Club

I can't stomach the current box prices on most new baseball products, so I've been buying retail and singles. I do really like the Stadium Club offerings that Topps has been putting out, so I picked up a complete set on eBay. I shuffled through it and pulled some of my favorite photos to scan for a post. I sometimes let negativity take over my posts, so I thought with this post I'd focus on something positive. I like the card stock and glossiness of the Stadium Club cards, and the photos are awesome.

Here's the front and back of Paul Goldschmidt's card. I like that a poster with his likeness on it appears in the foreground, with the actual player as more of a background element. There are a ton of pictures in this set that could be used for various mini-collections around the blogs, like players signing autographs, turning two, players blowing gum bubbles, and awards on cards.

I tried not to pay attention to player names when selecting cards for this post, just focusing on photos that jumped out at me. Plenty of big names from the past and present still managed to find their way in, but that's mostly because there were a lot of big names in the checklist. That Tim Raines card has already been featured on a few blogs, and I think Night Owl highlighted the Rod Carew card a while back (actually, he complained about which version of the card he pulled).

I love that Denard Span photo. I don't know what that grimace is all about, but it's a good photo. I like the picture of Aaron Judge standing for the anthem. There are some other good pictures here, including a bubble gum photo, Bryce Harper holding Katie Ledecky's medals, Mark Trumbo signing autographs, and a couple of uniform variations.

There's some good stuff here, including Evan Longoria with a football, some comedy from David Ortiz and A.J. Ramos, and a really nice photo on the Jonathan Lucroy card in the upper right.

I'm closing out this post with a few more vertically-oriented cards that caught my eye. Highlights here include a couple of bubble gum pictures, another interview about to be interrupted by pies, a catcher's mask close-up, and a dramatic shot of Joey Votto getting ready to do some damage to a baseball.

That's my quick round-up of the photographs that jumped out at me from this year's Stadium Club set. There are plenty of gems that I left out, and probably some I just plain missed as I flipped through the stack. I really like what Topps has done with this particular product line, and I am looking forward to seeing which pictures get chosen for 2018. It would also be pretty cool to see a Stadium Club product release for the UFC, although that may be a pipe dream.

Gint-a-Cuffs VIII: Pack 22

Yasiel Puig: +2 (The Numbers Game +2)

Pack Total: 2.00
Running Total: 102.00

Average Per Pack: 4.43
Box Pace: 110.87

Pack of the Day 135: Blaster Box of 2016 Topps Archives

I've looked at quite a few breaks of the new 2016 Topps Archives set on blogs and forums, and there have been some pretty good pulls posted. Archives is traditionally one of my favorite products, although it has gone downhill quite a bit (in my opinion) since the 2012, 2013, and 2014 sets, with 2014 being the beginning of the slide.

I haven't been able to get a Hobby box yet this year, but I did order a Retail blaster box from an eBay seller. I had to wait over the weekend for it to arrive, but even with shipping I saved about 7% off of what it would have cost me at the local box store.

Yu Darvish was the first card out of the box, so he is my first Archives card of 2016. I like Darvish well enough, but not right now when there's an Astros-Rangers series going on. The Rangers took the first game of the series on a walk-off double by Roughned 'Facepunch' Odor.

The base cards done in the 1953 Topps design are probably my least favorite in this set. They're not horrible, but they're not great. Some of the headshots look pretty weird, and sometimes it looks like a low-resolution photo was blown up too big and forced into the design. Some of them look all right, though.

I like the 1991 Topps design. I guess it's my second-favorite design used in this set, although I'd really have to rank them card by card. I wish that Billy Butler could get himself back together, but it looks like maybe 2009-2013 was his peak and he might not have another good run in him. He still looks good on cardboard, though. That Hunter Pence card is pretty sharp. He's out for a couple of months with a hamstring injury.

I haven't gone back to look, so I have no idea how closely the card backs match the originals. I know there has been a lot of chatter about changes to the team name on the card fronts, specifically the inclusion of the city name. I am not really bothered either way, if I even end up noticing the differences.

The 1979 Topps design is my favorite one used in this set. Again, I don't know how accurately it mimics the originals, but it looks good to me. That Biggio might be my favorite base card in this blaster.

The card backs for the 1979 and 1991 designs carry full career stats, which is something that several people have brought up. I think in past products the stats for some players have been cut off.

As far as inserts go, I got exactly what the odds said I should expect. I was hoping for a parallel or an auto or something, but the insertion odds were against me on that. These 1969 Topps Super cards are inserted at a rate of 1:4 packs, and I got two in my eight packs. I'm not a huge fan of either player, but I do like this card design. Like others have said, for me it calls to mind the Mother's Cookies cards of the 1980's and 1990's more than a Topps issue from well before I was born.

I pulled one of these 1985 Topps Father-Son cards, which are seeded 1:8 packs. It's a cool idea. It is unfortunate that the autograph versions only feature one signature, as it would be cool to get the father and son autographs on one card. The text on the back seems wrong to me, as some information is included for the father, but the same information is not included for the son, and vice versa. It bugs me. 

These Bull Durham inserts are the big tie-in for this year's Archives set. Like the Will Ferrell and Major League inserts of the last couple years, these are not my favorite thing in the world. They add expense to a product without offering something that is valuable to me. I haven't seen Bull Durham, so this set doesn't carry any nostalgic value for me. I'd rather see Topps revisit a couple more insert set designs from past products than tie-ins to movies I haven't seen. But these things are undeniably popular and maybe they push sales enough for Topps to justify continuing producing Archives. Is this a product that would succeed without the big pop culture tie-in? I don't know.

This last card is a 1985 Topps #1 Draft Pick insert of Alex Rodriguez. It's a decent card. It would be nice to see some more variety in the Archives product, like the Firebrands, Gallery of Heroes, Deckle Edges, Stickers, and other designs that were used in previous Archives products. Heck, even a return to the foilboard parallels from 2012-2014 would be welcome, at least for me. I had a lot of fun chasing the Gold parallel foil sets from 2013 and 2014. In 2015 Topps moved to a couple of bland bordered parallels, and this year the borders are more colorful but still don't have any shine to them. I have to wonder how much longer this product will survive, as Topps seems bound and determined to suck all the fun out of the baseball cards while relying on the media tie-ins to carry the sales. I'll probably still try to build the base set this year, but that's about it.

Pack(s) of the Day 133: 2 Packs of 2016 Topps Marketside Pizza Baseball

I recently bought a full set of Topps Marketside Pizza Baseball cards from an eBay seller. I had considered chasing the set through buying pizza and breadsticks, but my wife said the pizza isn't that great and I'd be better off just buying the set online. It's not often that she encourages me to buy things online, so I waited for the right listing to pop up. The seller included a couple of unopened packs of cards along with the set, so I thought I'd open them up for a blog post. Each pack has three cards from the 50-card set as well as two coupons for Topps products and a code for a Topps Bunt pack.

My first pack features Albert Pujols, the Phillie Phanatic, and Ryan Braun. I've never been much of a Pujols fan, although he is obviously a great player on the downhill side of his career. I just never had any real interest in the teams he's played for. He did have a cool moment at last year's Home Run Derby with Joc Pederson's brother, Champ Pederson, who has Down syndrome. Pujols has a daughter with Down syndrome, and his Pujols Family Foundation does a lot of work to help people with Down syndrome and their families.

The Phillie Phanatic is one of the more famous mascots in baseball. I went to a Phillies game last month and I found the Phanatic's antics pretty entertaining.

Ryan Braun is one of those players whose cards seem to follow me around everywhere. I don't collect his cards and I don't really want his cards, but it seems like every batch of packs I open has him in it. He's got the whole steroid thing going on, and he also designed his own line of clothes for the Affliction Clothing brand. That is practically unforgivable. I am not sure what to say about the steroid / PED thing. I think cheating is wrong, and I think PEDs are cheating, but some players I give a bit of a pass to (Bartolo Colon) while other players I don't (Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun). I don't know exactly why, but I realize I am inconsistent when it comes to holding PED use / allegations against a player.

The second pack was okay, with Troy Tulowitzki, Adam Jones, and Todd Frazier. Troy Tulowitzki is a guy I am kind of indifferent about. He's a great player who seems to be injured a lot, but that's about it as far as my impressions of him. He recently hit his 200th home run, as did the next guy in the pack, Adam Jones.

Adam Jones is also a pretty good player. I've had him on quite a few fantasy baseball teams. He's kind of tailed off a little as a fantasy pick lately, because his power and average have shrunk a bit and he doesn't steal bases much anymore. His sweet spot in fantasy was probably 2012-2014.

Todd Frazier is about 8- home runs shy of these other two guys, but he might catch them eventually. He's got plenty of power. It's kind of weird that he's with the White Sox now. That hadn't registered with me until I looked at his Baseball Reference page today.

These two packs didn't really yield the greatest pulls in the world, but they were a nice toss-in with the complete set I purchased. It was fun to open them, and I didn't have to figure out what to do with a bunch of frozen pizzas.

Topps Mini Baseball Scan Clear-Out, Post 4 of 4: The Relics

Now that I've showcased all the colored parallels from my boxes of 2013 and 2014 Top Mini Baseball, here are the relics from those boxes. Each box promised one relic or autograph, but out of the many (many, many) boxes of both years I opened I only ever pulled one autograph. The autographs in this stuff were hard to find. Kicking things off is this PWS (Plain White Swatch) of Albert Pujols from the 2014 set. I like the design on these cards. It's pretty simple but I think it looks good.

It was pretty nice to pull this Hyun-Jin Ryu card, as he is a guy I kind of PC. I don't know if I have ever gone out of my way to pick up his cards, but I like pulling them from packs. Hopefully he comes back healthy next year, as he missed the 2015 season and had shoulder surgery.

This is my representative from the 2013 set, a pinstriped relic of famed pitcher Kerry Wood. Unfortunately this card came out of the pack with heavy damage on the bottom edge, as you can see in the scan on the right. whole layers of the card were peeled back and torn. I assume the collation machine is responsible for the damage. It's kind of disappointing for the one hit in the box to be damaged, especially a nice relic with a stripe and a good photo on the front.

Most of these relics are jersey pieces, but I did get one bat relic in this Ian Kinsler card. The main thing that sticks out in my mind about Kinsler as I write this up is that he had some pretty negative stuff to say about the Rangers after they moved him to Detroit. I think the young kids these days call it throwing shade when you badmouth a person or organization like that.

Keeping things in Detroit, here is a PGS (Plain Grey Swatch) relic of Miguel Cabrera, This dude has put up numbers all over the place.during his career. I imagine he might find himself in the Hall of Fame one day.

That does it for this group of posts. I got a pretty good batch of relics in this bunch of boxes, especially compared to breaks I've done in the past where I got a bunch of relics of lower-tier guys. In these boxes every relic was a famous name.