Pack of the Day 179: A Blaster of 2017 Topps Archives

Well, the Astros pulled it off and put the Dodgers away in Game 7 of a tight World Series. I was able to watch the game since I didn't have to be up all that early this morning, and it was really nice to see my favorite team celebrate their franchise's first title. 

I picked up this blaster of 2017 Topps Archives several months ago, probably soon after the product released. I don't even really remember what I pulled from it at this point, so it's like I get to break it open again!

The side of the box has all of the odds on it. The NPN contest expired a couple of months ago, so that information isn't of much use to anyone. 

I pulled a couple of Astros among the base cards, Evan Gattis and Ken Giles. I also got Frank Thomas showing off the 'big body-little head' look and Johnny Cueto showing his bubble gum bubble skills. 

My horizontal pulls included two of the Astros' playoff heroes, Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve. I also got some nice-looking cards of pitchers and a manager. I wish today's card sets included more manager cards. 

Among my inserts there was another Astro hero, wearing the uniform if his previous team. Justin Verlander was a huge part of the Astros' playoff run, and I don't think they would have won the title without making the move to acquire him.

My other inserts included some other guys, too. I don't really care one way or the other about Jeter, so the whole insert set devoted to him doesn't do anything for me. 

The final scan from this blaster break shows the blaster-exclusive coins I pulled. I did all right on them, getting Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge. At the time I opened this blaster, I looked up the Judge coin on eBay and it was selling for about half the price of a blaster.

I like the idea of the Archives product, but nearly every time I open some of it, I come away wishing there was a little more in each box. 

Topps Now Players' Weekend Astros and Bonus Cards

Well, the Astros made it plenty interesting, but they managed to finally knock the Yankees off in a series where the home team won each of the 7 games. I didn't get to watch Game 7 since I am stuck in some barracks without internet for a month-long course. I'll probably miss the World Series, too, but I guess that's the price you pay for career advancement. I hope the Astros can pull it off, but the Dodgers are a formidable opponent. 

One major key to the Astros' success is their little second baseman, Jose Altuve. A huge portion of their offense runs through him and his bat. Although I mentioned his small statue above, I got pretty tired of the TV broadcasts mentioning the size difference between Altuve and Aaron Judge, along with shots of them standing next to each other. 

When MLB did their Player's Weekend promotion, Topps released team sets to commemorate the event. Part of the promotion was that players were allowed to wear nicknames on their jerseys, and the Topps' Player's Weekend sets show the nickname jerseys on the back of each card. 

Most nicknames are some variation of the player's real name, which makes sense. I go by a shortened version of my last name in most circles, because some people have a hard time pronouncing it.

I guess the Astros' uniforms for this special weekend were all right, but I'm glad this isn't their regular color scheme. I thought this was a reused photo of Reddick, but it's not. This is just the standard Josh Reddick photo pose. 

I was pretty happy with the player selection for this set, as Josh Reddick and Evan Gattis both got cards. They aren't exactly the stars or hot rookies on the team, so they don't always get included in these things. 

Part of the draw for these sets was that if the team had a 6-game win streak after the All-Star break, you got a bonus card. The Astros had two streaks, so I got two extra cards. The first card celebrates Cameron Maybin and Justin Verlander helping the team get to six in a row. 

The second card pictures Brad Peacock and Yulieski Gurriel. Pretty cool stuff. I don't know if I'll buy as many Topps Now cards in 2018 as I did this year. Keeping up with these extra sets and the Astros' playoff Now cards is hard to do. Topps released nine cards for the team's Game 7 ALCS win! If the World Series is this card crazy, I might have to give up. 

Buy a Card and Help Houston

There's been a lot of news coverage about the flooding in Houston, as well as reports from a couple of fellow card bloggers who hail from that area of the world. Many folks are looking for a way to help out the victims of this natural disaster. Topps has found a way to combine baseball cardboard with the relief effort through their Topps Now program. 

This card was just listed on the Topps Now site, with proceeds from sales of the card going to the American Red Cross. Although it doesn't specify that the funds will be used specifically for Houston, it's a good bet that a large percentage of the Red Cross' focus right now is on the events in Texas. There are plenty of other ways to help out with the flood relief effort, but this one will get you a free piece of baseball cardboard alongside your donation.

When Topps released their Spring Training sets, one of the bonuses was the promise that if you bought the set of a team that was in first place at the All-Star break, you would get a free card in the mail honoring the achievement. The Astros were in first place at the time, so I got this card in the mail.

Plenty of enthusiastic Astros on this card. I hope the Astros players can overcome all of the craziness associated with the flood and give their city something to cheer about as they close out the season.

Houston Astros 2017 Topps Now Road to Opening Day Team Set

Early this year, Topps rolled out the 2017 Topps Now Baseball program with a bang, releasing Spring Training sets for all 30 MLB teams. I guess the official name for the sets is Road to Opening Day. The MSRP on the 15-card sets was $50, if I recall correctly, and there were also sets available for $100 which contain one randomly-selected autograph card from the team. Anyone who purchased a Topps Now card through the Topps website in 2016 received a Mike Trout card in the mail with a coupon code for 25% off these sets. I used my 25% off code to buy the basic Astros set, the one without the autograph. In all, the print run on the Astros set was 142 autograph sets and 37 regular sets, for a total of 179 sets in the print run.

If the team you purchased is in first place in their division at the All-Star break, you get a bonus card for that. You also get a bonus card if a player on your team throws a no-hitter or hits for the cycle during the 2017 season or playoffs. I guess I've got a pretty good chance of getting a 1st-place bonus card for the Astros, since they've got an 8-game lead on the Angels and Rangers right now in the AL West. In fact, all four of the other teams in the division are clustered together, with records below .500 and 8.0-10.5 games behind Houston. A lot can happen in two months, though, so I can't be certain of the Astros holding that lead.

Like some people have mentioned in blog posts that I can't relocate at the moment, the 2017 Topps Now cards are pretty standard glossy trading cards, but the backs have a holographic sheen to them. There are some team sets with some pretty cool non-standard photos on them, like Yoenis Cespedes in one of his cars (a Polaris Slingshot, I believe), but the Astros' photos are pretty basic baseball pictures, with Evan Gattis in catcher's gear being about as exciting as it gets. It is a pretty cool card. So far, the back of the card is pretty accurate. Gattis has appeared in 25 / 39 (64.1%) of the Astros' games, splitting time between the DH and catcher positions. His stats have been pretty good, but it's got to be hard to be held out of the lineup so much.

Here are some of the other big names in the set. Dallas Keuchel has been excellent this year, and hopefully he will keep that up. Carlos Correa took a while to get going, but he's rounded into form recently. Jose Altuve has been good, as has George Springer. Alex Bregman and Yulieski Gurriel have been decent. The three signers for the Astros autograph sets are Correa, Bregman, and pitcher Joe Musgrove. I'm guessing there will be a lot more Musgrove signatures than there will be Bregman or Correa.

Here are the rest of the cards in the set. Lance McCullers has been right up there with Keuchel in carrying the pitching rotation, although Charlie Morton has more wins than McCullers does. The bullpen has been pretty good to great, with a lot of strikeouts. I was happy to get a card of Josh Reddick in an Astros uniform, as he's a guy I've been collecting for a while, since his time with the A's.

These Topps print-on-demand and online-exclusive cards are more expensive on a per-card basis than most of their traditional pack-based counterparts, but I can't help picking some of them up from time to time. I've mostly stayed away from the daily Topps Now cards this year, though, as there are just too many of them. I can't even keep up with the Astros in the set, let alone all of the other stuff that comes out. I was happy to get this team set, with cards of the new additions and the holdovers who are piloting the team to a great start so far.

Contested Shots 24: Bowl Game Pick'Em Winnings from Cards on Cards

I love participating in fantasy sports leagues and pick'em contests. I've nearly always in some kind of league. Right now I've got 4 fantasy baseball teams and I'm involved in 2 NASCAR leagues. It's just part of the fun of watching sports for me. The Cards on Cards blog runs quite a few contests each year for a variety of sports, including a college football bowl game pick 'em contest that draws quite a few entries each year. I enter most of the contests. Sometimes I do well, and sometimes I 'win' the last-place prize. This year I wound up winning a prize in the Cards on Cards Bowl Pick'em contest. I missed first place on points, but I got the most correct picks and that was enough for me to be announced as a winner. The Cards on Cards contests also tend to be pretty generous with the number of winners. You should probably give the blog a follow and enter some of them.

The first card out was this giant Nolan Ryan card from the 1980 Topps Superstar 5x7. This is a set I wasn't familiar with (it came out the year before I was born), so I had to do some research to figure out where it came from. It's a pretty cool piece of cardboard.

There were plenty of basketball cards among the stacks of team bags in the mailer, with a mix of new and old cards. Mostly I scanned newer cards, though. I like Dwight Howard, but it sure seems like he has a hard time being a team player. James Harden has flourished this year, with a new-look lineup based around his skills. Patrick Beverley has been a big part of the Rockets' success this year, and Sam Dekker has looked pretty good in the limited time he gets on the court. Dekker is a high-energy guy, but sometimes it seems like he is pushing too hard. I guess being a fringe bench guy would push anyone to try really hard, because you only get so many minutes to play your way into another contract.

The bulk of the package was tons and tons and tons of Houston Astros cards, taken from many different eras. I tried to scan at least one card from every set represented in the package, but I might have failed. At the very least, I tried to make sure most of the notable players got into a scan. 

That Carlos Correa in the upper right corner is a Heritage Chrome parallel, numbered # 001 / 999 (the first one in the print run!). I always forget that Miguel Tejada spent time as an Astro. I always think of him as an Oriole, even though he spent more time with the A's than the Orioles. I think it's because many of his better seasons were in Baltimore, and that would have been right when I was drafting him heavily in fantasy baseball leagues.

Some of the current team's core can be found along that top row up there, with some big names from various other eras scattered throughout the scan. A.J. Reed down at the bottom is part of the convoluted mess that the Astros have at first base. He is currently getting some seasoning down at AAA.

A lot of these cards are from the time when I was out of collecting (roughly 2000-2013), so many sets that might be familiar to other collectors are new and wonderful to me. I am always jealous of people who can look at a card design and remember what year it's from. I usually have to do a little work, unless it is a product I've seen a whole lot of cards from.

These cards were in top loaders, and represent the premium cards in the package (along with that serially-numbered Heritage Correa from a few scans ago). The George Springer card is another Heritage Chrome parallel, numbered # 360 / 999. The Hunter Pence comes from the 2007 Fleer Ultra set. It's hard to believe that all the major sports just have one licensed card producer these days. I'd rather have 30 products divided among several manufacturers than 30 products put out by one card maker. But the leagues don't seem to care how I feel. That Tracy McGrady card comes from a Panini Adrenalyn XL game, and it appears to be a fancy foil card of some kind. The Luis Scola card from 2008-09 Bowman Draft Picks & Stars is pretty rare, numbered # 30 / 50. For a while he was one of the Rockets' better players, but he also got a pretty late start in the NBA and was never going to be the guy to bring them to glory. He was a pretty solid contributor, though, based on my unreliable recollection.

This was quite a prize package. I am envious of bloggers who have their lives together enough to run leagues, host contests, make frequent trades, and post excellent content. I am barely able to keep up with my posting, and my trading/sorting/contest efforts could be saddled with labels like 'unfortunate' or 'sadly lacking.' Thanks for the prize package, Kerry, and especially thank you for running so many entertaining contests! I like participating in your leagues even when I don't win.

A Delayed Post About a Mail Day

I am pretty sure this package has been sitting by my desk for nearly a month, but for various reasons I never scanned the cards. I wouldn't feel too bad if it were an eBay purchase, but I try to be better about getting to packages from other bloggers. Things have felt a little hectic lately.

Jon from the blog A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts sent me a mailer full of cards in early January. I scanned some of my favorites from the bunch for this post. I may not have as much commentary as I'd like, because my kids have had a hard time getting to sleep the last few nights and by the time they get to sleep it is usually time for me to get into bed and my patience is worn pretty thin.

That die-cut Damaryius Thomas Hands Team insert from 2014 Panini Prizm football is really cool. I don't think I'd seen one of those before. It hearkens back to the days of Flair's Hot Gloves inserts. I could never afford to buy Flair when I was a kid, but I remember seeing the Hot Gloves inserts in Beckett. That Jeff Bagwell Studio Stars insert from 2004 Donruss Studio comes from a time when I was out of collecting, so it was new to me. It also comes from a time when the Astros were an NL team.

There were a bunch of serially-numbered cards in this package, including the Evan Gattis from 2016 Donruss and the Brett Oberholtzer from 2015 Topps. Chris Holt feels a little left out because he doesn't have a serial number on his card, but he is a Refractor. Goose Gossage thinks that Refractors and serial numbers are ruining the game, because he played in the days when all you got was some thin papar and a little adhesive, and you were just grateful to have your picture on that sticker. Oh, how he pines for 1981-1983.

Back then, men were men, and Uncle Rico could throw a football over them mountains.

That 1999 Pacific Prism card of Shannon Sharpe is one of my favorite cards in the package, and it even has a serial number (# 101 / 480). I guess serial numbering was getting to be more common at the time, but if I'd pulled a card with a print run that small in 1999 it would have been like winning the lottery. Those Horace Grant cards are pretty sweet, too. The Upper Deck Black Diamond is also serially-numbered on the back, but with a much more era-appropriate number (# 0730 / 1500). I always like Horace Grant's goggles, and his reputation as a guy who was willing to go after rebounds.

Jon also plussed-up my Clyde Drexler collection with a few cards from The Glide's time in a Houston Rockets uniform. I especially like the Topps Finest card. That was another product I couldn't justify paying for at the time these were released. Backtracking a little in the scans, Randy Couture was a little before my time as an MMA fan, but I can respect what he did to help build the sport. I also can respect a die-cut insert from Goodwin Champions.

I skipped scanning a couple of cards from the package, but I made sure to get this graded Bob Abreu card, which had a note attached: "P.S. Hopefully you like this novelty item as well." I do like it, and not just because it will fund college for one of my children. I also like the gold foil. There's no mistaking that this is a 1996 ROOKIE. I think it's a little funny that those words are in a larger font than Abreu's name. I guess rookie cards were a big deal then. It didn't really matter who the player was, as long as the card was his rookie card.

Thanks for the package, Jon! I had a lot of fun sorting through the cards, even if it did take me nearly a month to get them onto the scanner.

Pack of the Day 155: A Hanger Box of 2017 Topps Series 1

Last night after work I stopped at Wal-Mart to get some hearing protection for my kids (Monster Jam is today! Woo!). The Wal-Mart I stopped at was not the same one I usually visit, so I went way out of my comfort zone and asked an associate where the cards were. Not wanting to sound like a loser, I told her I was trying to find Pokemon cards for my kids. That was a lie.

This is what I was looking for. 2017 Topps Baseball Series 1. I debated between the blasters and the hanger boxes. The rack packs and regular packs showed obvious signs of having been molested already by pack searchers, so I ignored them. Not because of the hits, but because pack searchers in my area tend to damage the cards while trying to detect the hits. Ultimately I opted for the hanger box.

Here are the odds for hanger boxes, as well as the No Purchase Necessary information.

This Dallas Keuchel base card was my first 2017 Topps baseball card. Not bad, pulling a card for my favorite team as the first one of the year. I wonder which finger that is poking out of his glove? I hope he's not flipping me a stealthy bird there. I don't mind having the players' social media info on the back of the cards, but I do miss the full career stats. I know I can go and look them up online, but often while flipping through my cards, I will stop on an unfamiliar face or a guy who I wouldn't normally think to look up and see what their stats have to say about them. Cutting the career stats down to 5 years leaves an incomplete picture, and I hope they come back for 2018.

There are some decent photos in this set. I was glad to see Evan Gattis come out of my stack of cards. As far as the design goes, I like it better than I thought I would. I think I prefer a full border for the flagship set, but this design isn't going to make me boycott the product for the year. It takes up a lot of space at the bottom of the card, though, and from what I pulled it looks like you're not going to see much of what's going on below knee level in the action shots. I personally like to see the dirt and the grass and the bases and such. The nameplate and logos look pretty good. The team names in-hand are more readable in-hand than they are in this scan.

I didn't pull the Kris Bryant #1 card that was voted on by fans, but I did get a League Leaders card with his picture on it. Topps brought back #7 in this years set, after retiring it for many years in honor of Mickey Mantle. There a Facebook Live video on the Topps Facebook page yesterday where Sooz busted a couple boxes of cards and mentioned that Topps wanted to bring that card number back and celebrate all of the exciting young players in the game.

Gary Sanchez was an obvious choice to fill the #7 spot, as he is the most popular young Yankee in card collecting circles at the moment. I hear that Corey Seager is pretty popular out on the West Coast, and Gregory Polanco's card had probably the best action photo in the box.

There were some decent horizontal cards in the mix, as well. I think that Jonathan Lucroy card was the 2nd-best photo in the box, with Votto coming in from the left side and almost matching the lean angle on the border graphic. The Addison Russell card is an example of an already-good card that would be made great by having less bottom border, as you'd be able to see the rest of the base runner. 

I've got a few more nice photos to show here. That Denard Span is especially nice. Most of the logos wound up looking pretty good on this design, but the Cleveland logo needs a little more contrast to keep it from getting lost in the nameplate.

I didn't pull any parallels from the box. I will probably have to track down at least one so that I can see what they are all about.

That Joc Pederson card is the first insert in this post, although it was the last card in the box. It's from the 1987 Topps Baseball insert. It's printed on slightly rougher stock. I don't have an actual 1987 card on my desk right now, but in the video above Sooz does a feel test between a 1987 insert and the real deal, and she says they nailed it.

Here are a few more inserts that I pulled from the box. Al Kaline is a Legend insert. That Mike Lowell MLB Network insert is the rarest pull of the box, as they are seeded 1:5 hanger boxes while the other inserts are all listed at 1:2 hanger boxes.

I think the 5-Tool insert is my favorite insert design in this product. The checklist is surprisingly large, at 50 cards. I might have to look into getting the full set. My favorite ongoing insert is First Pitch, and I already have the 20-card set on order. When it comes to First Pitch, you are just about as likely to pull a card with a Cubs logo as you are to pull anything else. The Cubs have a whopping 8 cards in the set, or 40% of the checklist.

I think the Award Winners cards are retail-only inserts, with Silver Slugger Award Winners being exclusive to hanger boxes? That's what I gathered from the packaging. I got a pretty good group here, with Yoenis Cespedes and Miguel Cabrera being Silver Sluggers, and Terry Francona and Mike Trout filling out my pulls.

I am pretty happy with this year's flagship baseball set. My main complaint is the stats on the back, but I think the cards look pretty good in-hand. The photos are pretty good, and the backs are colorful. There are some good inserts, and I am happy to see First Pitch back again. I thought I might dislike the design, but I think it looks pretty good in-hand. My only complaint is that the bottom border sometimes interferes with the photos. I'll probably go the factory set route as far as building the base set, but I'll probably pick up a little more Series 1 at retail and a little Series 2 when it releases, as well as a set of Update when that comes out.