Pack of the Day 180: 2017 Topps Holiday Box

I was at Wal-Mart last night, looking at Collector's Boxes of Topps Gallery but unable to justify $70 for one of them, when I saw some Topps Baseball Holiday Boxes next to the Gallery display. They had a more reasonable price tag, and I grabbed one of them along with a hanger pack of Topps Gallery.

Each box advertises that it has 10 packs of 10 cards each, with one relic, autograph, or autographed relic card per box. Maybe not quite as enticing as the two promised autographs in a Collector's Box of Topps Gallery, but quite a few of the Gallery box breaks I've seen haven't had autographs worth writing home about anyway.

Here are the pack odds. You are likely to find 5 snowflake parallels and a relic card in each box. Autographs fall about once every 27 boxes, and every other hit has pretty astronomical odds. There is also some No Purchase Necessary information on here for those who are into that.

The product is basically the same as the 2016 version. It takes the current year's basic Topps design and adds a snowflake pattern to the upper right corner. The card backs have different numbering. I think the checklist has 200 cards, so it's pretty much a stars and rookies kind of product. I haven't checked to see if the card backs contain different write-ups or if they are the same as the base product.

Here are a few of the standout base cards. I was lucky enough to pull a few Houston Astros from this box. I also pulled a few stars from the teams that the Astros vanquished on their way to the championship this year. Max Scherzer got included because I like him and Ben Zobrist got included because Astro Evan Gattis makes a cameo on his card.

I got the expected 5 snowflake parallels, which are just like the base cards except that they have glitter affixed to the snowflake portion of the card. I guess Yu Darvish is the best pull I had on that front. In the bottom right is my relic card, featuring World Series MVP George Springer. Not a bad box for an Astros fan. The only disappointment with the relic card is that the relic doesn't fill the window. There is a distinct gap at the bottom of the window where the fabric doesn't reach the edge. I'll probably wind up buying another box or two of this in an attempt to complete the base set.

Pack of the Day 177: A Blaster of 2017 Topps Chrome Baseball

I don't remember exactly when I picked this up, but I think it may have been in August. It's a blaster of 2017 Topps Chrome, and I think it might represent my only foray into the product this year. I could also be won't about that. Things kind of run together anymore. It contained 7 packs plus a pack of Sepia parallels. 

Here is a scan of the insert and parallel odds and the No Purchase Necessary information from the side of the blaster. 

I didn't scan all of the base cards in the box. With only four cards per pack, though, I only skipped 12 of the 20 base cards in the box. There's some decent stuff here among the horizontal shots. I especially like some of the stuff going on in the background, like the signs behind Springer and Donaldson and the action going on behind Naquin. 

This box was pretty good for me when it came to Astros content, with the Springer above and Hernandez and Musgrove in this scan.

I got three regular Refractors in the box to go along with a nice Blue Masahiro Tanaka Refractor. That one is seeded 1:101 packs and is numbered # / 150. Too bad that Tyler Austin wasn't a Judge Refractor, or I could be writing this from my new private island. I kind of hope the Yankees beat the Indians, as Cleveland's pitching scares me against the Astros.

George Springer makes another appearance among the inserts, with one of the two 1987 Topps Baseball inserts I pulled. Danny Duffy is the other one. I also got a Future Stars card of Willson Contreras and a Freshman Flash insert picturing Jharel Cotton. 

The pack of Sepia parallels didn't contain much of interest to me. The most interesting thing about it was probably trying to decide whether to do two scans or just stick that Odorizzi card in the scan sideways.

That's all for this blaster. I got about what you'd expect from an average blaster box of this stuff. 

Finally! The 2015 Topps Stadium Club Set

I've been trying not to bust packs too much lately, as it seems to be more cost-effective to buy collated sets and cherry-pick the hits I want from online sellers. I miss out on the thrill of pack-busting, but I guess that's what repacks, group breaks, and the occasional hobby box are for.

With that attitude I didn't purchase much 2015 Topps Stadium Club at all. I saw plenty of it on the blogs and picked up a few singles here and there, but I was waiting on the base cards until I could pick up the whole set in one go. It took a while, but I finally had a set fall to me at my (cheap-ass) price ceiling. I got it for about 19 cents per card, which I thought was a pretty decent deal. I flipped through the whole thing and picked out a few favorite cards to scan here. I tried to ignore some of the cards that have already had plenty of run in the blogosphere, so you won't find Bip Roberts, Ernie Banks, or George Brett here. I'm no Yankees fan, but this Mariano Rivera card shows how I reacted once I actually landed this set for my collection.

If you're going to use zoomed-in shots of players on your cards, that Josh Donaldson photo is a good example of how to do it. At this point it is hard for any Jose Bautista card to live up to the 2016 Topps Series 1 bat flip card. It would be awesome to be a fan who shows up on a baseball card, but it would be significantly less awesome to be a fan on a baseball card making a derp face.

That J.J. Hardy card is pretty chaotic. I guess the Orioles won't be mixing baseball with Twister again anytime soon. Not pictured on that Dale Murphy card is his mom telling him to clean up all that baseball stuff before someone trips on it and gets hurt.

It's nice to see an athlete showing proper form for the Anthem. So many times on TV broadcasts I see athletes dancing around or focusing on something else during the National Anthem. Football players seem to be the worst offenders in that regard. I guess not all the players are from America but for me it's not a negotiable thing. Bo Jackson was so cool back in the day. I don't even like thinking about the Astros right now. They've got a lot of expectations piled up now, and I have to wonder if their bats can be hot enough and their pitchers can throw well enough to stay in the mix this year. Evan Gattis will play a big role in the team's fortunes once he gets back from hernia surgery.

I don't have much to say about this batch of photos. Just nice photos all around. Stadium Club is a cool set. Maybe if every product looked like Stadium Club it would be too much, but I don't know. What cards out there look better than Stadium Club?

For a while there Yoenis Cespedes must have had his bags all packed, because he moved a few times before finally signing a deal with the Mets. Doug Fister was brought in to (probably) fill one of the back-end rotation spots on the Astros' roster. Hopefully he'll be able to put a poor 2015 behind him.

I picked these cards more for the photos than I did for the guys pictured on the cards. Felix Hernandez showed up to Spring Training this year having bleached his hair and goatee. The look has been universally panned by press and teammates, but Hernandez says he plans to keep the look all year in spite of the criticism.

In the lead paragraph I said I would try to avoid photos that had already seen a lot of run on the blogs, but I couldn't leave out that Eckersley card. It's probably my favorite card in the set. I watch a lot of A's broadcasts on MLB.tv, so I see the big-head A's quite a bit over the course of a season. I'm not sure why it works out that way, but if the Astros aren't on the A's are usually my go-to team. Next on the list would probably be the Blue Jays and then whichever matchup on the day features the most players on my fantasy baseball team.

In hindsight I think the Derek Jeter or Fred McGriff cards would have been better to close the post than that Scherzer card, but I wasn't really thinking about that when I did all the scanning for this post. Oh well.

I'm glad I was able to finally add the set to my collection. My patience paid off in the end, as the price was about 65% of what I anticipated a full set would cost me. There were a couple of cards missing from the set when it arrived, but I was able to purchase the missing cards on Sportlots quickly and without much expense.

2014 Topps Stadium Club Box Break - A Case Hit and a Redemption Card

I am trying to clear out my folder of card scans, and there is some old stuff in there. This is a box of 2014 Topps Stadium Club that I opened last year, probably in November or December. I vaguely remember some of the cards in this box.

These were the eight most interesting horizontal base cards I found in the box. Actually, the Hyun-Jin Ryu and Jeff Samardzija cards probably weren't the most interesting in the box. They are (kind of) PC guys for me. I like that Todd Helton farewell card. Tim Lincecum looks a lot like Mario's brother Luigi, and also like a guy I knew in one of my Army units. I don't remember that guy's name, but I remember he was kind of a funny dude. Adam Eaton got his own post a while back, and I think Jose Bautista did too (I guess Bautista had to share his post with three other guys).

These Rainbow Foil parallels came one per mini-box, or three per Hobby box. This is kind of a tragic group, as both Oscar Taveras (DUI car wreck) and Tony Gwynn (cancer) died during 2014.

That Gold Victor Martinez is a one-per-box parallel, and the Matt Carpenter Members Only card is a one-per-case hit. Martinez is having a terrible season after a massive 2014. Some people (like me) drafted him in fantasy baseball this year and are also having very bad years. Matt Carpenter is having a very good year for the Cardinals, helping to fill the void left by several key injuries. The Cardinals have signed some dark pact that keeps them consistently winning games from year to year.

These are all of the inserts that fall one per Hobby box. My Triumvirate card is Masahiro Tanaka, which was a pretty good pull at the time. He's been pretty good this year, too, but the big crop of hot rookies this season has kind of pushed him and Jose Abreu to the back burner as far as hype is concerned. Jose Fernandez is my Beam Team insert. Speedster Billy Hamilton is my Future Stars card. He's on the DL right now. Imagine how many bases he would steal if he got on base a little more. My favorite of this bunch is the Randy Johnson Legends die-cut.

These Field Access inserts come one per mini-box. If I remember right, that Randy Johnson card is a parallel insert numbered out of # / 99. I guess I could go look it up, but I'd have to dig through some boxes to find it and I don't want to. McCutchen, Jeter, and Mays are all good pulls, too, but I like the Johnson card best. Update: I did not remember correctly. In looking through my scans I found the actual Randy Johnson parallel I pulled in the photos for another box break. This one is probably the base version. I still like it.

Each box of Stadium Club promised three autographs, but the relatively weak checklist helped boxes to stay affordable for people like me. There were sales last year where you could get boxes for less than 50% of the original MSRP. One of my autographs was a redemption for a Chris Owings base autograph. James Jones has been in the minors for most of 2015. Yangervis Solarte has been toiling away with pretty good success for the Padres this year. Unfortunately for his collecting value, he is having success with the Padres and not the Yankees. Chris Owing has been playing all season for the Diamondbacks, but he hasn't found a lot of success with a negative WAR so far this season.

Sometime between then and now the redemption was filled and I got this card in the mail, signed by Owings with a nice big pair of initials. Overall this was a pretty good box as I pulled a case hit with the Matt Carpenter parallel and a couple of nice Randy Johnson inserts.

Gint-a-Cuffs VII: Pack 14

+2 Menagerie of the Mind
-1 Yankee
+3 Mini Short Print

Pack 14 Points: 4.00

Box Running Total: 79.00

Per Pack Average: 5.64

Box Pace: 141.07

Pack of the Day 92: A Box of Stadium Club

I opened this box of Stadium Club so long ago that I don't even remember what was in it. I'll scroll down as a I type, and it will be like opening the box all over again. I hope I pulled something good!

So far the base cards are looking pretty good, with an Astro, both of last year's top Rookies, Tony Gwynn, an autograph-signing card, and a decent celebration shot.

I got a couple of horizontal Rainbow Foil parallels. One is the David Ortiz selfie shot with the President. The other is another card featuring someone touching Adrian Beltre on the head, which is something he famously does not like at all. That makes it extra funny.

The third Rainbow Foil is Tony Gwynn. Not too shabby. The Gold parallel in the box was Jason Heyward. I don't have much to say about it except that it's a decent photo.

I got a nice Justin Verlander Foilboard parallel, numbered # 04 / 25. These fell about one in four boxes, so they were pretty tough to get.

The Field Access inserts were one per mini-box, but I pulled an extra one because the Clayton Kershaw is a Rainbow Foil parallel. I don't really have a lot of Andrew McCutchen cards, but I consider him to be a borderline PC guy. I like that Nolan Ryan card quite a bit.

The Kershaw is numbered on the back, with this being copy # 62 / 99. These fell about 1 in every 8 boxes, so again this is a pretty tough card to pull.

The rest of the inserts were all base versions. The George Brett was a double for me, as I pulled that card in another box. Actually, going through my scans tells me that this might be the third one I pulled from a box. Those Beam Team inserts are pretty cool. I like the Triumvirate cards, with their little interlocking gimmick. The die-cut on those Future Stars cards makes them really annoying to line up with other cards on the scanner or carry in stacks with other cards. The same thing goes for the Legends and Triumvirate cards. I've pulled the Wil Myers card at least twice so far.

Hollands, Anderson, and Montero were the autographs I pulled in this box. I also pulled these exact autographs in the first box of Stadium Club I opened, along with the previous doubles I mentioned for the George Brett and Wil Myers inserts. Yuck. I guess this box was a bit of a dud outside of the Verlander and Kershaw inserts and a few PC cards.

Pack of the Day 91: 2014 Topps Heritage High Numbers Box Set

The 2015 sets are rolling out now, but my mind has been on the past. Thinking about completing upcoming sets serves to remind me that each passing year adds a number of partially-completed sets to my card collection. One of the worst examples from 2014 was the Topps Heritage set, with cruddy collation and those damnable short-printed cards (SPs). I determined that since I am not extremely fond of this year's Heritage design, I would instead focus on finishing off my 2014 set. I ordered a bunch of the SPs I was missing from sellers on Check Out My Cards, but none of those appear in this post.

I had thus far avoided the Heritage High Numbers box set as an extraneous and irritating addition to an already frustrating set, but I kind of like some of the players included in the checklist. The set was packed out as a 101-card box set, with the 100 cards from 501-600 in the checklist and one autograph card. I shopped around and tried to decide whether I should order a sealed set or an opened set that had the autograph already removed. Eventually I decided to place a Best Offer with Dave & Adam's eBay store for a sealed set. It wasn't that much more than a set missing an autograph, and there was a chance I could pull something good.

As far as I know, you get the same 100 cards in every set. I don't think there are photo variations or anything tricky in the Heritage High Numbers set. I heard rumors of sets showing up with a lot of damage after the release last year, but mine arrived in great shape. I pulled a few cards and scanned them for this post. Tanaka was one of the Big 2 rookies last year, pitching extremely well prior to his arm injury. Dee Gordon had a good year for his fantasy baseball managers, stealing approximately ten thousand bases. Collin McHugh had a pretty good year for the Astros last year. Hopefully he can keep it up this year. Oscar Taveras had a promising career (and life) cut short by making a poor decision about alcohol and driving, and unfortunately also wound up killing his young girlfriend in the wreck, too. It's to bad, but it's hard to feel overly sorry for a guy who gets himself into that situation.

Doolittle had a pretty solid season in 2014, making the All-Star team, but he is injured and will miss some amount of time. The closer role is one that can be hard to reclaim if your injury replacement is lighting it up, so we'll see what role he gets this year. Billy Hamilton is the super-speedy prospect who is projected to steal approximately 5000 bases per year, but last year he got caught stealing a whole lot and had a hard time getting on base so that he could actually run wild on the basepaths. Neshek is a very good reliever who signed with the Astros and might even get a chance to close for them this year. He also is a card collector and a friend to hobbyists. Mike Morse just gets included because of his card photo, in which he is channeling the spirit of a sleepy Keanu Reeves.

George Springer is one of the Astros other hot young players, and hopefully this year the team will take some steps forward. Betances had ridiculous numbers last year, and will hopefully be able to keep it up this season. I think he is going to get a shot at the closer role with the Yankees now that Robertson has moved on. That should be a pretty good gig. Samardzija got into some sets as an Athletic after his mid-season move from the Cubs, but now he's with the White Sox. Hopefully he does well with his new team. Jose Abreu should provide plenty of run support for Samardzija's starts as he was last year's big story, mashing the ball all over the place on his way to an All-Star berth, a Rookie of the Year award, a Silver Slugger award, and a 4th-place finish in the MVP race. That's all the base cards I scanned, which leaves me with just the autograph. Unfortunately my autograph was a redemption card...

...but it was a pretty good one. I got a Real One Autograph of Jose Abreu. It's the base version rather than the photo variation or the short-printed Red Ink version, but this is one of the best cards I could have pulled from this set. It looks like there are some of these live at the moment, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting the card from Topps. I am pretty happy that my gamble to go with the sealed set paid off. I am not sure whether I will sell the card when it gets here. It might be kind of cool to keep it. I don't have an Abreu auto, and the Heritage autographs tend to look pretty nice.

That's it for my Heritage High numbers box set. I imagine I will do a post on the Abreu card whenever it arrives in the mail. Once my COMC order comes in I should be pretty close to finishing my 2014 Topps Heritage set, with just a couple more cards to locate.