Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Expressions


Baseball action photography fascinates me. I have always enjoyed this 'stop-motion' aspect for a game normally watched in live action.

I could totally get massive quantities of these images by just wandering around on the Getty Images website in particular, or subscribing to a major newspaper, something I have planned for the start of Spring Training 2025.

Naturally you won't be surprised that instead I mostly check out Baseball action photos via Baseball Cards. Today I ripped a single retail pack (not easy to find any more, but still manufactured) of 2024 Topps Update. I quickly found myself pondering the expressions on each player's face, starting with the very first card I saw, which was technically the last card in the pack but when the card is upside down at the bottom of the pack, odds are good it will be your first impression from the pack. I will be opening my first pack of 2025 Topps Baseball about 3 months from now very carefully, I will say that.

So as these thoughts grew I decided to just write them up, regarding each card in the pack, to see what happens. Here we go -

The Card: I quite like these inserts; I haven't lined some from previous years all up together for a dance-off to see which one I like best, yet, but I think 2024 will finish very well in such a competition. I don't really care for anointing a Rookie a "Star" as this card does; perhaps that is just an automatic reflex now as Rookies are shoved in to stacks of every kind of baseball card even including so many insert checklists. I guess some Rookies are instant Stars; Cowser did just finish 3rd in AL Rookie-of-the-Year voting. Nonetheless I don't care for the practice in a general sense - is Corbin Carrol still a "Star of MLB?" I do like how just seeing Colton Cowser's name instantly makes great Colter Wall songs play in my head. Colter is a fantastic singer-songwriter from Canadia, who's music I would like to hear more of, but, so much music, so little time.

Though I like the 2024 version of these inserts so much that I might assemble 18 of them this year rather than just 9 as per usual, I knew instantly this one would never make the cut for that.

The Expression:
What particularly caught my attention on this card was not the RC logo nor the personal musical association. Rather it was the way it instantly recalled both my favorite, and least favorite recent Detroit Tigers Rookie Card, that of Riley Greene -
,
which is probably the card that really revved up my thoughts on this concept, although there have been others ever since the Topps Baseball set became the all-action, all-the-time set.

Simply put - I don't understand why Topps picks these images with some less than positive countenances on the player's faces. Particularly for a player's Rookie Card card, which will be probably the primary image of him for many collectors, forever and ever. This is less a problem on the Colton Cowser Insert Rookie Card card, but that one still has a problem in that this newly minted "Star" looks darn unhappy about what just happened on the field of play. "Stars" - are supposed to be upbeat. Who wants a frowning Star? Not me.

What is the deeper mystery, to me, is just why Topps does this. Laziness? My primary guess. I did my own research here and it took me all of 5 seconds to discover that Getty currently publishes 622 images of Riley Greene from the year 2022, which is what would be used on a 2023 Series One card. So it's not like there are too few choices for Topps here — quite the opposite.

Firing this post up I knew I would be unable to resist commenting on each card, as a Baseball Card, and will keep doing that but will (try to) tone down the tl;dr angle there. Let's recall the concept at hand before adding some more features to this post -

The Expression: Dang, grounder.

What I Think Will Happen: Out

Play Ball!
The Card: This is the actual first card in the pack. I feel like I just pulled an Ian Kennedy card. Kennedy finally retired after the 2023 season; his Final Card was in 2023 Update. I say "finally" because Kennedy, and here, Zack Littell, look one heckuva a lot like: ME. That's always been a little disconcerting in my packs of Baseball Cards, because a weird oddity of them has always been this feeling that I should have kept playing Baseball beyond Back Yard Home Run Derby, cuz What If? Dunno if y'all feel that way looking at Baseball Cards, but my Doppelgänger cards always make my thoughts go in that direction. Is there such a thing as Senior League Softball?

I do like the pure "Ray" uniform of just the rays of the Sun; I suspect, solely from my Baseball Cards, that the Tampa Bay Baseball Club has been wearing these a little more frequently of late.

The Expression:
Nerves.

What I Think Will Happen: Ball!

Thereafter -
The Card: Didja ever notice that when Topps seemingly puts a team's cap logo on the front of the card, they don't actually do that for all 30 teams? One of the most usual exceptions is those red socks that appear on Boston Red Sox cards, even though they only sometimes appear on their uniforms and very rarely on their caps, in team history. The Cubs are another routine such exception. If I had infinite amounts of time I would surely delve into this more. 

The Expression:
You so Out.

What I Think Will Happen: Out at First, not close.

Subsequently -
The Card: Is there anything more confusing than a player who gets traded from the Rays to the Marlins? There is also the long-running Prospect Triangle between Tampa, Cleveland, and San Diego but one gets the impression that San Diego finally ran out of trade pieces a few years ago. Tampa of course never will.

This card though, is letter perfect. The Marlins logo looks like it might even have been part of the inspiration for The Neon this year. It is always tough to beat a Red, White, & Blue Baseball Card, and the sweet Marlins shoulder patch is the finishing touch of perfection. Or is it the pearl necklace?

The Expression:
Seriously? That's as fast as you run?

What I Think Will Happen: Two Outs

Batter Up!
The Card: A Rookie Debut card is one where the image choice is particularly important, in my never very humble opinion, as it is ... probably? always? ... a picture from a player's, yes, debut game. I think Topps does honor that, every time; it has certainly proved true whenever I have tried to catch them being sneaky and it is certainly true on this one — I checked.

This card has some nice features. Have you noticed how willing Topps is now to move the Topps logo &/or the RC logo around the card? That is some wonderful progress on crafting quality Baseball Cards, as compared to just robotically placing those logos in the same place on every card in the set, automatically, just, because. Good, job.

Another cool deet is a sighting of the VIDA patch the A's wore for Vida Blue. I haven't finished collating / bindering the Complete Set of The Neon yet (might be a minute), so I don't know how many cards will show that patch. I am hoping there is a little better view of it than this one.

As for the feature at hand, I cheated on confirming my suspicions of what happens next; all I had to do was flip the card over as a Rookie Debut card quickly synopsizes the Debut experience on the back.

The Expression:
Well that one ain't goin' yard.

What I Think Will Happen: Centerfielder takes two steps to his left, and...

Next.
The Card: Another solid Neon, and a perfect use of the horizontal format. 

There were no Cincinnati Reds cards in this pack, but perhaps those and the Cleveland card help explain why the Chicago club gets a full logo on the Neon diamond, to not have -too- many "C" cards, dunno. This might actually be a 2nd try at a capital "C" for the Guardians, another dunno. 

The Expression:
Nailed it.

What I Think Will Happen: Strike!

3? It is very, very rare to know the pitch count on a Baseball Card, however -
The Card: Another year, another keep-on-the-sunny-side Baseball Card for Omar. I have always liked his cards the last several years but there is a strong chance this is his Sunset Card as he was released by the Mets back in June and didn't return to The Show after signing with Houston. Sigh.

The Expression:
I got this.

What I Think Will Happen: Tough, tough call...Replay Challenge incoming.

while we wait on that -
The Card: Can't open a pack of Update without Rookie Debut cards falling out of it of course. When these first started in 2012 Update, iirc, there were only 10 such cards on the checklist.

I do like this card showing off the bold move to wear #0, which is always eye catching. So it motivated me to see how many players have ever done that, and I just done forgot the total already; it was somewhere between 3 & 4 dozen. Makes for neat cards; a little collection of these - is born.

The Expression:
Locked in.

What I Think Will Happen: I will flip the card over and just wonder.

I need, like, another card -
The Card: This is a true Update card in that Wacha appears as a Padre in 2024 Topps Baseball Series 1. Even though he was released by the Padres last November 6th. That's just the way she goes, boys, that's just the way she goes.

The Expression:
I'm Back!

What I Think Will Happen: A steeee-rike. Of course.

Batter Up!

The Card:  There is a more than passing chance that this could be Ohtani's first "true" Dodgers card, i.e. where he is not Photoshopped into a Dodgers uniform. That is almost certainly the case as there is so much visual activity on his left arm that no one down in the Topps Baseball Card mine would have time to include that stuff if the photo originated in an Angels uniform. Going forward a lack of the new commercial shoulder patch almost every team has these days could be a key tell of authenticity. I just don't collect Ohtani cards quickly/fervently enough to know if some other 2024 product might have delivered such a first. Naturally I do enjoy pulling his cards every time, photoshop-or-no.

The Expression:
Oh.

Didja ever notice the first 2 letters of Shohei's last name and how that connects to Japanese Baseball history, and particularly Home Runs? You're welcome.

What I Think Will Happen: Dinger, but not a moon shot. My guess would be Topps went Rookie Debut authentic style here for a Home Run statistic checklist card. You now have your own homework assignment.

Bases cleared, now -
The Card: We have a winner. Card, anyway, as for now Verdugo's temporary lodgement in the world of baseball fan memories is as the last Yankees batter in the World Series. You could hear the cheers from Boston, where Verdugo was not liked. Nevertheless this will almost certainly be on my eventual page of best Neon horizontals, which I will still assemble even after bindering up a set of 2024 Update, also. Plus - Frame Break - Topps is getting good at this. Composition skill continues to impress lately.

I do love a Baseball card featuring a key component of the concept: the Base itself. These are actually fairly rarely seen on Baseball Cards and this card about perfectly centers one.

Given the Mets' colorful base tags which I have put to use before in deciphering the exact result of a Baseball Card action image, I decided to just fast forward my inquisitiveness about my intuition. Particularly since I continue to have minor trust issues on the photos Topps sends me, as I was just babbling about with the Ohtani card.

The Expression:
I hope the other guy made it.

What I found out happens: A curious thing about this card is the complete lack of any image of a New York Met defending the play. Which seems odd given the head-first slide.

This is indeed an authentic image of Verdugo wearing an authentic New York Yankees uniform. I initially confirmed this by checking to see if the Red Sox played at CITI Field in 2023; they did not.

I then found a possible match from a game in late June, 2024, when the Yankees did go cross-town. I was all prepared to anoint a goofy play where Verdugo started on 2nd base and advanced to 3rd, but during an inning-ending Double Play that generated Outs at 2nd & 1st. Which would possibly explain this image.

But when I went to the Getty website to confirm, I discovered I was an entire country width off-base:
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 01: Alex Verdugo #24 of the New York Yankees laying on the ground at third base celebrates after he hit an rbi triple scoring Aaron Judge #99 against the San Francisco Giants in the top of the eighth inning at Oracle Park on June 01, 2024 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

So today I learned that the Giants also use colorful orange tags on their Bases. I like that. But I expect it might be more than a few minutes before I see that on a Baseball Card again.

I am pleased by this photo selection, as the Topps Baseball Card miner almost certainly considered this image also:
(same Getty caption as above; text makes more sense on this image)

I am nowhere close to being opposed to baseball players showing some emotion during play,  and I like seeing that on my Baseball Cards, some. On cards, it long seemed that cards, too, had one of those infamous Unwritten Rules in that only The Closer was to be shown celebrating something, though sometimes a Batter could be shown giving a pointed finger salute to The Big Guy in the Sky also. Those rules are lessening some for all Pitchers, and Batters, on Topps products. Meanwhile however, many teams have really ramped up the little gestures and celebrations during a game, not just at the end of the game, with the Yankees regularly flashing their own little gang sign as seen in Getty's photo there.

Old Man Alert - Change! Run! I just said this is OK but I guess I'm just not down with the hand gestures. Perhaps Topps sees this as a tiny minefield to avoid, as a hand gesture in one city might not mean the same thing in another place, dunno. So for now, yeah, no, on the creative use of hands. 

Or, maybe the Topps Baseball Card miner just wanted to show off a perfect spot to do a Frame Break. Works for me. With Verdugo on 3rd now though, this next Pitch is important -
The Card: Just another perfect Neon. Even the outfield wall advertising graphics contribute well, and I see no laziness here in that in previous years, the Topps Card Back miner would have a 50/50 chance of simply dropping the TC logo right on tops of Jorge's foot for no good reason when just more lazily cropping images. The Neon set will have a much higher Zoom Index than many in the 2010s when I get around to calculating it in the year 2031 or so.

The Expression:
My Catcher called -that- Pitch?

What I Think Will Happen: Ball.

Hey look, a Rook -
The Card: A very happy "pull" which will certainly become a Keeper in either a page of 1989 2024 Topps, or perhaps a Jackson Chourio page of his oh-so-many Rookie Card cards shot from this exact angle. I am getting quite close to pulling a $40 trigger on his 2024 Series Two sorta "short" print card which has the best of these images, by far. And if I get that one, well, it will need some binder page mates.

But this image is perfectly matched to the colorful 1989 Topps design. I quite like all the many cards these days that feature a team's "Road Alternate" uniform so you effectively have the card say "Milwaukee Brewers" on it in actual text rather than another smooshed/hidden/slashed logo, as on last year's Topps Baseball set and too many other recent designs.

The Expression:
meh


What I Think Will Happen: Perhaps, a bit of criticism for not "hustling out of the box" although that is actually something the speedy Chourio is known for, making this particular image capture (as a whole) a tad perplexing, though his expression here is straightforward.

Maybe that's all cuz -
The Card: Another happy find, particularly as on just my 6th pack of 2024 Update, I already have both All-Star Game inserts from the Tigers. 2 Detroit Tigers All-Stars in the same year? That's been a minute. Happy Days ahead, we hope. Topps can never resist a high leg kick Pitcher; I think Skubal will have many cards like this one in the future.

The Expression:
Ima blow that speedball by ya, make ya look like a fool

What I Think Will Happen: Strike-Out, natch - imminent Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal threw just 10 pitches while striking out a side of National League batters in the 2024 All-Star Game. Tigers fans breathed a huge sigh of relief that nothing went wrong in the Part-Time Pitchers Era. 

back in the day though -
The Card: This is also my First Card from 2024 Update; now I have the "Meijers Purple" parallel, too. I quite like this card but I don't see the parallel as improving on the regular base version. Thus it will probably end up at COMC some day, well after the first purchaser shells out a buck for it and I will net a nickel on it, I expect. I do kinda look forward to seeing some of the limited/rare/still worthless "ooohhh, shiny" parallels of The Neon but doubt I will go out of my way to score any. The Neon is just exactly perfect already. And, I am a sucker for each and every Baseball Card showing off the classic MLB icon, seen on less Baseball Cards than you might think.

The Expression:
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

What I Think Will Happen: Gibson scores in a cloud of dust, well before the throw! Epic.

That purple card is actually the 15th card in the 14 card pack as it arrives outside the pack in a special "blister" format. I was quite happy to see those appear for Update this year after a skip in 2023. Mostly because I like the concept involved here - for a Five-spot, I get a pack of Topps Baseball Cards plus one purple scratch-off lottery ticket. So whenever I buy some groceries for the next few months, I, too, just might hit one of those crazy valuable Paul Skenes Rookie Card cards. Plus it is just generally more relaxing to fully absorb 15 Baseball Cards at once rather than massive piles of them, of which I have too many already.

Thus concludes a look at 15 brand-new Baseball player expressions while they are intently playing the game. 3 of them (Vázquez, Bruján, & Wacha) make me grin a little when I see them, and that's a Good Thing. On 14 of the cards, the visage seen is perfectly understandable, which is basically what makes photo choices like the Colton Cowser and Riley Greene cards so much more noticeable. So here'e to hoping that this little detail starts trending upwards, too, as so many of the little nitpicks do on my Topps Baseball Cards. Topps has well upped their game on many of those lately; laziness is decreasing, which is great.

And now that I have all 15 cards fully absorbed, minus a few more backs to read yet, I can get on with opening pack #6, & pack #7... Hooray!







Sunday, November 10, 2024

A trip to the Stadium


I love Baseball Picture Cards. They are cheap entertainment ... or are they?

I was quite pleased to discover some brand new Stadium Club Baseball Cards on the shelf of my local Big Box earlier today. What I was most pleased about was discovering I could purchase the single hanger pack you see just above. It has been several years since my local Big Box stocked this product in anything but $30 "blaster" boxes.

So let's rip the pack and I will somewhat 'live-stream' the results as we go, one card at a time:
Boom.

First Card, Best Card? Quite possible. The baseball player with the far-away eyes is always a nice look and this will be an excellent entry in the Baseball Card biography of a probable-in-a-few-more-days-right-now Rookie of the Year. Go, go Joe Charbonneau!

This is what everyone wants from a pack of Topps Baseball Cards and this pack - Delivers.

I quite like this design. Player name, a splash of team color, which is on the unusual side for Stadium Club, and a discrete addition of the Position. Everything I need on the front of a Baseball Card and nothing extra, nor anything overly distracting. Good Job.

I have no idea who Jackson Merrill is aside from knowing he had a heckuva Rookie season for the Padres. The players for the West Coast teams are always super mysterious to me, which is a big reason I buy Baseball Cards. They're not pure entertainment for me; they are more like a form of info-tainment. This is my very first Jackson Merrill Baseball Card so let's see what the back of the card can inform me about him -
All the bases are covered here, again without any distractions, and no wasted space either, unless you count all that stupid boiler-plate legalese at the bottom. I could rant about that a little but such is the society we live in. 

I like the little detail of the "pick" number although that is usually only of much interest for the first round players. And then every first round player is just about guaranteed a Topps RC at some point.

A back-of-card photo is a very good place for a portrait image. But then, so is the front of a Baseball Card:
This very nice card, like plenty of Baseball Cards lately, creates some questions for me that the card can't answer. But that's not the fault of Topps, because that traces to my surprise during the recent World Series to see the name "Mark Leiter" on the screen.

Wait, what? He is still pitching? Why haven't my Baseball Cards told me about this? Nope, not that Mark Leiter, nor Al Leiter. Mark Leiter, Jr. appeared out of the Yankees bullpen and I was, somewhat as usual with oh too many relievers outside of the AL Central, in complete ignorance about him. Mark Leiter Jr. has pitched in 5 MLB seasons but has only 3 Baseball Cards to his credit, 2 of them from Update sets I never completed. Such is life in the bullpen.

Jack Leiter, as it turns out, courtesy of Baseball Reference, is Mark Leiter Jr.'s cousin and is the son of Al Leiter. The back of this brand new Stadium Club card untangles none of that; a bit surprising in that that would have been a lot easier for Topps Card Back Writer to discuss, as compared to looking up the average speed of his fastball in his very first MLB game, which is even more useless trivia than found on the average back-of-the-baseball-card. Oh, well.

I do like any set that mixes action images with posed portraits though, so we're off to a good start. Next -
Wow, another Rookie Card! Bazinga!

Like oh so many Rookie Card cards, this one creates questions, too. I remember learning a little about Jared Jones the old-fashioned way, by listening to Joe Block and Bob Walk during Pirates Spring Training 8 months ago. This brand new Rookie Card for him can't quite answer my questions, which revolve around how'd-that-turn-out. For that I will need one of his 2025 Baseball Cards, maybe just a few more months from now.

Round 2, pick 44, by the way. How does that happen amongst 30 MLB teams? Something about "Supplemental" picks that nobody needs to worry about. See how quickly that becomes useless information, after the first draft round?

Nice card though. I'm starting to think the Pirates might not have a regular "Road Grey" uniform any more? All I know is, Topps seems to quite prefer using their black uniform which is maybe considered their "Road Alternate" perhaps. Works for me. Can we go 4-for-4 on this hot RC action?
Vet!

I do like an "On Deck" card; I was happy to see one in Update just the other day. Stadium Club is one those checklists that mixes current and retired players of course. This card notes that the 1990 Reds went "wire-to-wire" on their way to a World Series win. I did not know that first factoid. Good job, Topps Card Back Writer. Let's shuffle onwards:
Mr. Red?

Is there a Mr. Red? I just made that up. I guess it wouldn't be a set of Stadium Club without a new Johnny Bench card. I'm not going to bother to look but I would expect this card might be here because it would give heft to the autograph checklist, perhaps, even if Johnny signed just 5 cards. It's not like anyone would ever know the total. Be that as it may, despite this being a neato Batting Cage photo (which are 100% a thing of the ever more distant past on Baseball Cards) this is just a good Baseball Card. I don't collect the Reds or Johnny Bench despite my fond memories of pulling their original 1970s Baseball Cards, so I doubt this card will make the final cut by 9s on my keepers. Maybe the next card will -
Reds Hot Pack!

This card will be a keeper - I love "Look In" images of a Pitcher just before he gets deep into his wind-up. Here, a not quite perfect example of that term for such a photo, but pretty close. This is precisely how things look to a batter, and that creates an extra bit of heft to a Baseball Card image, which is not altogether that common. Action, about to commence:
Everyone's favorite ... or perhaps not? Such a great player. Such an unshakeable memory. I already know I will be quickly scrolling past / ignoring the plentiful long-winded debates that will erupt, oh, about four years after Jose Altuve's final game. I like the sly "cya" via the little "x" on the outfield wall. Brooklyn will never forget. But of course, all 30 teams must be on the checklist -
Hmmm. A nifty combo - an action image, technically, but more of a "candid," which is usually a photo from the dug-out or somewhere off the field of play. So a fine workman-like Baseball Card for a fine perhaps workman-like player. It is thought that Houston might commence a major tear-down, soon, and perhaps Kyle Tucker will play in another uniform sometime in the future. That is something old Donruss cards could help with, as they were some of the only ones I can remember ever to include a key thing about all Baseball players: Contract Status. I would like to see that return, though the logistics of just what card back to include that on amidst a year-round stream of brand new Baseball Cards probably means it will never happen. Maybe if/when Tucker gets a new team, he will (deservedly) become more well-known. Though I'm a little nervous about where this pack is heading, maybe the next card in the pack will gift a new Tucker future, Oujia-board like-
astros hot pack

sad trombone. Though if someone had asked me to pick an Astros player and pick an interesting image for him, I doubt I could top the combo of showing super fantastic Designated Hitter Yordan Alvarez still playing in the field. Well done, Stadium Club. So off to Baseball Reference I go...turns out, he plays a lazy-estimate of kinda 1/3 of his games in the Outfield. Topps Card Back Writer sticks to the much more glitzy offensive accolades though. Let's break this hot pack streakyness, howzabout?
Upside Down Card!
Hit Alert!
Exciting!
Insert.
Regular.

Remember earlier when I name-dropped a famous Rookie-of-the-Year who fell off the map faster than Chris Coghlan? Who? Baseball is a hard game. What's old is perhaps inevitably new again, or something. Not the most memorable insert, no matter how hard the card back tries to convince us we will never forget Corbin Carroll. Maybe if the Diamondbacks had actually won that World Series, he would be on the front of this very pack of Baseball Cards, rather than the player who did. CC is an exciting player; I doubt anyone doesn't want him to re-figure out how to "read the book" the opposition data miners seemed to have created about him in 2024. Let's get back to the regular checklist, shall we?
Parallel Alert!

Just a red parallel, the easiest one to pull; a quick bit of Googling informs me there is one of these in every single $10 "fat" pack. i.e. is totally worthless, though if that was the Jackson Merrill card from the front of the pack, well, yeah, I would be setting that one aside even more carefully. But this is precisely where Stadium Club always falls apart for me, every time. I purchased this pack knowing it would happen. 

Parallels.of.full.bleed.style.cards.are.100%.pointless. Please, make it stop.

I know that will never happen. The vast majority of purchasers of Baseball Cards demand a chance to hit the #311 Mickey Mantle card, every time they open every pack of Baseball Cards, so they can instantly retire happily ever after. So there has to be some way to trick us into thinking that, maybe, we just did.

I now have a copy of card #256 in the checklist, the Rookie Card card for Johan Rojas. But if I were to assemble, i.e. "collect," a full set of the 300 base cards on this checklist - do I have a copy of card #256? Would I just randomly mix in parallels with such a collection? I could, I guess. Would it make any difference? On a binder page, it would. To me.

Enough, enough. I just like memorable Baseball Picture Cards. A washed-out red background takes away from such memories. Is Rojas' hand red now, too? Let's keep it together and shuffle that one to the back of the stack and see what appears:
What trickery is this?
"Pink" parallel.

I used to quite enjoy the pink parallels in Topps Chrome. They appeared 3 per odd hanger pack of 3+1 packs of TC. At least that particularly wasteful-of-plastic format is gone, which is something Topps should really consider now in their products in my opinion - specifically the silliness of all the superfluous wrappers in a "blaster." 

Those enjoyable memories of pink bubble gum are gone now though, as the pink parallels now appear in a blaster of Chrome at the rate of 2/blaster. Given that all of the base cards, except the eventual MVP I guess, are 100% worthless and a blaster costs $40 now, the pink cards sorta cost $20 each, if you buy them lottery ticket style. No thanks.

Now this little gimmick of each package format (an "SKU" in retailese) having some special not-available-elsewhere card in it has come to Stadium Club, which ALREADY had far too many parallels - did I mention yet they are 199% completely useless? 

I totally missed the explanation of the pinks right there on the top of the package when I bought it, oops. I probably would have bought it anyway, just to see what 2024 Stadium Club looks like.

But let's do some financial calculations here. This "pack" has 15 cards in it. The "3 Exclusive Pink Foil Parallels" are part of the 15, not a "bonus." This package of Baseball Cards done costed me $9.99 + 6% sales tax, or $10.59, or 70.6¢ per card.

Just a few years ago, Stadium Club cards cost right around an even 50¢ per card. Yet since every kind of pack in every kind of box of these cards has inserts (acceptable enough, as sometime inserts are very, very good), and those useless parallels. I'll jump the card image reveals here to note that this pack had only 9 base cards. Of the one insert and 5 parallels, none of them are worth any money, which is not why I buy Baseball Cards, at all. Nonetheless, the filler cards promising a possible prize under the scratch ink are just that, filler - if you actually want to build this whole set by purchasing packages of it. That means the 9 base cards thus cost $1.18 - each! Pretty similar to the costs of Topps Chrome.

Let's go check another reality of all this, on that giant buying and selling site we all know, and, essentially, love: eBay. There, a full set of of 300 2024 Topps Stadium Club Baseball Cards currently as I type costs: oh, about $250 - right now - a bit more than I expected when I began this paragraph. 

But a set of 2023 Topps Stadium Club, also of 300 cards, costs only around $60, delivered. That's only 20¢ a card, and 1/6th of the price of the 2024 SC base cards I just purchased.

Opening packages of Baseball Cards is just plain, stupid.

I expect everyone reading this already knows the basics of those numbers, which only ever go ever upwards. For me, it is a good exercise to really take a look at my spending on this info-tainment I enjoy so much. I pretty much knew before I opened this pack of 24 Stadium Club it would be the only pack of the product I would purchase, despite the potential enjoyment the cards coulda/woulda offer.

It is just, well, 6 times smarter to purchase these cards, later, outside of their randomly assembled packages.

Like - that fantastic Justin Steele card up there you might have already forgotten about. Let's see it again -
Are we back in 1960s Shea Stadium?

Talk about some Vintage warm fuzzies here. This card will absolutely make it to my eventual 9 Best of 2024 Topps Stadium Club binder page. Too bad I have to purchase a new, not-parallel copy for that little collection, which I am sure will be a lot of tough decision making on first COMC and then Sportlots (cheaper), once all 300 cards are available to scroll through some 6 months from now. Or, any random quantity of years from now when I get around to deliberately assembling such a page.

I fully expect 2024 Topps Stadium Club will have plenty of cards like that Justin Steele card; maybe I will have to purchase 18 of the cards as there will be too many that I just can't possibly "cut" from the roster. Like all Stadium Club projects, I will be looking forward to that, some day.

Maybe this pack will show me part of that future:
Yeah, no.
What did Sammy Sosa do to Brooklyn, anyway?

Let's try again -
First Horizontal
& - Cubs Hot Pack

One thing I particularly enjoy in Stadium Club is the horizontal cards, usually. This one will not likely "make the cut" though perhaps the non-Pink version will be a lot more interesting with all those scoreboard (?) whatevers becoming legible. So many horizontal cards are like this lately; this one is even more NOT-improved in it's parallel-ness than the red Rojas card. Thankfully I didn't have to gaze upon any of the 200% pointless "Sepia" cards this year. Who ever truly wanted one of those?

Three cards each from 3 different teams? Just like the game of Baseball, no matter how many packs you open you will never see everything that can happen inside a pack.

That Ian Happ card is #14 of 15 in the pack. The final card is quite fitting for the player on it, who is reported to be saying goodbye to his position on the field over concerns about his defense, though he will have DH work for a while to come, and of course could still sometimes "back up" a regular starter. 

Additionally, this last card is yet another parallel - a Stadium Club Chrome, 1/pack for these ten spot packs. All 300 cards in the checklist have a Chrome version this year. Whatevs.

It is also just exactly perfect for the theoretical potentiality of me purchasing more 2024 Stadium Club, hot off the shelf...