Happy 2nd Baseball Card Day!

 

We've had one, yes.

What about 2nd Baseball Card Day?

It's true. For me, there are 2 big Baseball Card days every season. Today, for me, is the 2nd one - the Detroit Tigers first Spring Training game. Perhaps, such a glorious day for your team was yesterday. 

The Baseball portion of the day began perfectly, when the MLB At Bat app finally managed to stick the launch - the broadcast began with long-time Tigers broadcaster Dan Dickerson reciting a short ode to Baseball, a nod to Ernie Harwell doing the same thing on each season's first broadcast. MLB has not been faring well in delivering me this enjoyable rite of spring in that I would guess I have heard it about twice in the last 7 years.

That was sweet. Immediately afterward, Dickerson introduced his broadcast partner, long-time MLB starting pitcher Dan Petry. And then... MLB cut to commercials and obliterated the next simple joy of another rite of spring - hearing the announcement of my team's first starting 9, year 2026. Not well done.

To be fair, this sometimes happens on FM broadcasts on certain stations. What I particularly dislike about losing the line-up announcement to commercials is that the same broadcasters, both MLB and some radio stations, inevitably also broadcast filler commercials for themselves, because they couldn't sell all the possible ad spots. Let.Me.Hear.The.Lineups! Is that too much to ask of a paid audio subscription service?

I'm pretty sure the simple frustrations of enjoying audio Baseball lead me to focus on also having some packs to rip on Spring Training Opening Day. This year I largely went with a brand new "2025" Baseball Card set, released just 3 days ago:

Stadium Club is usually the "blaster" where I most notice the pointless extra packaging of 8 separate packs instead of a single brick of the 40 cards. Here we go with one last 2025 First Pack -

zero complaints

Say it with me now: "Baseball" "Picture" "Cards"

I will surely once again be enjoying a new Stadium Club release. I expect it has a perfect record in this regard. This year's design is simple, small, & baseball-esque.

I quite liked my 2026 First Card. Is that the Catcher gear for a "Brew Crew" game in Milwaukee? I'm not sure but will be doing some sleuthing on that as, if so, this will be a clutch add for my Brew Crew collection.

Let's flip over

another elegant effort; the background image is a subtle nod to the name of the product. I particularly appreciate the font size on Stadium Club.

I must confess that I always hope for repeat of a card back feature from the very beginning of Stadium Club — the use of the player's Rookie Card for the card back image. Another year of SC, another nope. Heritage Stadium Club? I'm ready.

Not seen on that card, but on many other cards, is a small detail in the "Acquired:" line, which reveals the round and even pick # in that round, for players still with the club that originally drafted them. Trivia on the back of a Baseball Card is a good thing.

Another truly "Stadium Club" image, as with the Contreras card. Another good thing.

The inevitable bad thing in Stadium Club packs: parallels. Always, in my opinion, completely useless. That's something which is particularly bugging-me when each card costs 62.5¢. I do not want Stadium Club parallels. 

This one actually scans better than it appears in hand, as it is the 1/blaster Sepia parallel. In a tiny bit of grace from the Baseball Card gods, there are no more Sepia parallels AND Orange parallels. Let us hope they never return.

Touchdown!

I pulled this card while the Tigers were batting for the first time in 2026. I briefly suspended pack openings on the thought that the Tigers #1 Ace would be on the mound for "Opening" Day, wouldn't he? 

No, no, that's not how it works on the first day of Spring Training. Duhh.

Rookie! Wheee!

The blaster stats weren't full-on ridiculous in that regard, at all, as of the 33 base cards, only 7 were Rookie Card cards. I have seen slightly worse ratios in small checklists; SC is slimmed down back to 200 cards this year, so RCs could have easily gotten out of hand. Just one blaster sample though.

That concluded the 5 card pack. Of the 33 base cards, 3 were Retired players; often a highlight of Stadium Club, perhaps those lights will be a little dimmer this year.

As usual, routine In Action photos can create Baseball Card perfection in Stadium Club, even with an image point seen countless times before...

something also true of Hitters Hitting cards

The Tigers love continued excellently in this blaster:

This is how to Stadium Club.

Although this is a Detroit image from the 2025 season, it felt like the perfect image to pull a few minutes before the Tigers prospect strode to the plate in Florida. Batting Practice is always a welcome sight on a Baseball Card in my opinion, and was a perfect accompaniment for a Spring Training appearance. Particularly as Jung is very, very much "on the bubble" in his sophomore season, with a solid crew of Tigers infield prospects coming along right behing him.

I even managed to pull a 2nd repeat Cy Young award winner card from the same blaster!

Now I get it.

Best Pitcher Face = Best Pitcher.

I suppose this is a new SC insert though the little cardboard box doesn't brag on that fact like it does with this next insert:

strong Land of the Lost vibes

check out the true Rainbow Foil

these things photograph very well

The total blaster contents were:

2 inserts

5 parallels

33 base

7 RC

3 retired

A few more, of interest

I always like Steven Kwan cards.

This is the Base Lime Green parallel probably exclusive to retail blasters, the only retail format it seems. At first I found this a bit more acceptable than the previous pink can of paint dumped on to the card. I simply imagined I was looking at Kwan playing in Oakland, but underwater, and all was kinda queasy well. Because, I like Steven Kwan cards.

But then, I pulled this card -

That's the way an "Oakland" card should appear, I suppose.

However, this wiped out my grudging acceptance of the Kwan parallel.

Then, the Baseball Card gods again took pity on the newly poor Stadium Club purchaser...

much better than playing in the San Francisco Bay

let's discount double-check, side-by-side

no doubt, SC parallels still dumb

Fortunately, no one buys Stadium Club for the parallels. Do they? Purchasing packages of Baseball Cards just to get the parallels, hmmm, let's not get all Baseball Card existential here. Instead, we suffer the dumb-dumb parallels to get to the good stuff SC always delivers -

- and 2026 Stadium Club does indeed deliver. I was fortunate, I thought, to find a 2026 blaster for $25 at my temporary LCS near where I work. I would expect the local Big Boxes to charge $35 and I doubt I would pull that trigger. Nor will I likely repeat this blaster purchase as I will just plan on buying the most fun cards on the checklist from Sportlots for 20¢ each.

As a once weekly dopamine hit from "ripping" however, a small acquisition of Stadium Club is a good way to get motivated to finally dial in that Sportlots interface (I feel like taking notes might help) and get myself some of the most striking cards produced each year. Baseball Picture Cards. 20¢. Can't wait.