Bubbling around on my card desk (always a confusing place), for way too long now has been a "Hobby Box" of probably the most confusing product I can recall in this now past-halfway through decade. 2020s already past half-over now? How did that happen? Confusing.
The box hails from the 2024 Topps Big League Baseball release, the 7th and final iteration of the product. Initially I seemed to fall in and out of love with the product from year to year after its debut in 2018, best I can recall. I particularly enjoyed it's 3rd release, but that happened in 2020 when sports fans were awash with cash and nothing to do, resulting in a near complete inability to actually buy 2020 Baseball Cards. Which was a pity, because I think I would have enjoyed completing that one.
Subsequently the product seemed to develop a strong case of Bowman disease with the designs seeming to try to thematically gel together from year-to-year, somehow.
That all culminated in this final release with nods back to previous designs in nice functional/clean team icon and player name ribbons — but some of the weirdest ever border and image background choices.
The Topps Baseball designs just before 2024 had entries in graphic design encyclopedias in the "Overly Busy" section with their more-must-be-better-am-I-right? random graphic spaghetti encircling the poor Baseball players. But then 2024 Big League came along and said "hold my Bubble Gum" - as in my already chewed Bubble Gum which we will now just randomly apply to the image frame/border in odd shapes slices. But, only on some cards.
Which isn't quite a true border, either. It's mostly just a filter applied to that part of the image, sometimes that chewed Bubble Gum color, while other portions have all color removed, leaving just black&white.
The worse atrocity is running the filter over the top of everything except the player image. We all recognize that Ian Happ is playing a Home Game there, about to catch a fly out in front of the famous Ivy. Except now, the Ivy is blurred out a whole lot, and if that is not confusing enough, the design also randomly applies a blue filter to just part of the blurry background. Horrible flashbacks to 2016 Topps commence quickly.
Although I always enjoy a nice shot of Wrigley's Ivy on a Baseball Card and actually collect those (an image based collection I think I will probably trim down to just cards of the Cubs' opponents, because, so many Baseball Cards, so little space), well, that Ian Happ card up there won't be making the collection either way. Just, too confusing.
I have always been a connoisseur of the image backgrounds on Baseball Cards. They are such a great way to help imagine a day at the Ballpark without actually being at the Ballpark. So, when,
the background becomes just a vaguely blurred crowd, I start wondering just what is wrong with my 2.5"x3.5" television set.
And what is J-Rod doing with his bat? Carefully protecting it for his walk of shame back to the dug-out? And what is he looking at? Is the Baseball still "in play?" Shouldn't he be running to 1st Base, presuming it is? I've seen a lot of Baseball players and their Baseball bats on my Baseball Cards, but few such images are as confusing as this one. Maybe if I could see what the crowd is looking at, I could figure this out?
Other times, the image of the Baseball player is not confusing, at all -
This is actually a true "Sunset" card and I always like those. It has both Votto's final career stat line on the back (though only the truncated final 5 years of them), and seems likely to be an image of his final curtain call for the home fans.
But then the confusion begins. The fans are both in color, but some are in black&white. Pity his poor team-mate in the dug-out, who has some of the used gum smushed over him.
And what's up with Joey's right hand? Is he so dedicated to the Cincinnati Reds that he tattooed it fully Red?
Then there is the mystery object with a handle under the name ribbon. What IS that? Don't dwell on it too long, would be my advice.
To round out the perplexity, has there ever been a Baseball Card with the word "Dental" on it before? You would think that would appear on a Hockey Card, first. All so very confusing. It's enough to make one go
Grrrrr.
And, how did this guy make the checklist? I thought he was Blacklisted already.
Oh, wait. These cards are already 2.5 years old, so he still had shenanigans in front of him at that point. Did I mention that my card desk is pretty confused right now?
But I thought that on Baseball Cards, famous Relievers all celebrate getting the final out for the W that day. Maybe the Big League photo editor was on to something, here.
Other times, 2024 Big League relaxes with quite normal playin' Baseball imagery, like
This type of image is found on Baseball Cards occasionally, showing an infielder or a Pitcher just after making a short distance, low-leverage throw of the Baseball. Hall-of-Famer Alan Trammel has a card image just like this one.
One that makes the player look like, as the kids in Little League would say, "you throw like a Girl." I don't know why Baseball Card photo selectors roll with these. Confusing.
It is nice to see that Boston's Red Socks do actually appear on their uniform, every once in a great while. Whereas they routinely appear on their Baseball Cards, when all the other teams get capital letters and such. That's confusing too, but that's not 2024 Big League's fault.
However that's not the most confusing fielding image I found in my quite small completed portion of the checklist. That would probably be this one -
I can sort of hear the announcer here. "Witt ranges to his right...." But then, I can't.
"....and he stumbles to the ground, turns across his body, and fields the ball with his left arm..." Yeah, no, you wouldn't hear that part.
I can only suspect that the coaches down at the Little League field would just have to confiscate this card on general principles.
Though I do like the Powder Blue shoe and wrist band, I think. How did the infield dirt go Powder Blue, too? Yup, confusing.
Other odd things in this set aren't quite the fault of the Big League Baseball Card miners. Some things in the game of Baseball, you can only wonder, Why?
As in, why do Baseball players with Only The Best Names then turn out to have only the shortest careers? In this case, 31 G for Games, but only 45 AB for At Bats.
Which also reminds me of the frequently doomed 1-1 players -
- a perfect fit for this doomed product.
Now as I was sayin', standard Baseball Card imagery abounds:
This card, I will be keeping. I love seeing the Baseball just after it has been whacked hard with a big stick of lumber. I can tell it has just been hit because of another card on the checklist -
where the incoming Baseball is still round.
But back on that Colás card, it's now oblong. To the Moon? We'll get back to that.
The ball Colás just hit however, probably isn't going too far because the bat is so far behind it - the bat isn't driving the ball, already, well before the swing is complete, and probably hit the ball a fair bit earlier than what would be ideal. A pop-up?
Could be.
Although I will eventually assemble a 9 card page of Mike Trout cards, I am considerably undecided about what images to pick for him. I consider him a tragic figure in Baseball History and his history isn't even quite fully written yet. But the odds he ever gets to play in October - the only time I actually get to watch some Baseball on an actual television, instead of on Baseball Cards - seem exceedingly slim. A shame for such a fine player.
I do collect Pop-Up cards though, which almost never feature an Outfielder. I do firmly believe that even the ugliest set of Baseball Cards (a title this forlorn set probably wouldn't "win") will eventually "run into one" and create a keeper card, just for me. Or, more than one:
I do like a good "Look In" card.
So rare.
Except of course, on Craig Kimbrel cards. I hate those.
It does take a while, but eventually you realize the odd pastel chewed Bubble Gum deal here and there on the border isn't just another part of the weird blue&green filter overlaying the image - there is a design element at work here, that being some stripes, just in case you forgot we were wandering around in the last hurrah of early 2020s Topps. So confusing.
But not nearly as confusing as what happens when you rip packs of this stuff. It is always nice to get one of the "cover" players on a product -
until you keep ripping a few packs and this happens
So, wait.
Is this a parallel?
It does appear to be a "Foil" card.
Everyone can't wait to get those, amirite?
Are we going to have a checklist with the same player on it, twice?
Apparently so.
But first, he swung clear out of his....batting helmet?
Confusing.
That helmet must be the wrong size, I guess.
Stay safe out there, Sal.
Now I do like Sal Frelick as a player, quite a bit. He could yet end up in the Hall of Very Good, perhaps. And as a productive member of the 2026 "World" Champion Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, he will be remembered across Wisco for many years to come, regardless. He hit a Double in the epic 5th Inning of Game 3.
But you just don't expect Baseball Card checklists to have the same player on them, twice. Confusing. Although each card back has the same stats, the traditional promo text is different, but only somewhat, in that both describe his MLB debut in 2023 though without the exact same sentences.
So what is going on with the Foil cards repeating the players? That's explained/advertised right on the box itself:
What?
We all know people want "rare" cards. This is what allows full-grown adults to enjoy a product originally designed for children - but honey, these are actually worth MONEY. Aside from being a great cover with a partner in life, it has always been clear to me that oh so many card collectors use this root level fact about (some) cards to internally explain their desire to own collectable trading cards. Soooooo many collectors can't enjoy a Baseball Card simply because it is a Baseball Card. If it has no monetary value, they want nothing to do with it. I truly pity these people.
The problem with the concept, here, is that in theory, Topps Big League was supposed to be a low priced product designed to be "entry level" for young collectors — it essentially replaced Opening Day in the suite of Baseball Card products from Topps. You know, For The Children. You can't criticize things intended to be For The Children, ever.
But even with Opening Day, Topps could never quite make it without sprinkling in "hits" - the cards actually worth MONEY. By the end of that product, a checklist originally designed to just feature the top 1/4 of MLB players instead used a checklist featuring, you guessed it, 25% Rookie Card cards.
That was because even the Kids are most interested in owning Baseball Cards actually worth MONEY. Earlier this year one day I was quite enjoying myself shopping for single cards at my LCS while they were 50% off - a true Quarter Box when one started with the Fiddy-Cent box. A young collector came in, having a conversation seemingly with thin air, saying something like "No, I'm not ready to move on that one." He then adjusted the Bluetooth ear piece he was wearing, plopped a "Pelican" case down on the counter, spread out a dozen "slabs," and declared "I'm looking for a cash offer on these." The child was definitely not old enough to drive and whether he was actually "teen" aged would have been a 50-50 guess.
And I think that experience explains the demise of both Big League, and Opening Day before it. The boy had clearly learned well from older folks, and would likely turn up a nose at worthless "base" cards, just like everyone else. And I think this all also explains this year's seeming steady withdrawal of Topps from the retail marketplace. I get this strong vibe that they only pretend to even want the business any more, when they can instead sell cases of product at essentially auction prices online. Will that continue in 2027? I hope not, but I am not optimistic.
Another simple "tell" about these concepts was that I even ended up with a "Hobby" box of Big League. I think I paid $25 for it after no one else wanted 144 still new Baseball Cards even when that included a chance to work on their collection of 110 "rarity" tiered cards after the 200 worthless base set cards were completed. Opening Day had "Hobby" boxes as well, which was of course smart business by Topps, trying to appeal to the gambler in everyone (including, me) that opens packs of simple Baseball Cards originally meant for children (including, children).
Sigh. Let's see what else was in the box. Maybeeeeee, all those "rarity" Foils would be one actually worth soooo much MONEY I could retire and live Happily Ever After....
Sweet! Yet another Outfielder Pop-Up card for my collection.
Maybe. I have kind of a love-hate thing going with this card. Unlike all those goofy Craig Kimbrel cards Topps sent me over the years - I just straight hate those.
It was quite nice to find a sweet In Action photo of All-Time Great Willie McCovey in my box of children's Baseball Cards, but oh so perplexing. It's always a bit extra nice to find a Fielding card for a player like McCovey - the more renowned the Slugger, the less cards of him playing defense.
And although this is technically a "Gold" foil, that effort occasionally reminds all Humans (except those overly excited about little pieces of cardboard actually worth MONEY) of another yellow substance produced by all human bodies. As on 2018 Topps "Gold" parallels. The only way to make the the 2024 Big League design worse would be to go this quite poor color choice.
As soon as I pulled this card I presumed the probably newly-acquired-by-Topps photograph could be much more successfully presented on any other Baseball Card design, and almost certainly would be, soon enough. Stadium Club would be my preferred choice for Topps to just get the heck out of the way, Willie's gotta catch a fly here, and he's wearing sunglasses. Look out, already!
I finally did look up this concept as I am steadily preparing for Black Friday, the one time of year when single Baseball Cards -might- become reasonably priced. It didn't take long to find this photo back in use - it was the 2nd result in a COMC search of "Newest" Willie McCovey cards, and thus not on a Stadium Club card (yet? still hope, I suppose). Instead Topps never fails to surprise any more:
2026 Topps Heritage "Ready and Action" insert
Here I must digress from my keep-it-or-no pondering of 2024 Big League cards for some news on a newer release. As soon as I saw this image I wondered wtf?
As in, I don't recall this type of card in the 1977 Topps Baseball set. Is Heritage now going to just create new inserts to replace the made-up inserts they don't make up any more? I wouldn't know, because Topps essentially refused to put 2026 Heritage on retail shelves long enough for me to buy very much of it, and I didn't pull any of these inserts out of the one measly hanger pack I "scored," not realizing it would be my only chance to buy any 2026 Heritage at all.
This new insert checklist at first appears it would be perfectly at home in the Archives product, which quite successfully (imo) puts old Topps designs back to use. And Topps does love The Movies. However this is not a re-use, at all, but rather a brand new design, and acceptable enough, as a Baseball Card design.
These "Ready and Action" inserts would be a fun collection if they all featured cards as nice as that nice McCovey image. It also includes nice things like George Foster on the base paths (Sluggers on base perhaps even more rare than Sluggers in the field), and Bobby Witt Jr. doing his best Superman impersonation. But much of the rest of the 25 card checklist is oh so predictable, with a bunch of Rookies doomed to fail after inclusion amongst the GOATs, and of course Topps hitting the easy button via trotting out images seen so many times before -
I have no plans to assemble even just nine Nolan Ryan cards and don't deliberately save them. But even I know I have seen that image on a card many times. Enough to assemble 9 different ones? Perhaps. With the Reggie Jackson card on this checklist, that is a certainty.
The biggest repeat surprise in this unexpected find this morning was this one:
gadzooks!
One of the more famous Baseball photos in the long history of Topps Baseball Cards. Although Topps is no stranger to running repeats of Johnny Bench images (I once saw them do it in both Heritage and Heritage High Number - in the same calendar Baseball Card "year" even), I was, yup, surprised to see this particular photo re-used. Perhaps it has been in other releases, too; I'm definitely not going to deliberately look.
This particular iteration somehow manages to wipe out the warm analog 70s-ness of the 1976 original in favor of our cold digital future. No.
That was all something I do like about Baseball Cards - pleasant detours to the past. Or, should be pleasant detours, sometimes. Let's see what else the tiered Rarity might have delivered to the Bluetooth Phone set -
Shoots.....SCORES!
About twenty bucks, I think, these days. I got my ROI on this box! Win! For MEEEEEEEEE, me, me & Nobody Else. Or something.
I do like that card quite a bit; at least the image selected. And you can't go wrong with a red, white, and blue Baseball Card, particularly for a Dodgers card. That goofy filter border though, sigh. I guess I can hope for an eventual repeat of this image on some other Topps product in the 2030s or so. And maybe that McCovey image will be in the upcoming, or 2027 Stadium Club release. A kid can dream.
I would just be happier if that Ohtani wasn't a "tiered rarity" card. I don't think Topps has ever been quite so explicit about the marketing design of a product (right on the box, even) as they have in this one, and probably never have again. Also, confusing. These days, the tiered rarity, i.e. the "Odds" are still legally required to be published but those are hidden away on crappily formatted spreadsheet pages on a web page. Maybe ChatGPT can decipher them for lazy folks; I am completely uninterested.
Ohtani has another card on the checklist, appropriately card #1 on the checklist, which is not in the rarity tier, and is a base-running card, which I like. But, that filter. One last "Tiered Rarity" card kind of sums up the idea, just exactly perfectly -
you got that right, Randy
Even though I am starting a new collection of "Devil Rays" cards to go with my collection of their excellent Ray shoulder patch - something to put on the flip side of the binder page - this great look at that uni won't make the cut.
Now for me, Opening Day had two main appeals - occasional image variations from the Topps Baseball set (best seen in the fantastic 2018 release), and, the Inserts.
The one consistent insert in Opening Day releases was for the Mascots, a tradition which continued in Big League. BL's final take on it left much to be desired:
This card has two poorly made choices. No, make that three. Baltimore's mascot has a name, a simple one: "The Oriole Bird." Simply printing even just "The Oriole" would be better than the lame-ness of repeating "Mascot." Uggh.
Also, that pose. More Uggh. Crossed arms sends a very negative Body Language message and should never be chosen for use on a Baseball Card, in my opinion. There is another card in the set using this one too.
But by far the worst part of the 2024 Mascots cards is the lame graphic back-drop. I haven't been seeing as many newer Topps cards lately, since they refuse to leave them on store shelves for me, so I'm not sure if this trend has continued. It crept onto the player cards in Heritage and Archives in the years immediately preceding this Big League release, and was one of the worst things to ever happen to all those worthless "base" cards that no one actually wants, anyway.
That pitiful background repeats on all the cards -
I will be keeping this one, though only because it will probably be the only card ever for Bernie wearing Milwaukee's ab-fab Brew Crew uni.
The Mascots cards are popular, and by that I mean in the mission critical "after market" sense, and that almost perhaps kept the Big League product alive.
Instead it was summarily canceled for 2025 and the Mascots cards (and probably other small insert checklists using names/themes going back to Opening Day releases) were instead bundled into a brand new Topps Baseball Picture Card product: "Celebration."
Although I would have liked to see those inserts again, the remains of the concept of a Baseball Card product "For The Children" (in all of, us?) has become anything but something a child could easily purchase - even by asking their mother.
Celebration is a distinctly Limited Edition product that comes in just a single packaging format - a box which costs about 2 or 3 times as much as a "blaster" box at $50 or $75, I forget, but you know, just right for a kid's allowance? It might actually be seen in actual stores, for perhaps 2 or 3 days, might not. Kids style Baseball Cards, now only really available by pre-purchase, online, @ > $50. Confusing. What, exactly, does that product "Celebrate?"
Fortunately there is -never- only one insert checklist in a Topps product. And in 2024 Big League, those came through, for ME, and is likely why I bought the heavily discounted Hobby Box of this stuff. Next up, is a happy one:
Who doesn't like a picture of a Baseball player, smiling?
These inserts attracted me not just some of the time, but, instantly. Perhaps because the obvious Beach Boys inspired name dovetailed perfectly with the graphics. And, perhaps, the subject matter? My first few pulls of these from the product were quite, "correct" -
So far, so very good.
But deep down I also knew, instantly, that the odds of this checklist all being happy players currently on an I Love L.A. roster were unlikely to be met, and I was probably going to have to bend the theme a little to keep these thematically collected on to a binder page. So, how about anyone from a So-Cal team then?
hey, Wait
How about we shift gears to anyone in the NL West, then?
It's not like anyone on The Rockies will ever make an insert checklist these days.
I mean, Arizona probably has some palm trees, too.
But if I let in the NL West, that means a NorCal team joins the party.
Hmmm.
(no Giants made the checklist)
I quite like that "VIDA" patch and will be looking for it, in other 2024 products. Particularly since I can't read the other patch adjacent to it. But otherwise, I'm not seeing the Good Vibrations of a big ole smile, like the other cards.
Meanwhile Lawrence Butler is just, Very Good, which is Death, in Baseball Cards. No one wearing a Bluetooth earpiece is gonna want that one. So some work to go there, to reach 9 Nifty ones. One other odd vibration about that checklist is that it has 43 cards on it - confusing. If only I could convince Topps to issue checklists divisible by 9.
Baseball Cards made For The Children do seem like the perfect place to issue some simpler artwork cards. Sometimes, I like those...
for this card I can only say, of course, Confusing
I mean, Arenado had already broken the chains holding him in Colorado, several seasons previously. Maybe this set was telling me he needed to break them, again? Not sure. Yet another tragic figure in Baseball History. Rings, or go home. Every Bluetooth headset wearer knows that.
Although I enjoy setting aside Powder Blue cards, this has too much basic Confusion to make the cut, unlike Bernie's card way back up there.
My predicament with Big League inserts, continued:
I dunno here, but Baseball Cards are pretty much a Casino these days...
Look out Mark, giant paper airplane, incoming!
Talk about confusing.
Does the Bat Flip tell us McGwire just hit the Jackpot?
And, is this stadium in Outer Space?
The even more confusing thing about the McGwire insert is that it is part of the same checklist as the previous 2 cards that use photos. Now, I do like it when Topps lets a card designer (slash, Illustrator, in this case) change things up, from card to card -
not sure what you get for an arrow banded Globe in the slot machine, tho
&, I thought the Fireworks go off, after the big Homer
at least the Blimp isn't going to hurt anyone
But of course, given the nature of this product, things change
sorry, Sal, you'll have to put more FanCash in the slot machine
at least your batting helmet is staying put this time
I did conclude that that the checklist editor is being a little sneaky in which players he picked for a Kids set, since after all they are shorter than us grown-up Baseball Card gamblers. And we do need some new short players to root for, since few outside of Texas root for the Astros any more.
Of course, no meta-checklist is going to hit a Home Run with every insert design, for any individual collector. But Big League is running a pretty good batting average so far. There are, naturally, some high Rarity tier inserts involved in the product, too, that I didn't luck into pulling from my modest purchases of the product - the one Hobby Box, couple-three small packages of the product, something Topps now declines to sell, it appears. You'll have to look into those tough pulls on your own time.
2024 Topps Big League did, however, wallop a Home Run, just for me, with these cards:
Woo-Hoo! Profit on this box!
I was truly pleased to pull this card as it gave me the necessary entry point to try collecting this amusing checklist. As did a pull of the Ohtani card in 2019 Big League's "Blast Off!" inserts, quite similarly themed. Otherwise I would have to wait till 2035 or so to consider it, when mid-career Ohtani cards will finally sink back to Earth in prices, somewhere out in McCovey Cove, perhaps. Much as Mike Trout cards are doing now, making me regret a few final-card-on-the-checklist purchases in the 2010s.
Although I quite like these inserts and have made some progress with collecting them beyond my own from-the-pack "pulls," the checklist (48 cards this time) has the usual confusing choices, as seen here...
...i.e., one of these players is not like the others. I suspect the subtle pick-the-short-player theme may be at work once again here, as the one Rookie hasn't even hit 100 Homers yet and probably never will.
Like oh so many small checklists, I see little reason to include such weird mismatches in my Permanent Collection. The creator of this one did have enough sense to include a Sammy Sosa card with the McGwire, but I have never warmed up to the Steroids era doods. And if you wanna talk "Moonshots" you certainly gotta include Mr. October and The Mick, most Baseball fans know that, even if the Bluetooth phone peeps might not get the references.
But, quite contentedly, I do have multiple recent MVPs already checked off the list and there are just a few more contemporary players with high Home Run totals to make this page niftily thematically whole. I'll probably do that in a few years based strictly on Home Run totals, I guess.
In the end (of this product), I did get what I came for, despite all the Confusion along the way. I will miss the more light-hearted themes of the inserts designed "For Kids" but it has of course been clear for some time now that Baseball Cards aren't for children any more anyway. At least Baseball Cards don't include routine advertisements for adult diapers, like Milwaukee Brewers broadcasts did all season long. Yet.