Regressing

The other day I went out to buy new baseball cards to watch the World Series with. Oh, sure, I already had a bunch of Update cards from a Hobby Jumbo, but, well, you know. I need more cards.

Of course what I really need is parallels, and to get parallels I need more than extra base cards to trade for them. I need extra parallels. And that means buying baseball cards from the big colorful Box stores that sell boxes containing colorful baseball cards.

So there I was in Wally•World a whole week after the release of Update. And they still didn't have any. So it goes living back in the woods you see. So here I am on World Series night, posting about Opening Day Baseball cards. It's all 93% of teams have right now. Next year.

Because instead of new Sea Turtles I found a couple of these mysterious Opening Day blasters that could only be found at Wal•Mart this spring. And, until the other day, seemingly only at Wal•Marts south of the real Mason/Dixon line, the Chicken Biscuit line.

What in the heck is the Chicken Biscuit line? That is the true division between the north and south in our country. I think it has replaced The Onion's version of the Mason-Dixon line, the I•Hop/Waffle-House line, because Waffle House keeps marching steadily northward. Smart Yankees.

In the south, every fast food joint everywhere sells chicken biscuits. Even Burger King, and their breakfast menu is otherwise terrible. A piece of deep-fried chicken, on a biscuit. Yummy. In the north, no one sells these. Stupid Yankees. Mickey D's had them available nationally for a time a year or two back now, but they cancelled that menu item in the north, probably due to lack of sales. Stupid Yankees.

But somewhere in America there is a McDonalds that sells chicken biscuits, and 20 or 30 miles to the north of it, there is a McDonalds that doesn't sell chicken biscuits. The true dividing line.

And I only found these special blasters to the south of that line, until yesterday.

I have no idea on the mysteries of baseball card distribution. And I am very, very sure that I had looked at the card shelf in that particular Wal•Mart a couple three times this summer, and those variant Opening Day blasters weren't there. I almost took away from the experience that someone at Wal•Mart dumped these 7 month old blasters on me, instead of crispy fresh packs of Update, because I was in the only town that would be stupid enough to buy them.

So I bought them. Because I know what was in them — baseball cards I still needed. That Opening Day Highlights checklist that could only be found in these particular boxes. I scored 3 more of them:

And lots of other fun cards. So, finally, after my team is all heading for surgery and retirement parties and golf courses, I typed in my want list of all those nifty little Opening Day insert sets. And I am reneging on what I mentioned in my spring post about these cards. I do want to Chase the whole set of them, needing only 4 more of them. So I apologize to the Roy Halladay collector who asked about that card who I then turned down, despite writing they were up for trade. My very bad, and I do feel bad about that. So I hope I can find that email, &/or that gentleman is reading this again, because the good news is I also pulled that card this time, so now I have a double of it available. But only for that one guy that I stiff-armed on it.

My list follows shortly. I only have about 3 ~ 5 weeks left to set up trades before I get to start eating chicken biscuits for breakfast. And thus living without the bulk of my collection, either my old one still in storage, or my new 2011 and onwards one. And I am also probably going to start up an account on COMC to use up all my doubles, so a lot of the long lists of cards on my trade lists will disappear then too. So if you want to trade me all your 2013 Topps Parallels like I want you to, start shopping my lists. I'll try and add lots more stuff real soon.

I really liked the Opening Day inserts. I need to move on to other card projects tonight yet, so I'll only show you one more before you can start finding me all the remaining cards I need.

I would like to comment on the header picture card for this post, the Buster Posey "Play Hard" insert. I liked the nearly tie-dyed border on most of the other cards in the set, though it can't be seen on Posey's. I thought it was ironic that Posey is tagging out Prince Fielder on the card in last year's World Series. Fielder and Third Base Coach (at the time) Gene LaMont took a lot of heat for losing on that play, but of course all baseball fan hindsight is 20/20 (and usually ridiculous). Fielder was out on a very close play. But who, then, is Playing Hard on this play? Fielder is, I think. Wouldn't it be Playing Hard to block the plate? Something Posey definitely didn't do here, though no one would call him on that after what he experienced, which is explained on the back of the card.

Maybe this year's World Series will see the very last plate blocking play in the Major Leagues. We'll see. The Rules Committee is likely to make a Ruling on the subject soon.

And let's just not talk about Fielder's base-wobbling in this year's ALCS Game 6. Topps doesn't make Play Soft cards, fortunately.

I'll give you one more card before my list ... get yours ready now ... I have wanted to see how these beauties would scan ...

ehh, not so much. Much better in person. Now, Let's Trade!




Opening Day Highlights

Need: 1 Zimmerman, 2 Cabrera, 5 Altuve, 6 Sabathia

Have Available: 8 Halladay


Ballpark Fun

Need: 1 Pedroia, 2 Reddick, 4 Fielder, 9 Harper, 11 Longoria, 12 Ortiz, 13 Pujols, 14 Werth, 24 Ramirez, 25 Crisp

Have Available: 5 Kemp, 6 A. Jones, 7 Machado, 8 Santana, 15 Jeter, 18 Barney, 19 Phillips, 20 Soriano, 23 Chapman


Mascots

Need: 1 Mets, 3, Mariners, 11 Twins, 16 Astros

Have Available: 4 Cards, 5 Rangers, 7 Nationals, 13 Braves, 14 Rays, 22 Red Sox, 23 Reds


Play Hard

Need: 2 Harper, 10 Cabrera, 11 Ortiz, 19 Fielder

I know the Cabrera and Fielder cards weren't actually produced. But a few slipped out into the wild anyway with big holes punched in them. You should send them to me.

Have Available: 1 Posey, 6 Heyward, 7 Pedroia, 9 Castro, 13 Pujols, 14 Wright, 16 Kemp, 18 Ruiz, 20 Molina, 21 Freese, 24 A-Rod


Superstar Celebrations

Need: 1 Kemp, 5 Stanton, 7 Reddick, 13 Hart, 17 Headley, 20 Fielder, 23 Ramirez

Have Available: 2 Butler, 4 Votto, 11 Werth, 12 Morneau, 15 Hernandez, 18 Willingham, 19 Soriano, 25 Ortiz


3-D Stars

Need: 1 Fielder, 5 Jeter, 8 Ortiz, 13 Darvish, 14 Hernandez, 19 Harper, 21 Votto

Have Available: 2 Verlander, Cano, 7 Longoria, 11 Trout, 12 Hamilton, 18 Hamels, 22 Braun, 23 McCutchen, 24 Kemp

Bonus Pack Inside!

I knew this would happen eventually. I carefully saved all these little packs from my Toys-R-Me Opening Day blister packs, like this one:

These are 3 pack blister packs. Not 2 plus a bonus, cheezy Topps blaster ad-blasting style.

Nor are they 4 pack packs with a price seemingly for 3 packs and a 4th pack, Bonus!

No, the Bonus Pack Inside! is just a little pack of 4 cards from Series One. Just regular cards, no inserts or parallels, you know, the average worthless junk from Topps that only children in awe of a whole universe of toys in a toy store would want. Typing that sentence made me realize I should probably report things accurately. What if I was wrong about that and there was a Platinum 1/1 in there? It would be a crime against baseball cards if a 1/1 from a strangely packaged pack of baseball card packs went in the trash wouldn't it? How could Topps not tell me there might be a 1/1 in there? What if it was a Puig, for Mickey Mantle's rookie card's sake? Oh, wait, Puig wasn't in Series One. A forever lost 1/1! A set that will never be completed! Oh the humanity.

In other words, I finally ripped all the packs, just to be sure. Ripping packs packed in clear plastic where you already know 50% of the contents isn't very exciting, which is a part of the reason it took me some four months to rip them. No 1/1 scores to report, sorry. Actually I was a little curious to see if a Short Print could sneak into one. That woulda been hella cool.

Instead the Bonus Packs Inside! had some pretty odd collation. 9 out of 11 of them had official RC Rookie Cards in them, most of them with 2 out of the 4 cards. One instead was a Topps All-Star Rookie Cup hot pack featuring the Cup on 50% of the cards in it. Geoffrey moves in mysterious ways I guess. Maybe he is trying my favorite description of Topps' basic marketing strategy these days - First Hit's Free, Kids - and the big giraffe has to hook those kids on those valuable rookie cards somehow. But then kids don't buy Bowman Draft Fusion Chrome or whatever they call that set with all the little kids in it. Those are for grown-up investors, so Geoffrey generally takes a pass on dealing those.

The Bonus Packs Inside! were not why I actually went to visit Geoffrey to get my toy-like Opening Day cards. Don't forget Opening Day is in April, now! I do like the Opening Day set though this was the first year I collected it. Someday I'll escape from my technicolor parallel daze and finish out typing up the roughly 1/3 of each insert set I need from it, and the roughly 1/3 of each insert set I have to trade from it. Those darn parallels sure got a hold of me this year, and Opening Day has sure helped the Parallel Project as almost every page of Series 1 and Series 2 in the binder includes a player that was part of Opening Day and thus part of the really nice "Blue Foil" /2013 parallels in it. A lot easier to put together with those than 1 pink, 1 camo, and 1 black on every page as I originally dreamed it up. Now I only need 2 of those. Or even just 1 when I can eventually get a hold of some Factory Set Orange. The Update set might even hook me up with another color I forget. I decided the other day to never, ever, look at a "sell sheet" ever again. I'm already bummed about 2014 baseball cards (not Heritage though), and the NFL didn't even start yet.

And the technicolors derailed that paragraph there a little, sorry, though I'm pretty good at that on my own. I purchased my first Opening Day 2013 Toys-R-Us blister pack looking for a card printed on the cardboard packaging. Like the Justin Verlander mini-set last year, about which I still don't know if I have complete at 3 cards.

Instead I found that the Bonus Pack Inside! (hold your horses now children, I'll show you the Bonus Pack when we get outside the store in just a minute) wasn't the only Bonus inside, though Topps did not print a unique card on all that light-blue cardboard field of stars. They just let that possible sweet card border go to waste, actually. And instead, without even blabbing it to the world on the package like one would expect of both Topps and Geoffrey, they slipped in a single parallel per blister pack. Naturally, it was a Toys-R-Us purple. Among the limited amounts of these I have, I did pull this 1 not of 1:

I'm thinking that one will look sharp on the Trade Bait page I haven't built yet. Harper supercollectors can't build the Harper Super Rainbow without the Opening Day Purple very well can they? Topps Super Rainbow chasers this year need 38 cards at last count if their object of rainbow affection (probably sounds a little strange to those strange people outside The Hobby) appears in Opening Day and one of the AL/NL All-Star retail sets. About 15 of those would be 1/1 cards. They might not want to chase those Bonus Packs Inside! too much. Best of luck finding 15 1/1 cards when those dastardly people that don't open their boxes for 38 years stick one on a shelf somewhere. I hope to meet one of those people holding some 1975 wax some day, personally.

I'm trying to limit the Opening Day cards in the Parallel Project to the Blue Foil only unless I'm in a pinch, and though the first page of the Series 1 binder is a little tough to fill with some serious Star Power in cards 1-10, I did pull a gold Bryce Harper to use, so I can trade away his Opening Day Purple. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to track down a Ryan Braun 1/1 of some odd sort to fill the last slot on that page whenever I need to though.

Now when I found my first little Bonus Pack Inside!, (as I opened this post quite awhile ago now) I knew a certain event would happen eventually with these:

Nice Pull! Michael Young in a vintage uni, complete with Eye Black. I think he got a little crazy with the Eye Black on his wrists though. How many genuine Eye Black cards this year? Oh dear, looks like I need another special binder page to keep up with these important details. Hey, didn't I just see some Eye Black on a card somewhere? Oh, yeah, on that purple card up there. Bryce is a helluva ball-player at only 20 years old, but I think he could still use a few Eye Black lessons from the veteran Michael. Children love Eye Black cards, I know that from all those exciting Panini products I see looking lonely on the shelves everywhere I buy Topps cards.

That was the Bonus Pack Inside!? That's it? Wasn't there a magic Bonus event inside? You promised! Oh dear, Topps and promises, there's a difficult toppic. No, the anticipated event appeared in one of the packs inside the blister:

WAIT a minute! The clear-plastic-wrapped Bonus Pack Inside! already told me Michael Young is safely enjoying a solid .301 hitting career all with the Texas Rangers. A clean-cut American ball-player, generally popular I believe, has to be included in the Opening Day set. Now in the space of 2 packs of baseball cards he plays for the Phillies? Daddy, Daddy, I think I pulled an error card! Can you ask those nice Beckett people about this one for me?

Now I am all grown-up now (Really. Yes, really! I swear!), and I know the deal on this card. It is cool that Michael keeps rocking that Eye Black no matter what team he plays for. Not sure how he will do moving back to the infield every day for Philadelphia now that he plays with a claw for a left hand though, looks like that might be a little difficult.

That card is of course a Photoshop card. And I like it. Yesterday I was bitching at Topps for making a Photoshop card, now I am liking them? What gives? Opening Day comes out in late March of course, just-in-time-parts-delivery-guaranteed for Opening Day, which is in April, you can check your pack to be sure. Series One came out in late January, two months previous, and in between there are two whole months of baseball transactions. And more to the point, there are two months of extra production time with the cards scattered all over the Topps factory floor on 220 galleys while the Topps elves tweak them to perfection, right?

And during that time those MLB General Managers might trade a baseball player, or those rarely popular Agents might cut a new deal for their very-not-Free players with a new team. Then what are the Topps elves to do? If they don't fix up a card, a blogger with a whole 30 some readers every day gets real mad at them!

More importantly, kids don't like baseball cards of a player's previous team. They might take out a pen and change the team on the front of the card, O-Pee-Chee style, so their baseball cards are up-to-date and correct for Opening Day.

I did that to my cards when I was young. Then I could file them in the proper team slot in my card case and all was well again. Someday I will be reunited with my 1975 cards and will get a good look at the damage to my Bert Blyleven Dug-Out / Meathook Card that I can still picture pretty well, now that the nightmares have subsided, except for whatever team it was that I wrote on to it over the word TWINS.

Now where is my 1975 Topps font right when I need it? Wouldn't that be handy for blogging? Topps fonts. Yeah, hella cool. Someone needs to get on that and add it to Blogger. Pay attention up there, Google.

So I think it is cool that Topps does this for the Opening Day cards. I think there were a bit less than ten of them this year. I'll link back to this post in the playoffs when I am all giddy playing with new base cards from the Update set. It will be interesting to see if Topps makes yet another Michael Young, Philadelphia Phillies Third Baseman card with a real picture of him in a Phillies uniform, considering how much time they would have to get things right for me....

...if he still plays for the Phillies by then. He cleared waivers the other day. It's more than difficult enough to collect all of the Sea Turtles this year without post-Trade Deadline super super short prints like we had last year.

Those elves had best be working late this summer, tweaking those 330 Update galleys with images fresh from the world wide web of everything ever, right till the Big Box truck backs up to the door for the first pick-up. If they don't, I'm sure I'll get mad at them again.