The new Phonebook's here! The new Phonebook's here!

Adams, Chance.

Welcome to 2019 Topps Baseball.

I don't think I have ever pulled a First Card so well predicted on the wrapper, that's for sure. Maybe I shouldn't have picked a Yankees Card of the Year last year.

I like the card, and I already need another copy of it. And then another copy after that. I make a side collection of the RC logo cards as a bit of a living set of all the players that debut in MLB. Yes, I know sometimes players slip through the inevitable Topps cracks in that idea. But then there used to be people that didn't get listed in the phone book, either.

I also like to collect The Pitcher Is Smiling At Me cards, though I don't think I have even found 9 of those to show you fine folks yet. Chance Adams gets me +1 I guess.

The cards man, the cards, what about the cards? An initial impression: they feel a little thicker this year. Someone would have to weigh an identical # of them across a few years to figure it out definitively.

The card man, the card, what about this card? It strikes me that with the constant pining for the old days & ways in this hobby, I think I might have an example of such right here in my 2019 First Card. It's blurry. I don't think that is just the edges of Adams, Chance's body parts straying into the graphical special effects along the edges, either.

Now it could be that Topps, or the original photographer, has purposely dialed back the digital crispness of the images. That is fine with me. All those 'Photo Day' cards Topps issues in other sets are often a bit frighteningly over-lit and digitally cold and sterile. These cards in 2019 Series One aren't like that, they have some basic warmth. If a little blur here and there is the price paid, I'm good with that.

What else is going on here? I'm sure the words "Hockey Sticks" and "1982" are circulating around collectors' minds right now. Reverse Hockey Stick? No, that doesn't fit. Hold that thought for now. Goalie Stick?

It is nice that Adams, Chance is printed on the card - with ink. (Or the absence of ink, I guess). The only use of foil present is in the Topps logo.

Oh dear, we are getting far from a picture on the tl;dr blog. Let's flip the card over.

As usual for more than a decade now, the design elements on the back repeat the ones from the front. This is a pretty explicit example of such. The use of a pale/pastel color makes for a nice bed for some text.

And the text is basically a complete paragraph this year - quite expansive compared to past efforts. I know that since this particular card is an Official MLB Rookie Card© card, the one year stat line format is pre-ordained. I would just say that it would be nice if Topps would use up all the empty space by increasing the point size of the text a little. I would think that in the 21st Century, high-end image composition software could even do that automatically on cards like this one.

This card back did cheer me up with it's opening line: "The Yankees are grateful that they took a Chance with their fifth-round....." Yes, the Topps card back writer is still unable to resist the low-hanging fruit of a cheap pun construction like that one. It should be a decent season for reading the backs of the cards, as long as your squinting skills have a good Spring Training I guess.

Now let's try another card.

This card does partially answer a mystery from the first card - why so much white space? Because every last name is different, duh-huhhh. Now I get it.

Except, couldn't the image interact with the design frame on an individual card basis? Would that be too much to ask? I guess on a set of 22¢ baseball cards, the answer is yes.

This card also reveals more of what all those little square things Topps likes so much will be up to this year. They are kept out of the left side of the card by the team color wall, and the bottom of the card by the name wall, but they battle with the image on the left side. Last year, they mercifully kind of disintegrated off the color name stripes just a wee little bit. This year, they are more like that weird 'smoke' in 2016 that didn't really catch fire with many collectors in that design.

The fade to that design element on the left side, combined with the fade effect of the white name plate area, seem to me to be tricking my brain into projecting blurriness into the image. Perhaps that creates that warmth I like, dunno. We are getting into baseball card design thesis program stuff now.

But since we are this deep into collecting Topps Baseball cards for this many years of our lives, let's consider a nice part of baseball cards, and these cards in particular. Team Color!

Solid, this year. And there are even 2 of them! Well, maybe if you squint some.

Let's zoom in. Here are Adams, Chance's colors:

(If you are thinking - Yankees, Red, where does that come from, you should be better prepared for this class - you can click away for an instant refresher if needed.)

Now here are the team colors on the Laureano, Ramon card:

Advantage: Athletics. The A's get a nice Gold stripe on their Team Color wall; everyone knows they are the Green & Gold team. The Yankees get a much thinner Red stripe, losing half of the space the A's get for their Gold stripe to an extra layer of White, or Grey.

And you thought the designer picked out square tiles for all that space above the rim of the bath tub for the bathroom remodel? Nope. Individually inlaid, randomly patterned, perfectly round little tiles. No cheapskating on Topps Baseball cards.

I am starting to get a Sea Turtle flashback here - I recently realized the workings of a certain design feature on those cards somewhat similar to this one, though I won't be illustrating it on my new 2013 set blog for another 28 cards or so. The perfect illustration in that set is a White Sox card, and luckily enough, here comes one now:

Team Color #1: Black. Team Color #2: Grey. The Chicago White Sox. Check. But another card like the A's card, where Team Color #2 doesn't give away half of itself to White.

There is a little bit more going on with this and I think it relates to printing registration perhaps. It's a bit of a deep dive into baseball card construction, so for now I will just note that the A's and the White Sox are off to a better start in the set than the Yankees, with better Team Color #2 strengthening their cards. The reveal of more on this technique on the Sea Turtle cards will come on the Chris Sale card a month or more from now.

As for this Kopech, Michael card, my 3rd sequential RC in my first pack, I already have a love/hate relationship with it. This card is shot in Detroit, as are a lot of Topps cards these days. I know this because of several things in the photo, like the small portion of the back wall, and a quite blurry yellow line at the top of the outfield wall. I don't quite understand why they are so blurry though. In weeks to come I will show you some more Made in Detroit cards for comparison. Kopech, Michael's legs seem almost as blurry as Adams, Chance's are.

The more definitive visual cue to the stadium location is the word "bit" on it, which is part of an ad for a candy product backed by one Miguel Cabrera - "bitbits" - which sadly hasn't penetrated all the way to the farthest corners of Michigan, where I hang out, so I have yet to try any. I do hope a more clear picture of this ad appears on a Topps Baseball card sometime soon.

So Kopech, Michael's RC card turns out to be from his 2nd Major League game, which was quite triumphant - for him. 6 Innings, only 1 Run - but 7 Hits, to the credit of my team. The next time the Tigers faced him was in Chicago, and they absolutely shelled him for 7 Runs in just 3 Innings Pitched. Taken apart by the 2018 Detroit Tigers. Hope is still alive for my team, I guess - they were able to 'write the book' on an opponent, rather than the other way around. The jury is still out on Kopech, Michael, so far.

This next card is also quite illustrative of this set, and I am only four cards in:

A nice, 100% complete baseball player, with no body parts disappearing into the White Hole that appears will be a part of each and every card. Instead of nice soothing white borders, we get a randomly shaped piece of them, inside the card, in a set that is neither full-bleed nor full-border. This card makes me ask - couldn't Bettis, Chad's foot have been placed right on the purple team color wall and allow the photograph to use up all that white space? That would require individualized baseball card construction though.

And I doubt many, even long-time baseball card collectors, could project a Team Color #2 for the Colorado Rockies, after Purple. I would have guessed Black. But then Purple and Black might make a better football card somehow. So Topps selected Grey, and the two Team Colors get the job done.

Sometimes, perhaps, they get the job done too well. Look out Springer, George!

I guess he didn't get the memo that there would a Team Colors pole standing in front of Home Plate in that game.

My first 2019 horizontal card - pretty epic. Show me a collector who says they don't like a Play @ The Plate card and I will show you a liar. Lately I have been thinking Topps is just getting their reps in now, preparing for a key card in 2020 Heritage - I hope there is a dynamic Rookie Catcher in MLB this year.

So we are going to have "frame break" cards, another thing few if any collectors would disagree with. These seemingly require an individual construction effort for a given card. So why couldn't the design elements sometimes just overlay the imagery, if the imagery can sometimes overlay the design elements? Then the White Hole on every card could be banished, and put to better use.

After a string of 3 cards with thick secondary Team Color lines, I see the Astros will have a skinny Blue one for theirs - approaching superfluousity, which my PC's auto-dictionary doesn't even think is a word.

It does appear another long-time Topps tradition will continue in these packs -

Plenty of horizontal cards, appearing together fresh off the die-cutting machine. I really do look forward to seeing some uncut sheets from the 2010s some day.

Greinke, Zack does seem pleased with his card, and so am I - another +1 on my The Pitcher Is Smiling At Me collection; whole years go by without adding to it and now I have 2 new entries from the same pack.

It has only been recently that I have started noticing the Blue uniform #s they wear in Arizona; maybe that says something about things that are missed when you live in the desert.

I do like whenever Team Color #1 is Black, though that is almost always only done for the Pirates. A new member of the club is fine with me, and the Diamondbacks don't quite seem to be sent to skinny Team Color purgatory, either.

Another regular member of the Black Team Color club is the Orioles, for whom it is usually the secondary color. Will it be this year?

Ummm, maybe. There is a black line there, I guess.

At first I thought I had sort of pulled my first 2019 Detroit Tigers card, but, alas, the Tigers actually signed a different, negative-WAR infielder named Beckham, though I would be mighty surprised to see him appear in Update this coming fall. At least the Tigers get to play the Orioles 6 times this year, and vice-versa. That will help both clubs.

Now with all this Team Color action and at least a Half Border design this year, we should be primed for some pretty nice parallel versions of these cards to appear. Here is my first pull of such:

Yes, that is technically a parallel. The "150 Years" parallel - just the stamp, done in gold foil rather than silver, along with the Topps logo also being in gold. A totally useless exploitation of the collector impulse by Topps. Obsessive Player and some Team Set collectors will want to track down these "parallels" just, because. I am so glad I am able to focus my collecting on to cards that I enjoy looking at later on down the road, rather than just mindlessly attempting to collect every tiny variation of basically the same thing just, because, Topps made it, so I have to collect it.

Now one major bit of news coming from the large-scale "breakers" of Topps sets this week is that inserts will be much more scarce this year. For me, this is good news. I occasionally like to complete an insert set, but probably nowhere close to a majority of them. Inserts are good for Player and Team collectors, supplying more unique cards for them to enjoy. If they are to be printed in smaller quantities now, that will make them easier to trade in for something else, via COMC in particular. So I was quite looking forward to my first 2019 insert -

I do like the authenticity here as Jose Altuve is wearing a Spring Training patch on his right arm, and probably that is a Spring Training only uniform for Houston. That particular insert, however, is a "retail only" insert appearing in every other pack in a blaster, and I will wager one per hanger pack, and probably one in every other 'rack' pack too. There will be piles of these building up everywhere, I imagine.

I have a few better ones to show you in another post; today I am just wandering through that quintessential baseball card experience, the First Pack:

This is a card I was quite looking forward to. I lost track of how many Hoskins, Rhys Rookie Card cards I pulled in 2018. And since I am always far from and ignorant of much of the goings on in the NL East, all those RCs here, RCs there, everywhere an RC left me with one question - would his sophomore campaign deliver on all the hype? Yeah, I could look it up instantly whenever I wish these days. But often I would rather just wait and turn over a baseball card, like this one.

And this card has a wonderful new design feature - a blue Liberty Bell. Unfortunately, the Phillies are also stuck with a skinny Team Color #2 to go along with it.

As are the Indians -

Where Clevinger, Mike illustrates once again why the White Hole is there on all the other cards, though not on this well constructed card. This card makes me laugh though - is he about to do the Funky Chicken, or is he about to Balk, Balk, Balk? If a baseball card can't make you chuckle once in a while, you need a new Hobby.

Another classic team for combining Team Colors and baseball cards is the New York Mets. How will they fare in this erratic set?

Sigh. Even a card with a classical "Hero Number" - #200 for the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner - can't convince Topps to put a little more blue ink into their nifty new baseball card frame. Overall though, a mighty fine baseball card and a good example of my suspicion that I will have a fine season of collecting baseball cards ahead.

But wait - there's more! These packs have 14 cards this year. I would have had to drive some 30 or 50 miles to reach a store that would sell me a classic single "pack" of Topps Baseball, something not really an option in the midst of the Polar Vortex. So to get as close as possible to that beloved First Pack memory, I picked up a blaster of 2019 Series One, which has a new packaging format - 7 packs of 14 cards. A change I am fine with, as I have never understood why we need all those extra wrappers inside a blaster anyway.

One of the nicer stories in 2018 Major League Baseball was the experiences of Piscotty, Stephen:

So I was just a little disappointed that Topps didn't include some easy feel-good back-story on the back of this card. Oh well. Another card I was looking forward to this year, with what proved to be some wonderful light on it. It will look good amidst 8 of it's buddies on a binder page, some day.... as will this card:

An early contender for the Psychedelic card of the year? One never knows when a Psychedelic cartoon car might start driving straight off a baseball card and straight into your consciousness. Blackburn, Paul is another keeper.

And to launch 2019, I have an Oakland A's Hot Pack. Now if only my local casino would finish up the inevitable opening of a Sports Book. Should be a good year, out West.

Overall, I basically always enjoy 21st Century Topps Baseball cards. The 2010s are drawing to a close nicely here. I was totally unable to resist opening all 7 packs in my blaster, despite a grim initial plan of knowing I probably can't be buying many new cards for several weeks, and a hope I could somehow just open just one of the packs, once in a while, through that period. Fat chance! In the other packs I did pull some fun cards to share with you in a future post.

And I also look forward to discovering some new nicknames for this set of baseball cards. Because I can get that excited about nothing. And no one knows what a Phone Book is any more, anyway.

Non-Baseball Baseball Cards

I love it when I find one of these, and I love where this find might lead me. It is almost always a "virtual" find — i.e. I see these on the Internet on a blog or some other odd corner of cyberspace.

I found this in a package of job supplies today, a simple box of mycorrhizae (beneficial soil fungi) root dip for the seedlings I plant.

The distribution firm I purchased from included an array of promotional materials - business card, stickers, oversized glossy post card thingie deal, do-rag, and the above pictured item.

Brilliant! For most of the items they sell, I have a range of options on where to acquire them. But if you send me a faux-baseball card promo, well … hook, line, & sinker.

I have no idea who Mr. Zies is and will never find out. Unfortunately, his career stats are not included on the back, because it is blank. Which is explained by the fact that it is actually a sticker. (And thus the curl, as well). Of course I have a simple policy for baseball-card-like (one could wonder if this is hockey-card-like perhaps, though I'm sure you know which is which) stickers: I stick them on things. Or perhaps I trade them to one of you fine folks. This one will be going on to my toolbox dedicated to chainsaw miscellany.

And I will be getting on the horn soon to figure out how to Complete The Set, of course. I'm sure that will simply require a few purchases of job materials I would be purchasing anyway. Uh-huhh, sure.

But even better - I will be inquiring how I, too, can be "immortalized" on my very own 'baseball card' sticker. Stay tuned.

Baseball Card Therapy

I've learned a helluva lot about baseball cards in the last five months, and that has been great. One of my life lessons along the way crept up on me very slowly, but it definitively crystallized for me early this morning.

I noticed over these months of reading baseball card blogs how many bloggers have to take a break from frequent posting, and not by choice. Real Life always intervenes with life's never-ending stream of good and bad chaos, and the baseball cards have to be put down for a time.

Now perhaps at times this leads to blogs going dark for long periods, but I think more often than not it doesn't. People want to get back to socializing with others over a bit of pack ripping, card sorting, and trade pulling.

A few blogs have pointed this out very explicitly. I also noticed it early on in my own overly busy life the last few months. Then last Friday I heard a direct quote on the subject. I was placing an order for some supplies (and, heck yeah, some cards along with...you'll see) from an online vendor selected essentially at random for having both the exact supplies and cards I wanted. There was a slight problem with the billing address vs shipping address with my debit card, and I ended up on the phone with the company. This led to an incidental chat about another hobby revealed by one of my email addresses, and how rare it was to meet people with both hobbies. Then the baseball card fan on the other end of the line gave me the quote - "Oh yes, it's always nice to sit down over some cards. So therapeutic."

That is spot on. Tonight after I finish typing this post, I am going to sit down and just sort some big stacks of cards until my eyelids droop, which probably won't take long. I have some trades due to leave Base Set Calling HQ ASAP, and even one trade that has come in that I haven't even opened yet. I'm very sorry to be late and should be back to mailing, etc., on Thursday. I finish a very, very long 7 month "season" of my main work tomorrow too, and I will celebrate by going out to watch a baseball game on color television I hope.

But work has nothing to do with why I will be seeking sanctuary in card numbers tonight. Numbers have always soothed my brain. I used to look at four digit numbers and deconstruct and reconstruct them in various ways in my head, though that has faded over time. So the ever elegant game of baseball has always appealed to me....and of course led to my love of baseball cards.

Last night I had plans to finish up all the trade work I now have planned for Thursday. But Real Life intervened as it all too often does. A pet of 16 years acquaintance died early this morning as the daylight was appearing. It was that time. Unfortunately the situation deteriorated too fast overnight to ask a vet for some help easing the obvious pain involved, and it quite unexpectedly became a long hard, generally helpless night, finally eased by a rain shower supplying enough white noise for me to fall asleep. Even plentiful stacks of cards near at hand couldn't help through that night.

Now I understand this was just a four legged companion, and the loss does not compare to losing a dear friend or family member, as I know has been part of some blogger's lives this year.

When I awoke a few hours later, I had little choice but to brew up some coffee and head out to a jobsite. Over the cups of coffee, I reached for my phone to read some card blogs, and quickly found what I was looking for, without knowing what exactly I was looking for right then. It was just a simple post about the simple joy of discovering a wonderful new baseball card (one I had thought to babble about, but would have never dreamed up what my fellow blogger did), like this one following here, to supply a nice visual header on the blog rolls:

What a card. I pulled it just tonight when I turned to just a little ripping therapy, to go along with this writing therapy.

Of course it can go on the Tatooine binder page, and my Airborne page. If I were to launch a Sweet Shadows page (uhh-oh), it could fit there too. And if we finally reach 9 different players with the last name Cabrera all simultaneously active on Topps baseball cards, well...oh dear. It obviously brings to mind a certain famous player who can't currently be seen on Topps products. I vote for more stealth homage cards for that player, Topps. I'm sure it will end up on many best-of-Series lists.

What I especially like about it is the dirt stain Everth already has on his right leg — this is his second time catching air this game.

Now a part of baseball card blogging is revealing your life's connection to baseball cards. As my profile states, I came back to everyday collecting in 2011 after a long break, though I generally have some miscellaneous cards from every year of my life, even when I wasn't building a set that year. My cards have definitely added to my appreciation of the game of late, and I don't expect to walk very far away from them any time soon.

But I didn't collect much in 2012, and have hinted at some reasons why. There are two of them; I will write about the other one, with scads of baseball card pictures to go along with (I promise), another time.

The non-card reason for sitting out 2012 after such a great 2011 was a basic lack of community. Buying and absorbing baseball cards by yourself is OK, but is something that is much more enjoyable to share. Living in a small town very far from any card shop to talk cards at made the hobby quite a bit more dull. When I was back to ripping more than a few packs in 2011, I kept thinking "I will just use this new Internet thing to get back to trading baseball cards." I actually have a long experience with the Internet, having sent my first cross-state-lines email in about 1988, but not with cards on the Internet.

But I just couldn't find a hospitable place to talk cards. The card forums I wandered around just didn't do it for me. So much focus on the buying and selling of cards, and always with lots of negativity and other, well, repetitive not-positive sentiment. I could hardly ever find a simple "I love this card." Plenty of "I love the value of this card" though.

I have come to think this is likely a generational / age deal, though of course there is one great blogger who disproves that, and I think there are others. But the card forums seem to be the domain of a younger crowd on average than the blogging world. And the younger collectors, well, I shouldn't stereotype, generalize, etc. I don't know, I just know that the $ side of collecting cards is just not for me. Neither is the all too common naked vitriol nature of the Internet, where anonymous speech comes with certain downsides.

But this post isn't another woe-is-the-hobby screed. I'll bore you to tears on that topic some other night. I just wish I had discovered the world of baseball card blogs in the fall of 2011, when I first typed the wonderful words "baseball cards" into an Internet search engine. Then I probably wouldn't be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 2012 cards I skipped over until I acquired them from nice Mr. Therapeutic on Friday.

So I just wanted to thank you all for publishing your love of baseball cards on humanity's new social medium here. It has been a wonderful five months.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some baseball cards to sort.