Too early

I remember a while ago - it seems like decades, there was grumbling about the baseball season and the starting of it getting earlier and earlier. It trailed into a dabbling of dates in March, which has now seemingly become standard, in most years.



Baseball lovers would always be excited about it because the sooner, the better, while non-fans would argue...already?!?!

Well, if this year has taught us anything, it's to enjoy it while you have it, and not to nit-pick the small stuff!

Opening Day having an Opening Day parallel with an opening day date stamped on the front is alright. Now, add in some snazzy blue foil and it pretties up real nice (even for a Red Sox).

You know someone else who likes the colour blue?



Glad that Clark approves, but the back of this card provides a questionable lineage for poor Clark. Apparently Clark is the great-grandson of the original live bear mascot Joa. Now I am no biology professor, but not sure how the genetics worked to go from live bear to mascot over a few generations, but someone needs to look into this!



I think these guys are too busy too. Though they can stick around and be part of my growing set.

8 Packs, 56 Cards, 222 Points

Ichiro

So many thoughts with this one card:

- Why is it that he began to get single name treatment?
- I am old enough to remember he actually had a first name
- He was a great hitter
- He will always be synonymous with the Mariners
- Man, those wrinkles around the eye may make him look old, but dude is having a good time

Always nice when you can get so much out of a single card, so happy this has a place in my collection. The story on the back is about him walking away when Ohtani first was introduced to him, only to walk a few paces as a joke and turn around to greet the new star.



We get mostly base additions from the rest of the pack with the Springer dive taking best action shot of the bunch, though Sean wins best last name in my books.

The dupes...



Another solid pack of 2019 Topps Opening Day - three...no four...more packs to go, can't forget that bonus pack.

7 Packs, 49 Cards, 190 Points

Opening Yay!

First a big congrats to the 2020 Hockey Hall of Fame class which may be headlined by Iginla and Hossa, but great to see a couple deserving names get in with Kim St-Pierre and Doug Wilson. Truth be told, Doug Wilson I remember distinctly from his 1991-92 Score San Jose hockey card which I swear, I must have pulled from packs 50 times back as a kid.

Especially this year, the importance of opening day has been more top of mind, and what better way to remember opening day festivities, than cards like this...

With the baseball season given some direction (truth be told - I am still not sure if it will actually get to happen, especially given the number of players that have recently been testing positive for COVID-19), Opening Day finally has a date to look forward to.

It makes obvious sense to have an Opening Day insert set in Topps Opening Day product. Sure, it isn't very imaginative, but sometimes things don't have to be. A bit surprised the insert set doesn't include a card for each team, but can't win them all.

This specific shot is a great one as I am a sucker for a great stadium shot, and this is probably top three now as far as the Skydome (or Rogers Centre) goes.

This obviously makes this pack a winner for me, which works out well because otherwise, I split the back half/half with keepers...



and dupes...



Still happily creeping along with the base set, and at least we have a dirty Lorenzo now for the base!

6 Packs, 42 Cards, 173 Points

Bound to get one

Well, I was bound to get a Jay out of this box at some point! Grichuk is promising and I like the bit of power he seems to have, but would love to see him bump the average up a bit as well. It isn't his bat though overall that could really help - his defense is where his WAR let's him down a bit. Still, a young guy with a good number of years ahead, could have a good string, and hopefully with the Jays.



Speaking of a guy that had a good string - Cal in Baltimore was just a standard in my childhood. I remember watching the game live where he broke the streak back in September 1995, right around the start of school that year, probably part of why I remember it - start of school years were always stressful and I have memories from most school starts, and some things that happened around then....but that's a bit of a tangent.

Definitely don't think of Cal and his business sense about the game as "fun" but I have seen enough in interviews, and as is touched on in this card, that the man himself loved life and enjoyed himself.



Another four solid base card adds for the set and lastly, a first dupe...



Could do worse!

5 Packs, 35 Cards, 126 Points

Will!?!?!

Yeah, so this is not Will Smith. Obviously not Will SMith from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and movie fame, but also not Will Smith the Giants pitcher because this is in fact Tony Watson.

Wonder how frustrating this must be for Will - does he see it as funny, or annoyed because somebody along the way didn't know who he was. I could see it going either way, but suspect most could understand how it can happen, especially if the person involved in setting the photos per card isn't a baseball fan (I know - why would they want the job then in the first place, but I am sure it could happen).



My daughter loves this card. She loves carousels, loves animals, especially Tigers, so she is ready to go and check this one out (especially on Sundays when those aged 14 and under apparently get on for free....okay, that is more my input than hers).

It looks beautiful with the hand painted tigers.



The rest of the pack - all solid additions (though no Jays yet...).

4 Packs, 28 Cards, 95 Points

A Bear of a Pack

I really do love Mascot cards. They could have an insert set in every set and that would be fine (maybe no colour parallels for the insert set though). I haven't checked but mascot looks are changed up often enough there would be at least a couple changes each year I would figure. It would be cool to be able to pull a team's mascot card for a good 10-20 year stretch to see the change over time. Unlike players that age, I suspect most of these would actually be quite ageless!



My son's favourite player, simply because of his name and because my son is 9 years old - Albert.

Polanco is a star in picture in this bunch though between the scoreboard background and the great bright yellow Pirate uniforms.

3 Packs, 21 Cards, 64 Points

A's and B's

Let's get right to the second pack of 2019 Topps Opening Day baseball cards...



Seeing more and more of these cards, I miss regular baseball, and no idea when or if that will ever be coming back to what we had before the pandemic.

Plenty of A's in the pack between the Angels and Athletics, and a lot of nice pics. I don't mind all the close up shots, but they do take a bit away from showing the beautiful ballparks.

Speaking of ballparks, here's one you get to see a bit more of, though it is empty...



Here's a B....well, Baltimore star. 8 time 20 game winner - not sure we will be seeing any player get wins to that regard much anymore with all of the large starting rotations, and the caps on innings for many more pitchers.

A good full pack of new cards, hope that streak continues.

2 Packs, 14 Cards, 42 Points