I'm Fashionably Late to the Topps 2016 Party

Aloha, everybody, 

It took a long time, but I finally made it to Target, and today I got my hands on my first packs of 2016 Topps flagship. 

Just about everyone in the blogosphere has opined on the aesthetics of the product, and since I agree with most of your critiques, I won't be repeating those praises and criticisms here. 

There is one place where I want to add my perspective to the discussion, and I'll be mentioning that soon enough. Let's take a look at my first card of the year...

*Meh* On the bright side, Matt's trade pile just grew by one. 

This was my first in-hand look at the white noise that Topps added to the design of the cards. OK, that's my nomination for what to call this 2016 design - the White Noise set. 

Second up for 2016...

A damn Yankee. Welp, at least Zippy Zappy's trade pile has grown by one. 

Will the third card bring forth the ol' Dodgers charm? 

Bingo! Captain Clutch in what may well be his final Topps Dodger card. I'm glad to have it.

Lots of you out there have been calling that white background stuff clouds, fog and smoke. It looks to me like Topps has returned to the roots of baseball cards in a subliminal attempt to lure America's youth into collecting. 

Long ago, baseball cards were found in cigarette packages and were referred to as tobacco cards. In a stroke of daring marketing, Topps is alluding to vaping with that suggested smoke surrounding the players. They figure the kids will see all that vape smoke and think baseball is a cool, youthful sport. Genius? Or cynical marketing ploy? Time will tell.

How about some horizontal action? (lol) For anyone completing subsets, these are all yours...

 

Then I spied this card, which got my heart going for a half second...

I thought it was one of those buybacks. I know there's some backlash out there against the buybacks, but if I pulled a 1962 Roger Maris, that would be quite alright with me. Stamp, shmamp.

Alas, it was from some kind of reprint subset that is called Berger's Best. Bah! 

Here are the rest of the "highlights" from the packs, in no particular order...

It's another Dodger! Hey kids, let's vape with the Dodgers! 

 Who's collecting this Perspectives subset? 

Finally, a Wrigley Field card that has sparked an idea in my head. I don't make customs, but if I did ( ahem - Gavin), I wonder what a custom would look like that commemorates that Dodgers vs Cubs fans rhubharb that I covered in my past Baseball Bengals post? That might be a fun one. 

There's my first dive into the pool of 2016 baseball. A decent couple of packs, and I'm looking forward to many more. 

Aloha!