It's Opening Day - So Let's Open Some Packs! (BTW - 100,000 views for ATBATT)

Aloha, everybody, 

Happy Opening Day to all of you, my fellow baseball fans, on this most excellent day. 

I even wrote a baseball haiku. Here it is, in case you didn't see it on Twitter (with apologies to any haiku purists out there)...

Hot dogs and beer, 

A Spring celebration 

It's Opening Day 

With that, my team isn't playing today, so I figured the next best thing would be to OPEN a few packs. Luckily my old lady was headed out to the local Target and she asked me if I wanted anything. You bet! 

I put in an order for a few packs, and here is what she returned with...

Welp, it turns out she also has the knack of choosing packs just like me. The Topps Series One pack followed the same pattern that I've been pulling since the start of the cardboard season. The first card from the first pack I opened...

 Wouldn't ya know it? An Angel. I also got the usual assortment of inserts, Cubs and Yankees.

The 2016 Heritage pack followed the same pattern as usual - way too many Giants, nothing for my collection, and something for ZZ.

Here are the highlights (?) from the Opening Day pack...

Yet even more Yankees...

And some kinda insert...

 In the end, my old lady chose well, because I pulled one of the cards I've been wanting since we all opened our first packs this year...

 It's extra cool because I got it from Opening Day, on Opening Day. 

Finally, Opening Day 2016 is a little extra special because ATBATT quietly passed a milestone today - 100,000 views. Not bad for a humble little blog. More on that next time. 

The Dodgers open their season tomorrow! Aloha!

 

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!