Prize Winnins!

I won a cool thing on Twitter early last week.  It was a blaster (minus one Yadi insert) of 2018 Topps Series 1 that was apparently an unclaimed prize in one of Kerry's annual pick 'em contests on his venerable blog.  To win, you just had to guess the player on the bonus manufactured relic, and I did the thing!

Players Weekend Manupatch!

This is the closest thing to a Kris Bryant hit I own.  I still don't even have any #'ed cards of him yet.  I find it funny that they felt the need to note on the front that it's not a player worn item when it's clearly not even made of fabric.  I can't tell for sure if it's metal or plastic, but commemorative pin or medallion feels like a more accurate description for it.  It sorta reminds me of the couple Pokemon pins that were in various boxes when I went on a lil Pokemon card kick last summer.

Anyway, here's a look at some of the other stuff the blaster had to offer.

Spot the difference..

They look virtually identical, but the card on the right is (allegedly) a gold parallel #'ed 46/50.  The grayer background bits of the boxes or bricks or whatever the hell they're supposed to be are ever-so-slightly darker, though they more resemble bronze than gold to me.  It's so absurdly subtle that it's ultimately pretty pointless and lame. Like I said, I genuinely couldn't even tell the difference until @JunkWaxTwins pointed it out to me on the twerting machine.

It's true, I swear!

So yeah, it doesn't look like much, but it is what it is.  Certainly a lower numbered card than you'd normally pull out of a blaster of almost anything, so I guess it could be worse.  I offered it up to Julie on Twitter but never heard back, so call ya shot if you want it.

More Opening Day inserts..

There were a whole mess of Opening Day inserts.  Seven total, I believe (Khris Davis & Eric Thames not appearing today, but Thames already has a home in mind if I don't choose to keep it).  And I literally just noticed as I'm putting this post together that the above Machado is a blue parallel.  It's less subtle than the gold, but I completely missed it.  The blue insert parallels are not numbered and, according to the internet, fall 1:12 packs.  There were three, from three different sets, in the blaster.

All Rise..

Judge and Bellinger both showed up in the blaster as well, both with an insert and a base card...

No cool nickname that I know of..

...but Bellinger got the shaft on the insert front.  These things are atrociously stupid & hideous looking.

The base..

The relative symmetry in their base cards is pleasing to the eye, though they'd be a few pages apart in a bindered up set, being cards #1 & 42.  Still though, useful for blogging purposes.

Enough with the Jeter retrospectives already, Sooz!

Back to the inserts.  Here's another blue parallel from the obscenely pointless Jeter Highlights insert set.  It looks a little nicer than the base at least.  There were four of these, counting the parallel.

Finally, a nice looking insert set!

The above Miguel Cabrera was the third blue parallel.  This is far & away the nicest looking insert that came from the blaster.  It's also where I'm told the one Yadi insert Kerry kept is from.  So counting that I believe there were also four of these as well (Chris Sale is the one not pictured here).  I'm not sure if I'll be keeping the KB or not.  I pulled one from my tiny handful of loose packs earlier in the year, but it seems like it might've been a blue parallel, which I didn't know existed until I had to look them up when this arrived.

Actually kinda like the look of this one..

And here are the rest.  Not much to say about any of this.  It's all available though.

The obligatory '83 throwbacks..

I'm still mad these have glossy backs.  I wanted to draw on the backs of them!

These are pretty nice..

It's a nice enough design.  Definitely a lot better than the Opening Day for multi-photo inserts.  Not a fan of the player at all though (Update as I re-up all my photos in late-August: He's now a Cub 🤣).

Salute your shorts..

This year's Salute inserts aren't great, but at least they look like something approaching an actual insert set instead of a rejected, below average base design this time.  They do, to my eye, bear a passing resemblance to the Award Winners above, however (and these look worse).

Future me: wrong again. He's been a disaster this year..

The final insert we have to talk about is this Home Run Challenge thing.  There's a good chance Sano will hit a few this year.  The trick is guessing when it'll happen.

Foil parallel

The only base parallel was this foil Lach... Zach Davies.  I like the design a lot more than anyone else that I know of, but yeah, that the damn waterslide partially covering the players' first names knocks it all the way down from a borderline all-timer to just average.

This year's most hyped rookie..

There were tons of RCs in this, and Rhys lead the way.  Other notable names to show up were Amed Rosario, Victor Robles, Max Fried, Austin Hays, Richard Urena, & Alex Verdugo.

Photography!

Here are my favorite photos from the base cards in the blaster.  Intensity and contemplation.

This card is ridiculous..

And we'll end it on this, my lone base keeper.  There were five base Cubs, but no one I'm very attached to.  So yeah, pretty much everything but the Bryants & Seattle Slayers are available.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our next...