Opening Day Is Upon Us (Part 2: Inserts)

Voting for the All-Star Game is well underway. If you haven't voted in the first round, you have about a week left to do that. I did submit a few ballots during the first couple days, and it's so much easier now than when I was a kid. I remember the old paper ballots, and I used to vote so many of them at once that the kitchen table would be blanketed in tiny white paper dots. Things are a bit more environmentally friendly now.

Meanwhile, as the season approaches its halfway point, I'm still over here writing about Opening Day. Specifically, the inserts and other goodies from a blaster of 2022 Opening Day that I got shipped from Target. 

I'll never be caught up again, will I?

And I'm sure I'll hold the record for the last post in the community about Nick's 10th Anniversary giveaway. Sorry, Nick.

2022 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-19 Mariner Moose

As promised in Part 1, and as longtime readers probably predicted, I did pull a card of a very patriotic-looking Mariner Moose. I've still yet to see one of these gigantic animals in the wild, but that chance is ever-present in the great state of Colorado. I hope that my repeated luck in pulling Mariner Moose cards isn't negatively impacting my luck of seeing a real one, because I'd love to someday.

In the meantime, I'll rely on Topps to keep me in a steady supply of Mascot cards.

2022 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-7 Dinger

It goes without saying that I've never seen a triceratops in the wild, either. But Dinger makes plenty of appearances on my mascot cards and in person at Coors Field, too. Here's a shot of him all dressed up to host the Purple Carpet show prior to the 2021 All-Star Game at Coors Field. I'm not sure exactly, but this is probably in front of the new McGregor Square building, just across 20th Street from Coors Field.

Hard to believe that was almost a year ago.

2022 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-9 Orbit

The 2022 All-Star Game is being held in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. It was supposed to be there during 2020, but that of course was cancelled due to the pandemic.

There were lots of mascots on the concourse at Coors Field during the All-Star Game. I remember seeing Fredbird, the Phillie Phanatic, and of course Orbit. Though I'm not sure Orbit will be particularly welcome at Dodger Stadium considering the cheating scandal that happened during the 2017 World Series. As pictured on this card, maybe he's limbering up with squats to be able to escape angry fans.

And where's the 2023 game going to be held? That would be Seattle, giving our friend the Mariner Moose a real opportunity to shine.

2022 Topps Opening Day Opening Day #OD-2 Detroit Tigers

The other insert sets found in Opening Day are never as fun as Mascots, but they're still worth a look. Here's the redundantly named Opening Day set, a fifteen-card set featuring half of the MLB teams and their performance on Opening Day 2021. 

The Tigers, in particular, won their season opener in Detroit thanks to a home run from Miguel Cabrera. His turn at the plate began rather normally, but a sudden snow flurry rapidly picked up over the course of his at-bat, ending with the ball just clearing the right field fence.

The future Hall-of-Famer gave fans at Comerica Park memorable moments in two consecutive Aprils, as he got his 3,000th hit two months ago against the Rockies.

2022 Topps Opening Day Opening Day #OD-9 Kansas City Royals

I don't recall the Royals making the highlight reel that day, but they won their 2021 home opener in a 14-10 slugfest against the Rangers. The card back tells us that fan favorite Alex Gordon threw out the first pitch that day, all the way from his longtime station in left field.

I saw the Royals visit Coors Field in May, the 29th team I've seen play. I missed my chance at the Expos, but only the Minnesota Twins remain to be checked off.

2022 Topps Opening Day Bomb Squad #BS-10 Giancarlo Stanton

Nearly as plentiful as Mascots in this blaster were cards from the Bomb Squad insert set. This 25-card set features some of the game's best home run hitters, new and old. Giancarlo Stanton, one of many slugging Yankees, is frequently on the highlight reel for launching baseballs deep into the Bronx night. He is far off his league-leading pace of 59 from his 2017 season, his final as a Marlin, but he still has a respectable 14 so far in 2022. 

The #16 patch on his pinstriped sleeve honors Whitey Ford, who died in 2020.

2022 Topps Opening Day Bomb Squad #BS-7 Babe Ruth

Stanton traces his lineage as a slugging Yankee all the way back to the granddaddy of them all, George Herman "Babe" Ruth. Not much needs to be said about the Sultan of Swat, perhaps the greatest-known player to ever take the field. Nevertheless, the card back gives us plenty of unique statistics, starting off with his career total of 714. The Bambino also led the AL in homers twelve times, and two of those seasons were 35 ahead of the second-place finisher.

They didn't really call home runs "bombs" back in those days, but Ruth's colorful and alliterative nicknames like "The Colossus of Clout" more than make up for it.

2022 Topps Opening Day Bomb Squad #BS-16 Jim Thome

He might not be on the Mount Rushmore of baseball players like Ruth, but Jim Thome is in the Hall of Fame, and he has 612 home runs to thank for it, good for eighth all time. He's pictured here as a Phillie, but he spent most of his career with Cleveland. He was the first Phillie to compete in a Home Run Derby, and the card back also tells us that 17 of his homers came on a 3-0 count.

I seem to remember the baseball world getting into quite a kerfuffle last year when young stars like Fernando Tatís, Jr. and Yermín Mercedes took pitchers deep on 3-0 counts, apparently violating the sacred unwritten rules. I don't remember hearing much about that during any of Thome's 17 blasts.

2022 Topps Opening Day Triple Play #TPC-1A Mike Trout / B Shohei Ohtani / C Anthony Rendon

A trio of Angels (though not the Russian ones from 1993 Topps #633) make up this odd-looking insert card from the Triple Play subset. Mike Trout (who possesses a Ruth-esque nickname of "The Millville Meteor"), Shohei Ohtani, and Anthony Rendon all make appearances, and the card includes a perforation between each player. If you were to separate these, they would be slightly smaller than an Allen & Ginter tobacco-sized Mini. This design also includes the same divot on the top border we saw in 2008 Topps, which everyone disliked for encroaching on the photo.

There isn't much room on these card backs, but somehow Topps still left a ton of white space. Mike Trout's storied career is boiled down to eight All-Star Game selections, more than any other Angel.

Sadly, Anthony Rendon's season came to an end last week due to wrist surgery, but the Angels have added an exciting breakout star to their lineup in Taylor Ward, a five-season veteran who is finally finding his stride.

2022 Topps Opening Day Blue Foil #72 Gavin Sheets /2022

I didn't pull any cards from the exceptionally rare Walk This Way, Luck of the Irish, or Dugout Peeks insert sets, so we'll close with the only Blue Foil parallel I found, a Rookie Card of Gavin Sheets. No relation to former Brewers pitcher Ben Sheets, but he is the son of former Orioles outfielder Larry Sheets. I haven't heard much about him, as he only has 98 games under his belt, but he fits right in on a young White Sox team playing for the oldest manager in the game.

As is usual with Blue Foil parallels, their stated print run is equal to the calendar year, but there is no serial number to be found.

That about wraps up Opening Day, just in time for summer.

Happy National Baseball Card Day!

If you've ever glanced at trending hashtags on any of the major social networks, you've likely run across something like "National [product] Day". National Popcorn Day is in mid-January. National Scotch Day was toward the end of July, as was National Chicken Wing Day to wrap up July.

You're darn right I had wings that day.

Next month, we have Talk Like a Pirate Day on the 19th, and Elephant Appreciation Day on the 22nd. Something to look forward to. You may or may not "celebrate" these holidays, and you're unlikely to be getting a paid day off for any of them, but if you're reading this, you ought to know that today is National Baseball Card Day!

This probably explains why the Rockies TV team were talking cards during the game yesterday in the bottom of the 5th. They opened and compared their haul from a few packs of 2016 Topps, and play-by-play announcer Drew Goodman regaled us with tales of pulling Willie Mays cards, "flipping" cards, and learning back in the early '80s that a prized Ozzie Smith rookie card was worth much less than he and his friends thought it was. Color analyst and former Rockie Ryan Spilborghs reminisced about stale gum, and his unopened Upper Deck set with Ken Griffey, Jr.'s rookie card, which he incorrectly said was 1991.

So in honor of this momentous occasion, there's no better time to see the highlights from a blaster of 2016 Stadium Club, making a strong case for the best Topps product three years running.

2016 Stadium Club #167 Micah Johnson

Awesome photography remains a staple of Stadium Club, and here that means bunting! Over time, this card of Micah Johnson will surely find its way into the many bunting mini-collections in the Cardsphere, including mine that Jeff from 2x3 Heroes kickstarted for me.

Pretty much everyone has compared this year's Stadium Club to 1997 Fleer, and at a glance, it is very similar. The fonts are a little different, Stadium Club uses silver foil instead of gold, and 1997 Fleer lists the position.

1997 Fleer #339 Jeff Bagwell

1997 Fleer also has those cool little foil seals above the last name, denoting for Jeff Bagwell that he was both an All-Star and a League Leader in 1996. I'm not sure in what, though. I had to look that one up, and his 48 doubles led the NL that year.

The difference mainly comes in on feel. 1997 (and 1996) Fleer used an unusual matte finish that's very distinctive. Stadium Club cards are at least twice as thick, and while in a page or display case these might be hard to tell apart, when it's in your hand, it couldn't be easier.

2016 Stadium Club #146 Johnny Bench

There are a lot of horizontal cards in this set, and many of them are terrific! Like he did in 2014, Hall of Fame Reds catcher Johnny Bench makes an appearance, here guarding the plate against the Mets in Shea Stadium. I have to wonder if this is from the same game as his 2014 card, a card I believe was also taken in Shea based on the memorabilia he's signing.

Autograph shots and an imminent play at the plate? No wonder this brand is so great.

2016 Stadium Club #294 Jackie Robinson

As in past years, black-and-white photos of old-time players make a stunning appearance. Jackie Robinson appears in Ebbets Field in a photo that I can't ever recall seeing on a Topps card. Robinson seems to suffer the most from recycled photos, as Night Owl has repeatedly pointed out. In fact, after looking at that post, I recognize this photo in a much more closely-cropped and colorized format from 2010.

The photo looks way better in its original form, capturing the essence of Ebbets Field in one of its final years. There's an ad for 1956 Chevrolet on the outfield wall, so the move to L.A. was just a few years away. Chevrolet still maintains an advertising relationship with Major League Baseball, giving away shiny new GM products to MVPs of both the All-Star Game and World Series. Other car and gasoline ads line the wall, and something that you won't see at ballparks anymore, a tobacco ad.

2016 Stadium Club #6 Brandon Phillips

This behind-the-batter shot is a common photo in recent Stadium Club sets, and it's a tough shot to get with the batter's box and baseline so perfect. Those chalk lines get destroyed after just a few batters, so this one of leadoff hitter Brandon Phillips in an away uniform is clearly the first batter of this game. Maybe even the first pitch.

2016 Stadium Club #3 Matt Kemp

Here's a similar photo of Matt Kemp, then with the Padres. He became a Brave just before this year's trade deadline, his first time playing away from the NL West. I can't tell quite what's going on here (he might be rounding third), but it's a perfect all-dirt "Tatooine" card, a prime candidate for a mini collection, one that Daniel collects.

2016 Stadium Club #113 Andrew McCutchen

McCutchen has another one of these horizontal beauties, and the batter's box line is already pretty disrupted. It could still be the first inning, though. To my eye, McCutchen looks abnormally small here. I guess it's just a weird angle, but you'd expect to see more grass in this photo, and maybe part of the catcher. That seems to be the dirt path back to the dugout behind his head, a feature found in PNC Park. I still think this was taken with a weird focal length or something, since it's unusual to see a batter so alone yet inside the batter's box.

2016 Stadium Club #142A Corey Seager (RC)

There are vertical cards, too. I just got a little caught up with all that infield dirt. Rookie of the Year candidate Corey Seager is showing off his maple bat in the locker room, and he gets the "RC" logo just under the Stadium Club logo in the upper left. Seager's birthdate of 4/27/94 makes him just a couple weeks younger than Dinger, who was "hatched" at Mile High Stadium on 4/16/94.

2016 Stadium Club #93 C.J. Wilson

The photos get weird for a bit, so brace yourselves. C.J. Wilson is doing some sort of karate move in the infield without his hat on. He's holding his blue glove between two fingertips in his right hand, and under the magnifying glass, I think that's a baseball card in his left hand. Maybe even his own.

Pitchers.

2016 Stadium Club #227 Robin Yount

That makes Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount leaning on a dirt bike next to a saguaro cactus seem, well, still rather weird. But it just adds to the charm of Topps Stadium Club.

Good to see he has a helmet by his side. That sport can be dangerous otherwise.

2016 Stadium Club Contact Sheet #CS-7 Miguel Cabrera

Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera had the only insert card in this $20 blaster, one of ten cards to be found in the Contact Sheet insert set. Clearly, it has a filmstrip theme going on, though not quite as literally as those 1994 Leaf Slideshow inserts. Still, a photography-themed card fits with the ethos of Stadium Club perfectly.

Allow me to nitpick a bit. If this really were a set of negatives from a roll of film, the colors would be inverted. I do like the checkmark over the bottom photo, as though that were the one selected from the roll. But that's not actually the photo used on Cabrera's card in the main set, which would have really tied this insert set in to the master product better.

2016 Stadium Club Gold #98 Ian Kinsler

In addition to that insert card, I pulled a couple parallels. This one of Kinsler (to go along with his silver-foil base card) is the Gold parallel. Though you might not find a batting cage shot in 1997 Fleer, the gold parallels would be a bit easier to confuse. Despite the similarity, I still think there's a low likelihood of confusion, way less likely than a reprint from a Topps set like Cards Your Mom Threw Out, or even something like Donruss Originals.

2016 Stadium Club Black #229 Babe Ruth

Finally, here's a Black parallel, seeded 1:8 packs. On average, you'll find one of these in each blaster, but not necessarily of The Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth himself. As huge an influence as he was, it's surprising that he's not found on more cards. Photos of him seem to be somewhat rare, but getting my Black parallel on a monochromatic card is perfect. I don't know if the black lettering would look quite as good on a full-color card. I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled for one next time I'm at a card show.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your National Baseball Card Day!