Nearing Closing Day (Part 3: Inserts)

2019's baseball season could be over as soon as tomorrow. Before that happens, I want to wrap up my blaster of 2019 Topps Opening Day. You've seen Part 1, with loads of Coors Field cards. Then Part 2, with a crop of solid base cards. Part 3 brings us to the thing that keeps me coming back to Opening Day, the insert cards.

They did not disappoint.

2019 Topps Opening Day Team Traditions and Celebrations #TTC-CS California Spectacular

This home run display at Angel Stadium wouldn't be out of place at a rock concert. I guess you could say it's in elemental opposition to the water feature at Coors Field. The one time I attended a game there, no Angel hit a home run, so I didn't get to see this feature activated. That was a day game anyway, so it wouldn't have had the same effect as shown on this quasi-Mike Trout card.

The card is from the Team Traditions and Celebrations insert set, which describes what's known as the California Spectacular. It's more than just flames, including "rocky knotholes, waterfalls, and geysers." It would fit right in at a theme park, and Topps points out that various Disney properties aren't far away.

Obviously, Mike Trout has been making the most of this feature, with infielder David Fletcher there to greet him at the plate. There's also a White Sox catcher tucked away in the corner, admiring the pyrotechnics, which allows us to date this card to July 25th, 2018, likely in the 6th inning when Trout went deep off of Chris Volstad with both Fletcher and Kole Calhoun aboard.

By the way, the Denver Broncos have a flame display similar to this, and it was most welcome on a cold Saturday night last year, even from quite a few sections away. The speed with which that radiant heat arrived was astonishing.

2019 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-21 Phillie Phanatic

For the second year in a row, I pulled a Mascots card of the Phillie Phanatic, clearly dressed for drier weather this year. He's been entertaining fans for decades, and wreaks havoc inside broadcast booths on both sides.

Orbit doesn't get the appreciation I think s/he should, but it's hard to top how awesome a mascot the Phanatic is, which Topps describes as a "fuzzy green bird". I never really saw a bird in that costume, but it really could be anything.

Trevor already made sure I had this year's Dinger card for my collection. I pulled a couple others from this set, including the Mariner Moose once again. You know how some collectors always seem to pull cards of one particular player that isn't especially related to their collection, maybe Jorge Soler or Eric Hosmer or someone? The Mariner Moose seems to fit that bill for me, at least when it comes to Opening Day.

2019 Topps Opening Day Opening Day #ODB-SM Seattle Mariners

It's very difficult to find detail on such a wide shot like this, but I'm sure the Mariner Moose is down there somewhere in Safeco Field, which is not called Safeco Field anymore. T-Mobile acquired naming rights for 2019, but the old name is still visible above left field. Not far beyond that, you can see the dangerously loud CenturyLink Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks.

Simply called Opening Day, this redundantly named insert set shows the spring festivities in ballparks across the league. The Rockies, who usually open on the road, weren't included in this 15-card insert set. As a Rockies fan, it's disappointing to have to wait a few extra days to see baseball spring to life in Denver, but that home opener is always a fantastic Friday afternoon party in LoDo.

2019 Topps Opening Day 150 Years of Fun #YOF-23 Francisco Lindor

It will start appearing on cards next year, but by now you've surely seen the "MLB 150" patch everyone's been wearing. That marks the 150th anniversary of pro baseball, not to be confused with the 150th anniversary of college football, which is also being celebrated this year. Topps took the opportunity to make a "150 Years of Fun" insert set. It's 25 cards, but has the feel of one of the much larger insert sets often found in the Topps flagship set.

Topps found a photo of Francisco Lindor wearing a Cleveland Buckeyes throwback jersey, the city's franchise of the Negro American League. The Buckeyes won that league's World Series in 1945, just a few years before the Cleveland Indians last won their league's top prize.

Even with this million-dollar smile, "Frankie" has to be a bit disappointed to be sitting this postseason out. The Indians won 93 games this year, exactly as many wins as the pennant-winning Nationals. Even with the addition of the winner-take-all Wild Card game, there is still a chance for a very talented team to miss the playoffs entirely.

2019 Topps Opening Day 150 Years of Fun #YOF15 Reggie Jackson

Appropriately for a set that's meant to span a century and a half, there are plenty of retired stars in this set. Reggie Jackson also popped up in this blaster, pictured during his time with the Yankees. As a Yankee, he used the heckling that's endemic to Fenway Park as fuel. For example, Jason Kipnis has an amusing story about playing in Boston, which I'll let you find on your own, as it's just a bit beyond PG-13 and my mom reads this blog. I personally wouldn't find it fun to be unwelcome in an away park, but I'd certainly feel a sense of satisfaction if I were able to prove them wrong.

As an aside, if Gerardo Parra isn't in a set like this next year with his Baby Shark walk-up song or his dugout hug-fests, Topps is doing it wrong.

2019 Topps Opening Day Blue Foil #97 Brad Boxberger /2019

There were a few other intriguing insert sets to be found, like Dugout Peeks, Rally Time, and Sock it to Me, but unfortunately I didn't find any of those. That just leaves some colored parallels, starting with the familiar Blue parallels. Topps advertises a print run of 2019 copies for the Blues, but these haven't included serial numbers for quite a few years. The deep blue is a pretty backdrop for the silver foil date of March 28th, 2019, the earliest-ever Opening Day in MLB history.

The short paragraph on the card back makes a nod to Players Weekend, the annual event where baseball allows players to display a little more personal flair than usual. The most visible element of that is the nicknames that players can choose for the back of their uniforms, and Brad Boxberger, who played for the Royals in 2019, made the most of the world of emoji, selecting the cardboard box emoji and the hamburger emoji as his nickname.

Not to get too into the weeds on emoji, but there was a fierce debate two years ago about which major tech company designed the best hamburger emoji. The Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit that seeks to standardize how computers deal with characters in a multilingual world, also manages the ever-growing list of accepted emojis. When they say there is a "hamburger" emoji, they leave it open to interpretation. Most major tech companies designed a cheeseburger for that particular emoji, although Google came up with an odd design, placing the cheese below the patty.

It has since been fixed to better match the layout of every cheeseburger you've ever eaten.

2019 Topps Opening Day Red Foil #33 Mookie Betts

Topps added a Target-exclusive colored parallel this year, the Red Foil, which looks excellent when paired with a Red Sox player. Mookie Betts made the Inserts portion of last year's Opening Day post, which showed him playing table tennis. Betts and his bowling prowess came up in conversation last night at a company event at the local lanes, and when I say "came up", I mean I told people who didn't know Betts plays baseball that Betts also bowls.

Conversation isn't always my strong suit. That's why I write.

Anyway, this year's Opening Day gave me a card of Betts practicing his primary craft. He didn't repeat as MVP in 2019, but he did lead the league in hits, keeping up the "barrage" that Topps describes on the back.

These colored parallels go a long way in making Opening Day look a bit more upscale, while maintaining the soul of the brand with lots of fun insert sets.

I'll definitely be back for more Opening Day next year.

A Less Exclusive Club

I've been adding to my vintage collection a bit lately, but don't for a moment think that I'm abandoning current cards.

Stadium Club's resurrection is back in force for a second year, and now available in convenient pack form at your local big box retailer. Last year, the high rollers in this hobby didn't think it stacked up to the overpriced insanity of Museum Collection and the like, so Topps must have figured that it wasn't quite appropriate as a hobby-store-only product.

So I tossed a pack into my red handbasket and ended up with a dozen cards of full-bleed awesomeness.

2015 Stadium Club #12 Giancarlo Stanton

They feel a little thicker than last year, and the subtle lightening under the nameplate reminds me a bit of Flair. And the top-notch photography just can't be beat. I can't quite tell who's behind the plate, absorbing pitches as Stanton bides his time to crush a monster home run. But it's a great example of an all-dirt "Tatooine" card, and we get a pretty good look at how the batters box and infield can be watered differently.

Stanton seems surprisingly forward in the batter's box, and if he tried to swing here, he definitely checked it.

2015 Stadium Club #88 Chris Davis

There were quite a few horizontal cards in this pack, but the vertical ones are typically more plentiful anytime there's a mixture. That holds true for 2015 Stadium Club, and let's be honest, Chris Davis' forearm is pretty much the focal point here. The steroid era may be over, but it still takes plenty of strength to lead the Majors in home runs. Of course, that happens the year after I picked him in fantasy baseball.

2015 Stadium Club #136 Reggie Jackson

I do enjoy seeing retired legends appear in the base set (as long as it's not in flagship), and Reggie rounds out a trio of HR-hitting stars. Though Davis and Stanton are both quite young, they have a long way to go before they match Jackson's 563 career dingers.

Jackson is probably most well-known among casual fans for his performance in the 1977 World Series, but as this card points out, he had quite a successful run in Oakland before donning the pinstripes.

2015 Stadium Club #35 Ryne Sandberg

Sandberg, on the other hand, was a Cubbie almost his entire career, at least until he returned to Philadelphia to manage the team that drafted him. I've seen this card on many blogs, and it's a favorite of mine, too. The sharpness of modern printing does blow me away from time to time, as the texture of Ryno's jersey and the stains on his hat almost pop off the cardboard.

2015 Stadium Club Legends Die Cut #LDC-04 Willie Mays

If you remember the hobby box of 2014 Stadium Club I bought, then you'll recall that I pulled a Willie Mays insert from one of the mini-boxes that year too. Between the card above, last year's Field Access card, and a serial-numbered rarity from Topps High Tek, I've been having awesome luck pulling Mays cards the past year or so.

Die-cut cards are hit or miss for me. Topps Chrome has been going way overboard in recent years, but this Mays is just about my speed. And the color-coding across this insert set is great, especially this copper-colored Giants card.

2015 Stadium Club #13 Ernie Banks

It's not every day that President Obama drapes a Presidential Medal of Freedom around your neck. Like Mays and of course Jackie Robinson, Banks was one of the first African-American players in the MLB. Despite the obvious challenges that remain in this country, a baseball card depicting America's first black president awarding a medal to an early black baseball player many years his senior is a positive and inspirational image, reminding us of how far we've come, yet also how far we have to go.

Other than the obvious Sammy Sosa, Banks is second all-time in Cubs home runs, so his baseball career is nothing to sneeze at, either. Unfortunately for both him and Ryno, neither ever competed in a World Series, but after the recent passing of Mr. Banks, this would be the perfect year for the Cubs to change that.