2022 Topps Garbage Pail Kids x MLB Series 1

                                   

One of the casualties of 2022's on demand products was this crossover of Garbage Pail Kids and MLB. I forget which month I ordered this, but the pack/box finally came at the end of February 2023. This set features exclusive art by Keith Shore, however I wasn't sure what to think as I didn't care for his take on previous on demand products like Project 2020. I'm glad I didn't try to cancel the order because once the pack/box came I was fairly happy with the cards in hand. Let's take a look.

All of these cards are based off original GPK designs, just "touched" up by Keith. My favorite of this lot by far is the card of Albert Pujols. This is based off the card Roy Bot...

I don't recall what the odds were on pulling a numbered parallel, but this Braves fan got lucky!

Bronze "Rinsed Off Ronald" 01/50!

I am a fan of most of the Garbage Pail Kids releases and this one is no different. The only thing I'm not a fan of is the price. Packs I believe were $20 when they first went on sale, which was already expensive, but now they go for about x2 to x3 times that...if you can find them. Series 2 I believe is coming, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother. While these are cool, my money can go further with other GPK sets like the current Vacation series.

2023 Topps Series 1 Retail

Greetings...

Hope everyone is doing well.  After many, many, many, many posts in the blogosphere from folks obtaining their first cards of the Fanatics era, I was finally able to come across some packs at the Target closest to my work last week.  Sure I could have gone to the Target website and picked up a blaster box, but that wouldn't be fun.

Plus, it appears that the general consensus from the blogosphere is hanger boxes and rack packs are the way to go.  I'm in that boat as well, mainly since Topps started using patches and not-relics as their "bonus" pack.  Anyway, I picked up 2 hanger boxes and 2 loose packs.

16 cards per pack, still $3.50 per pack (still $12 for the hanger boxes).  Let's see what I got:

#65 - Triston McKenzie

#196 - Jordan Romano

My first 2023 card is Triston McKenzie.  Several bloggers seemed to always chronicle their first cards for a given year, something I haven't done consistently and regretted not doing so.  I would have loved to remember what my very first baseball card was.

#228 - Ryan Pressly

#59 - Eduardo Rodriguez

There's the usual 330 cards in the checklist.

#321 - Garrett Cooper 

#181 - Yordan Alvarez

The bloggers appear to approve of this year's design, and I'm with them, although I'm not a fan of the tiny team names, since the enlarged logo should be enough for the buyer to know what team the guy's playing for.  

I think Topps should have also used baseballs instead of stars on the bottom corners, and then used stars as a subtle recognition for All-Stars or those (now rarer) gold parallels.

#202 - Tony Gonsolin

#200 - Freddie Freeman

Night Owl picked up Alvarez / Gonsolin / Freeman / Toro in one of his hanger boxes so this appears to be a regular collation of cards.

#297 - Abraham Toro 

#T88-64 Julio Rodríguez

Topps is sticking with the odd-sounding 35th anniversary inserts.  At least they got the 3-D effect correct.

#SMLB-2 Mike Trout 

#162 Isiah Kiner-Falefa

A Stars of MLB insert is found in every pack.  I love Isiah's profile picture.  It seems all of the others are straight-ahead, his is kinda cartoonish.

#76 - Josh Winckowski (RC)

#105 - Seth Beer

It took this long for me to get to a rookie card.  There are 56 rookies in Series 1 (2022 Topps Series 1 had 49 rookies).

Seth Beer needs to be traded to Milwaukee.  Then Nick Bierbrodt needs to come out of retirement (holy crap, he retired in 2011?) and sign a one-day contract with the Brewers or something so they can play together.  Think of the marketing opportunities!

#75 - JT Brubaker

#97 - Brandon Hughes (RC)

We end the pack with rookie Brandon Hughes from the Field of Dreams game.

Here are the backs.  I went with Triston's back not because he's my first card of 2023, but to show that apparently Topps can't use Indians anymore?

Anyway, that's the pack.  Not bad...like everyone else I plan to get more.  Opening Day is just around the corner!

Enjoy the week, and thanks for reading!