2025 Topps Stadium Club Fat Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.

Apologies for the lack of quasi-regular posts here.  I attribute it to plenty of working both jobs, plus the small shift in the start time of the overnight job (like an hour or so) which I guess somehow led to less time to work on posts in the middle of the night.

Since I've been MIA, my home laptop bit the dust back at Easter (no resurrections there unfortunately), which meant the pictures I took of cards for the blog (among a bunch of other files and whatnot) were lost.  Finding the packs again to retake the pictures takes time, especially when there's little time available.

Plus America turned 250, we had the NBA Finals and the MLB All Star Game, and The Wifey and I both turned 50 in the last few weeks, but enough rambling.

I was initially excited when I saw Fat Packs of Stadium Club; 7 bucks for 36 cards?  Of Stadium Club?  Awesome!  Then I found out there were 100 less cards in the set, with no reason why.  Not as excited, but I still got some packs.  Here's one of them:

#26 - Yainer Diaz

#169 - Oneil Cruz

Starting off with 2 horizontal cards.  The minimalist nameplate works overall for Stadium Club, but it can lead to issues reading the name, like with Yainer there.

#48 - Shota Imanaga

#154 - Dalton Rushing (RC)

#88 - Nolan Schanuel (Pink Parallel)

#51 - Ketel Marte

It's unfortunate that Shota's card is a duplicate to his Topps flagship card from last year.  Also notice the 3 parallels are not all together in the pack.

#120 - Sandy Alcantara

#78 - Lawrence Butler

#178 - Mackenzie Gore

Nice Butler card, but hard to see his name, just like Diaz's card above.

#168 - Freddie Freeman (Pink Parallel)

#175 - James Wood (RC) (Pink Parallel)

Here are the other 2 parallels.

The jersey Wood's wearing was an alternate home jersey, which was their first pullover jersey (as opposed to the standard button-up style).  Info online seems to indicate this jersey was over and done with after a year.

#134 - George Kirby

#82 - Kyle Manzardo

#192 - Trevor Hoffman

#160 - Mookie Betts

#54 - Caden Dana (RC)

No offense to Caden, but questionable move by Topps to waste a spot in Stadium Club (remember, 100 cards less than last year) on a player with a career 1-6 record, an ERA of 7.17, and has yet to pitch in the majors this year.

#180 - Manny Machado

#65 - Matt Shaw (RC)

Here's the checklist if anyone needs it.

#188 - CJ Abrams

#44 - Jon Berti

That's probably the best Jon Berti baseball card ever, but again, why give a spot to a player who hasn't played since the Cubs released him last August?  Certainly that was enough time to remove him from the checklist, since Stadium Club was released in February.

#103 - Chandler Simpson (RC)

#93 - Spencer Schwellenbach

#56 - Steven Kwan

#2 - Joey Votto

The randomness of teams returns; glad they fixed the issue with the team groupings from last year.

#148 - Ryan Howard

#30 - Salvador Perez

#40 - Ozzie Albies

I also read that there were less inserts / variations in this year's set.  I bought several of the Fat Packs and only got 1 insert, so it's possible the claims were legit.

#13 - Logan Henderson (RC)

#183 - Masyn Winn

Henderson's having a pretty good year for the always tough Brewers, and I've been a Cubs fan long enough to never count out the Cardinals until they're mathematically eliminated.

#133 - Buster Posey

#115 - Luisangel Acuña

#167 - Matt Chapman

That's a great Acuña card.  It's like the Jedi ghosts of Mr. and Mrs. Met have approved of his training.

#175 - James Wood (RC)
#155 - Pete Alonso
#146 - Junior Caminero
#199 - Johan Santana

Last 4 cards.  Since it's a James Wood hot pack I'll show off his back, and since there's no inserts there's no need to show more.

Anyway, that's the pack.  Overall, the Stadium Club photography and Fat Packs win the day, but less cards and possibly less inserts and variations isn't so good overall.  

Hopefully this gets me off my rear end and I can get back to the quasi-regular posts.  As always, thanks for reading!

1988-89 Pacific MISL

Here we have a pack of 1988-89 Pacific MISL soccer cards. The wrapper is traditional wax of the time and the most obvious feature is the sticker they pit on the wrapper to cover up the fact someone forgot to change the date from the previous season. Gotta love the 80s.

Normally, I would start with the fronts, but uploading from my phone will not pit the photos in the correct order regardless of how I select them, so here we are:

This back features former Pittsburgh Spirit star Joe Papaleo playing for the Dallas Sidekicks because Pittsburgh dissolved the Spirit for the second time. As a kid, I saw every Spirit home game and even hung out with the team during various events like the annual Christmas party. I digress. The backs feature an almost 90s-esque teal blue accent. The card number is shown in the upper left corner. The player’s name, team, and position are centered at the top, and the Pacific logo sits in the upper right corner. Below that, we have player stats including their nationality, which I think is a cool bio addition for soccer players. Below the stats is the copyright info.

The first three cards are displayed below. The fronts feature a gray border around the whole face. Inset, the featured player or coach is surrounded by a thin colored border that matches the team primary color. In the ipper right, an offset caption shows the card’s season. At the bottom, the team logo, player name, and position are displayed in a larger offset box. Here we have Andy Chapman, Chris Vaccaro, and Slobo Ilijevski:

The full set contains 110 cards. There were no inserts, parallels, special editions, etc. This was a “take em as we give em” kinda deal.

The next three cards are  Neil Megson, Mike Dowler, and Dale Mitchell:

Fun fact: the very first baseball card I ever bought as a kid was a Dale Mitchell Bowman. I paid 25 cents and I was probably 7 or 8 years old.

The next three cards in the pack are Joe Papaleo, Kevin Smith, and Gary Etherington:

And the remaining cards feature Terry Rowe, Kevin Kewley, and Coach Keith Tozer:

Growing up with MISL in the 80s, seeing these players brought back many memories. This was a fun, even if somewhat plain, trip down nostalgia lane.

2026 Topps Heritage Fat Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  We're a month into the baseball season, the NBA and NHL playoffs are moving into the second round, and the NFL draft wrapped up recently.  Yep, spring is here!

Heritage was released back in mid-March.  It's based on the 1977 release, but I'm sure you all know that.  Here's a fat pack for all to see.  7 bucks for 20 cards...let's see what I got:

#367 - Kristian Campbell

#169 - Edward Cabrera

#58 - Chandler Simpson

#28 - Nico Hoerner

The Marlins traded Cabrera to the Cubs in January for a package including Owen Cassie.  Cubs fans at the time were a little bummed, thinking Cassie was gonna a be a big part of the future.  So far, early returns seems to favor the Cubs; Cabrera has been solid while Owen has struggled after a hot start.

#292 - Mick Abel

#346 - Hunter Goodman

#183 - Trea Turner

#271 - Austin Riley

The Twins City Connect uniforms lean into Minnesota's "Land of 10,000 Lakes" nickname.  They call the "azure blue base and bright yellow accents designed to evoke sunlight reflecting off the water" the "Ripple Effect."  OK then.

#314 - Carlos Estévez

#79 - Carson Whisenhunt (RC)

#4 - ONeil Cruz /José Caballero (League Leaders)

I like the shot of Carlos pointing up for us to see how to spell his last name. 

#241 - Seiya Suzuki

#RA-BC - Bubba Chandler (RC) (Ready and Action) 

Overall, the set does a decent job of replicating the 1977 set.  I'm sure there are blog posts out there that go into detail about what they got wrong and what they got OK.

There's 25 cards in the Ready and Action insert set, and they come 1 in 11 Fat Packs.

#366 - Marcus Semien (Dark Yellow) 

#63 - Mike Yastrzemski (Aqua Sparkle Refractor) 

The inserts conclude with 2 Fat Pack exclusives.  They either come in 1 out of 2 or 3 Fat Packs, depending what "EA" and "SE" means on the Topps Odds sheet.

Looks like they spelled Mike's name right this time!

#99 - Bryan Woo

#342 - Michael Harris II

#365 - Kyle Isbel

There's 400 cards in the set, with 100 short prints scattered throughout.  Here's the checklist if you need it.

#327 - Willy Adames

#220 - Ketel Marte

And we end with an All-Star card, that's pretty nice.

Here's some backs because spring:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Collectors pretty much know what they're getting with Heritage.  I'll have another Heritage post on here eventually.  Until next time, enjoy the week and thanks for reading!

Ballers FIFA World Cup

 

This caught my eye during a trip to Target. I decide to purchase the blind ball pull to check it out. After peeling the wrapper.....

 .....I got another wrap to peel off. Zuru takes anti-tampering seriously. After peeling another wrapping.....

 .....I have to open this white plastic globe. After opening it consists of.....

 ....two black wrappers, a checklist, and absorbent silicate pack. Rip those black wrappers....

.....I got a figure, board, soccer ball, and a card. Put it together it looks like this.

I got Alisson Becker from Team Brazil. I might superglue the hands and the figure to the board as it gets loose to easily. Here is the checklist. There are 42 figures to collect.

 

2025 Panini Absolute Football Value Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  In true Ol' Jafronius fashion, I started this post right around the Super Bowl, hence the football pack.  But as usual, life got in the way.  That, and an odd increase in Target hours have taken away my free time.  Anyway, life getting the way isn't new to any of you all; I shall try my best to be better posting, just don't expect it:

Feeling an urge to rip something (remember this was over a month ago), I decided to try one of these out.  Target had a bunch of it so why not; 7 bucks for 20 cards:

#88 - Brandon Aiyuk

#30 - DJ Moore

Bears fans will not forget his catch against Green Bay late last year.  Bummer he got traded to the Bills, but hopefully he'll have a successful run with Josh Allen.

#72 - Rome Odunze

#14 - Marvin Harrison Jr.

With DJ gone, Odunze will need to step up.  He did pretty well last year.  

#39 - Josh Jacobs

#81 - Jonathan Taylor

There's 200 cards in the set, the first 100 are veterans and the second 100 are rookies.

#23 - Brian Robinson Jr.

#66 - Bucky Irving

I checked older posts, and it's a pretty standard Absolute design.  Overall, the design is OK, it's what you expect from Panini.

Bucky is one of the 3 exclusive Blue Parallels.

#7 - Tank Bigsby

#113 - Chimere Dike (RC)

Here are the other 2.  Notice the extra shiny on the rookie card.  

Dike had an OK rookie year, with 4 TDs while playing all 17 games for the Titans.

#18 - Bijan Robinson (Hog Heaven)

#1 - Abdul Carter (Rookie Wave)

Insert time!  Each of those insert sets contain 20 cards, and yes they're shiny too.

#132 Jalen Milroe (RC)

#190 Trey Amos (RC)

A couple more rookies for you.  Trey played 10 games for Arizona, while Jalen essentially rode the bench (but I assume he'll get a ring).

#58 - DeVonta Smith

#99 - Joe Mixon

It's been a while since APTBNL posted an Absolute Football pack; the last one was back in 2020!

#41 - Tua Tagovailoa

#67 - Brian Thomas Jr.

Tua signed with Atlanta after being let go by Miami; the Dolphins owes him over $55 million!

#8 - Sam Darnold

#49 - Christian McCaffrey

We end the pack with the Super Bowl QB and the consistently great (when healthy) CMC.

Here are some backs because March Madness:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Not bad for $7; I don't buy a lot of them so as long as I get some good players I'm OK with it.

Enjoy those College Basketball tournaments, RIP Chuck Norris, and thanks for reading!

2025 Uno Elite Core Edition NFL Booster Pack

Target had these on blowout so I picked up a couple boxes for $2.69 each. I'll save the other box and packs for later on my new blog Batting Out Of Order.

Each box has four booster packs with ten cards in a pack.

The ten cards include two cards from each Uno color: Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, and two foil cards.

The player will have four cards with the same photo but in the four different colors.

There are 192 cards in each color set.

I pulled green foil and yellow foil parallels.

All told, there are nine different foil parallels, each with 192 cards.

I'll let you do the math.