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