Ride The Waterslide.

       Seeing as I have little to no interest in who wins today's Big Game (aka Super Bowl - sue me!) it seems as good a time as any to break out the new Topps.  I stopped in two Target stores only to stare at bare shelves full of old, picked-through 2017 product and it was only serendipity that led me to cut across a parking lot to a Toys R Us to go looking for the new stuff.

There I found blasters and hanger boxes and seeing as it was Friday and I had some money burning the proverbial hole in my pocket, I bought one of each. 

I assume Topps has Mike Trout under lifetime contract since we get to look at his mug on the packs yet again and I am surprised Aaron Judge isn't here - maybe series 2.  One thing I am amazed at is the now incredible amount of odds and legalese that accompanies baseball cards.  It literally takes up the entire back of the hanger box:

Enough of the packaging, let's take a look at the cards. When this set was previewed last fall people immediately seized upon the 3D ribbon on the bottom of the graphic and referred to it as the Water Slide Set.  I think it is Night Owl that keeps track of "official" nicknames but this one was a no brainer.  If only it twisted in on itself a little, it could have been the Mobius Strip Set, which would be as good a name as the Psychedelic Gravestones IMO.  I'll have more on the design in a later post, though this is a great improvement over the last couple years.

As the name of my blog hints at, I tend to view sports cards nine at a time and this is the page I made from the 20(!) doubles I got in 172 cards.  Since I bought 2 different boxes I guess that isn't terrible collation but hardly optimal for the set builder (full disclosure, I am not building the set).  The real disappointment was that I only got 3(!) Mets cards out of all those cards.  All things considered, statistically, I should have gotten 5 or 6.  Luckily Amed Rosario was 2 of those cards.

These are some more cards that are staying in the collection: rookie cups and World Series cards, and of course a couple of my birthday boys, Garrett Richards and Yoan Moncada. Not to mention a couple of dudes that are tastefully named. The rest are for player collections or other such things.

This is just about all the cards that are staying in the collection this time around.  Not an inspirational haul but part of the joy of this time of year is the opening of the new flagship as a reminder that spring and the season are just around the corner.  Good thing to since it is cold as fuck this weekend and this Superb Owl has me rooting for the meteor strike.  In the name of completeness, let's look at the inserts that Topps inundates us with:

This is Year 18 of the gold parallels, they are now old enough to vote.  I am always fond of the shiny and that McCullers is a rainbow foil parallel; alas my scanner didn't quite do it justice.  Topps has a new contest that is convoluted as it is uninspired.  It involves scratching things and home runs hit on certain dates and in the end winning a trip to the 2019 Home Run Derby.  The fine print is what you're going to get is an all expense paid trip to Cleveland.  Wonderful.  Also seen here are the opposite ends of the insert spectrum, the Superstar Sensations which features players in glorious swooshes of purple and sparkles, and then MLB Award winners, a well-worn concept drably presented in what looks like a design that was rejected last year with all it's bad negative space and jutting angles.

On the top row we see the Salute cards again, in what looks like a rejected design for this year's flagship set; I had a hard time picking them out during my sort.  I am not sure if presenting 100 different cards in a bunch of different subsets reeks of overkill or laziness.  That is not high praise.  Speaking of lazy, Topps also has a whole insert set here titled Opening Day.  Given the design, why not something with "Wall" or "Bricks" or "Foundation" or some other cliche rather than the same name as an entirely different set they already release.  *sigh*

I ruminated last time around if the 30th anniversary milestone would be a touchstone for a design reprint insert.  I was wrong because this time they are going with 1983 as a 35th anniversary.  Topps really does love to congratulate itself on its own history.  But between Archives and Heritage, these are overkill to the extreme.  We just got 1983 in Archives a few years back anyway.  Since they insist on reusing all their old nostalgic designs, I wish they could/would use Archives base cards to highlight subsets or odd vintage inserts rather than flagship designs, or even other sports designs applied to baseball, as they have done before for inserts.  This could mix things up a little and they have done it to interesting results for their WWE Heritage sets.  Also above you see a set called Legends in the Making and they are exactly what you would expect from that bland moniker, a rehash of young stars and highly touted rookies presented in some splattery computer design that looks like something Panini would reject.  Am I wrong in thinking Topps would be better off focusing on a few excellent inserts with nifty designs rather than a bunch of rehashes and rejects?  That or since this is the flagship, just keep parallels, inserts and short print variations to a minimum and focus on the base cards.  I know, this is crazy talk.

Speaking of which, last but not least here you see my promised manu-patch card from the blaster.  I really liked the idea of Players Weekend, with the funky jerseys and nicknames on the back of uniforms.  I think it would make a splendid topic for a well done insert set.  Instead, Topps kind of throws the idea away without bringing it to full fruition and giving it the attention it deserves.  They don't focus on the nicknames the players used at all and use the same "patch" for every card.  They at least did come up with a photo of Miguel Cabrera in the uniform the Tigers used that weekend.  It really makes you wonder who's making decisions over there.  

Most of the cards here are available for trade (think from the gold parallels down) and I have a whole list of cards (in comments) if you need to fill your want lists. Be warned, these cards are destined for eBay so act quickly.  I am looking for the Mets cards and inserts and will gladly trade for them as I didn't get very many, as I lamented before.  Drop me an email or comment if you're game for swapping.   And now, back to hour nine of the SB pregame show.