Another year, another Topps Opening Day release. This release may be just popular enough to stick around each year, but it's not all bad. A truncated release of the flagship set, it combines a lot of base cards from series one and peppers the set with a few previews of series two players.
Is this release necessary? Yes and no.
The Opening Day base set really just becomes a parallel handpicked set of the flagship release, but the upsides generally outweigh the downsides. The major upside is that, at $1 a pack for seven cards, this is a very affordable option for kids. This is usually a gateway pack to bigger and better sets. I hate to put it like that, but it does give novice collectors a very approachable way to get their hands wet into the world of card collecting. It also has fun and kid-friendly options for inserts.
The White Sox have four cards in the base set and a mascot card.
OD-55 - Carlos Rodon
OD-57 - Chris Sale
OD-170 - Jose Quintana
OD-198 - Avisail Garcia
M-21 - Mascot (Southpaw)
Opening Day is definitely no collectors' definition of a perfect set, but it doesn't need to be either. I commend the set for being very affordable and kid-friendly. It also gives a nice preview of a few players not represented in the flagship series one. Those are really the only reason for this set to exist. For some people, that's enough.
4 comments:
Oh no - that last card is not Southpaw. It's "mascot".
(Frigging Topps)
True. "Mascot" is the only card I haven't found by opening packs. :-)
I just found "Mascot", in one of the lamer packs I've opened. I'm dumbfounded as why one would have the rights to use a picture of a mascot but not his name. And, for that matter, why you'd WANT to have a card of a mascot if you can't use his name. Is any kid going to be thrilled with that? (Apparently 5 of the 25 mascots have no name on the card. smh)
Call me a completist. Topps was able to use the Southpaw name in earlier releases. I wonder what happened to change that.
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