2022 Topps Series 2 : A Study in Disappointment

 

This blog post is about disappointment.

            Or working through disappointment.

            I tried finding a Mister Roger’s Neighborhood episode on the topic (Fred always gives me a boost) …but I couldn’t find one. And I ended up just watching those Land of Make-Believe puppets all afternoon.

            Here, let me show you what I’m talking about in terms of disappointment.

            That was the Silver Pack I opened from the Topps Series2 Hobby box that I opened. My opening salvo to Series2, if you will. I always open the Silver Pack first. I don’t like to wait on surprises. And I was…well…

            Disappointed.

            Marcus Stroman? Come on, man!

            I know there’s a Shane Baz rookie card there. But I don’t collect pitchers. I don’t see the point. Even ones I like. Pitchers get hurt. Shane Baz was already hurt. And I don’t like the way modern pitching is run. Gone are the days of the workhorse throwing 7 2/3 innings then the set-up man and closer come in to finish off the rest. Those days are gone…and I get that. You can’t pitch 7 2/3 innings when pitching is all about velocity and throwing 100 miles an hour. There’s no nuance to pitching. There’s no subtly or true craftsmanship. I get that.

I don’t have to like it.

            So, you can keep your Shane Baz card. Your Clayton Kershaw cards. Your Verlanders and Scherzers, and all the rest.

            But I digress…

            I’m not disappointed in the 2022 design. Not at all. I honestly like what Topps has done with their base design this season. Although getting a number of cards whose backs looked like this was a touch disappointing.

            Anyone else get cards like that?

I can’t really touch what I’m disappointed in, and that’s what’s bothering me. No, it’s not the fact that there were no rookie cards of Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., and Spencer Torkelson (a name I can only spell because Monkee, Peter Tork’s, real last name is Torkelson), other than SP cards…none of which I got by the way. I didn’t expect to get one of the short prints. I know my luck.

            If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

            ***A brief aside, love my SP Vlady Jr. RC as I do (only because the photo is far superior than his Update one), I don't really appreciate the SP rookie card in base. In a world saturated with rookie cards, just do us all a favor Topps and give a player their one legit rookie card. Enough with the false scarcity....you do that enough with parallels and other bells and whistles***

           That said, two rookies that I was actually excited for are in Series2 as regular base cards.

            One is already playing for the Pirates and the other is currently in AAA, having his time manipulated by the Major League organization.

            I got the Pirates cards I needed.

            There’s plenty of star power in Series2.

            There’s even some fading star power.

            And there were even a good number of cards for all of those guys whose rookie cards we were all nuts over last season, who now have second year cards with Rookie Cups or Future Star plastered on their card, and only cost .18 cents on SportsLots, because who in the hell cares about someone’s SECOND card…right?

            Disappointed AND a touch cynical this week.

            Of course, there were the rookie cards.

            Fifty-Seven in Series2 to be exact. I managed to get forty-nine of those rookies in the Hobby Box that I opened. A quick check of them all revealed that thirty-two of the forty-nine rookies I pulled, the players were aged twenty-five or older. Now, I’m forty-eight. Twenty-five-year-olds blow my mind. I was twenty-five. Sometimes I can still taste twenty-five. Feel it in my soul. Sometimes I wish I could BE twenty-five again.

            But not if I were still a baseball prospect.

            Twenty-five is pushing it to still trying to be making it in baseball.

            Yet there are at least thirty-two cards featuring a rookie player twenty-five years or older.

            But even that doesn’t seem to touch why I’m disappointed.

            I got the requisite bells and whistles in my Hobby Box.

            The 1987 cards.

            Hey got Acuna! But he’s an effin’ Brave.

            A Jackie 1987.

            There are very few players for whom I collect post-playing-day cards. One is Roberto Clemente. One is Willie Stargell. Another is Henry Aaron. And the last one of those four is Jackie Robinson. Getting post-playing-day cards of Jackie Robinson in packs is special to me. It’s the closest I’m getting to the sensation of pulling a Jackie card. And I know I’m never going to own a real Jackie card from his playing days. These inserts are it.

            A small Oasis in an otherwise barren landscape.

            I got the foil cards.

            I got the one Gold Card.

            I got a SP card for a pitcher who plays for a team I’ve loathed for over thirty years.

            I got another SP for a star player for another team I absolutely loathe.

            (I’m going to try and get those out to people who actually like those teams)

            I was excited for the Diamond Greats Die-Cut cards because Willie Stargell has one. Instead, I got this guy.

            No disrespect to Randy Johnson and his Hall of Fame career. But if there is a post-playing-day card that I’m going to get…IN…ANYTHING…I…OPEN…it’s going to be Randy Johnson. I’m somehow fated to get a Randy Johnson card. It’s not a bad thing if you’re a Randy Johnson fan, but for someone, like me, who took barely a passing interest in his career (scroll up and read what I wrote about old school pitching and feel free to tap your HYPOCRITE button at home), I sort of shrug and move on.

            To these inserts.

            And another goddamned Red Sox.

            And these.

            Featuring a guy who regularly makes my Pirates look like fools…and another goddamned Red Sox.

            I didn’t get an auto card…par for the course.

            But I didn’t get a player relic.

            Instead, I got this.

            WTF?

            I don’t know if they were packaging my Hobby Box next to the Blaster Box section of the Topps Factory, but that card ain’t what was promised on the box, and…

            Shit.

            I think I know why I’m disappointed. It’s not the cards. It’s not the star cards. It’s not the rookie cards, or the fact that I was sweating it out until the second to last pack to even pull that Oneil Cruz rookie card. It’s not any of it.

            It’s the goddamned bells and whistle cards.

            What have I become?

            I often go OFF about how I don’t care about insert cards, and how I don’t understand them in regards to modern collecting. But…three years in…I expected...more? Maybe one player I liked or collected in that silver pack. Same with most of the 1987 inserts. All of my other inserts seem to be a Brave or a goddamned Red Sox. Then there’s my strange, twisted history with Randy Johnson cards.

            Yeah…I’m disappointed in the bell and whistle cards I got.

            But…

            Through disappointment comes understanding. I’ve been learning a lot about myself as a collector this year. I’m learning that I’m not the set-builder that I thought I was. I’m more of home team/single player (mostly for the home team) collector. Series2 would be underwhelming in that regard because there weren’t a lot of Pittsburgh Pirate cards, and I didn’t get a single Pirates player as an insert.

            So, I’ve thought about it. I think going forward, 2023 and beyond, I’m going to let other collectors spend their money and rip Hobby Boxes. Then I’m going to go onto SportLots/ComC and buy the singles of players, team players, and bells and whistles that I want. I seem to do that every single time I buy a Hobby box now, so why not save myself a couple hundred bucks every season. 

        I’m not going to stop ripping wax, even though giving up on Heritage and now Hobby base would appear that way. There’s Update and Archives after all. I might put my money toward ripping older wax now. I'm always on Baseball Card Exchange saying to myself, man, I'd love to buy that! If only I weren't ripping modern stuff. 

            And as for sets? I guess if I want that year’s set, I’ll just buy one when they become available during the summer.

            See?

            Not so disappointed now, right?

            Except…

            Remember last week’s post? When I said how excited I wad going to be to get a Michael Chavis card in a Pirates uniform? Remember that?

            Yeah...I got that Chavis card.

            In a Homestead Grays uniform instead of a Pirates one.

            Sigh.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

NEXT FRIDAY: Collecting…by the book. Interpret that as you see fit.