Day One - 2017 Topps Series 1 Tyler Naquin #203

Day 1: A Card From the Current Year With A Photo You Like

Taking the lead from Tony at Off-Hiatus Baseball Cards this will be the first of 30 posts, using the prompts provided. I won't necessarily post one every day, but I will do one for each card, toss in a few "insights" (as insightful as I can be, anyway), and usually include an honorable mention or two, just because I'm like that.

Here's my pick - I thought about waiting until Stadium Club comes out before picking a favorite, but I am convinced that this one is still going to be high on the list. What you're looking at is rookie Tyler Naquin heading home for a walk off inside the park home run. Fransisco Lindor is matching him stride for stride to kick off the celebration.You can see the fans in the first two rows, all on their feet, giddy and elated. Naquin had hit a walk off sacrifice fly the night before, so this was his way of increasing the excitement so his game winning RBI don't get stale or boring. It was win number 70 for Cleveland, and they rode the excitement and energy from that win all the way to game seven of the World Series.

Since these are basically one card posts, why not show the backs, too?

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When I saw this card, I recognized the context immediately, though the image I associate with Naquin's walk off is throwing up horns after his head first slide into home.


Here are a couple honorable mentions-- I'm guessing that Stadium Club will offer a few more candidates for favorite photos of 2017 releases.

Great view of Oakland Coliseum. (p.s. - I think this was the May 22nd game Hahn started vs. NYY)

Another great moment- Team U.S.A. won the World Baseball Classic for the first time, thanks in no small part to plays like this one. All the mini U.S. flags in the background are a nice touch.

First Impressions - 2017 Topps Series 1

This will be a pic heavy post. Johnny Cueto - the first card pulled from the first pack of 2017 for me! Not sure what compelled me to sleeve this card and put it in a card holder, but the first card each year is kind of like a "reverse wallet card" to me...

There are a TON of horizontal cards in Series 1 - I haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It would be crazy if Topps went all Horizontal again, this year has plenty of examples.

The backs - Colorful! Vibrant! Not everyone has an instagram, and that's OK. Beltre's instagram would probably be awesome, but I guess we'll never know. The mystery just makes it better in our imaginations.

Marcel Ozuna for a control, Base card. The parallels have the series listed in a reflective faux foil just underneath the name plate - probably makes finding those refractors a little easier?  

Whole lotta inserts. Did you know that Topps released a set in 1987? Don't feel bad if you forgot, I think they only had a few in last year's set. (Snark aside, I do like the rainbow "Future Stars" so much better than the current version). This is a 100 card subset.

Hey Remember These? I guess they didn't want to do another reprint of Jackie's Rookie card? Maybe there's several different ones, but Jackie had the only non-rookie reprint.

"Fielding Award" - did Topps forget to pay Rawlings for the rights to the Gold Glove name?

First pitch is back! These are nice, I hope they made one for Kevin Garnett at last year's Twins Opening Day! Oh, they didn't? What about a different one from Minnesota? Oh, none. But 7 different Cubs? OK.
Rookie Cups are back too! These are the right scale for this design, good job Topps!

Let's Promote Bowman!!!

This is two different insert sets - a 100 card insert set called "Topps Salute" - and another set for Jackie Robinson Day. Seems like a lot... 

One more insert set - 5 Tool players. Is Rizzo a 5- Tool Guy? He stole 3 bases in 2016 . . . Oh well, It's a cool card either way.

Gotta Share the Twins.

They have some great photos for Twins this year, so that's a nice consolation for them being a terrible team the last 4 years.

To close it out here are some of the favorites from the cards I pulled.

I think that percentage wise, it feels like there are more good / interesting / fun photo selections than in the past. The design itself is fine, though I'm not a fan of the player names - they all seem like they are the wrong size, either stretched out or scrunched down to fit in the space provided. Really need to stop with the inserts of old cards reprinted, and don't really need the 1987 Topps design in Flagship - just stick it in Archives or something. First Pitch is fun - why don't they do National Anthem singers? Just a thought. I like 2017 Topps, I won't dump them in a garbage can and then throw that can off the bridge.

Happy 2017 everyone, may your packs be filled with all the cards you need!