Top 9 Cards Pulled from Our Box of 2022 Topps Stadium Club Chrome!

Earlier this week, I held a group break consisting of two boxes of 2022 Topps Stadium Club Chrome.  The 2022 set is actually a brand new release from Topps (released about a week or so ago) despite having the 2022 label stuck to it.  I guess Topps if over four months behind on their release schedule?  Anyhow, despite the weird 2022/23 thing, I had a lot of fun ripping the two boxes and I thought it might be fun to go through the first box and pick out my nine favorite cards from the box.

Why nine?  Because 9 cards fit on my scanner bed while 10 (or more) cards would require multiple scans.  I'm nothing if not lazy (and efficient).  On second thought, I guess my plan of 9 won't work so well since so many of the cool cards have a horizontal orientation.   So fine, I'll need to do multiple scans...but I'm sticking to my favorite 9 cards from the box!

#9:  351.  Jeff McNeil

I like Stadium Club (and by extension, Stadium Club Chrome) mostly for the base cards so you can expect to see quite a few base cards in my Top 9!  We start with a unique camera angle shot of McNeil who kind of looks like he's flying in the photo.  It's cards like this that make you stop and take a second look that always appeal to me in Stadium Club!

#8:  Autograph:  SCCUA-BLA  Bryan Lavastida

As I said in the write-up for the McNeil card, I don't buy Stadium Club for the autographs.  Mostly, you can expect to get rookie autos and since I'm not a prospector that doesn't appeal to me much.  That being said, I do appreciate that the autos are on-card and Lavastida has a decent looking signature here.  There's always a chance that a rookie auto that might seem underwhelming now ends up looking great in a couple of years!

#7:  149.  Zack Wheeler

We've seen plenty of water cooler celebration images by now but it still makes for a fun looking baseball card.  The crispness of the water in the image is what seals the deal for me on the card making my Top 9!

#6:  Orange refractor:  264.  Joe Musgrove #12/25

The Orange refractor parallels are seeded 1:71 packs which seems way more common than I would have thought for a parallel that is numbered out of only 25 copies!  This card is also a "Christmas card" in that it's serially-numbered 12 out of 25.  Pretty cool to pull a fairly rare parallel and one of two Padres cards to make my Top 9 (a bit of a spoiler for later in the list)!

#5:  Beam Team Wave Refractor:  BT-13.  Shohei Ohtani

Seeded 1:112 packs, the Beam Team Wave Refractor parallels are quite rare (and by pack odds, this was the rarest card in the box).  I can't complain about pulling a rather rare Ohtani - after all, the dude is a freak of a baseball monster (and I mean that with utmost respect)!

#4:  345.  Jurickson Profar

There's our second Padres card of the countdown!  This is another one of those "interesting photo angles" where we have a photo of a guy taking a photo of the main subject of the card.  I dig it for it's oddness.

#3:  Trophy Hunters:  RL-33.  Jose Altuve

I image that this particular insert set will be the most polarizing set design from 2022 Stadium Club Chrome.  It's got to be either a "love it or hate it" scenario.  Obviously, with the card taking spot #3 in my Top 9 countdown you can tell that I fall firmly in the "love it" camp!  The design harkens back to mid-90s Stadium Club and the nostalgia hits perfectly for me.  The card is garish in all the best ways, I only wish we had pulled the Joey Votto card from the set (as he's the lone Red in the 35 card Trophy Hunter set).

#2:  Blue refractor:  #215. Alex Kirilloff #002/199

The Blue refractors are seeded 1:13 packs so they are basically one-per-box (a box actually contains 14 packs so you have an outside shot of finding two Blue refractors in a single box).  Despite being numbered out of 199, this card ranks higher than the Orange refractor #/25 simply because I very much prefer the photo on the Kiriloff card (and remember, it's the base card design that typically trumps everything else for me when looking at a set)!

#1:  2.  Bobby Witt, Jr.

We end the countdown with a base card!  No fancy inserts or autographs here, nope.  The #1 card in the box (in my humble opinion) was this base rookie card of Bobby Witt, Jr.  I love everything about it - the preponderance of blue for a Royals' card, the fact that this is Witt's rookie card, and of course, the actual image itself showing the joy and fun of baseball.  What an awesome rookie card to have if you are Bobby Witt, Jr. - and what a great way to end box #1!  

As I said at the top of the post, the group break actually consisted of two boxes of 2022 TSC Chrome.  I haven't decided yet if I'll do another Top 9 post for the other box so feel free to chime in with your thoughts as to whether or not you'd be interested in that.  As for future group breaks, I'm now gearing up for my next Breaker's Club so come check out my Discord channel for all the details!