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A Pair of Birthday Blasters: 2015 Topps Stadium Club

My birthday was back in November but I'm still sorting through the spoils of the big day!  My brother happened to get me quite a bit of stuff (mostly LEGO related) but he did get me a pair of blasters of 2015 Topps Stadium Club to help satisfy my baseball card itch!  For today's post, I thought it was high time to bust into the blasters....let's see if we can track down one of those on-card autographs that the blasters so loudly advertise (yeah right)!

Each blaster contains 7 packs plus the super valuable extra pack.  Each pack has 5 cards so you get 35 "regular" cards plus 5 "extra" cards for a grand total of 40 cards per box.  Since the 2015 Topps Stadium Club set is a whopping 300 base cards this year, I'm thinking I'll still need quite a few more blasters if I'm going to complete the full set this year!

Blaster 1:

Pack 1:
55.  Lucas Duda
112.  Paul Konerko
146.  Mike Mussina
184.  David Ortiz

Gold parallel:  211.  Justin Verlander

The gold parallels are seeded 1:5 packs which means you should get at least one in every blaster.  While the gold Verlander is certainly nice, my favorite card of the pack is the David Ortiz.  That's such a great image of one of Boston's iconic players of the last decade or so.  Good stuff!

Pack 2:
44.  Todd Frazier

85.  Joey Votto

154.  J.D. Martinez
162.  Craig Kimbrel
262.  Luis Gonzalez

How about that?  A birthday blaster for me and I get a pair of Reds in the second pack out of the blaster!  Woohoo!  I like the Votto card a lot, but to me the Frazier image is even better - I think it's the scoreboard in the background that sends it over the top.

Pack 3:
12.  Giancarlo Stanton

21.  Patrick Corbin
33.  Cal Ripken Jr.
236.  Yusmerio Petit
256.  David Robertson

That Stanton card reminds me of 1991 Topps (and I mean that as a compliment).  It's a simple image, but it's powerful.  The shadow that Stanton is casting is almost as long as the shadow that Marlins' ownership has cast over baseball for the past several years.

Too cynical?  Sorry.  Let's rip one more pack today since my scanner bed is already almost full.  I'll get to the second half of the blaster in the upcoming days!

Pack 4:
5.  Anthony Ranaudo
103.  Kennys Vargas
151.  Andrew Cashner

178.  Steve Pearce
210.   George Brett

You don't see a lot of dugout shots...and even fewer baseball cards feature mirrors on them.  That Cashner card has it all!  I also liked the George Brett card a lot - though the image seems Photoshopped to me, it's still pretty cool.  Hard to imagine a star player today being up in the stands signing that many autographs for fans!

Many thanks to my brother for all the birthday gifts (including this blaster).  I'll get the second half in the near future - for now, enjoy the scans of one of the most beautiful baseball card sets in recent memory!

Comments

  1. That Cashner is nice, hadnt seen that one yet

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  2. Stadium Club certainly has far and away the best photography.

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  3. The Brett pic for that card is legit. I know this because during the Royals 2014 run, they adopted that pop song by Lourdes, aptly titled "Royals", and during an interview with the singer she mentioned that the inspiration for the song was that very photo of George, which originally ran in a National Geographic that she saw.

    Link to the story:
    http://deadspin.com/this-picture-of-george-brett-inspired-that-lorde-song-1478665015

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  4. Stadium Club rules, but the "extra pack" thing has GOT to go. If it's not a bonus pack of something different or special, just put the total.

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  5. That overhead Giancarlo is a cool card. I can't understand why Panini doesn't include a bunch of shots like that in their products.. great looking photo with no pesky logos to worry about! Seriously they should have a product that's entirely overhead shots like that. And then a different product that is only catchers in full gear. And then a 3rd product that's a Studio set with B&W photos guys in street clothes. Boom: 3 quality sets with no logos to worry about!

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