And when I say the "best set of the year" I'm not talking about chasing mojo bullshit.."I might pull a Sandy Koufax or Hank Aaron auto!" Yeah, right. I'm talking the best all-around baseball card set.
#4 Mascot Cards
You either love them or hate them and I love them. I don't quite know why they aren't regularly included in the regular flag ship set but I buy Opening Day to get a few of these each year.
#3 Political Cards
This one is personal to me as I am a huge political card collector. There weren't any included in the flagship set this time around and with Upper Deck not making entire sets of political cards [Artifacts/Pieces Of History, anyone?] the political card scene is pretty slow. Thanks to Opening Day we at least get one insert set of political cards.
#2 3-D Cards
I collected all of the 2020 3-D cards from last year's flagship set and I'm glad that they are back again. I'm beginning to think that my interests are squarely in line with a 12-year-old boy's.
#1 The Stadium Lights Set
And now we move to clearly the best insert set of the year: Glow In The Dark cards. It's so simple, it's genius. I've only pulled one card thus far in this set but I will probably make a run at the complete insert set.
The overall irreverence of the Opening Day set is why I love it. You would never see glow in the dark cards in Allen & Ginter and I think that set suffers with a lack of change and new ideas now that it is old enough to be in kindergarten.
And P.S...the Opening Day blue border parallel cards are so much nicer looking than the gold border parallels from the flagship set...just wanted to throw that in there.
#4 Mascot Cards
You either love them or hate them and I love them. I don't quite know why they aren't regularly included in the regular flag ship set but I buy Opening Day to get a few of these each year.
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| #M-5 Southpaw |
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| #M-21 Fredbird |
#3 Political Cards
This one is personal to me as I am a huge political card collector. There weren't any included in the flagship set this time around and with Upper Deck not making entire sets of political cards [Artifacts/Pieces Of History, anyone?] the political card scene is pretty slow. Thanks to Opening Day we at least get one insert set of political cards.
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| #PFP-6 Woodrow Wilson First Pitch |
#2 3-D Cards
I collected all of the 2020 3-D cards from last year's flagship set and I'm glad that they are back again. I'm beginning to think that my interests are squarely in line with a 12-year-old boy's.
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| #ODS-4 Josh Hamilton |
#1 The Stadium Lights Set
And now we move to clearly the best insert set of the year: Glow In The Dark cards. It's so simple, it's genius. I've only pulled one card thus far in this set but I will probably make a run at the complete insert set.
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| #UL-7 Pedro Alverez Stadium Lights |
The overall irreverence of the Opening Day set is why I love it. You would never see glow in the dark cards in Allen & Ginter and I think that set suffers with a lack of change and new ideas now that it is old enough to be in kindergarten.
And P.S...the Opening Day blue border parallel cards are so much nicer looking than the gold border parallels from the flagship set...just wanted to throw that in there.
Comments
I wasn't huge into the inserts overall, although I do like Stadium Lights a lot. And I agree, you either love or hate mascot cards. Maybe I'm not a fan b/c the team I collect doesn't have a mascot (although I encourage you to google a picture of the Yankees failed mascot of the '80s).
(I know this set is aimed at the younger crowd, but one error per card, put a few more on the card and make it a little more challenging, then maybe I'd buy into that subset)(and just which side is the danged front anyways??).
That being said, I love the opening day sets, the Mascots insert is my favorite subset, partially cause the Phanatic is the BEST mascot, EVER! The first pitch cards are great, the "Lights" cards are awesome, and I agree about the blues, great looking and really pop better than the gold.
The only other problem I have right now, my base set is lacking two cards, but I need a lot more inserts to finish the whole set, do I try and buy them (can't find them all), trade for them, Topps did pretty good with the collation in my area, I don't have many doubles... AND none of the cards shops close to me carry these at all so I could not buy a box!! :-(
Wow, sorry for the length...
So you know where I stand.