Baseball being back has been somewhat of a help but let's face facts, the goddamn pandemic and quarantine have been draining and exhausting. And let me tell you APTBNLers, my local Walgreens, of which I sang the praises of in my last post, has also had all the retail Topps dry up - and there is only so many repack boxes you can buy with 100 junk wax cards and a pack of 1991 Donruss in it that you can find amusement with. So on a whim I went on ebay and bought a couple of 2020 Topps Chrome value packs because I love me some shiny and you got to do what you got to do. I figured that it was enough cards to make a page and maybe pull a Mets player or two and kill an hour in metallic cardboard heaven. Also in that last post, I lamented that I don't seem to ever get anything good in these retail packs and then pulled a goddamn low numbered autograph. After you see what happens here, I can never ever ever complain about retail packs ever again. I picked one hanger pack and we will take a look at the three packs and the special extra pink refractors pack because who doesn't love bonus shiny?
I have been a sucker for Chrome since 1996. I remember being at a card show in Paramus spending far too much on packs and digging the metal vibe (that first year also had a brushed aluminum thing going on that, alas, they never did again on the base). Some collectors don't like that refractors are now all over in a million colors and flavors but fuck that, the more the metal merrier. I like that the bonus pack is all bubble gum pink parallels, though I have also enjoyed the orange that other years featured as well.
Here you see those five pink bonus cards and the silly "don't steal me" insert. A Puk rookie and yet another Alvarez rookie; I have pulled like five of these things in different products; somewhere in Houston is a dude pulling a bunch of Pete Alonso cards lamenting his luck too. Still, not a bad little bonus.
Pack one has some real star power:
You can see I got a Mike Soroka rookie cup trophy card (ya!), Javier Baez, Clayton Kershaw, and an insert of Kyle Lewis, who has been tearing the league apart for a few weeks of this abbreviated season. He is on the short list for rookie of the year with one other player.
Pack 2 was a Blue Jays collector's super pack:
George Springer and the epic beard of Archie Bradley are nice but Rowdy Tellez and a shiny 1985 Bo Bichette rookie make this ideal for fans of Toronto (or is it Buffalo now?)
So as I was opening the third pack, I had two thoughts, and I kid you not, they were "I haven't gotten any Mets yet" and "wouldn't it be great if I pulled a Luis Robert card to go with that Kyle Lewis?" and then this happened:
Super, a Yankees card, wonderful. Hey, Lucas Giolito just threw a no-hitter, so that's pretty cool. And wow, Carl's grandson Mike Yastrzemski. Oh yeah and I got that silly little redemption card for a Luis Robert rookie autograph. I guess that makes this a White Sox super pack? And hey, this is my second post in a row with a Chisox autograph, maybe I should switch from New York's second team to Chicago's? Honestly, though, I was floored as I haven't pulled anything like this in years. Like I said, I can never complain about retail packs again and I am not even mad I didn't get any Mets cards.
