International Trading Card Day was yesterday.
It used to be called "National Trading Card Day," and it probably should be "international," but the cynic in me considers it another money hungry ploy. But no matter, I don't observe the holiday anyway.
It's not a personal choice or anything. I just don't have any established card shops near me. If I did, I could go to the shop, nose around in discount boxes or blasters, or whatever people who live near real cities get to do, and then pick up a Topps' Trading Card Day pack.
Fortunately, I have a blog with connections. Adam from Thoughts and Sox went to Dodger Stadium last month to watch his Red Sox play the Dodgers (I saw that game on TV, the Dodgers put up a bunch of runs but then had to hold on through their dumb bullpen to win 9-6).
It happened to be Baseball Card Day at the ballpark and the giveaway was the Trading Card Day "preview" set that MLB teams give away to spectators.
Since these are different from the cards given out by shops on the actual Trading Card Day, they can go for dumb prices on your favorite online selling site:
That's for five cards. No thanks, ebay seller, I got mine for free.
The design for the ballpark giveaway cards looks the same as the store giveaway cards but the subjects are different, and if players are in both sets, the pictures are different.
Here are the contents of the team giveaway set. It's not much to look at, which is pretty much tradition of the TCD sets of recent years. Same old dumb slashy lines and sheen.
Shohei Ohtani also appears in the hobby shop giveaway 30-card set with a different image of him beginning his home run trot (I believe hobby shop pack are 5-per pack, too). There's also a separate promo card of him in which he appears to be swinging before coming to bat. Ohtani is the only Dodger in the 30-card set.
That's what the back looks like.
So that's a nice item to have -- especially since I live 3,000 miles away from Dodger Stadium and it seems like I live 3,000 miles away from a card shop.
I know if I did live near a decent shop, I'd be a lot more interested in the discount boxes than any current-set giveaway.
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