Ashamed

I don't know why I do the stuff that I do. Let's review why on earth I bought two packs of 2015 Opening Day tonight:

1. Needed a writing topic
2. The stress of this month is causing me to randomly buy packs
3. Every last person's birthday is in March, meaning when I'm not at work or sleeping, I'm in a store.
4. All of the above, dammit, the answer is all of the above.

So, yes, stressed-out, cashed-out, fresh-out-of-ideas night owl grabbed two 99-cent packs of Opening Day even though he was warned.

He was warned not to buy Opening Day because it was already so pointless that he hasn't bothered to address it the last couple of years and now it's the same except even more pointless. The Topps base set lacks foil player names or teams or positions this year, rendering the reason for buying Opening Day moot.

 A few people offered the hope that because there was little foil in 2015 Topps that the pictures in Opening Day might be different. This is an extrapolation that overestimates Topps' appreciation of collectors, but, yeah, I bought a couple packs because of that possibility, too.

My embarrassing results:

Pack 1

Opening Day card on the left, Topps base card on the right.

J.D. Martinez, Tigers, #71

Clay Buchholz, Red Sox, #36

Coco Crisp, Athletics, #72


Pack 2

Cole Hamels, Phillies, #153

Josh Hamilton, Angels, #87

Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals, #32


You can see just a slight resemblance to the Topps base set, with the exception of the Opening Day logo and the mad-cap repositioning of the Topps logo from right to left in some cases.

Obviously, that wasn't all of the cards I pulled out of the two packs. There were a few that were new to me.

I'm going to assume that we will see these images in Series 2 of the base set.

At least there were a couple of inserts that were distinctive enough. This is an insert set dedicated to throwback jerseys. This one is OK as I'm only interested in '70s/'80s throwbacks. Unfortunately, the card (and the Hamels card) features a corner ding. What do you expect for 99 cents?

This set features photos taken by fans, which is kind of cool, and at least one blogger is in the set. One day, there will be no professional photographers left and Topps will produce entire sets featuring nothing but cellphone shots from fans. Wait 'til you see an action shot of Albert Pujols from "Jim".

These are the blue parallels in Opening Day this year. They're a little more wimpy than in past years and gravitate toward foil, which makes me yawn all the way to 1998. But I'm sure Mark Hoyle will appreciate it.

Looks veerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyy familiar, though.

There WAS one card that was different from the Topps Series 1 base set.

Here it is:

This is very close to someone throwing it on ebay and claiming Variation-Jo. Thank goodness the Opening Day logo is there.


Now that most of the foil is gone off of the base set (I'm hoping the trend continues in the future), there is even less of a reason to buy Opening Day. I don't care if it's cheaper or if it features mascots if almost every card is a virtual duplicate of the base set. I suppose if you buy just Opening Day and nothing else, then you avoid that angst, but I can't devote myself to a set where a bunch of players are "missing."

2015 Topps is interesting enough on its own that there is no reason for me to think about Opening Day ever again.

In fact, I'm ashamed I even mentioned anything.