Not as enjoyable as I remembered

 

I watch a fair amount of record album reviews. There is a common sentiment among reviewers when they come across double albums. Many times they say, "if they took out all of the filler, this would make a nice single album."

Welcome to my two blasters of 2021 Stadium Club.

 

These weren't as fun as I remembered. Don't get me wrong, I liked opening them. They didn't cost me anything, they were gift-card birthday purchases. And Stadium Club is about as entertaining as current cards get.

 

But after a year-plus of tracking down and buying only cards that I want, getting extra Marlins and White Sox and an overabundance of Yankees is even less amusing than ever. And, no, I don't want to take the time to list them on some trading site either.

 

By the time I went through the 82 cards that comprise two boxes of this year's Stadium Club, I had about one box worth of cards I either want to keep or can/will trade. Because of this (and other reasons), I don't have the patience to show off each card in the exact order I pulled them as I've done many times in the past.

You'll just get a general review of the cards I pulled.

Here are probably the best images that I pulled. Stadium Club is good like that:

The Mays and Freeman are already in someone's trade stack. I really need Cards From the Quarry to start posting his trade bait again because of course I pulled TWO red-paralleled Rockies leaping for baseballs.

 

Here are the legends that I pulled, subtracting one that is in another person's trade stack. The Wright and Mays are spoken for, too. I've mentioned many times that I'd prefer '70s and '80s legends (like the Munson) over recent stuff like Ichiro and Wright. I was just pulling cards of those dudes 5-10 years ago when they were playing, they're not interesting enough from a "I haven't seen a card of him in forever" standpoint.

 

Here are the rookie cards I pulled. Just bananas. For one box, 14 of the 41 cards were rookie cards. I enjoy when someone posts a box break online and mentions they did good on RCs. Yeah, of course you did, dude, that's all boxes are now -- nonstop rookies.

 

Same goes for the times I hear some breaker celebrate a "Yankees box!" Alert me when it's a Mariners box because almost all of my SC or A&G blasters are Yankees boxes. What is Clint Frazier doing in a set of 300 cards?

So, um, night owl, was there anything you liked about these boxes?

Yeah, sure, I showed you the best images already.

There was a nice Dodgers insert that I didn't have, which is key because Sportscards From The Dollar Store already sent me most of the base Dodgers (future post on the way!).

 

That was the other Virtual Reality card. I'm sure this will be in someone's trade envelope soon.

 

Each box contains one Master Photo, harking back to the early days of Stadium Club (note the 1993 design).

I was never enamored with Master Photos and I think the original ones were a lot bigger and difficult to store. These ones are much smaller -- kind of cute, actually -- but still difficult to store.

 

These are inserts that are basically reprints of 1992 Stadium Clubs everyone pulled in 1992. I certainly did. I almost considered purchasing another box besides SC because that Will Clark card has shown up in just about every SC blaster I've seen opened online. It's easily my least favorite card from these two boxes.

The Superstar Duos inserts are a tribute to past SC cards, too, I think. The Luis Robert is a black parallel numbered to /99. Wee.

OK, I guess I've gone a little negative again.

 

Probably should wrap it up then.

There were a few nice cards and some stuff for my collection and very needed trade material, too. But I'm glad these boxes were free because 41 cards for $19.98 is almost 50 cents a card and that is not worth it.

Like I said, take out all the filler and there is probably one good "album's-worth" of material here.

I'll probably stick to my pandemic habit of purchasing only cards that I want. Sure I'll get the itch to open something again. Until then, better make those current cards free.