Notes from the Retail Shelves: 2022 Topps Series One

 

I'd lost hope.

It was April. APRIL. And not only had I yet to find any 2022 Heritage in the wild, I hadn't found any 2022 Topps FLAGSHIP in the wild. The retail shelves were shrugging their shoulders every time I came by, January til March. And I, obviously, was getting discouraged. Worried that I'd have to get all my cards online again this year. Heck, I placed an order from Topps's site for a few Heritage blasters, already thinking none of them would get to Target.

And so yesterday I wound up at Target. And finally, out of the blue...there it was. Not just flagship. LOTS of flagship. I was worried if there'd be anything, there'd be like one of something. No, there were dozens of rack packs. I didn't feel bad in taking three. And I threw in a blaster as well, because lord knows when I was gonna find anymore. 

I present to you now, my findings, from 3 rack packs and a blaster of Topps Series 1. A lot of this product has been heralded to you already, so I'm sticking to the highlights.

Pack 1- My 'first card of the year' was not only a hometown hero, but a perennial favorite of mine in Didi Gregorius, former Yankee hero. This is also a beautiful shot and a great hero moment for Didi in Philly. Glad I got it so soon.

What I noticed pretty soon off the bat here was the excellent photography, even in the team cards. No much character, so much 'picture of a moment' stuff that I love. The Dodgers CL one is the best of these.

I surprisingly didn't find many parallels at all in these, but two out of three of them were in this opening rack pack. The Elieser Hernandez is an unnumbered blue parallel, seeded 1 in 10 packs. The IKF gold, numbered to 2022 as usual, is now seeded 1 in 38. They're printing more cards now, because the demand is great enough, so the gold parallels are even rarer. Which means it's cooler that I not only pulled one, but pulled one of a current Yankee. 

The inserts are...Topps inserts. Our reprint du jour is, once again, 1987 Topps. These don't even have the fun cardstock of the 2017 iterations, and instead have the same as the last few flagship reprint inserts. Stars of MLB is, what I can gather, the 1-per-pack multi-centric insert this year. I prefer when it was something like Turkey Red, or even the multi-reprint ones from last year. Bichette's is the first of two images of his Canada Day duds in this set.

Pretty cool photography all around, honestly. Like the Moose one a lot. Also, glad to see MV3 get a true hero card.

Rack Pack 2- Yeah, these horizontals are wonderful. Tatis's reaction in that first one is great. I love the Bichette, again incorporating the red Canada Day duds in there.

I....pulled an SP. 

Pack 2 of the whole thing, here's an SP, it's Hank Aaron. SPs are seeded 1 in 112 packs, so I definitely beat the odds there. Usually when I pull SPs, it's either something esoteric that I don't care about or it's something incredible that I can't believe. Here, it is definitely the latter. Short Print of one of the greatest baseball players of all time, just...hanging out in one of my packs. And I don't think this was even the best 2022 Series One had to offer for me this time out. 

Inserts. Willie Mays heard Hank Aaron showed up and wanted to help the cause.

I shit on Topps for having early print schedules, but at least they can finally deliver these new uniforms eventually. That's a wonderful throwback shot for Galvis [I wanna know if that was taken at the game I was at, which was a Throwback Thursday night], and good to finally put a cap on the Starling the A era before the Mets issues come flooding in.

Rack Pack 3- More incredible photography, and another lovely Bryce to go along with it.

SPEAKING OF BRYCE, HERE HE IS AGAIN. Keep in mind, I already enjoyed pulling cards of him before the MVP, I love it more now. Always a believer. 

Kinda cool that Topps did a final tribute for Ryan Zimmerman. Mr. Nat may not have too much of a Hall of Fame case, but he was hella fun to see play.

Alright, now the blaster packs. I'll show the highlights for each one.

Pack 1- Burger could be a big piece of this new White Sox team. Alcides Escobar looks so happy to be on an active roster again. I like that Topps is returning to foil inserts, it gives passe ideas like 2021's Greatest Hits and Stars of MLB a bit more pop. Not complaining about pulling an Ohtani insert. 

Pack 2- Even the relatively normal looking cards just look cool in this one. Kind of like a 1993 or 1995 Topps quality. Something just pops, y'know? Hoy Park may not have much to do with the Pirates this year, but...to be fair, he wouldn't have much to do with the Yankees if he'd stayed.

Great horizontals. Will this be Gardy's final sendoff? I don't know if anyone's gonna sign him this offseason. Heck of a career, though. To me, he felt like Roy White 2.0. 

A Kershaw insert, and my blaster-exclusive manu-patch thingy that used to get its own pack. And it's a Red Sox. Topps, honestly...what the hell am I gonna do with these? They're thick and take up space. 

Pack 3- JT being JT, a cool shot of Ben Gamel, an 87T insert of Jackie Robinson, and a Vladdie insert. Nothing too bad here.

Pack 4- I liked this pack a lot. Rookie for scoreless 2021 hero Luis Gil, a Chapman base card, a Home Run Challenge card of a guy that's gonna hit a lot of home runs for the Yankees, Joey Gallo, and an insert of a fun up and comer Ke'Bryan Hayes.

And then...

So...I may have reacted to this one.

This is...a Mother's Day Hot Pink parallel of Mike Trout. It is numbered to 50, and seeded 1 in 1,519 packs. This is a card that, given to a collector who actually knows how to time the card market and sell things on eBay, might be worth a great deal of money.

...so what the hell am I to do with it?

This is a wonderful card of an all-timer, low-numbered and worth probably a lot of money. I'm not eBay educated, and with a large number of similar-caliber stuff hanging around my collection, I really should be. It's worth researching, I suppose. But yeah, this card floored me when I pulled it. Little to no topping that.

Pack 5- One more Yankee, and some par-for-the-course stuff. Kinda puzzled as to why Welcome to the Show isn't foil-based like some of the other inserts.

Pack 6- Hey guys I pulled a Wander rookie

Double dose of Yelich in this pack, which is all well and good. The Acuna chrome is also a nice touch.

Pack 7- Some more great photography, big names, and an 87T of a Hall of Famer round out the blaster.

So yeah. Target did a lot of help in making sure I finally got some 2022 Topps. I like this set, and I think there's a lot going on design-wise and insert-wise that's cool, despite the usual autopilot tendencies. I also pulled a short print of a Hall of Famer and a pink parallel of a future Hall of Famer. So yeah, did pretty well.

I also got a blaster of heritage. That's up tomorrow.