Tuesday, March 22, 2011

2011 Topps Opening Day

I bought 2 blaster boxes of Topps Opening Day. It remains an inexpensive product, being half the cost of regular Topps blasters. The set features 220 cards. The designs, and for the most part, the photos are the same as the regular Topps set. The Opening Day logo was redesigned for this year. Topps usually takes this opportunity to Photoshop players who changed teams during the off season into their new uniforms. I pulled 5 cards which have to be Photoshopped but I only have one of the players from the regular set. They used a different photograph in the Opening Day set for that card.

Since the design and photos are the same as regular Topps, I'm just going to focus on the inserts. I think there was an insert in every pack. As a result, I pulled at least one of every insert. The ones I missed were Topps Opening Day Attax (according to baseballcardpedia.com and the Superstar Celebrations Autos. There are also Topps Ticket to Toppstown cards which I'm not showing since they are the same boring cards as from the regular set.

2011 Topps Opening Day Mascots #8 Dinger
A 25-card set featuring team mascots. There are 30 teams. Do 5 teams not have mascots? I pulled 5 of these and managed to get the Phillies classic mascot, The Phillie Phanatic. I also pulled Junction Jack, the Astros mascot.

2011 Topps Opening Day Blue #118 Rafael SorianoA complete parallel set with blue borders. The cards are serial numbered on the back to 2,011.

2011 Topps Opening Day Stars #9 David PriceA 10-card set featuring a 3-D picture on the front. You might think the cards would feature players who started in a season opener, and maybe that was the idea. But, according to the back, David Price has never played in an opening day game. Huh?

2011 Topps Opening Day Superstar Celebrations #6 RaysA 25-card set featuring a team or player celebration after some game-changing event. This particular celebration was after the Rays won and 11 inning game on a suicide squeeze bunt, scoring Longoria from third.

2011 Topps Opening Day Spot the Error #8 Hanley RamirezThis is apparently the front of the card.
And, I think, this is the back. Can you see the difference? I pulled four cards of this 10-card set and it took a lot of staring to figure out the 'errors'. I have yet to figure out the Derek Jeter card.

2011 Topps Opening Day Presidential First Pitches #9 John F. KennedyTopps didn't confine themselves to Opening Day presidential first pitches. The scoreboard in the background clearly shows this to be an All-Star Game. Apparently, Kennedy was the first president to throw out the first pitch at an All-Star Game, in 1962. the things you can learn from baseball cards. I don't know if this is any indication of Michael Eisner's political leanings, but 3 of the 4 cards I pulled from this set were Democrats.

2011 Topps Opening Day Stadium Lights #3 Robinson CanoA 10-card set featuring photos of players taken from ground level looking up to the lights. The back features some player statistic comparing their daytime and nighttime stats. Is it a surprise that a player might have more of some stat (say home runs) at night? Especially when most games are played at night.

7 comments:

night owl said...

The error in the Jeter Spot the Error card is that the last "E" in Welcome on the scoreboard at the top is missing.

Also, I've pulled nothing but Republicans in my Opening Day packs.

The Stadium Lights cards glow in the dark.

hiflew said...

I am trying to collect the master Opening Day set this year (including a complete blue set). I'm sure I can pit together a decent package of Astros and Phils for any cards you have on my wantlist

http://cardsfromthequarry.blogspot.com/2011/03/2011-topps-opening-day-wanttrade-list.html

capewood said...

Thanks night owl. I was sure the error wasn't on Jeter himself and thought it was up in that lettering but I just couldn't see it.

hiflew - Most of the Opening Day I pulled is available for trade. I'll check your list.

Laurens said...

If you didn't know the error has something to do with Charlie Hough or in the vicinity of.

capewood said...

The error on the Ramirez card is his uniform number.

hiflew said...

I think there are two errors on it because there are extra red bubbles as well.

capewood said...

The red bubbles were so obvious that I didn't see them at all. I stopped looking once I found the uniform number.