2012 Panini Triple Play - First Look

I was in WalMart the other day and stopped at the baseball card aisle to get a rack pack of Topps Chrome (after the all-purple blaster box I bought earlier, I needed some base cards). I saw a box of Triple Play and bought 5 packs at 98 cents each. With 7 cards to a pack, that works out to only 15 cents/card.

Triple Play was a Donruss brand from the mid-1990s that featured colorful graphics and action shots aimed at attracting kids. This reincarnation is certainly bold.

Paul Goldschmidt #3

Since Panini doesn't have an MLB license, choosing to go with art work instead of photos makes avoiding logos easy. The art is certainly striking, if a bit in the style of 1930s socialism. Will kids like this stuff?

Yu Darvish #84

Note there are no rookie card logos.

Chase Headley #68

Some cards are horizontal and some feature something other than a head shot, although this Headley card is about as much action as you get.

Albert Pujols #120

This is the puzzle subset. The front of the card features a smaller version of the player's regular card while the back features 1/9th of the card, 9 of them fit together. There are at least 9 players done like this, so almost a third of the 300 card set the same front in sets of ten. Again, will kids like this?

Ryan Howard #255

This another subset. The picture is the same used on the player's regular card. I'm not sure what Ryan's focused on. He doesn't have a hat, so maybe his hat fell off while he was chasing a foul ball. This was the only Phillies card I pulled. And of course, there wasn't a single Astro in the packs.

Triple Play Eye Black

These are stickers. This set has 6 cards, I only pulled one.

Triple Play Stickers Troy Tulowitzki

There are 30 of these stickers. I got one in each pack. Some feature players, others feature goofy stuff like this.

Not for the faint of heart.

Triple Play Tattoos

There are 5 of these.