2013 Triple Play - First Look

I actually bought these a few weeks ago but I'm just getting around to them.  I purchased 3 28-card rack packs-from Target.  This is the second year Panini has published Triple Play.  The set is clearly aimed at kids, with cartoon like drawings of the players and lots of sticker cards. My question is, are kids collecting baseball cards these days?  When I'm in the big-box store looking at cards I rarely see kids at the card rack. In fact, I hardly ever see anyone. If it weren't for my fellow bloggers I might think I'm the only collector left.

Aimed at kids or not, I kind of like these cards. I suspect that most people are either going to just hate them or feel like I do.  Panini gets around not having an MLB license by using drawings, therefore there are no accidental showing of logos. Would these cards be better with MLB logos? Absolutely. Would I like to see Panini get an MLB license? Absolutely. Topps needs some competition.

There's a lot of wackiness going on here as well.

There are 100 cards in the base set featuring three kinds of drawings.

There is the Cold War, socialist workers paradise style:

 The backs all feature what is apparently a baseball card game. Instructions not included.

And then these cards featuring backgrounds evocative of the player's team's hometown.

Rockies. Snowflakes, mountains and I'm not sure what the rest of them are.  And then the just plain wacky cartoons.

The last 10 cards are a subset called "When I Was A Kid". I only got one of them.

Before I show the inserts, let me complain at bit. There are only 100 cards in the set. Only 90 of the cards are player cards. With 26 teams, that works out to 3-4 players per team. I think if I was a kid, I'd be disappointed in only getting 3 guys from my favorite team.

On the other hand, with only 100 cards in the base set, you'd think this would be a pretty easy set to complete by buying packs. I got 84 cards total in the 3 rack-packs, which resulted in 43 cards from the base set. 29 of the cards were duplicates. That's more than 1 in 3! Way too much. OK, on to the inserts.

There is a 30-card All-Star set. I pulled one. Luckily it was Howard, probably the only one I really want.

More wackiness. I got 2 of this 8-card insert. I'm not at all sure what this picture is supposed to mean,

Eye Blacks returns from 2012. These are stickers you can stick to your face. Whee!

This 20-card sticker set features the same drawing as the players regular card. The stickers come in two flavors this year, blue and red. Even though there are 30 red stickers, I didn't get one.

Tattoos are also back from last year. I got 4 of the 10. I'm not sure how these are supposed to work. Maybe you just iron them onto your skin.

Perhaps the wackiest card I pulled. Traditions is an 8-card set, new this year.