Hey Nineteen

Hey ’19 indeed! The big week is finally here with the release of 2019 Topps Baseball Series 1 and Super Bowl LXIII featuring my Los Angeles Rams! Woohoo!

In recent years, I’ve tended to spend a bit too much money on Topps flagship baseball and this year is no exception. I’ve already ordered a jumbo box (that I’ll likely pick up on Saturday) and bought spots in four group breaks (in hindsight I’d probably be better off saving that money for 2019 Topps Heritage but I just love group breaks). And like most years, I purchased some new flagship cards at Target before actually getting my jumbo box in hand.

So this year I got one 34-card value pack and one 67-card hanger box. That’s 101 cards for about $15. And as usual I didn’t get anything great out of retail. Here’s a quick peek at what I did get:

The Jeff McNeil (Mets) RC card is officially my first 2019 Topps card. And in keeping with the ‘Hey Nineteen’ theme, the Martin Perez (Rangers) card is #219 and the Alex Gordon (Royals) card is #319. The Max Scherzer card is a nice example of the League Leaders subset, even though the League Leaders card fronts are very similar to regular base cards. Up next is a 1984 Topps Baseball insert card of Shohei Ohtani and a 2018 Topps Now Review of Juan Soto. I was hoping that at least three insert cards would be packed inside but I guess this is par for the course. Following that are two of the horizontal cards from the set. The stadium cards subset is a welcome innovation for flagship. Stadium cards have been pretty popular in other card sets and I’m so glad to see them appear in this set.

The hanger box yielded four insert cards: 2018 Topps Now Review Gleyber Torres, 1984 Topps Baseball Matt Carpenter, a rainbow foil parallel of Joey Votto, and a nice-looking Greatness Returns insert featuring Nolan Ryan and Shohei Ohtani. Base cards included in the hanger box included Willson Contreras (which is #119), Rhys Hoskins, Ranger Suarez (he really should be playing for Texas), and Justin Upton. Which brings to the last three cards featured in this post:

As seen in the Nick Ahmed card and Jack Flaherty card, the player’s left hand extends out over the border, resulting in a photo that really pops. Not every card does this but it is very effective.

Pop quiz: How many baseball cards were featured in this post?

In general I really like the design of 2019 flagship Topps but I also really think there a couple of things that could have been improved upon. Stay tuned for a more in-depth review of 2019 Topps in the near future…

4 thoughts on “Hey Nineteen”

Was just listening to this album earlier in the week. My brother is a huge Steely Dan fan and donated at least three or four of his albums to my collection.

BBCARDZ says:

February 2, 2019 at 11:45 pm

That song is definitely a classic. Time will tell whether the 2019 Topps flagship baseball design is deemed a classic–I for one hope so.

Reply

I’m working on a flagship want list. Stadiums are at the top! What a great shot of Houston!

I love the Stadiums this year. The Houston shot is amazing!

sanjosefuji says:

February 2, 2019 at 8:57 am

Was just listening to this album earlier in the week. My brother is a huge Steely Dan fan and donated at least three or four of his albums to my collection.

1. BBCARDZ says:
  
  February 2, 2019 at 11:45 pm
  
  That song is definitely a classic. Time will tell whether the 2019 Topps flagship baseball design is deemed a classic–I for one hope so.
  
Julie says:

February 9, 2019 at 1:21 pm

I’m working on a flagship want list. Stadiums are at the top! What a great shot of Houston!

Julie says:

February 9, 2019 at 1:25 pm

I love the Stadiums this year. The Houston shot is amazing!