we're in to big league now

i ordered two boxes of 2020 topps big league at the end of may. i wasn't sure if the release date would stick, and it was almost immediately updated from june 5 to june 19. i was very pleasantly surprised when i received a notice from my dealer on june 20 that the boxes were in hand and they were on their way to me. 

what began as an inexpensive way to open some packs turned in to a more than expected experience. i really like this set. i've opened both boxes and there were zero duplicates. none. i fell 15 cards short of completing the set which is not bad. i was actually shorted one card - i wound up with 359 cards instead of 360 (18 packs per box, 10 cards per pack) - and the insert per pack ratio was greater than 2. i wound up with 74 inserts, including the orange parallels.

i sorted the first box as i went, so i can only show you the first pack of the second box

those nine plus a.j. puk, the back of whose card i will show you

and the last pack of the second box

and there is my big hit - an aristides aquino autograph. not bad. believe it or not, that was the second aquino auto i pulled from a pack in that week (i'll save that story for another post). the big hit in the first box was a black and white whit merrifield parallel numbered to 50.

nico hoerner was the last card in the pack and thus the one that had its back scanned.

in true topps fashion, they misspelled "instagram" in the "did you know?" text.  speaking of which, the best "did you know?" of these 18 cards is, i think, shin-soo choo's which says "shin-soo says the biggest lesson he gives his three children is that he's not an atm machine".

many have already highlighted the positives of this set, so i won't go in to much detail. i just think it is refreshing. it reminds me of 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee (a set that i completed) as well as some of the recent topps total offerings.  there is some airbrushing (like that trent grisham card above), but also some players with legitimate photos of them in their new 2020 uniforms. if you have any mini collections, this set will deliver. there are players holding hardware, throwback unis, lurkers/cameos, plays at the plate, plays at the wall, bat flips, bat sleeves, walk-off celebrations, a pitcher covering first, and for me - a couple of double play turns, memorial patches, and a tatooine card. i didn't see anybody hanging out at the bat rack, but there are some dugout coat hooks on christian yelich's card.

opening these boxes was fun and not at all frustrating. thanks topps!