what's your damage?

i have not seen any non-flagship topps baseball product on the target shelves this year. not even celebration mega boxes. just series 1 and 2, with a few of the collector's boxes for those releases. so, when i walked by the card aisle one day last week, i was surprised to see a handful of blasters (or value boxes) of 2026 topps chrome.

i've already opened a blaster sent directly by topps, and i am still waiting for my mega box to show up, but i decided to try my luck with retail. i bought two of the boxes, including one that was absolutely mangled.

that's the theory, though - right? damaged boxes contain "sick hits". let's find out.

i was a bit concerned about card condition, but things were ok in the first few packs. here's pack 1:

a 3:1 insert/parallel ratio is not bad, unless you are trying to complete the base set. not sure anyone is doing that with chrome these days. also, i really do like the "seams" parallel. reds cards look especially nice in that design.

pack 2:

only one insert, but it's a good one for me! have a closer look at the shohei ohtani wrecking crew card

it's not a big hit by any means, but i will take it for my dodger collection

pack 3:

i like the idea of the "past to present" inserts, but am not sure about the execution. still, i'd like to pick up the jackie robinson/mookie betts card. the cole ragans card is a refractor, by the way.

pack 4:

two mets and a raywave refractor. these cards had just a touch of abnormal warping or even bending near one of the corners. at this point i figured that the rest of the cards would probably be damaged.

pack 5:

here's the red, white and blue parallel for the blaster. it and the other three cards look fine on the front, but the backs all have a tiny bit of creasing

it's hard to see in the scans, but there are small creases from the bottom edge (bottom edge of the cards as shown in the scan, that is) up the center of the card.

pack 6:

well would you look at that! a retail rookie autograph, and it's (former) dodger jack little. these four cards have that same creasing on the back

and the crease extends a bit further towards the center of the card. i will show a better example of the creasing, but first, here's another look at the dodger autograph that i pulled from a pack (that doesn't happen to me too often)

here's the back:

still hard to see, but the creasing runs from the right edge of the card towards the center.

pack 7:

the ratio is reversed from pack 1, with a 3:1 base to refractor parallel ratio. lots of yellow on jacob wilson's card! 

these cards have the crease running pretty much all the way through the center of the card

here's a photo of the back of bryce eldridge's card that shows the crease pretty well

for the record, i am not going to seek any replacement cards - the fault for this is probably target's fault and not topps' anyway. besides, i knew what i was getting into with this blaster. and as far as the theory goes, i found an ohtani insert and a rookie autograph, so maybe there is something to it.

the other blaster i bought yielded some similar inserts and parallels, but no autograph. i was able to add three cards from it to my dodger collection, including yoshinobu yamamoto's base card

roki sasaki's red, white and blue refractor

and yamamoto's perspectives insert

these inserts look nice in chrome fashion, so i am glad that they weren't a flagship insert like they were back in 2017 or whenever topps last put them out.

i plan for my next 2026 topps chrome post to feature the haul from my mega box, but who knows what might happen if i stop at a target in the meantime.

2026 topps series 2 blaster review

i pre-ordered a mega box (not yet shipped) and a blaster/value box (arrived on release day - june 10) directly from topps back on may 11 when series 2 was first offered. let's take a look at the six packs i opened from the blaster.

pack 1:

not a lot to say now that this is the second go around for the card design. pitchers pitching, batters batting. one fielder and a couple of base runners.

the nolan arenado stars of mlb insert is the start of what was a fairly diamondback heavy blaster, and the jt realmuto holiday foil (base - sun) is the one "new" thing in the pack.

pack 2:

four dbacks in this pack. the adrian del castillo card is clearly showing off a dodger stadium background, so i suppose i will add it to that mini-collection. i've sort of begun gatekeeping that collection a bit more.

chase delauter is one of the rookie cards people were anticipating with series 2, but his bat has cooled off after a hot first week to the season. the last three cards are all inserts/parallels with the oswaldo cabrera card being a rainbow foil. the adrian beltre card is from the "glove works" insert set (no wes parker or steve garvey on the checklist), and the munetaka murakami stars of mlb insert was nice to find instead of someone else. as i write this, i note that murakami has either homered or struck out in exactly 50% of his at bats so far this season. that's 20 homers and 80 k's in 200 official at bats. 

pack 3:

paul gervase is my first series 2 dodger, and he's actually still with the team (although his card is airbrushed). the big news in this pack, however, is that someone at topps forgot to turn on a level in the "titans of the game" insert images before sending them to the printer.

that jackson chourio card at the bottom of the image looks empty. i knew what it was, but still turned the card over 

to confirm that it was indeed a titans of the game card. as a reminder, here is what these cards looked like in series 1

a bit different from series 2

let's cleanse the palate with a look at the back of gervase's card

gervase has appeared in a couple of games for the dodgers this season. if he had not, he would have been in zach lee and bruce brubaker territory in that he would have had a dodger card of his own while appearing in only one game for the club.

pack 4:

here we have justin verlander back in detroit, another diamondback, satchel paige keeping the browns' legacy alive, and a stars of mlb card featuring a red sox rookie that i am not familiar with.

pack 5:

the penultimate pack of the blaster was my favorite, largely because of kiké hernandez showing up, but it also included the "hit" of the blaster - the gold holofoil parallel of heston kjerstad. those are numbered to 399 on the back

speaking of backs, let's look at kiké's

nine-plus dodger seasons in the books for him, and he is the franchise's all-time leader in postseason games played. i am hopeful that he recovers from his injury and increases that number this fall.

pack 6:

perhaps the worst pack of the bunch. the combo card is strikingly boring compared to the action shots on the other cards, and the marcell ozuna card boasts a poor photoshop job. at least the juan soto insert is different - it's a league leader type card but is from the "crooked numbers" insert set.

i still have a mega box yet to be delivered, so i'll get another chance to rip some series 2 packs. i don't think i'll purchase any additional sealed product from this set, however. let me know if you have some dodgers to trade!

2026 topps heritage hobby box review

as promised, here's my post regarding the 2026 topps heritage hobby box i purchased directly from topps. i am already jonesing for 2027 heritage, but will make do with the 1977 design as it is also a blast from my early baseball fandom days.

the first thing you notice is the lack of facsimile signatures on the cards, which i was glad to see. other than that, it's a fairly faithful representation of the original 1977 design. the copyrights and trademarks are new, as is the rc logo, but for the most part the team names and position banner and player name fonts look true to form. some of the colors are off - wait until you see a cardinals card, and the nationals don't follow the expos coloring from '77 - and there are also some irregularities with the justification of team names (if not player names), and what topps called "a's" in 1977, they are now calling "athletics". all in all, i was happy to see the design as it is presented here.

the dumbest stuff has to do with only having 400 cards in the set, with 100 short prints scattered throughout and the only way to know other than consulting the checklist is by checking the tiny code text. oh, and owen caissie has two cards with the same photo, one of which is an sp.

i'll start off by showing full packs - here's pack 1:

not a bad start. some all-stars, a light blue sparkle chrome refractor and a dark gray parallel, plus a dodger card. here's the back of yoshinobu yamamoto's card:

again, pretty true with the billboard style back. the cartoons are updated (more on those later) with yamamoto getting a sandy koufax related one. the codes are, as ever, hard to read, and they are more important than ever with the scattered nature of the short prints. better to get to beckett or one of the other online checklist sites to confirm the sp's.

by the way, i started in the lower left corner of the box if that is of interest to you.

pack 2:

with trey yesavage starting the season on the il, i wonder if the hype around his first true rookie card is lessened. fellow blue jay jose berrios is the "hit" in this pack, as his card is an sp. here's the back:

it's tough to see as i mentioned, but the last two numbers of the code on this card are "87" while the yamamoto up top ends in "17". you can now see the pattern of abbreviating first names in the cartoons, as we have "s. koufax" and now "n. ryan" on the two card backs i've shown so far.

pack 3:

here you can see where topps didn't quite get the color right for the player names with the cardinal cards. it's much more orange than it was 49 years ago. the league leader cards are pretty faithful, and show up at the start of the set as they did in 1977. next year, these should flip flop with the highlights/record breakers subset. similar to the previous pack, just a short print here. the 7th slot in each pack is either an insert, parallel, or short print. here's the back of parker messick's card

with a cartoon featuring "sudden" s. mcdowell.

pack 4:

a couple more all-stars, plus carter jensen's rookie card. i do know there is some hype around him heading into the season. the hit here is the chrome refractor parallel of the strikeout leaders card.

pack 5:

doubles! victor mesa jr and willson contreras show up again as we hit the last pack from the lower left quadrant of the box. zach neto is a short print, and the (other) max muncy card shows the same issue with the player names on a's cards as there is with the cardinals cards.

pack 6:

mookie betts and our first true insert. the "enterprise" inserts (mine is the rockies' ezequiel tovar) seems like it belongs in topps chrome cosmic, and not heritage. bring back the flashbacks and then & now cards! here's the back of william contreras' short print card

good to see gene, sorry g., tenace get a cartoon. he was a guy i liked back in my early days of baseball fandom.

pack 7:

yu darvish brings the familar heritage cloud background - thankfully one of very few (only?) cards to do so. another light blue sparkle and dark gray parallel as well.

pack 8:

i was glad to see the shohei ohtani card show up. 

pack 9:

only six cards in this pack because it includes the guaranteed relic or auto. it's a francisco lindor clubhouse collection relic which is about all one should expect when buying these boxes. the ryan pepiot card is a chrome parallel.

pack 10:

the last pack of the lower right quadrant comes with three non-base cards - an anthony siegler chrome parallel (it's a siegler hot pack), plus a dark gray parallel, and an elly de la cruz ready and action insert.

now i'll just show cards that caught my eye. 

nolan mclean's rookie card is nice to find after the wbc

and the city connect jersey almost feels like a bad airbrush job from 1977.

some other rookies of note include roman anthony

jac caglianone

and jacob misiorowski

is another key rookie in the set.

the photos on the era leaders card featuring tarik skubal and paul skenes

isn't as closely cropped as the original that featured mark fidrych (a tiger like skubal) and john denny, but i appreciate that because it gives us a chance to see the "cobra" patch that the pirates wore in memory of dave parker.

here are the other short prints i found - owen caissie

the non-sp caissie card is number 88, but looks the same other than the number and the code.

danny jansen

and one of the four-in-one rookie cards

it's pretty true to form.

i did find another of the rookie cards, but it was in the form of a light blue sparkle refractor

it features dodger paul gervase who appeared in one game for the club last year after being acquired in the hunter feduccia/ben rortvedt trade. i didn't scan the back, but if i had, you would see that gervase is 6'10" tall.

i found one more chrome refractor parallel, and it was former ranger marcus semien

i seem to find his cards quite frequently.

the big "hit" in my box was a black bordered card. these are seeded at 1:121 packs. they used to have a print run of 50 but i don't know if that is still the case or not. regardless, i was pleased to see one and i really like the look of the one i found, with one major exception:

the bottom edge has a portion that is peeled up - almost as you would a rip card. it came out of the pack that way, and for the first time ever, i filed a damage claim with topps. the card is on its way back to them and we will see what happens from here. i would be happy to have the card replaced in kind as hunter greene and his reds uniform look pretty good with the black border. the card also features the pete rose memorial patch, and this card would be in the running to represent that patch in my collection.

here's the base version

not quite as striking with the white borders.

here are the four additional dark gray cards in my box

along with the four chrome

and four light blue sparkle refractors

that were in the remaining packs.

the only true insert in the rest of the packs was a nick kurtz raw power card

and so there you have my hobby box!

i also ordered a mega box. it had more of the same, of course, without any major hits. the biggest was a lawrence butler blue refractor

numbered to 150. some of the other interesting cards were a chrome parallel of miguel cabrera's turn back the clock card

and a refractor parallel of luis robert jr's card

the megas have silver sparkle refractors, and one of the ones i pulled was owen caissie's

that's a parallel of his card #88 and not the short printed #360 we saw in the hobby box.

the megas also have red bordered parallels, one of which in mine was brady house

i found a few more short prints, too. i'll show the backs of a couple just to demonstrate the cartoon recycling. like contreras and caissie above, both shane baz and mike burrows have the same cartoons, but with different captions

and i am confused as to why bert blyleven gets his first name spelled out when gaylord perry is just g. perry.

the last card i'll show is another short print - tyler soderstrom's

given the belt, i thought this was likely a photo/image variation, but it's just a short print. i think if opening day were still around, there would be a dugout home run prop insert set every year.

i'll hold off on showing the other dodgers i found here in a future post after i gather more of them for my team collecion. stay tuned.