i bought some 2025 topps, too

i actually pre-ordered a few different forms of 2025 topps from mlb.com and fanatics. the first to show up was a super box.

pack 1:

david festa, matt vierling, lamonte wade jr

joey cantillo, dj herz, isaac paredes

anthony volpe, pete crow-armstrong, brandon lowe

rhett lowder, jarred kelenic, corey seager (stars of mlb insert)

trevor larnach, davis schneider

some initial observations: 

• like everyone else, seeing the foil with these cards in hand was a bit of a shock. 
• the position designation graphic isolates the primary outfield position played, rather than identifying players as just outfielders which is a nice side effect of the design. the multi-position players, like schneider, are also easily represented as such.
• unfortunately, the position designation doesn't really work for designated hitters like larnach. i like the idea, but the design should have figured out a better way to show the dh position without making it look like they are on deck.
• i also don't understand a design that differs so much between the portrait and landscape orientations. team abbreviations on landscape cards but nicknames on portrait cards, except (as we will see) in the case of the athletics. why create a design that does not work for all teams?
• and why have the "future stars" designation eclipse the team name, as opposed to a banner across the top?
• the stars of mlb inserts are really ugly this year. really bad.

here's the card back:

pretty clean. i like seeing "st. paul" on card backs again, even if they aren't the triple-a dodger affiliate this time around.

pack 2:

corey seager, padres team, max schuemann

jake burger, jake cronenworth, brooks baldwin

brendan doyle, francisco lindor, ryan thomson

tommy edman, adrian beltre (first pitch insert), vladimir guerrero jr (stars of mlb insert)

twins/checklist, ryan o'hearn

a few more thoughts:

• first dodger this year is cf-ss tommy edman. his card back lists him as "outfielder/shortstop" though

• the first pitch cards are back with fewer subjects than in 2016 and 2017. it's interesting to me that the team logo was left off the card in this installment, especially with a former player like beltre being featured
• 28 cards in and you are starting to get a sense of how many cards topps printed this year. the number of parallels are astronomical and they are still hard to come by. there are probably more base cards than grains of sand this year.
• i started to realize that with so many uniform designs, it isn't as easy as it used to be to tell which team is represented just by looking at the photo.
• the stars of mlb inserts are still bad

no more full pack scans

pack 3:

luis garcia jr, league leaders - nl wins, ronald acuna jr, rhys hoskins, andres gimenez, ha-seong kim, bradley blalock, charlie blackmon

the retired blackmon gets a final tribute, which is nice. here's his full career stat load on the back:

that's a pretty solid career. blackmon was a guy who i enjoyed having on my fantasy team for a couple of years, but i don't plan to add this card to my final tribute collection.

ryan helsley, pedro leon, george springer (silver crackle foilboard parallel)

the silver crackle foilboard parallel is a super box exclusive. someday i won't pull so many springer cards.

carlos correa (stars of mlb insert), tyrone taylor, evan carter

pack 4:

jp crawford, coby mayo

seeing a coors light ad so prominently in the background gives me older topps set vibes with the budweiser signs all over the place

zach eflin, jose miranda, nick lodolo, bryson stott

a new dp turn for my collection. stott is captured in one of my favorite moments on the diamond.

ben rice, hunter feduccia

i wonder if feduccia bumps austin barnes from the 2025 topps checklist, or if we are going to have three catchers with cards this year.

joc pederson, vinnie pasquantino, mark mcgwire (1990 35th anniversary insert)

luis robert jr (stars of mlb insert), rays/checklist, masataka yoshida

pack 5:

riley greene, mitch haniger, wilber diaz, yainer diaz, nick gordon, taj bradley, reds team, dillon dingler, jose altuve, randy arozarena, josh hader (rainbow foil parallel)

yordan alvarez (stars of mlb insert), anthony rizzo, yoshinobu yamamoto

seeing the future stars moniker on yamamoto's card makes me think that the dodgers haven't been treated to that very often - certainly not in 1987 with the first of the single player future stars cards.

pack 6:

tyler locklear, emmanuel clase, brent rooker, spencer schwellenbach, clayton kershaw

sonny gray, aaron judge (2024 all topps team)

zach dezenzo, seth brown, ezequiel tovar, yu darvish, fernando tatis jr (stars of mlb insert), brooks lee

lee has a good chance of becoming my favorite non-dodger this season. he's from the 805 which is a big plus!

jameson taillon

pack 7:

danny jansen, league leaders - nl average

marcell ozuna, freddy peralta, seth lugo, lars nootbaar, shay whitcomb, alec bohm, drew thorpe, ty france, river ryan (rainbow foil parallel)

julio rodriguez (stars of mlb insert), teoscar hernandez

early rippers assumed that this was one of the "dancing dodgers" super short prints, and i saw versions of this card going for a pretty high price. it's just teoscar's base card, and i am not sure if he is doing the freddie freeman dance or if he has just completed the oblique crunch that was another of the dodgers' on base rituals

amed rosario

i scanned the rosario card because topps skipped his second dodger tenure which was comprised of five appearances. at least it is captured on the back:

he started the 2024 card season with a dodger card in heritage. he was shown as a ray in update, so this is his first reds card.

pack 8:

jordan westburg, padres/checklist, travis d'arnaud, bailey ober, freddie freeman

ryan pepiot, red sox team, zach neto, yankees/checklist,  miguel vargas, francisco lindor (training ground insert)

brooks lee (stars of mlb insert)

cubs team, geraldo perdomo

pack 9:

gerrit cole, tyler soderstrom, rafael devers, mark vientos, angel martinez, jon gray, orioles team, eugenio suarez, tanner houck, jeff mcneil, kyle finnegan, rafael devers (stars of mlb insert), sandy alcantara, josh jung

pack 10:

mauricio dubon, luis castillo, tyler gentry, michael busch, red sox/checklist, spencer steer, brandon marsh, joey ortiz, jose berrios, mariners team, paul skenes (1990 35th anniversary insert)

james wood (stars of mlb insert), league leaders - al wins, jorge soler

there were no duplicates among the base cards, which was nice.

the super boxes also come with a pack of five silver patterned foilboard cards:

ryan mountcastle

carlos correa

ernie clement

league leaders - nl rbi

david hamilton

the super boxes also included an enamel pin. i had a 1 in 10 chance of getting a shohei ohtani pin, but i decided to sell the sealed package instead. pins are hard to store, and i have all of my garvey enamel pins in a padded snap case so it's not like they are all visible anyway.

another super box exclusive is the oversized base card that is hiding being this header card

my super box had paul skenes

and in between the oversized header card and the skenes, was the "companion card" just flying about loosely. i lucked out and found shohei ohtani

here's the back:

the photo and numbering are different from his base card, which wasn't in any of the super box packs i opened, but was present in some of the others i ripped.

i also found a base skenes card

so let's compare it to the oversized one from the super box

fun.

one more card from one of the other packs i've opened, and it's jj bleday

given the card design this year, and the use of location associated abbreviations on landscape cards, i figured that there would be only portrait a's cards, but i was wrong. for the a's, topps removed any mention of location from the backs, and kept the nickname across both orientations. i don't understand why topps would vary the design for the other teams when they could have just stuck with the nicknames on all cards. sure, the diamondbacks would be fairly narrow text, but if you are going to do it, do it consistently. this annoys me so much.

i will probably show some of the cards from the other orders that have come in as part of a future post. outside of the sealed product i ordered, i've picked up a few singles, including river ryan's 1990 card

and steve garvey's "base" 1990 autograph card

this is the second time we've seen garvey on a 1990's topps flagship design, and both instances have occurred within the past few months. the back is worthless

but i hope this trend continues. after so very disappointingly leaving garvey out of the 1988 inserts in 2023 topps, we've seen him in the past two years on autograph versions of the 35th anniversary cards. i hope that he continues to appear in the coming years, as i am really looking forward to the 1991 card design in 2026.

tell me you made a mistake without telling me you made a mistake

a few weeks ago, i showed this card

in a post that was all about 2024 topps chrome update. it's a ketel marte all-star game insert, showing him turning two in the 2024 midsummer classic. not too long after that, i put in a claim on thorzul's annual "trade me anything" event for this card

which is marte's all-star game card from 2024 topps update.

as we all noticed when update first came out, these inserts were sneaky in that they still referenced the team each player plays for rather than the all-star game itself. i noted that rafael devers and mookie betts both had all-star game inserts that were only discernable as such by looking at the card backs. with chrome update, topps corrected that mistake, and the inserts are easy to spot even when the player featured isn't in the all-star uniform.

here is mookie's chrome all-star game card, along with the other dodgers

including shohei ohtani

i picked these up as part of a dodger chrome update lot to further my team collecting cause. also included in the lot was this freddie freeman all-etch insert

and a couple of rookie 1989 inserts of yoshinobu yamamoto and andy pages

anyway, back to thorzul's trade, it was anything but a mistake. even though he had no extra dodgers to offer up this year, i found some cards to acquire in addition to the marte double play turn including these four all-star inserts.

while i prefer that teams wear their own uniforms in the all-star game, i didn't mind these as they were throwbacks of a sort to the 1933 all-star game duds worn by the national league team. i also requested two of the 1989 inserts - ozzie albies

and mickey mantle

i'm always on the lookout for braves inserts to add to stacks for sluggo, and it's nice to see mantle back on topps designs after being monopolized by panini for the last few years.

i also asked thorzul for some cards left over from last year's trade me anything and wound up with dwight gooden's all aces insert

i am tempted to use this card for the william shea memorial but i think i will stick with the card that was produced in real time.

here's cody bellinger's gold parallel from last year's update

i was tempted to continue collecting bellinger cards after he left the dodgers, and i even contemplated doing the same for walker buehler starting in 2025, but i decided that since i didn't do that for matt kemp i wouldn't do it for belly or buehler. in fact, i think i would reinstate my orel hershiser or steve sax post-dodger pcs before i take up any other player - unless clayton kershaw were to go somewhere else.

i also asked for a couple more yankees - bernie williams' 1988 silver pack card

and don mattingly's mvp medallion thing

it seems that topps has gone away from these manufactured medallion and patch cards, but they sometimes turned out ok. award retrospectives make more sense to me than batting helmets, for example.

this was a great way to close out the year by receiving cards from thorzul. can't wait for the next installment of trade me anything!