i couldn't wait for opening day

opening day is still a week away, and there is nothing easier than posting a bunch of cards from topps' opening day set on that day.  it's a no-brainer.  well, i'm not waiting.  i mentioned over the weekend that a work related meeting last week put me near a toys r us store.  i wound up buying 4 blister packs (3 packs per blister - plus a 'bonus' pack) of 2013 topps opening day.  i opened everything in the car before heading home.  here are some highlights.

zack greinke

one of my favorite things about opening day cards are the chances of seeing a player airbrushed/photoshopped into their new uniform, or seeing a different photo from the flagship set.  greinke has both - sort of.  there's the card above which is his base card.  i am guessing that when series 2 comes out, topps will use a real photo of greinke in a dodger uniform for his card.  or, they might use the other photo they used in opening day.  yes, there is a short print of greinke in this year's opening day set, featuring a photo from his press conference after joining the dodgers. 

i don't own a copy - i lifted the image from ebay.  it seems to me that this sort of thing runs counter to the premise of the 'cheaper' opening day set.  the other thing that was odd to me was that the 'bonus' pack mentioned on the packaging was a 5-card pack of cards from the flagship set.  i was hoping for opening day bonus cards - i don't need any more flagship cards.

moving on - here's josh beckett

andre ethier

and clayton kershaw

those are the only dodgers i pulled from the 12 packs i opened.  i did get some notable players in their new uniforms though, which was nice.  like josh hamilton

here is hamilton again on his opening day stars insert

this next one is very strange looking - it's michael young in a phillies uniform

there's a blogger in texas who just threw up a bit in his mouth, although he did get one last card of young as a ranger in the flagship release.

i am pretty sure we have seen this next image on a card before, although denard span was wearing a twins uniform then.  here he is in nationals' garb.

is that even a real uniform/hat combo in dc?  span was featured in the flagship set still wearing a twins uniform.

another guy in a different uniform is adeiny hechavarria

hechavarria was part of the jose reyes deal, so at first i thought he might have been a marlin in series one.  after all, reyes was featured in blue jays gear as was mark buerhle (on an insert card), but as luck would have it, hechavarria's flagship card was included in one of the 'bonus' packs.

i also got a blue sparkle parallel of the guy.

i like these better than the emerald parallels from series one.  and, because i mentioned him, here's a mark buerhle as a blue jay card from opening day.  a toys r us purple parallel exclusive, to be exact.

these were one per blister.  i'll show the other three in a moment.  first, there were some other cards that i liked, such as this pirate parrot mascot card

this colorful jose altuve card

which i somehow missed during everybody's series one posts, just like this adrian beltre card

i suppose i should just make it official and start to collect what i refer to as 'tatooine' cards - cards on which there is only infield dirt to be seen.

back to the purple stuff - here's the other three that i got.  elvis andrus

jarrod saltalamacchia

and barry zito

mas gigantes.  i was disappointed to see andrus bunting on his card - i was holding out hope for another double play turn from him.

i'm not sure what the seeding of the blue sparkle cards are, but for me they wound up being 1:6 packs.  here's the second one i found - jonathon niese of the ny metropolitans

i did get a handful of inserts as well.  here's the dustin pedroia 'play hard' insert.

i have nothing to say about that.

jurickson profar, who might not be old enough to shave, gets a shaving cream pie on his 'ballpark fun' card

while albert pujols is cackling maniacally on his contribution to the set.

pujols also appears, although in a non-credited appearance, on mike trout's 'superstar celebrations' card

i was happy to see another one of these in one of the packs as they might be my favorite of all the inserts.  unfortunately, it wasn't a matt kemp card.  instead, it was josh willingham

i think the twins have 3 cards in this insert set which seems like a lot.  this one looks a little strange.  the crowd in the background looks a bit like the crowd on george scott's 1973 topps card although i would need to see some other cards (in addition to the trout) from the set to see if maybe there was just an odd treatment given to the background on all the cards.

of course, i also picked up some packs of series one while i was there specifically for the purple parallels.  i shouldn't have bothered i don't think.  here's what i wound up with

not much to see there.  still, i'm going to see if i can get another meeting scheduled after series two is released. it would be nice to see some purple dodgers.