2024 Topps Blaster

I probably had the biggest grocery store trip of my life yesterday. We just had the perfect storm of being out of just about everything, wanting to stock up and kind of plan meals for the next 2-3 weeks, and had some of the bigger ticket items on the list. 

If I weren’t off today, I would’ve probably been Mr. Grumpypants, as we started shopping close to 7 and got home close to 10. We kind of took our time going down every aisle, looking at stuff we normally wouldn’t since our tax refund came back. It was a fun night in spite of all of the work of putting it away, and any time I get a chance to spend extended time with Karen and Kyler, there is bound to be some fun had. 

I lucked out and there were blasters of 2024 Topps, and I couldn’t help myself and got some and added to the huge receipt total. I know I’ll probably get the complete set in July, but these inserts aren’t going to get themselves into collectors hands, and it’s nice to have a stack of extras and inserts to trade to other collectors. 

Even after 1 jumbo pack, I only landed 3 dupes. Not too bad, but I don’t know what my reaction would be after another blaster. If it’s anything like 2023 Heritage High Number, that could stop me from pulling the trigger again. 

I like the Stars of MLB insert design, just as I did last year, but the Griffey inserts didn’t do it for me with the weird fonts. They could’ve done it many different ways. Perhaps writing Jr.’s name at the top like the Future Stars design and have the team name like normal. They could’ve just put the insert name on a stamp or something. I’m also confused with the backs. No bio and just career stats. Are they all like that? What’s the point of getting a card with no write up that is part of a player themed insert?  

The Thomas insert was lackluster in my opinion as well. Looks like something Fleer would do. I also wish the names on the ‘89 Topps tribute were more centered or to the right. I don’t remember them being that centered to the left in the ‘80 set. 

I think I’ve pulled the Trout Stars of MLB card for the past 3 years. I’ll be doing my Angels binders when I finish logging the Royals into TCDB (I’ll be starting on the ‘98 sets the next time I have a chance to work on them), and I’m interested in how many Trouts I have and if the values are crazy. I have a few in the rookie binder and parallel binder, but the final number won’t be more than 10 cards off. 

I had some nice ‘keeper cards’ from the blaster. Nick Fortes is from DeLand, and we saw him play in Washington and got an autograph from him last June. I was hoping the Rays would trade for him since we need a decent catcher. Kenley Jansen is the other guy I collect who got pulled. Josh Lowe represents the Rays, and I got 2 Tigers, including an Easter Egg parallel of Brendan White. Not a fan of the Holdiay parallels, but what can you do?  I got the De La Cruz rookie, so with the Henry David and Jasson Dominguez cards I got from the Jumbo pack, I believe I’ve pulled most of the big name rookies. Another option for the Rays to trade for at Catcher would be either Taylor Soderstrom or Shea Langliers. Both of them can’t be Oakland’s starter, and if we trade them a minor leaguer with upside we could get Shea, or maybe as much as I would hate to trade Harold Ramirez, trade him for Shea and a reliever. 

I got a Purple Shimmer parallel of Edwin Diaz, a Rainbow of former Florida Gator Brady Singer. The Soto is a Royal Blue parallel. How many Rays with that get me?  The last 3 are ‘Holiday’ parallels. Not sure what the design is supposed to be. Looks like it could be a flower or a moth or something. They are shiny, though. A coworker of mine knows Austin Hays through his mother, so I might bring that one to work for him. I wonder if he would take any other Rat-Bird cards off of my hands?  I still haven’t pulled the Yandy Diaz Batting Average leaders card, but I got a few of the other leader cards. I appreciate them putting stats on the front. I wish that on the back of the team cards they would put the stats along with team leaders name and the category instead of just putting that Zach Eflin led the Rays in Wins and not telling me how many. Just something I think would be useful. 

I made good progress on TCDB today, finishing Cleveland and getting up to 1998 with KC. That leaves me with the Angels, Twins, A’s, Mariners, Rangers, Jays, Yankee$, rookies, relics, and parallel/special card binders left. It’s slowly coming along, and I would say I’m between 35 and 40 binders to go before it’s done. Bonds and Miguel Cabrera are tied right now for most cards with 230, I believe. Bonds should pass him as I have 2 jerseys of him and only 1 of Cabrera. When I’m finished, I’ll do a post with all of my stats. 

I hope you enjoyed the 2024 Topps blaster. Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy