Big Time

A look at the new Topps Big League set. 

 

In the current production schedule, there aren't a lot of new baseball cards to look at this early in the season. For this reason, I'm grateful for the arrival of the now annual Big League set, even if it's never really going to be my thing.

As a replacement for Opening Day, this isn't a bad idea. The design is fairly eye-catching, though the cards are printed on the same somewhat cheap feeling card stock of years past.

It's that tiered rarity system for the base yet that Topps revived for last year's set. I'm quite confident that nobody likes this. The rare set collector probably won't even bother with this product, and the team collectors (like myself) get mad about having to track down rare cards whenever their team lands on that portion of the checklist. These are two foil cards from the most common short printed tier. The cards in the higher tiers will probably stay on my want list for years, just like last year.

Here are some more Cardinals. We get Large Lad Luken, currently back with Memphis for the third straight season, plus a few more well known guys from the active big league roster.

The card backs look similar to the flagship set. It's not a bad template.

Of course, there is the usual crop of inserts to be had. Good Vibrations would probably make more sense in a Heritage or Archives type set instead of something modern like this. I think Ozzie is the only retired player on the checklist, but I'm certainly not complaining about another card of the Wizard in 2024.

Topps Big Leaguers is the most redundant insert set name of the year. These Big League Big Leaguers come in a few different design that look like something out of an '80s children's magazine. (Highlights, anyone?)

Topps did port over their Mascots inserts from the defunct Opening Day set to this one. These are definitely for the kids, and kids at heart.

Orange parallels can only be found in blasters now. Previously, you would find blue parallels in blasters and orange elsewhere. They're still called "electric orange" despite just having a bit of plain orange on the borders. The more common foil cards also come in this orange variety, only, you know... foil.

No one openings Big League packs expecting hits, but I actually landed two autographed cards in the same one blaster that I opened. It feels like the Orioles have had a plethora of prospects run through their system of late.

Both autographs are headed for the trade box. I haven't been able to add this one to TCDB yet, as someone needs to upload a checklist first. (That someone could be me, I suppose.)