Grade the Break - 2018 Stadium Club #2
Stadium Club - Round 2: My experience with Stadium Club has been very up and down. In our second 3-box break of SC, I had some higher expectations. The first break was fun, but the quality of cards we were getting wasn't great. I had a some good luck with some retail SC, so I was hoping that these boxes would give some good results, and/or my luck has changed...for everybody's sake! After opening more SC since it's release, the PROS and CONS haven't changed much but I did make some additions.
PROS
* Photography and types of images used are unlike any other card out there
* Top Rookies - Ohtani, Albies, Mejia, Hays, Verdugo, Robles, Hoskins, and Rosario
* Nice Inserts: Beam Team, Never Compromise, Power Zone, and Special Forces
* 2 Autos Promised - on-card autos, lots of rookies
* Lot's of Old-Timers
* Variations are tougher to get
* Good Value for the price point
* Stadium Club Chrome Parallels
CONS
* Variations are tougher to get (yes, this is a pro and a con)
* Lack of #'d cards (could be exclusive to our break)
* Too many teams that didn't have autos in the set
* Player and Team Names can be tough to read
* High gloss card, allows for easy damaging/scratching
* Collation was/is/always will be a major issue when opening Topps products.
This break had a lot of highlights, and a few lowlights (is that a word? sounds like a bad insert set). Of all of my breaks, I do believe we hit the nicest card in this break. See below. Our other autos were quite good and we did get a Rainbow Foilboard /25. Still no variations (unless I missed them) yet but again, it's not the worse thing if they make these harder to get. I have opened 6 hobby boxes, 2 blaster, and 12 retail rack packs. I still have not opened the Ohtani base rookie (or the Manny Machado base). My luck opening Ohtani has been awful, except for our Diamond Kings break where they pretty much put an Ohtani in every pack. I am not even a huge follower of his, but now it's quest that I need to conquer.
Our Best Card
Jose Altuve Beam Team Auto /15 - This card is beautiful! Beam Team is my favorite insert set of the year so far, and to pull this monster was awesome.
Our Other Autos
Alex Mejia RC Auto - NN
Victor Caratini RC Auto - NN
AJ Minter RC Auto - NN
Other Autos Included: Miguel Gomez and Jimmie Sherfy - both RC Autos
Some Rookie Highlights
The Ohtani Insert was a great pull! Love the Beam Team RC. A black foil RC and a red foil RC
More Highlights
A beautiful card here. Albert Pujols Rainbow Foilboard /25. The pc doesn't do this card justice.
MANNY!!!!
Sorry for that bad pic. This was one of two black and white parallels we got. The other was Khris Davis.
Just a great Jackie card. This is the black foil. Hard to tell on the pic.
Mookie Beam Team - I may need to do this Beam Team set
We received two each of two different Trout inserts, we rec'd the same the same Benintendi Beam Team as we did in the first break.
GRADE THE BREAK!
B+
This break was an improvement over the first 3 boxes we ripped. The Altuve alone made this break. Getting the /25 Pujols Rainbow and 3 other quality autos felt like an added bonus. this break lacked in the inserts and quality foil cards. But this still was better over all. Still can't believe no Ohtani base. Would have been nice to get a variation or a numbered auto.
Thanks to everyone that joined the break! Hope everyone enjoyed it. This was a lot of fun to pull the Altuve, Ohtani Insert and Manny Chrome.
I posted the first of two Inception breaks. This will be random spot, guaranteed card. You can see all available breaks on the Upcoming Breaks Page
Thanks for reading! Looking forward to Finest break on Friday night! - Aaron B
PS - Sorry for all the typos on the last blog post. I did that one way too early in the AM!