Thursday, February 24, 2022

I never wanted to be one of the cool kids (and other 2022 Topps musings)


I've never been made fun of for collecting baseball cards, but I've received many a raised eyebrow.

Much of my adult life has been spent underneath the outside perception that hoarding baseball cards is a "kid's hobby." Not in practice, of course - we know that adults outnumber kids about 100-to-1 at card shows - but I've always gotten the feeling that people on the outside don't see collecting cards as something adults do, or should be doing. Pretty much all of my teens and early-20s consisted of people giving me blank stares when I told them I collected baseball cards, and after I while I just kept it to myself.

Now, in 2022, I'm getting the sense that cards are being seen as a more and more "legitimate" hobby for those same blank-stared people I encountered ten years ago. I'd be willing to bet that at least a couple of the "cool kids" I knew in high school are the ones currently salivating over PSA slabs and Wander Franco's RC logo. Baseball cards, it seems, are everywhere, and people from all over are talking about them. For a long time, that's what I thought I wanted.

But at the risk of sounding like a gatekeeper, I have to admit that I kinda liked it better before - before people were fighting each other in the card aisles, back when I could feel like the hobby was something that was mine and only mine.




All of this, mind you, is just a roundabout way of saying I FOUND 2022 TOPPS!

I've always said the dawn of a new card year is a crazy and exciting time, which explains why I walked into a packed Walmart on a Sunday evening after work in search of our newest cards. I would do that for nothing else besides baseball cards. Luckily, persistence paid off, because there in a card aisle was a only partially-ransacked display of 2022 Topps, and I managed to grab a handful of hanger packs.

Breaking news: I pulled the holy Wander Franco, and please forgive me for being the 835th person who's shown it by now. I feel like I've seen that card at least 10 times more than everything else in 2022 Topps combined - which pretty much sums up where the hobby is in the hands of the "cool kids" these days.

But there's a lot of other star power in 2022 Topps, and while I think the Franco is a good, solid baseball card (but of course people aren't talking about how it looks), a lot of other stars in this set were rewarded with even better cards that blow Sir Franco out of the water.




Contrary to popular belief, there are 329 other cards in the this year's base set besides Wander Franco, and on the whole I think 2022 Topps is a massive upgrade over what we've seen the past couple years.

I'm not saying this set ranks anywhere near the top of the Topps canon, but it's certainly more enjoyable than 2020 & 2021. It's a fine design with readable player names (looking at you, 2021), as well as just plain better photos - not a ton of those ghastly zoomed-in face shots that have plagued the last half-decade or so of Topps.

Thankfully, Topps included a lot of late-season deals that they, ahem, forgot to put in 2021 Update - even digging into the rubble of Jake Arrieta's miserable four-game stint with the Padres!




Obligatory insert dump - I feel like a baby in a high-chair with Topps spoon-feeding us the '87 design over and over and over again while we cry for no more, no more!




Topps collation is equally drab this year - I once again received doubles and triples of many cards from my hanger packs - but 2022 is the first time I've seen equally horrendous collation with inserts (anyone need one of these?).




Back to the base cards, and some wonderful horizontal shots - Bichette is an addition to my not-quite-mini-collection of the Blue Jays' red Canada Day uniforms.




I was wondering how many of these City Connect jerseys would pop up in 2022 sets - Marlins aside, I don't like any of these very much, but they're fun little easter eggs to look for in this year's set.

(The Marlins should really consider making that their regular look.)




More cards I enjoyed for whatever reason - that Archie Bradley is a masterpiece and a photo that probably would've been eschewed for a close game-face shot five years ago.




I am convinced we have a budding cardboard legend on our hands with Kikè Hernandez - much like Frankenset MVP Kirt Manwaring, he's a decent player who somehow keeps getting star-level baseball cards.

And all things considered, the trend continued in 2022 with what might well be his best card yet - features the same mess of motion and flying limbs we saw in 2019 & 2020 & 2021. In a perfect world, this would be the card we'd be seeing over and over again in praise of the hobby, not the otherwise marginal Wander Franco I've seen enough for three lifetimes already, but one that the "cool kids" keep showing in hopes of a future payout from the cardboard slot machine.

I don't know what the future holds, but I hope we'll one day get back to the nuts and bolts of what a new card season means, showing and comparing our favorite cards, and just generally digging into that wonderful excitement of possibility only a new card year can bring.

18 comments:

Mike said...

Wow,I like the design and REALLY like some of these shots!

Archie Bradley needs to be on Broadway with that high kickin' haha!

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

Glad you got some 2022's.

night owl said...

Hmmm, Kiké as a Cardboard Legend ... I think I can make that happen.

Shlabotnik Report said...

lol, I stopped telling people about my collection before I got to high school, and didn't really mention it for many years after that.

I haven't found 2022 Topps, but I do like the looks of it from what I've seen

GTT said...

Huh. 2022 Topps actually looks nice. That's good for a change.

And the Kike Hernandez is fantastic. First ballot cardboard hall of famer.

Nachos Grande said...

This year's Topps feels more like a Bowman release to me but I do think it's an improvement over the last couple of years. The photography isn't that far behind what I expect for a set like Stadium Club (and that's meant to be high praise)!

Chris said...

I agree with so much of what you said, feeling like card collecting is something of a guilty pleasure as an adult, like if you told non-collectors they'd think it's a kid's hobby. And yet there are fewer and fewer kids collecting because of the crazy prices, hot RC chase, and difficulty in finding cheap products to collect.

I also agree that the hobby was much more fun before the new wave of investors/flippers took over. Collecting for the fun/love of the hobby is so much harder nowadays, simply because it's harder to find value.

All that said, I do like the look of 2022 Topps and this was my first time seeing a lot of the cards you showed. (Not the Franco RC of course; congrats on pulling that one!)

bbcardz said...

2022 Topps flagship is definitely a step up from last year's design. As a set collector who's not concerned with RC's or even future "value", these will do just fine. Great post!

Fuji said...

That Hernandez is sweet! Topps hooked him up in back to back years. As for the raised eyebrows... I've always felt a little self-conscious about talking about cards around my non-collector friends. But several of them along with some family members reached out to me during the boom to ask me about the craze.

Anonymous said...

Being "cool"? We never had a chance, kid.

Matt said...

I have a post scheduled for Monday all about Kiki Hernandez and his recent run of cards. And here I thought I was being original! ;)

Trevor P said...

I found 2022 Topps on the day it released, but elected to buy something else instead. I'm liking the look of this year's base cards, but I'm kind of tired of buying Flagship because of the proliferation of retread and uninspiring inserts. That said, I'd be happy to trade you something for one of those Javy dupes...

Doc Samson said...

Thank you, Nick, for sharing your 2022 Topps haul and more importantly, your overall baseball card collecting thoughts.

I myself have reached a point where I need to stop buying complete sets because I am so pressed for space. That said, I will probably try to obtain a few singles I have my eye on.

One more thing: the fact that the 2022 flagship is available before 2021 Big League is mind blowing.

Bo said...

I don't know if that "Welcome to the Show" insert is supposed to be about a player's big league debut, but the photo of Mattingly is from 1994, his next-to-last season.

Elliptical Man said...

Yeah, it's a better design than 2021.

Trout wins it.

I got the cards you sent me. Thanks.

Mike said...

Can there be too many cards of Javier Báez in a Mets uniform? ;)

This design is a lot cleaner than several of Topps' recent issues, although between the cloudy haze above the nameplate and the loads of empty space in the bottom two corners, it feels as though simply dedicating a bit more space to the player photos could have made it even better without changing all that much.

Jafronius said...

Congrats on the find and thanks for showing off the cards! I was able to order a blaster off the Target website last Friday so at least I'll get some cards.

Tim said...

The collation in this year’s Topps is pretty bad. I’ve already got a double of the Wander Franco lol. But the photography and overall card design are superior this year.