This year my girlfriend and I flew to Ohio to spend the holidays with her family. We celebrated Christmas, hung out with her extended family, made a quick trip to Chicago for more family stuff, and lounged around her parents' house. It was a fantastic and unproductive week and a half, and I loved every minute of it.
We happened to drop by a Target toward the end of our stay, and, lucky for me, I happened upon a decently-stocked card aisle. I have been unable to find cards at NYC Targets for the past several months, so this was certainly a boon. I planned on buying a blaster box, though they only had Panini blasters, so I opted for a few hanger packs of 2018 Topps Chrome Update Series instead. I'm a sucker for chrome, so I was definitely excited to get cracking.
Right off the bat, my girlfriend ripped open back-to-back packs and pulled a pair of autos. (She had quite the lucky touch this week, as she also won 100 bucks on a two-dollar scratcher.) Dustin Fowler is a former Yankees farmhand, now with the A's, and has a ton of promise. It's a sticker auto (meh) but a solid pull nonetheless.
The Minaya auto is a bit more exciting, as it's a green rookie parallel #'d /99. These things fall only once every 3,200 packs, so I was definitely happy to see it. Minaya has bounced around between the minors and the big leagues for each of the last three years, though he has a solid showing in 2018 and is likely to stick around in the White Sox bullpen.
Each hanger pack also came with a couple of pink parallels, which are pretty fun. The Braves are young and fun, so it'll be exciting to watch Albies develop other the next few years.
Other than the autos, the packs weren't all that exciting. There was a mixture of veteran stars and young rookies, but the cards themselves weren't too interesting. That is until I took a closer look at this Rhys Hoskins card.
The Phillies logo on Hoskins' helmet is barely visible, and his swing completely blocks out "Phillies" across his chest. If it weren't for the Phillies logo on the bottom left of the card, it would kinda resemble an unlicensed Panini card.
In fact, a majority of the cards I pulled seemed to fit this bill. Logos are hidden by arms and heads are often turned away just enough to obscure the helmet/hat logos. I'm not all that bothered by this, though I did find it a bit odd. I didn't buy all that much in 2018, so I'm wondering if this was a theme for Topps this year.
2018 wasn't a big year for cards here on the blog, but it certainly ended with a few packs and some satisfying pulls. Here's to a better card year in 2019!
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