Cardboard Review:2019 Topps MLB Sticker Collection

Change.

Change can be taken in many ways all depending on how you look at the situation. Some may like what has changed to a certain thing and others may not.

In this years 2019 Topps Sticker collection there are some new changes and from my perspective, they are positive and good ones.

Let's check them out and see what your thoughts are.

The sticker box is the start of the changes. There are now only 50 packs of 4 stickers per as opposed to the 50 packs of 8 last year. Price point for the sticker book and album stay the same at roughtly $45.

 There are 236 stickers to collect this year and lots of new fun subset ones to as well.

 Here's what the team pages look like. Five players per team.

 The sticker freebies page and Betts celebration on the inside cover

 Guys who can hit the long ball.

 Rookies and Rising Stars.

This years album is full of bright, bold colorful pages.

Here is the packs packaging. Notice anything different about it? Well, now it's trading card size packs that also means the stickers are too.

Here are the four sticker/cards I found.

 Stickers have full bleed photographs and a solid design.

In addition to the fronts of the stickers, the backs are now collectible and you don't need to throw them away like the old days. The backs of each, represented by the same order as I posted above, have players to that you could save and collect as cards. I really like this idea and it saves on so much waste from these.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: The Topps MLB Sticker collection has always been fun for old and young collectors and I think this years brings it to another whole level. The themes and pages are fun and now with the stickers having added collectible backs it adds a whole new level of collecting to this. I say go have fun with it!

2019 Sorting Project

It started on January 1st and may take me to the next January 1st to tackle the biggest sort I have ever done. My goal in the end, securing the fact I will be able to find my cards a lot easier.

However, to begin such a sort, I had to do something a bit backwards first. I had to finish up sorting the way I have always sorted to move onto the "Big Sort". I know I should have just kept this stuff out and sorted it in the new fashion, but I don't have the room and honestly with all of this laying around, it would bog me down more than get me going with momentum. I like to take things one at a time. This would be way to much to able to do that.

Not to mention I don't have the space for my plans. I had to use multiple sorting trays, a bench, a box, my floor, my entire desk, etc just to sort the stuff that has been sitting on my desk forever.

 

Thank Goodness for BCW Sorting Trays!

 

A bench I have to hold my oddball stuff by number.

 

Sorting tray again.

 

Oh my desk!

 

More desk space eaten up.

I still need to put this all away the old way. It's going to be quite the journey.

What's going to be my big sort? Well, it's taking apart every sports inserts, pulling out the 90's stuff for a binder on it's own, then pulling the rest out to be put into penny sleeves, by team, then into boxes instead of binders. The binders I empty will be used for putting my players back in like they used to be. I think the players I currently have in boxes are worth more than the new inserts of today. The 90's inserts will be sorted by what they are and finally grouped together to see if there are any other sets I want to build.

This is just Part 1. Part 2, I need to take apart two binders of Griffey Jr, sort them by year, by brand, put them back into a binder than do my online checklist.

Part 3 is moving my NY Giants relics from a stack on a table, into boxes sorted by player to make it easier for me to do posts with if I choose to do so.

Part 4 I am also going to take apart my relics and autograph boxes and sort them by team.

I am sure along the way I will find other ways I want to tweak things and maybe even change my plans from above as I go. All I know, it's going to take awhile. That Griffey project alone will be grueling. As all of that goes along updates on here along with some changes to things will come as well.

All I know this is going to keep me busy for awhile. So if you see me disappear and maybe miss some posts, I probably got lost in the cards. Don't call for help. I will find a way out.

Donruss, Donruss, Donruss

The next part of my Grady M mail day contained some shiny and some fun cards from Donruss.

Let's take a look.

Some shiny goodness from Optic basketball. This group includes Eric Gordon who I had huge hopes for and held onto all of his rookies of. Big mistake. That's one problem with prospecting.

More shiny cards. This time from Donruss and Donruss Threads.

More Optic shiny. This time some purple. This group includes Kemba Walker who I remember watching play in college on TV. I always thought he would be bigger than he is.

Sweet Wes Unseld pink. Gotta love the Bullets throwback uni

These blue parallels look awesome. Probably the most impressive parallel in the product from what I have seen. There are some great players in this group as well with Vince Carter, Trevor Ariza, Dwayne Wade (who I will always forget that he left Miami), and Ricky Rubio.

I have always liked Panini's Crusade product or even the inserts they used in Rookies and Stars. I always said it should be an individual product for football.

I also got my first look at Donruss baseball. At least some of the inserts. This is the way inserts should be. Numbered, colorful and collectible and not every pack. This is why I would want Panini to get part of the MLB license. They did a great job with Donruss at least with the inserts. We will dig deeper soon with that product.

 

And I love The San Diego Chicken add to the product.

 

Then came these nickname variations. This is what we will dig deeper into at some point.

 

Lots of Stanton. Parallels and Sp.

Like I said this isn't the end of the Donruss talk. This years product was up and down for me. Some positives and some negatives and I am sure you guys will agree with me when the post goes up.

Stepping Stone Into Collecting Baseball Cards

I sat down the other day with a 2018 Topps Sticker album with stickers and wondered if this is a stepping stone for kids into the hobby of collecting baseball cards.

First off, it's very affordable. At most the albums alone cost $2 each. The 2018 album cover features a catchy/hot player in Aaron Judge.

Sticker packets usually cost $1 per pack for 8 stickers. Kids could easily do some chores or earn money for the holidays to buy packs. Even boxes of the stickers are affordable at $35 that has 300 stickers in it with 50 packs.

Inside of the album offers kids 6 free stickers to kick off their albums and also introduces them to Opening Day, which is a very kid friendly product. It also teases them to buy some packs to find 4 special edition stickers to finish their album only found in packs of Opening Day. Pretty sneaky but smart of Topps.

The back of the free stickers inside was also very genius. It's an ad for the kids to print their own baseball cards with themselves on it.  Bravo!

Each page takes the 9 best recognizable players for each team that I think kids would know the names of. I do wished they were updated with newer acquisitions but you can't win it all. It does on the other hand include top rookies. As you can see Judge isn't included on this page. He is sticker #1 in the set and is on the back inside-cover for his sticker which is odd as I would have chosen the front, but it works I guess as the front inside cover had the Opening Day ad.

In the middle of the book, there is every team to collect and you can fill in the brackets at seasons end for the champion. Or if you choose fill in your early predictions.

  

I thought while I was breaking this all down, I would rip into a couple of sticker packets to show the contents. An immediate plus is how easy the packs open and any kid of any age should be able handle these.

 

Pack one. This one was lacking a sticker. Uh oh.

Pack two had all eight and a solid lineup of players.

 

A couple of observations on the stickers themselves. The stickers are bendable, so no damage can be done to them like it would be done to cards. They will still even go in the albums but just don't look as nice as they would have been if they stayed flat. I think the stickers are affordable enough to use as a teaching point for showing kids how much better things will look if you take care of them which can cross over to cards.

I know most kids today are mostly excited about things being electronic and some suggest that using digital cards would be the way to go to get them interested in the hobby. I don't see a problem with that idea, but I think the stickers are more of a physical approach to help guide them. Sometimes digital things are more of a problem in this world then a help in my opinion.

I must also mention in closing, these stickers are not just for kids or being kid intended. I know this adult kid who writes this blog is one who enjoys piecing these together as well.

REVIEW:MLB Slammin' Sluggers Baseball Game

As I think you know, I am a bit old fashioned. Don't get me wrong, I use my phone and and I play video games, but I still prefer things the way they were in the 90's before all of the electronics. Some of my best memories were made playing outside with my friends, playing Monopoly with my grandmother or sitting with my dad on the floor playing Top Corner hockey nightly.

So when I discovered MLB Slammin' Sluggers Baseball Game, I had to give it a go.

ASSEMBLY

The game is officially licensed by the MLB and has all 30 teams. Here is the punch-out sheet of players.

The game mostly came together, but there were some pieces to add on as well. I am not very good about assembling things,just ask my wife, but this literally was a ten minute assembly process and one I handled with ease. Even without the instructions.

Here is what the game will look like when you pull it out of the box, minus the baseball piece above I attached on. The baseball piece is how you control the players on the field. Next to it you will see another white button that controls the pitching. More on the pitching aspect in a second.

The players, once punched out,, easily slide into slots. There are seven players per team. Whoever is up to bat keeps their players off the field. You know, like real baseball.

As I began to assemble to give it a go, I assembled the scoreboard that features moving numbers for innings and score along with the match up of the day, Yankees at home of course. The pitching piece and bat easily pushed into place.

I inserted the rest of the pieces including the foul poles and the outfield pieces to keep the baseballs in line. Now it was time to play!

This game does require two people, ages 6+ of course. You cannot play alone so I invited my wife for a friendly game ;)

GAME PLAY

The game is pretty simple to play, you fill the pitching machine up with the 5 provided metal marble balls, you pull back on the pitching mechanic I showed you above that's located next to the baseball piece, and it will pitch the ball.

 

The bat, well there's a button off to the side you pull to swing. You can be either a left handed batter or right handed batter depending on your preference. But, as pitcher, you can change the velocity on how fast you pitch and the infield has a magnetic pull to it to trick the batter. You sometimes must have really good hand-eye coordination depending on what kind of master of the game you play.

 

If you are fortunate to hit the ball, the outfield is marked with sections you can hit the ball into such as a Double, Out and Home Run. There is also a foul section. You then take one of the three players, three small pieces that are included, and move them around the bases as you hit. You score and play the 9 inning game just like real baseball.

You will also notice that the players have sections in front of them. If the ball lands in one of those slots, well, great play by the fielder and you are out. You can move the players as I said above by moving the baseball piece back and forth.

 

Off to the right of the field, you can keep track of outs, balls and strikes. 

Overall, I found the game to be easy to assemble, easy to play and very addictive. I still haven't quite figured out all of the pitching moves yet, but I am sure overtime I will get it all together and be unstoppable.

You can pick up one of these games for yourself at Toys R Us, Amazon or Walmart.