Spring training camps break in just a little over two weeks, but Topps baseball cards are already gearing up for the start of the new baseball season. The iconic baseball trading card company is announcing the release of their 2017 set with an ultimate giveaway. Chicago third baseman and 2016 NL MVP Kris Bryant will be the first card released.
The first 29 cards will be unveiled in the baseball series 1 release while the rest of the set is set to be released with the baseball series 2 set in June. October marks the release of the 2017 Topps baseball update. Topps is giving away 2 million cards during the promotion and fans have a chance at winning any original card throughout its 66-year history.
One of the coolest things about Topps is their first-pitch insert cards that depict celebrities throwing out first pitches at MLB stadiums all around the sport. Topps will also be celebrating memorable moments and milestones from baseball history, such as Jackie Robinson Day, and other honors.
Check out the card for actor Keegan-Michael Key who threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Dodger Stadium last July 30. That card will be included in the series 1 set that was released on Wednesday afternoon. Check out the official press release below for more information. Can you believe they now put players’ social media information on the backs of their cards? My how times have changed.
Topps Baseball season is back, and it begins with the launch of 2017 Topps® Baseball Series 1. Every year since 1952, The Topps Company, the exclusive trading card partner of Major League Baseball, has released its annual baseball card set that includes fan favorites, superstars, up-and-coming rookies and the recent addition of popular First Pitch™ inserts.
Today, baseball fans around the world can start ripping packs and collecting cards of amazing moments, rookies and superstars. As announced last week, Chicago Cubs third baseman and 2016 NL MVP Kris Bryant was voted by fans to be on Card No. 1 for 2017 Topps Baseball.
Bryant joins a long list of great players who have been represented on the first Topps card of the year from Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams to Mike Piazza and Derek Jeter. Also included in the series are special cards depicting on-air personalities from the MLB Network, including Hall of Famer John Smoltz, hosts Greg Amsinger and Lauren Shehadi, and former players Harold Reynolds, Sean Casey and more.
The first 10 cards of this 29-card set will appear in 2017 Topps Baseball Series 1 and the rest within the June release of 2017 Topps Baseball Series 2 and the October release of 2017 Topps Baseball Update.
Additionally, Topps is giving away two million cards in The Ultimate Card Giveaway, giving baseball fans a chance to find original Topps cards from throughout its 66-year history. There will also be opportunities to win great prizes including Topps Now™ and Topps BUNT® cards as part of The Ultimate Card Giveaway.
“Topps Baseball Series 1 is the official launch of the baseball season and a part of Americana as generations of fans eagerly await the annual baseball card release,” said David Leiner, General Manager and Vice President of the North American Sports & Entertainment Division at Topps.
“Each year, Topps Baseball includes the best players and must-have rookie cards. Collecting cards is the perfect hobby to enjoy with friends and family, and we are proud to keep that tradition alive.”
Much of what makes baseball and Topps cards great is celebrating what happens on the field. This year’s annual release looks at memorable moments and milestones including Jackie Robinson Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, and special throwback nights showcasing Clubs’ classic uniforms.
Topps is also honoring MLB’s award winners from 2016 with special cards made for the AL and NL Most Valuable Players, Rookies of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year, among others. Topps’s popular First Pitch™ insert cards also return, depicting newsworthy moments of celebrities throwing out first pitches prior to games. The set’s popularity has grown since its inception two years ago.
“As the game has evolved so has our product offering,” said Clay Luraschi, Topps Vice President of Product Development. “This year’s release features a modern design and includes players’ social media information on the backs of cards, all while celebrating the rich history of Topps and Major League Baseball.”
Opening a pack of cards brings joy to long-time and new collectors alike. Parents and grandparents can share the thrill and excitement of a lifelong hobby with younger family members. They can also teach them about Topps’ history with special cards dedicated to 1987 Topps, featuring the memorable wood-grain design that can be found in the new packs.
Topps Baseball blends its rich heritage of traditional cards with new technologies including Topps NOW, on-demand trading cards, and digital cards from Topps BUNT®, which can also be found in the BUNT app.
The celebration doesn’t end there. With The Ultimate Card Giveaway, Topps is randomly inserting two million original Topps cards into packs beginning with 2017 Topps Baseball Series 1. Fans can find cards from The Ultimate Card Giveaway throughout the year in other products, including Topps Baseball® Series 2, Topps Baseball® Update, Topps Heritage® Baseball, Topps Allen & Ginter® Baseball and Bowman® Baseball.
The Ultimate Card Giveaway includes a great blend of new and vintage cards, giving collectors a taste what Topps has offered throughout its 66 years of creating baseball cards. Many of the cards will include a special foil stamp to celebrate the joy of rediscovering Topps Baseball, from fabulous memories of the past to the game’s greatest moments as they happen.
You can also find rookie cards of the newest rising stars, including 2015 No. 1 Draft pick Dansby Swanson, 2015 No. 2 Draft pick Alex Bregman, international star Yoan Moncada, and New York Yankees standout Aaron Judge.
Don’t miss out on the thrill of opening new packs of 2017 Topps Baseball Series 1 starting Feb 1st.
Celebrities and newsworthy moments depicted on the First Pitch collection insert set:
Judd Apatow
Deshauna Barber
Stephen Colbert
Brett Eldredge
Lou Ferrigno
John Goodman
Joan Jett
Leslie Jordan
Victoria Justice
Jon Lovitz
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Keegan-Michael Key
Chris Lane
Joe Mantegna
Mase
Bob Odenkirk
Jeremy Piven
William Shatner
Paul Wall
We seem to have developed a case of Troll Infestation and he makes it pretty obvious who he is. I assume Scott and Oscar will begin surgery shortly…
I started collecting cards in 1958. My favorite set is the 1959 cards. I like the close up pictures and never was much into the action shots they started doing in later years. My foster father made me throw away all of the cards I had. And I had close to 2,000,000 cards. I started collecting again after I retired. Only Dodgers cards though. It is way to expensive a hobby to go after the old sets. But you can still find some cards at reasonable prices. Even the Hall of Famers. The on year that I have all the Dodgers from is 1959. Hardest card to find was Gene Snyder, a LH pitcher. Most expensive was naturally the Koufax.
2,000,000 cards? At a penny apiece, that is $20,000. Man you had too much money back then! I bet you also had a lot of cavities, from chewing all that gum.
I also LOVED collecting baseball cards. My biggest year was 1962. Probably had hundreds of “Howie Koplitz” cards, seemed like there was one of those in every pack. Of course, used many in bicycle spokes and many more found their way to the floor. Used to drive my Mom crazy, she always wanted to throw ALL the cards out. Most of my cards were also thrown away, and my Mom also gave many to a cousin who was about 12 years younger than me around 1976 (just a year or two before they were worth something). That cousin always pisses me off by telling me how many Mantles and Roses he got. Oh well, Mom did lots and lots of other stuff for me and she was a damn good cook!!
Happily, I still have about three to four thousand cards, and lots of Dodgers. Is Beckett still the best way to value them or internet?
Todays market if I still had them they would be worth a lot more than that. Counting some of the HOF player cards I had, ( Mays, Mantle, Snider, Koufax, Berra, et al ) Lets put it this way. A 59 Snider in mint condition brings close to 200.00. I had a Mantle rookie card..52 Topps, one of the most expensive there is. … mint it lists at close to 50,000.00……Beckett is probably the best way because most of the collectors who put those on E-Bay over price them a lot.
Two million anythings is damn impressive!
I was actually in the right place at the right time. A bunch of my friends who quit collecting gave me their cards. That was where I got the Mantle rookie. A guy I went to high school with gave me his brothers cards, they were early 50’s stuff. Bowman’s and Topps. That is where I got most of my Brooklyn Dodgers cards. When I sang the National Anthem in 1981, I gave Tommy Lasorda a 1954 Lasorda card.
I also was in the right place at the right time. I probably bought my first cards around 1960. Good old Armando Martinez gave me ALL his cards somewhere along the line. Lots of 1950’s cards and even a couple 1952 cards. I’ve got Willie Mays, 56-59 and others, I think I also have that Koufax card you showed above.
Armando lived across the street and was about 8 years older than me, sometimes baby sat us kids. The big kids used to always play baseball in the street, usually with a rubber ball. I’d beg them to let me play, probably starting around age 5. Armando would always pick me last and position me about 50 feet past the deepest outfielder. I had one of those flat mitts, for a right hander, I am left handed. I’d run down any liners that got by the fielders and maybe got a monster fly ball once a day. I can still remember circling around watching those big flys coming and having them bounce around five, ten feet from me. Finally, caught my first one when my Dad was doing yard work right there, all the big kids cheered. One of the proudest moments of my life.
What a great memory to have!
Totally cool. In 1960 Larry Sherry and his brother Norm moved into a new housing development on the street I lived on. So when February of 1961 rolled around they would go down to Arroyo Seco Park to practice. A couple other players and a bat boy or two would join them. They let us kids shag fly balls for them. It was about as close to the baseball dream as you can get.
You must have been TOTALLY in awe of Larry, as a kid and shortly after the 1959 series.
Amazes me how those old-timers trained in the off-season. Not like today.
I also had a large baseball collection. My pride and joy was my 1958 Topps set. Had over 90% of the set. But over the past few years have sold most of my collection. Still have the 1958 Topps Mickey Mantle card amongst a few others.
Dodgers first year in LA. I have a few of those now, Hodges and Furillo, and a couple others. I think I have a Charlie Neal.
Mind you, the 1958 set was before my time but it was the 50’s set that I hand collated. I had every big dollar card except for the Sandy Koufax card.
***Had posted this at the bottom of the previous blog***
Things will pick up as we get closer to the start of the season and in actuality they will pick up once ST starts up. This board will be fine and the talks should be primarily baseball only related. But in saying that, everyone needs to put to rest their political views. Some of us had to hold our nose the last 8 years with Obama and now others can hold their nose for the next 4 years of Trump. That’s America.
I do see this as being a very good blog and being much better than before (last year) as much of the derogatory comments have dissipated. Scott, Oscar and crew do an excellent job with their posts but folks, there hasn’t been much to talk about. This is not a Dodger thing. THIS IS NOT FAZ’s fault. This is a baseball thing. It is extremely quiet with most every organization right now.
So my question to ‘you’, how soon do you think the Dodgers will GET to the World Series again?
“everyone needs to put to rest their political views. Some of us had to hold our nose the last 8 years with Obama”
Nice. Everyone but you?
Baseball cards? Not interested. My collection disappeared when I was in Vietnam. I had about a thousand cards, from around ’57 to ’66. Nobody could tell me what happened to them.
Will the Dodgers get to the World Series in ’17? Odds say – maybe. 9/1. I say – not with that rotation.
Well don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. My comic book/Mad Magazine collection disappeared while I was in the service.
Loved, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash and Classic Illustrated comics. I think the draft dodging brother got them. Damn Libs!
Boxout
You can’t help yourself, can you?
I would say that 1 of the following 6 teams will represent the NL in the WS. Either the LA Dodgers, SF Giants, NY Mets, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs or St. Louis Cardinals. The dark horse of the remaining teams might be the Diamondbacks. That’s it. 5 of those teams will be in the playoffs of which you ONLY need to beat out 2 of them (assuming a division winner.) Easy peasey.
Badger
Don’t feel bad, my brother gave away all of his albums, before he went to Nam.
But I guess it wasn’t your idea, to give away your cards, so that is different.
Two baseball card questions:
Do they still provide a stick of gum with each pack?
The corporate post mentions celebrating the 1987 card collection. What’s the big deal with 1987 Topps cards?
Topps has what they call the Heritage series. It takes todays players and puts them in cards resembling the year they are celebrating. They have been doing that for quite a few years. I have a Jackie Robinson card that is made to look like the 1959 set and he is wearing a Giants uniform. For instance, the 2008 Heritage cards are made to look like the 1959 set. Shown below is the 1959 version of what Kershaws rookie card would look like. I believe that they quit putting gum in them.
More than likely it’s just a ’30 year’ thing. There were a lot of rookie cards in that set but Topps over produced their cards so much that the entire complete set might be worth $10. A few names from that year….McGwire, Bonds, Canseco, Larkin, Palmeiro…..
These sites always get nasty when basically two things occur: politics get involved and when huge narcissistic people bash everyone over the head with their self-promotion and attention seeking. So THE STENCH has taken narcissism elsewhere, to that is one problem solved (however he is a troll and he is always seeing what is being said about him, he has yet to realize that no one in here wants to hear his take on anything so he still posts here. Maybe he will get it some day, I doubt it, it just isn’t how a narcissist thinks or acts). Now if we can eliminate politics we should stay in good shape and enjoy this board.
Cheer, hold your nose, barf or drink champagne regarding past and present politics, just keep it out of here, please.
Baseball cards, I destroyed thousands of dollars in my bicycle spokes. Not looking back with regret though, because damn those cards made an awesome sound when I rode my bike!
I was raised in Jupiter, Fl and became a Dodger Fan in 1951. I also collected baseball cards, but only kept Dodger cards! I would trade Mays & Mantle cards for Duke Snider cards. I would go to Spring Training games tn Vero and WPB and get my cards signed. I had all the Dodger HOFers from the 50’s autographed, Including 5 Sandy Koufax cards! I joined the Marine Corps in December of 1962 and while I was at Boot Camp at Parris Island my mother threw them all away! On a side note Gil Hodges had the largest hands I had ever seen. He didn’t even need a first baseman mitt. I often wonder what my collection would be worth in today’s market.
A lot. Sniders 57 card is pretty pricey, but Koufax cards are in huge demand. I have seen them as high as 30,000.00 dollars.
Yeah, there was something about those baseball cards that made Moms want to throw them away. In my case, I have to admit, I left them laying all over the place. However, even after I was grown-up and they were just in one big box in a closet, she still wanted to throw them away.
An aside, I have a senior in high school son, he is like I was, not interested in school work and not college material right now. Went with him last Tuesday to the NV National Guard Recruiting office. I think he is going to join them. I also was in Marine Corps, Hollywood Marine, kind of glad he doesn’t want to do that.
Semper Fi
what happened to Badger?
He got a massive hemorrhoid, he named it Mark Timmons.
Looking at everything, it seems he has taken a dislike to Melton and Boxout also
I think ol Badger is out of his gourd
Ray
Mark and Badger have been in this back and forth, for over twenty years.
Boxout is a Mark guy, and he has been going after Badger, for Mark.
And the other guy, I am sure you saw, what he is all about.
I work for the guy that started snopes.com and in fact he is snopes.com, he has a closet that has every Topps card ever made, albums of every year. He told me his mother was a hoarder and the upside was he has every Topps card ever made all in pristine condition. I also saw Charlie Sheens collection, also very impressive.
I was never much of a card collector and when I did get some cards(late 50’s & early 60’s) I attached them to wheel spokes to make noise.
My brother-in-law whose was not interested in sports bought an old house and while restoring it had to tear down the plaster/horsehair walls in the attic. He found hundreds and hundreds of old baseball cards that was used for insulation when the house was built.
He never told me until AFTER he threw them out. I wonder how many Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, etc. cards were worth value. He did mention that some were in very good condition.
Live and learn.
He threw them out?
And your sister married this chucklehead?
One more question – Is Melton your brother-in-law?
Ya never know
I could be your neighbor
I don’t have any baseball cards.
My mind’s on Joe Blanton and the bullpen today.
When it comes to the bullpen, there are two eternal truths (at least). First, it always needs tinkering. Second, as a corollary, it always needs tinkering because there are always more than two bullpen guys at any one time where you scratch your head and wonder why are they on the 25 man roster, and without whom the need for tinkering would be much less, or none at all. So in a nutshell, every team’s FO creates its own needs for tinkering with its own bullpen. That’s my axiom for the day.
So here we are. For this team’s bullpen, the two head scratchers are Baez and Hatcher. And as for tinkering, I am on the fence in regards to Blanton. If we could get rid of Baez and Hatcher, signing Blanton would be a no brainer and then we go with some of our RHP minor league talent to fill the gaps. I think our bullpen from the left side is fine as is, and perhap very good. But with Baez and Hatcher around, I’d probably not sign Blanton and just go with the kids. This does not make the club better and I do hope Baez and Hatcher are gone soon (both of them). I’m also resigned to the fact that it won’t happen. Sigh.
YF
I hate that Hatcher, or any pitcher, will make the major league team, because they are out of options, instead of by performance.
It would be nice to have a reliable set up guy, but the front office wants to keep the payroll down, so I don’t see that happening.
If it wasn’t like that, maybe we could get Robertson, from the White Sox cheaply, but his contract, is probably to much, for our front office’s budget.
A Dodger writer has Baez already penciled in, to be our set up guy next year.
And Hatcher is probably going to get another chance too, so Michael and the rest of us, better get our hearts prepared.
Because those two can’t help, but make us all nervous, and Baez tortures us slowly, with every pitch he makes.
I am just glad we are almost there.
We all could use a good distraction, right now.
Romo? https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/827317375590604802
Jonah
He might be ok, to help set up.
He would be a different type of pitcher, in our pen.
It would be hard for a hitter, to try to hit this guy, after facing Baez, with his high velocity pitches.
And if he is effective, it would be fun to see him, pitch against the Giants.
NPUT guys
https://ladodgerreport.com/dodgers-considering-signing-sergio-romo/
I read that earlier today on Trade Rumors and still hope that it’s Blanton.
Why not both? Clean out the Garage? Let some people go?
I would be fine with that. Blanton had a solid season. I would be ok with bringing him back for another season.
i am a fan of Joe Blanton, I thought he did a great job last year. I
think we’re gonna re-sign him. It seems that teams are copying Faz
as far as only offering the relievers left on the block one year contracts.
I believe the question is, who is better Blanton or Blevins?
I think we will get the one that the FO thinks is better
Personally I hope it’s Blanton
Blanton or Blevins? Why not both?
Blanton did well for us. Imagine what he would have been like in the playoffs if he didn’t have to pitch constantly during the regular season, I guess that could be said for our entire bullpen. Way too many innings pitched in the regular season, plus way too many innings not pitched by our starting pitching. Hey, let’s flip flop it in the post season, make all the bullpen guys starters and all the starters bullpen guys, lol (hell it can’t be any worse).