2020 Opening Day, but Closed

Well, today is Opening Day. All over the country, ballparks are opening their gates. Thousands of fans are flocking to the stadiums to witness the first pitches, hard hit balls, and double plays of the year. Baseball has returned, a harbinger of summer and good times!

Except, maybe not. Opening Day has been postponed indefinitely, a happening that is tantamount to canceling Christmas to many of us sports fans. And forget the idea that today marks the beginning of summer fun; it's snowing outside my door as I write this. No, today has not gone as I anticipated a couple of weeks ago. My tradition is to bust a box of Topps Opening Day on Opening Day. I pre-ordered it and received it a few days before the entire world shut down. My first inclination was to keep it until the season started for real, but I still haven't added any 2020 cards to my collection and I felt the need for a bit of pack ripping fun. So, I started in on the box. I haven't opened everything in yet, but let me show you my first 2020 cardboard experience.

Here is the first pack of 2020 cards I've had in my hand. This isn't the most exciting pack, but I'm not worried about that because I buy the Opening Day box each year just expecting to build the set out of it and find some interesting inserts. Walker Buehler is the star of this pack for me. Mascot cards are an Opening Day staple, but they're not my thing, so I just enjoy the fun of them.

But then, on my 3rd pack, I see this.

Uh-oh. Doubles of an insert? I have never encountered that in my Opening Day boxes in the past. That might not bode well for the collation of this box, and it possibly threatens my ability to complete the set in one box. It's still too early to tell, but this isn't the best sign I could hope for. On the other hand, the double is of Raymond, everybody's favorite, um, thing? Well, okay, I don't know what he is, but I do know that everyone collects Rays, so I should easily find a trading partner for this. Well, I guess I'm not too sure about that either.

This is starting to remind me of the last two baseball boxes I've busted. You may recall that I picked up two hobby boxes of Big League last year. The collation was so bad that I ended up with nearly identical boxes. The good news was that I beat the odds, receiving an autograph in each box, when there was no guaranteed hit in the product. And then it turned out that both autos were Rays. It was eerie how similar those boxes were, and here I am, doubling up on the Rays' mascot after just 3 packs. *Cue Twilight Zone theme song.*

When all is said and done, if I have the complete base set and some fun inserts to put in my collection, I'll be happy with Opening Day. From what I've seen, the Dugout Peeks will probably be my favorite insert set of this release, but they are longer odds, so I probably won't see more than one. I'm looking forward to seeing which one it will be.

I hope you are all finding a way to enjoy your baseball-less, potentially cold and snowy, not-so-Opening Day!