Let's Talk Opening Day & Mascots

Ariana Temmuz 09, 2022

Yesterday, I opened a hobby box of 2018 Topps Opening Day. I really like this year's card design. It's definitely an improvement over the design Topps used last year. Other Cubs bloggers have already posted scans of the Cubs base set, so I won't be posting any of those for this piece. I did pull all of the Chicago base set cards, minus the two variants. I am pretty excited that I pulled my first variant card though! The Indians' Francisco Lindor, in all his smiling glory.

I pulled the Kris Bryant Before Opening Day card. It's cool that this photo was taken in his hometown. I've never found a Bryant subset card before, so this is extra sweet.

I pulled a Rally Monkey card. (YAY for monkeys!) 🐒 It's not the mascot card but the Team Traditions and Celebrations card. Got the card for the Cubs' 7th inning stretch tradition of singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Oh, and I can't forget to share my new bubble gum card.

There was not a card for Hank the Ballpark Pup this year. Zip says dogs are the best people, so I was a bit bummed that we didn't get a new pup card. But! There is a dalmatian on the Clydesdale Horses Team Traditions and Celebrations card. Got it!

Oh and here's Ichiro! Got it! 💖

We are down to the mascot content of this post. I did not pull a Clark, the Cubs mascot. But, I was really impressed with the costumes this year. Teams are upping their game with new and improved mascot costumes. They are creating headwear on a level that is approaching the cute spectrum, except Bernie Brewer. How that dude is not giving children nightmares, I'll never know.

shiver...

Ball Heads and President Heads are becoming a fun thing here. This year there was a Racing Presidents card in the Team Traditions and Celebrations subset. I didn't pull that card either. However, I found some mascots to pursue in a new collecting theme.

Well that about covers most of subset cards that Topps 2018 Opening Day has added to my collection. There are a few cards for my Moody Blues Frankenset too, but I'll save those for their individual song's days. All of my WANTS and FOR TRADE cards from this box have been added to my collection at The Trading Card Database. -I've also added a bunch more mascot wants from other years to my TCDB WANT list.

Thanks for reading!

4.4.18 - Update, showing the comic nature of the graphics on the backs of those ballhead cards.