Topps Baseball 2012 Hits and More

Talk about the agony and the ecstasy.  My experience with flagship 2012 Topps Baseball is a combination of highs and lows that can only be described in gratuitously detailed blog post.  I started this post EIGHT days ago.  We had a nasty storm roll through and basically take out the entire state of West Virginia for about a week.  We’re fine…we got power back relatively quickly and opened up our home to family and friends that weren’t so lucky…but anyway on with the flagship thoughts!

First, I went and visited my uncle this week and we talked a good ninety minutes about the Dodgers.  This team is in complete disarray.  I predicted we’d knock the crap out of R.A. Dickey that night and it was a slaughter but not in the direction I was hoping.  I was banking on my gut feeling about Dodgers hitting “aces” pretty well over the years…I remember doing pretty well on a regular basis against a Randy Johnson for example or in more recent memory Tim Lincecum.  This feeling could be completely irrational…but my spider-sense had a feeling…plus it was great to sit down and talk with my uncle who isn’t in the best of shape these days.  We both agree that it’s tough to judge our pitching when the offense has been so decimated…here’s hoping we can avoid another shutout sweep tonight on ESPN against the Mets.  Thankfully that was all written eight days ago and although things got worse they also got better.  Kemp is rehabbing and will be back soon.  Carlos Lee thankfully rejected a trade to the Dodgers (THANK GOD).

Back to Topps 2012.  I’m not sure where to go with this…generally speaking Topps flagship sets aren’t known for “hits” they’re known for the large base set and fun inserts, right?  I feel like I’ve been getting the MAD hits…short prints, autos, dual relic, etc.  It’s like a jackpot every time I open one of those sweet, sweet, 72 card “bulk” box packs sold at big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us.  I think that’s the key.  I have this theory that all the good retail hits are in these boxes.  Ever since reading that Topps decided to make blasters a complete waste of time as far as autos are concerned, I decided to take a different approach with these box packs.  The way these are packed all the inserts and hits are in a clearly defined section of the shrink wrapped internal pack within the box and are easy to find.  Here is what I’ve pulled from various Topps Series 1 and 2 this year thus far:

Topps 2012 Series 2 Hits

Topps 2012 Series 2 Hits

Now to be fair, this is a mix of retail and one hobby box of series 2.  The hobby hits were the Bryce Harper SP and one of the Golden Moments relics.  The rest are all from retail box packs.  Yes the Cut Above Hanley Ramirez numbered to 15, yes the Golden Moments dual Pujols/Musial, yes the Golden Moments Jordan Zimmerman auto, yes the short prints shown (and the ones not shown: I also pulled the Derek Jeter celebration variant but misplaced it and there may still be more once I finish my sort).

Crazy?  Tell me if you’ve had similar luck.  Until I’m shown other evidence, I say that 72 card jumbo box shrink wrapped goodness is where it’s at in 2012 Series 2 Topps folks!

Mini-rant:  The Golden Giveaway can go straight to hell.  It’s impossible to get the 30th coin for everyone out there trying to get them and an automatic Willie Mays autograph.  You won’t find the St. Louis Cardinals, Babe Ruth, or Justin Verlander for each of the respective 30 coin sets, just FYI.  I liked the previous years, even if I was unlocking a bunch of junk wax, SO much better.  Let’s hope Topps goes back to something similar next year…this coin nonsense is just that…nonsense.  I wish I had researched this before I put way too much effort into trading and getting more codes to get more tradeable coins.

I’ll work on a review of 2012 Topps later on…my thoughts run way too rampant to add them into this post…I also received several mailings of loot from group breaks and trades/clearance specials from other blogs I’d like to share so I’ll get to working on those posts as well.  So much to do, so little time.