Blaster Madness 1: 2018 Topps Chrome

As promised, today begins my new series "Blaster Madness." Since I've moved back home, I haven't had the opportunity to purchase many hobby boxes. My supply of cardboard comes primarily in the form of blasters from Walmart. TO say my options are limited is an understatement, so apologies if my posts become a bit...redundant. 

My first offering for this series takes a look at a blaster of 2018 Topps Chrome. Let's take a look and see what I found.

First card of note for me was Adrian Beltre. Beltre signed with the Rangers prior to the 2011 campaign and has been the most popular player on the team since. Beltre may retire this offseason - I would venture to say that he most likely will retire. However, that decision hasn't been made. I would never be opposed to having Beltre back again for another season. If I'm being honest, I wouldn't be opposed to having Beltre slide into our open manager position. I can dream right?

Next up is a base card for my Joey Gallo PC. I really like this card. I haven't set out to determine when the photo was taken, but it was clearly after something good happened. If I had to put money on it, I would guess that this was taken after a walk-off hit.

On to the non-Ranger cards of note. This is my first Chrome Ohtani rookie. It will be interesting to see how long he continues to pitch and DH. I know he will strictly DH next year while recovering from Tommy John surgery...it will be interesting to see if he stays in that role after next season. If so, the Angels paid a ton for a DH.

I also pulled this Devers base rookie card. I'll be completely honest: I don't know much about him, so I don't have much to say about the card.

Keeping with the rookie theme, I also snagged this Rhys Hoskins rookie refractor. When I saw the "RC" designation on this card, I was a bit surprised. It feels like Hoskins has been around for a while, but I am guessing that he made his debut too late in the season last year to be included in Update, so his rookie cards are falling into this year's product.

The final card of note in my blaster was this sepia refractor of Mike Trout. I don't seem to pull many refractors of Trout, so this was a nice surprise. It will stay in my collection for now.

So there it is, Blaster Madness #1. Not the best blaster I've ever had, but certainly not the worst. Thanks for reading!

2017 Elite Extra Edition

My LCS had box of 2017 Elite Extra Edition for sale for a really good price. Though I'm not normally a Panini guy, I decided to give it a try. The box came with eight guaranteed hits, at least six of which were autos.

This is a base auto from the set. It's an on-card auto. Most of the autos in the set are on-card, though there are still a number of sticker autos.

There are also auto parallels. This is a diecut "Status" parallel featuring Detroit's Alex Faedo, numbered to 75.

The box contained a number of parallels, also. Unlike Topps, these parallels really pop.

Some parallels are diecut, like this one. 

My box had two relics. The first was this one:

This jumbo Future Threads relic features a jersey swatch from Rhys Hoskins, numbered to 99.

My last relic was this:

A jumbo patch auto of Ynmanol Marinez, now a member of the Miami Marlins organization. It's a nice patch and a low number. The only problem I have is the sticker auto. But hey, it does no good to complain now. 

I enjoyed this break. Having seven autos in my box (though not all are shown here) was pretty awesome. I also really enjoy the parallels. As I mentioned above, they really pop and stand out from what Topps would consider a parallel.