Beating The Odds: Contest Winnings From PTown Tom

Tom of the blog Waiting Til Next Year held his annual Card of the Year contest AND I CAME IN LAST PLACE!!!

SWEEEEEEET!!!!

That earned me a blaster of 2019 Topps.

Tom included a nice note to say thank you for participating in his contest.

Blasters of Series 1 are a yearly tradition for me, but I haven't grabbed any 2019 Topps yet mainly because I went batsh*t crazy buying cards in December.

I really like the design of this year and from what I have seen the color parallels this year look really great.

My first 2019 Topps card is

A fantastic image using a throwback uniform of an American League team I can easily root for.

My first Pirates card of 2019 is a rookie card of Nick Burdi.  Burdi was selected in the 2018 Rule 5 draft by the Phillies then trad3d to the Pirates during the Winter Meetings.  He spent most of the year recovering from Tommy John surgery.  He will need to spend the entire year with the Pirates or they will lose him to waivers.  He will likely pitch out the pen this year.  If he fails the Pirates just resigned old friendly face Francisco Liriano to a minor league deal with incentives.

I could tell that there was something thick in the blaster pack.  I beat the odds by pulling a 1:44 relic of future Hall of Famer, Albert Pujols.

I love the look of these 1984 relics.  This would be a fun set to put together.

I got a few insert cards too.  Among them were a pair of Gleyber Torres highlight cards, an Eric Hosmer 1984 card, and a Mike Trout/Hank Aaron Greatness Returns card.

I got one parallel, an Alex Colome "150" parallel.

Here are a few of my other favorites from the pack.

The photography is great this year.  Lots of cards were shot on Tatoine.

Francisco Cervelli!!!!

I love the team cards this year. Great stadium shots!!!