2012 Topps Pro Debut 2-Box Break

Phew. It's been a busy night. But since I posted a teaser of these two beautiful babies, I thought it would just be the right thing to pose them up. I busted these way back around 5:30, collated them by 6:30, scanned them, made a grocery run and whipped up a batch of white trash for tomorrow's office Christmas party, scanned a few more images and now I sit, watching, conincidentally, a baseball-themed episode of Psych, and have finally got around to writing them up.

Breath.

On to some baseball cards!

Ahh, prospects. Except, these prospect aren't so much anymore. Manny Machado came on in August and killed it for Baltimore. Harper was up by May (two weeks before I moved back to Syracuse - way to get hurt, Zimmerman). Billy Hamilton was a September call-up and was pretty much just a blur - possibly the fastest man in baseball right now.

Xander Bogaerts, Jurickson Profar and Starling Marte. Xander easily wins the Greatest Name in the Baseball award, while also being one of the best prospects in baseball. Jurickson Profar made a name for himself during the Futures Game this year in Kansas City when he smoked one out to right field - and again when he homered in his first major league game a couple months later - in his first at-bat. 

The MiLB All-Stars fall 1:3. They're pretty nice for a six-per-box insert, with a solid design and all-star player selection. I was quite happy to pull both Marte and my man AJ Jimenez, a baby Jay catcher who'll probably be fast-tracked to the MLB with the outsourcing of Toronto's catchers of late.

The gold-border parallels fall one-per-box and are numbered to 50 copies. Coincidentally, mine were both of Mets farmhands.

 Of course, I had to sneak in some more blue-chip prospects before the hits come. Deal with it.

...and some more. I was a bit disappointed Hak-Ju Lee wasn't pictured in a Montgomery Biscuits uniform, but the Charleston Rock Crabs aren't too bad, either.

Here, you jackals. Here are the autographs from box one. As you can see, nothing spectacular. Yet. I am going to do a  bit of digging on these guys eventually.

Soooo, this is my second Hutchison autograph from this set. Why second? After I purchased the boxes on 12/10, I figured there was no way, even though I would be pulling in four autographs from these boxes - that one would be my main man Drew Hutchison. So of course, towards the end of box two. That guy fell out. Also, the Sean Buckey is a gold variation, inserted something like 1:196. No big deal.

There are also relics inserted 2:box, and I was lucky enough to land ANOTHER gold parallel (/50), this time of an Xavier Avery bat. Junior Lake was the second bat card, both of these coming from the first box. I also pulled a Mike Adams jersey from box two, but in the haste to scan and post the next card, it must have been lost on the cutting/blogging room floor.

Boom! A Will Middlebrooks manufactured cap patch from the Pawtucket Red Sox. What a beaut. This is a very thick card, thick enough as to replace six cards in a pack. Awesomely enough, it was sandwiched between Bryce Harper and Noah Syndergaard base cards. What a pack that was. There is some mystery as to the insertion ratios of the cap patches, but I watched in the neighborhood of seven box-break viedoes of this product, and along with my two boxes, I saw three of these pulled. So my best guess is one in every three boxes, so it's a solid hit, but not nearly as rare as the gold relics or autos that I also pulled. Yes, this is me rubbing it in.

Blue Jays! I mean, Fisher Cats! I managed to piece together the entire base set, which means I was able to see all of the Jays cards. Drew and AJ are some of my favorites, but I haven't heard much of anything about Deck since he was drafted...so I am not expecting much more than a bullpen arm out of him.

By piecing the base set together, I also got a pile of no-longer-Blue Jays. I was sad to see Sundergaard go, not nearly as much as d'Arnaud however. I am hoping d'Arnaud is going to kill it in Queens, he's got the skill set and the work ethic, I just hope his knee is all healed up. I was never super-high on Nicolino, who for some reason isn't pictured as one of the Lansing Three. I suppose Topps just wanted to throw a Vancouver Canadiens card in. Fine by me.

So that's it. I am so happy that I bought & busted these boxes. I have a lot of base card doubles, so if you're interested in acquiring some of your future collection needs, let me know, and I will be happy to share.

Goodnight everyone.