drinkin' and rippin': 2015 panini contenders blaster

We braved the hoards of Xmas present returnees on Thrusday afternoon to stop at the localish Target while out on some errands. Baseball products were in low supply, and aside from $49.99 (no heckin' way) boxes of Panini Extra Elite or something with only 11 cards, I grabbed the $14.99 blaster of Panini Contenders from 2015, a mostly college-based set with two guaranteed autographs. The price was right, at least.

The Beer

We picked up this Pappy's Porter (and the glass it is in) from The Alchemist in Stowe, Vermont this September. Alchemist does everything well, especially IPAs, so I was pretty excited to try something different from them, and it did not disappoint. Perfect thickness and with a sweet taste at the beginning, smoothing out into a deeply roasty and approachable bitterness at the end.

Now, on to the cards.

The first card out would normally be something I would fire onto ebay almost immediately, but this time I was less angered by pulling a yankee as 2017's Rookie of the Year was decked out in Fresno State threads instead.

The base cards, I must say, are excellent. I just don't know why they call the set "Contenders" when "SEASON TICKET" is written all over. In order for Panini to eventually get that license back, they need to clean it up a bit.

The backs are nice as well, and capital-region guy Jeff Hoffman, ex-Blue Jay, models the purple colors of his college squad, Coastal Carolina.

Unlike Topps, Panini does well with the Team USA stuff. Here we see the Dodgers' Corey Seager. I don't collect anything 16U as it seems pretty gross to me having cards of kids. 

There's also some Hall of Famers sprinkled into the set in their old college threads. Here we have Frank Thomas with the Auburn Tigers and Craig Biggio with the Seton Hall Pirates. These were the highlight of the set.

Old School Colors drop in every pack, and I thought the Aaron Nola was the best-looking one of the modern players. Also, I juts love Aaron Nola and LSU baseball. Like the base cards, they also come in Hall of Famer format:

Two Craig Biggios in seven packs? Yeah, I'm fine with that. Especially with the Astros-esque patter on the old Seton Hall jerseys. We also get to see Tony Gwynn with San Diego State, a team he coached after retirement and before he lost his battle with cancer.

Scott Kingery, like his fellow 2B Craig Biggio, showed up twice. Modeling the Class Reunion and School Colors subsets, Kingery rocked the blue and red of Arizona State before being drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies.

I was fortunate enough to watch Kingery multiple times this summer with Triple-A Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, and let me tell you - he's going to be goof. 

Our first and only Blue Jay is Jon Harris from Missouri State. Harris has had a rough go of things after his first two pro seasons in 2017, but I think he'll bounce back in 2017 and be someone the Blue Jays might play by 2019 or so. That 2019 team should be exciting. 

Only one Collegiate Collections card dropped, and I don't know who these guys are.

I do however, know these guys - one of which is a former Blue Jay and current Oakland Athletic, Franklin Barreto. I feel like there was an early-2000's insert that looked a lot like these.

I mentioned earlier that there were two autographs in each box. Here they are:

Austin Rei, an A-ball catcher for the Boston Red Sox, and:

Supernintendakota Chalmers, of the Oakland Athletics in the blue-foil parallel (unnumbered.) Chalmers is a high-strikeout, little-control P who spent 2017 with the A-Ball Vermont Lake Monsters, as we come full circle on this post, back to Vermont.

The hits are not good, but the product is a really nice one and worth the $15. Panini continues to flood their products with color, but their price point isn't really competitive with Topps in regards to quality and player selection just yet - especially at the retail level.