2008 Topps Opening Day

Let's see if I can get this post in before the thunderstorm knocks out the lights. If I can't it's no great loss. This stuff sucks, folks. Not that Opening Day was ever any great shakes to begin with, but this is... uh... well, see for yourself.

118 Brandon Phillips
24 Erik Bedard
22 white Orlando Cabrera #1917/2199
17 Yovani Gallardo
10 Miguel Cabrera
40 Josh Beckett
If the cards looked like the pack I'd have no problem. Unfortunately they card don't look like the pack. The cards look like the inside of an abattoir. Red. Red red red red red. With gold stamping, which looks like crap next to all the red. The one per pack white cards don't look much better. Without the circle motif, they look like an inferior knockoff of 2004 Topps. They also make the base cards look worse by comparison. After you see a white bordered card all the red borders look like someone colored on the cards with a red sharpie. It's so dreadfully boring too, just red red red red red red red. Give half the set blue borders and all of a sudden it's interesting. Make the tops red and the bottoms blue like the '75 Topps set and the stuff would actually look good. This? Mailed in, contractual obligation drek. This is what I imagine the development meetings for this set sounded like:

MLB sez we gotta have a dollar pack so it looks like we're marketing to the kids or else they'll yank our license. We'll take the base set, cut out a third of it and give it a colorful border. Kids like colors right? Let's use eye-bleaching red. Let's throw in a parallel so we sell 16% more packs to those dumb-ass set collectors. Har har! No color on the border though, we'll save on ink that way. Who cares if it looks like crap, the die hards will buy anything we throw out there as long as there's a press plate in every case and the little bastard kids are all buying Pokeyermon anyway. We better throw in tattoos in case anyone questions us though. They're really expensive, so only put in three per box. Kids don't want fun stuff anyway. Hell, we're giving 'em gum so whaddya want?

Topps got so lazy with this set they didn't even bother picking up the airbrush. Miguel Cabrera is magically a Marlin again. Note the "M" escaping the confines of its circle as well. M's and W's tend to wander in this set. Do me a favor and don't buy this stuff. We need to stop encouraging them to put out half-assed stuff like this when they kill off actual good sets like Topps Total and Bowman Heritage. Two packs of this is not worth a pack of Topps. Five packs of this is not worth a hobby pack of Upper Deck. 100 packs of this is not worth a pack of Sweet Spot. Hell, one pack of this is not even worth the pack of '92 Donruss or '89 Bowman in the dollar bin. Don't spend your money on lousy cards. Wait until Topps discontinues the brand and you can pick up a box online for about 10 bucks if you absolutely must collect this stuff. Do it for the good of the hobby.