The Itch to Rip - An Abbreviated Stadium Club Blaster

With the new Blogger "feature" of my images loading backwards, today's blaster break is going to be in abbreviated format.  As I rip through this 2019 Topps Stadium Club blaster, which I got online for the amazingly good price of $14 with free shipping, I'll just show my single favorite card from each pack...

Pack 1 yielded this smiling Duke Snider.  Love the retired players in Stadium Club each year (get ready for more throughout this post), and especially like Brooklyn Dodgers cards, so this was an easy choice from the first pack.  Helped that I needed it for my "I'm sort of casually collecting it" set build.

Pack 2 contained maybe my overall favorite card of the entire blaster.  I've long coveted a copy of this fantastic Christy Mathewson sporting some nice fall fashion, and now I finally have one!  Just an awesome, awesome card.

Surprise, it's another HOFer, this one of the horizontally-oriented variety.  Love the photograph on this one, with a pensive Vlad sitting in a deserted dugout.

Pack 4 provided me with another top-notch HOFer, this beautiful Clemente.  I swear I won't simply choose a guy with a plaque in Cooperstown for all eight packs, but I'm a big Clemente fan (who isn't) and this one was too good not to include.

Here's a modern guy!  Pack 5 supplied me with a legit Pete Alonso rookie card!  This guy still mashed a lot of homers in the shortened 2020 season, but his other offensive statistics fell significantly from his Rookie of the Year campaign.  I'm not judging anyone too harshly for their performance in this train wreck of a season in 2020, though.  Nice to have this rookie to commemorate his monster 2019 season.

Here's another completely awesome card, with the great Ozzie Smith performing his signature back flip in front of Cooperstown.  Ozzie has some serious height going here, almost looks like he must've used a trampoline, or is photo-shopped.  Smith was always one of my favorite '80s guys to collect when I was a kid, so I was pleased to pull this one.

Pack 7, and it's another legend of yesteryear, Jim Palmer in mid-delivery.  Quite a few empty seats in the upper right of the card there, but still how refreshing is it to see actual fans in the crowd?

For the final pack's top card I went with a modern guy, just because the photograph on this Dee Gordon card is absolutely amazing.  Dude looks like Spider-man in action here, and bonus points for the retro Mariners uniform.

A fun blaster there, and I'm now up to 118 cards (or 39%) accumulated in my kinda sorta set build.  I actually have a couple more blasters of this stuff on my rainy day pack shelf, so I'm sure I'll rip another and post it in the coming weeks or months here.  Maybe there's a Fernando Tatis Jr. rookie waiting to be pulled in one of them.

Until then, enjoy your Sunday and thanks as always for stopping by!