Winner Winner

I don't think I can recall a time when I've ever won an online contest, let alone a contest for baseball cards. 

Sure I've entered many different contests, as many as any other collector who stumbles upon giveaways on blogs, Youtube, or Twitter. But I haven't had any luck and have never won one of those contests.

That is until I entered a giveaway for a jumbo pack of 2018 Topps Series 1 on the Youtube channel for Hall of Fame Baseball Cards. They're a pretty well-known card shop located in California with lots of loyal customers, break videos and many contests. Their most recent contest was a quick one included in one of their videos. They would choose a comment from the video to win the jumbo back. And much to my surprise, they ended up choosing mine.

I'm not going to show every card like I did in my blaster box posts, so if you want to see each and every card you should check those out. Instead, I'll be showing the highlights and the insert card.

Ty Blach doesn't really count as a special card, but it was the first card I pulled out of the pack so I felt the need to show it. 

I was continuously impressed with the image quality upon pulling new base cards from the pack. Tim Anderson and Eddie Rosario were just a couple of the cards that really caught my eye. 

Jason Vargas was the sole league leaders card that I pulled out of the whole pack. He was tied for first in the AL last year with 18 wins. The 2 he was tied with were both Indians pitchers, Carrasco and Kluber. 

Another card that quickly became one of my favorites was Marcell Ozuna, the new St. Louis Cardinal who is coming off the greatest season of his 5-year career. He hit .312 with 37 homers and 124 RBI last season. I realize the Stanton trade was the biggest one of the offseason, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Ozuna become one of the best players in baseball while playing for the Cardinals.

The final of my favorite base cards was of yet another young superstar, Carlos Correa. He has already built up a pretty impressive resume for being just 23 years old that includes leading the Astros to the World Series last season and winning the 2015 AL Rookie of the Year. 

The first insert I pulled was a Topps Salute card of one of Correa's teammate, Jose Altuve. This is y first look at the Jackie Robinson Day subset of Salute, but I already like it a lot better than last year. I appreciate how Topps actually included pictures that showed the number 42 on the cards this year. They really set the bar low last year by making a Jackie Robinson Day insert set that had many cards without #42 on them.

Directly after the Altuve insert was an insert of yet another superstar player in Manny Machado. I've grown to like these inserts quite a bit despite not really having much of a theme behind them. It's just Superstar Sensations because Topps wants it to be. Don't ask why just look at the pretty colors.

Mesmerizing. Makes me want to collect all 30 of them.

I already pulled the base 1983 insert card of Willie Calhoun in my 2nd blaster box, so when I saw the name Calhoun on the back of the card, I feared that I pulled an insert double. It ended up being a blue parallel, not numbered, but somewhat rare (1:41 jumbo packs). This could be a sign from Topps to collect Calhoun because of the possibility of him being a future star, but I'm just taking this as an opportunity to put another card up for sale on Sportlots.

However, I did pull a regular 1983 insert of Addison Russell that quickly became my favorite 1983 insert that I've pulled so far. The purple on the bottom of the card looks absolutely fantastic with the brick wall and primarily-blue background of Wrigley Field. This brings my 1983 insert total to 5 different cards, which means I have 1/20 of the insert set. It's far away from 100, but it's a start and I'll take it.