2012 Topps #98 Domonic Brown

And on the third day, packs of 2012 Topps finally showed up at my local Target.

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I stopped at Target on my way home from work, only to be disappointed to find no packs of 2012 Topps on their shelves.  Yesterday, to my great delight, I found rack-packs, individual packs, blaster boxes and those hanger box thingers in the baseball card aisle.  I gleefully paid for the first new cards of the year and I opened my first few packs in my car in the Target parking lot.

This is how it's always been, starting back when my Dad and me would buy our first packs of Topps cards back in the day.  We'd buy the packs at Wawa or a local baseball card shop and then open our first few packs in the parking lot outside.  We would race to find "The First Phillie" of the year.  (Here's are the posts commemorating the first Phillies of 2011 and 2010.)

The first Phillie of 2012 was the card I've featured here - Domonic Brown.  I had to wait until half-way through my third pack (and multiple Derek Jeter cards) before coming to a card with the Phillies logo on it.  When I got home last night, Doug helped me open the rest of my packs and we added cards of Carlos Ruiz and Ryan Howard, among a few others, to the Phillies pile.

I like the Topps set this year.  I like them enough that I'm seriously considering hand-collating a Topps base set for the first time in probably over a decade.  It's not that I'm in love with the set's design - it's more that I just miss the fun of putting a set together.

And a few other things:

• It seems as if Topps is getting more ambitious with its photography.  This Brown card is a good example of the type of game-play action shots throughout the first series.  There are also a lot of celebratory shots featuring walk-off-win home plate gatherings or group hug shots.

• The backs are very plain this year, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  One of the first things I noticed (other than the lack of a player photo on the backs of the cards) is the use of all capital letters for the yearly team listing.  I don't know if Topps has ever presented the team listing in the past this way, so it really jumped out at me.

• The active leaders cards are kind of random, but I like the concept.  I just wish Topps had decided to group these cards together in the set.

• I got the Reggie Jackson Commemorative Retired Number Patch Card (#RN-RJ) in my blaster.  Send me an e-mail if you're interested in setting up a trade for this card.  I'm looking for the Mike Schmidt patch card from the same set.

• I have a suspicion that a lot of collectors will be putting together the 50-card 1987 Topps Minis insert set.  Here are the cards I have up for trade from this set:  1 Braun, 4 Young, 17 Kimbrel, 44 Tulowitzki, 47 Castro and 50 Granderson.

• My packs yielded no squirrel cards.

2012 Topps #92