Month: June 2017

by Jacoby Nolnaho

BP Report with Jacoby Nolnaho: Old Timers’ Day

On June 25, 2017, I arrived at Yankee Stadium at 10:00. It was the 71st annual Old Timers’ Day. After an hour of absolute nothing, the Yankees greats finally took batting practice. Since these legends are getting up there in age, the baseballs were not flying out. My one (and only) chance came when a weak dribbler hit against the wall. Four time World Champion Jeff Nelson came over a tossed me the ball (For those of you who don’t know, I have actually met Jeff Nelson at an AT&T grand opening celebration). And as many of pitchers have noticed, the seams on the 2017 baseball around more thin and tighter wounded compared to the 2016 baseballs. This has been thought to have happened after the incline in home runs. Old Timers’ Day was fun, but it was extremely hot.

For the actual game, I was sitting in home run territory right near the left field foul. Despite an epic comeback from a 7-0 devastate, the Yankees fell to the Texas Rangers 7-6. In this game, Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks left with a rib cage/oblique injury and took an MRI. Team officials say he will be out 3 to 4 weeks.

by Jacoby Nolnaho

Topps VS Donruss

Everybody knows the baseball card tyrant of Topps. Being the “Exclusive Trading Card Partner of MLB” and all, they make some pretty great products. But often overshadowed by this big name brand is the low key Donruss. Donruss makes trading cards with players but they airbrush any logos and team names out (They lost their licensing deal years ago). The following review is of Topps Series 1 and Donruss Baseball. Remember, these are my opinions only, so don’t go on ranting. The goods of each product get a thumbs up 👍 and the cons of each product get a thumbs down 👎.

Topps:

👍 Good job incorporating players’ Instagram and Twitter feed on the back of the card. This should bring in younger fans who love social media.

👍 Great colors on the back of the cards, makes it very easy to tell which team the player is on.

👍 Manu-relics look incredibly nice making them easy to collect.

👍 Certain inserts are cool such as the 1987 subseries and the 5-Tool subseries.

👎 Thumbs down to the standard relics. They are white and mostly colorless, making them boring to collect.

👎 The card stock is kind of flimsy easy to bend.

👎 The borderless design is kind of annoying because is the cards get damaged, it is pretty obvious.

(Four up, three down)

Donruss:

👍 The design for Donruss is great with the white and simple lines and dots.

👎 👎 The printing on the back is very low end and is blurry.  It looks like I could off printed them from a public library printer.

👍 Good job to the inserts. The numbered ones are very cool.

👍 Autographs are cool and I like how the relics are vertical unlike the traditional Topps horizontal format.

👎 The packaging is very cheap and papery. It is easy to puncture and is not appealing. It is white and appears dirty.

(three up, three down)

Overall, Topps secured the win. With appealing packaging and cards over cheap printing, it is pretty clear that Topps is the winner.