Saturday, April 2, 2016

Do Baseball Cards Count as Toppings?

Frozen pizza + baseball cards = guy who can't cook worth a damn's dream.



So, ummm, did you hear that Topps makes pizza cards now?

In all seriousness, Topps partnership with Walmart and their Marketside frozen pizza brand has produced the first food-issue release in many moons.  Thus, the hype for the product found throughout the blogosphere is warranted, in my humble opinion.

Thus, I'm here to show off my first batch of Marketside cards, fresh out of the oven:



I'm not much of a cook, so naturally pizza is a common dinner for me when my lovely fiancee works the closing shift.  While I've never been a huge fan of frozen pizza, especially living in the pizza hub known as Chicago, the added allure of oddball baseball cards was just too much to pass up.

As you can see, despite the well-noted fact that these pizza boxes are not sealed and any dishonest collector could easily snap up the enclosed packs without much effort, my foil package was safely nestled within.  

Now - were my Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber cards also safely nestled within this shiny pack?:





No... no they were not.  Drat.

No matter, I didn't even actually pay for the pizza myself.  My mother actually bought it for me as a gift after I idly mentioned Topps' promotion to her and the pizza magically ended up in my possession. The benefits of working in the same building as my mother.

Opinions on the design of these bad boys seems to be mixed; however, I'm squarely in favor of them.  The foil is unobtrusive, the Tetris-like grid in the background is unique and the player photos don't appear to have been run through 12 different filters in Photoshop (unlike the latest Flagship offerings).

That said, the cards I pulled aren't much use to my collection; so, if anyone is interested, speak up.  Although, I have already promised the Seager to one of our prominent Dodger collecting friends already.




As for the pizza, I definitely wouldn't buy it without baseball cards.  I ended up with the meat lovers and it wasn't all that bad.  In fact, if it weren't for the thick, hard crust, I might have liked it on it's own right.  However, as it stands, the crust ruins the whole thing for me.

Hopefully, with as many "pizza breaks" as I've seen on the blogs over the past week or so, this promotion has been a rabid success and Topps will consider more, similar promos.  Perhaps we can relive the days of the collecting boom, when cards could be found in Cracker Jack, Post Cereal, Duracell Batteries, Pepsi Cola and even Fruit of the Loom Underwear for cryin' out loud.

One can dream, can't they?




5 comments:

  1. I am sure it's no Phil's. Or Palermo's. Or Italian Villa. Or Giordano's. Or Begger's. Or Barone's. Or....

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you're up for the trade, I need both the others that aren't already promised. Let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's what I'm hoping. The more praise for this promotion and just maybe I'll start buying all kinds of things I'd never buy otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I guess we can say that we are in a new overproduction era with how much the card photos are worked over these days.

    You're right -- these cards look a lot better than the Flagship does.

    I guess my question is how long this promotion will run -- all season, just a few months, just a few weeks?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pizza Underground! I saw them live once.. fun show.

    I'm happy for these cards existing, though have no plans to step foot in a Walmart for them. Hopefully I'll eventually land the guys I collect thru trades.

    ReplyDelete