Production for this wave is down a bit from the previous release, coming in at 4387 packs. One of the headliners for this wave is Bryce Harper, while also including stars and rookies such as Jacob deGrom and Eloy Jimenez.
The third release of Topps Total takes a step back from the high of wave 2 which included Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Wave 3 has a print run of 5,547 packs. This 100 card wave begins with Mookie Betts can contains highlight players such as Pete Alonso and Troy Tulowitzki.
Topps Opening Day is being released just about a week before when Opening Day for major league baseball was originally scheduled to happen. Due to a worldwide pandemic, that event is not going to happen as scheduled. All major sports were shut down for the time being, while Americans are being advised to avoid even minimal sized crowds. The start of the major league season has been indefinitely postponed, and it’s clear it will not happen any time soon, now.
It’s not clear what future releases will look like at this point, but Opening Day was released on time. This release follows the standard format. This smaller set is uses this year’s flagship design, with a more accessible price tag. It averages about one insert per pack, There are parallels, but not to the same extent as many of the other releases. This is also one of the few products to not guarantee any sort of hit in a box. That’s not to say there aren’t some available, but they are generally very rare. That’s one of the big trade offs for having the low price tag.
Once again, Panini returns with their flagship baseball offering. While Topps has an exclusive deal with major league baseball, Donruss can still offer baseball cards licensed by the players association, even if none of the cards are able to feature team logos or names. It can be striking at times, as you notice jerseys and hats are altered to not show team related icons, but you get used to it.
The general format of this set will feel familiar. There are 260 base cards, 2 SPs, and 2 additional Rated Rookies at the end, to bring the set to 264 cards. There are also a lot of base card variations, with pictures, nicknames, and more. You also see long time insert sets like the Elite Series and Dominators. Most of these also come in a large variety of parallels, including base parallels featuring emojis. As in recent years, this release also pays tribute to an old Donruss release from the 80s. This time, it’s 1986.
A box contains 24 packs of 8 cards. It advertises 3 autographs or memorabilia cards per box on average. This box contained:
This yearly release comes a little bit later during Wrestlemania season this year. In recent years, this has been a January release, but this time comes out on March 11. It also comes during the Covid 19 pandemic, which has begun shutting down major sporting events. At the time of this writing, a SmackDown episode was rescheduled to an empty Performance Center, while Wrestlemania is still tentatively planned, but with a lot of uncertainty.
This release features a 100 card base set showing major events from the previous year. It also contains a number of insert sets, including a 50 card roster subset. The cards show a pirate theme, as the planned location for this year’s Wrestlemania is Raymond James Stadium, the home of the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
A box contains 24 packs with 7 cards per pack. It advertises two hits per box, one of which is an on card autograph.