30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, March 25, 2019

Looking to Adopt

When it comes to collecting modern day inserts, 98% of the stuff produced by Topps and Panini doesn't appeal to me.  But every year there's one cheap, mass produced insert set I actually pay attention to and actively seek.  It's the Topps Opening Day Mascots.

This year's product has Stomper and The Swinging Friar... which I hope to track down eventually.  In the meantime, I figured I'd show off my Stomper PC, which includes six different Opening Day cards, two Topps Stickers, and one Topps Attax card:

2007 Topps Opening Day #203

Stomper made his first appearance as the Oakland Athletics' mascot on April 2nd, 1997 and ten years later he made his first appearance in a Topps Opening Day set.  That year the mascots were part of the base set.

2010 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M16
2012 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-24
2013 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-6

Since 2010, Topps has made the mascots part of their Opening Day insert setsStomper has been included in every year from 2010 to 2019, except 2015 and 2018.

2014 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-5
2016 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-22

I'm currently trying to track down three more for my collection:

2011 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-16
2017 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-17
2019 Topps Opening Day Mascots #M-10

Stomper has also made appearances in other Topps sets:

2011 Topps Attax #207
2012 Topps Stickers #108
2014 Topps Stickers #117

I'm sure there are more cards and stickers of Stomper out there.  If anyone has any laying around, I'd be more than happy to adopt them.

Well that's it for today.  Hope you guys have a great week.  Happy Monday and sayonara!

12 comments:

defgav said...

Gotta love mascot cards. Good luck tracking down the ones you need. Have you ever had an interaction with Stomper at a game? A hug or high-five, perhaps?

Commishbob said...

I enjoy ballpark mascots and I cannot lie. I'd really miss Orbit at Astros games if he wasn't there. He has some very clever riffs.

Stomper looks like fun, too. I'll check but the odds of me having one of the cards you need are pretty low.

SumoMenkoMan said...

Awesome. That is quite a Stomper mascot collection! The Japanese have some crazy mascots too!

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

I might already have one of those in the box that I will eventually sort out for bloggers, but in the meanwhile, if I see them i will get them.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

cross the 2011 off of your wanted list.

P-town Tom said...

I'm looking to add one card of each mascot for my Folder of Fun project. Can't wait to hunt them down! I'll keep my eyes out for the Stompers picture above.

Nick Vossbrink said...

Mascot cards are fun. Lou Seal hasn't been in one for over a decade. Also I'm amazed that Archives hasn't done old mascots (I'd kill for a Crazy Crab card).

Steve at 1975BaseballCards.com said...

If I had one it'd be yours. Only one I'd keep is the Mariner Moose :-)

Big Tone said...

This seems like a fun endeavor.

Fuji said...

defgav - great question. he's definitely come into my section a few times, but I don't think I've ever received a hug or a high-five. I have met krazy george and taken a picture with him.

commishbob - orbit is awesome. hope to meet him one day. my goal is to make it out to minute maid at some point in my lifetime

sumomenkoman - i have a ton of the japanese mascot cards. in fact, i want to say that i have an entire bbm set dedicated to the mascots.

john miller - oh man... thank you so much. truly appreciate it.

p-town tom - very cool. not sure if i have any doubles laying around. if i do, they're yours

nick vossbrink - wow. that totally sucks. i wonder why topps hasn't included him. he's definitely popular with the fans

steve at 1975baseballcards.com - if i pull a mariner moose, it's yours.

big tone - it's one of those affordable, yet fun projects

acrackedbat said...

mascots reside inside my fun binder. such a great part of the game atmosphere. must be a fun job too! All the antics - you can get by with SOOOOO much!

Fuji said...

julie - the kids asked me if i wanted to dress up as the mascot for a basketball game a few years ago. i thought about all of the sweat and germs inside of that outfit and responded with an immediate "no thank you" lol ;)