Payday Pack - Back to First

I recently had an idea of putting a counter on my blog denoting "X days since I last found baseball cards at a retail store" . Wouldn't you know it, after having that thought I found some! My local Wally World, normally a barren wasteland of display boxes, had a few 40-card packs of Series 1 (still no sign of Heritage, sigh). Anyway, I bought two of the packs, so Payday Pack lives again! As always, I humbly present to you my 3 favorite cards from the pack:

3rd Place

2021 Topps #66 Ryan Brasier

 

The background caught my attention here. I realize it's probably the scoreboard or an advertisement, but the blurred out colors almost give it a sunset look. Along with the off-center position of the player, and it's just an aesthetically pleasing card.

 

2nd Place

2021 Topps #298 Luis Garcia (RC)

 

Poor Luis. All he's trying to do is make the play, and impress everyone enough to keep him in the Majors. It's not his fault his leg got stuck in those stupid parallelograms...

 

1st Place

2021 Topps  #18 Shun Yamaguchi

 

Chances are I've seen this on cards before, but it's rare enough that it still catches my attention. How cool is it that Yamaguchi's stats from the Japanese League on here? He had some great years for Yokohama!

 

Other Contestants Not Appearing On Stage:

#196 Ryan Yarbrough

#287 Arizona Diamondbacks

#251 Pittsburgh Pirates

#24 Nolan Arenado

#229 Paul Goldschmidt

#169 Brady Singer (RC)

#214 Alex Verdugo

#16 Patrick Sandoval

#288 Miguel Rojas

#59 Milwaukee Brewers

#22 Pedro Severino

#9 Max Fried

#32 Edward Olivares (RC)

#180 Jose Abreu (LL)

#294 Leury Garcia

#56 Steven Matz (Rainbow Foil parallel)

#70YT-34 Bo Bichette (70 Years Of Topps insert)

#31 Brandon Kintzler (Royal Blue parallel)

#T52-22 Cody Bellinger (1952 Topps Redux insert)

#T52-12 J.D. Martinez (1952 Topps Redux insert)

#112 Justin Verlander

#41 Deivi Garcia (RC)

#272 John Means

#89 Lucas Giolito

#274 Freddy Galvis

#213 JaCoby Jones

#104 Kenta Maeda

#282 Omar Narvaez

#91 Orland Arcia

#281 Jesse Winker

#151 Evan White (RC)

#106 Brandon Nimmo

#113 Nate Pearson (RC)
#224 Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

#164 Jesus Aguilar

#142 Jake Odorizzi

#250 Bryce Harper