Klein’s Korner: Preparing for an Epic Baseball Card Break – The other day I was alerted to a special upcoming break of 2020 Topps series 1 cards. You see, the break is scheduled for February 4th at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. And no, this will not be an ordinary break because the goal is have ONE MILLION or possibly even more cards come out of packs. Obviously, more than one breaker is needed for this quantity of cardboard and the concept of the Breaking Pavilion we see at the NSCC taken to an even larger level is mind blowing.  And if you were at the 2018 NSCC and anywhere near the main stage I don’t think anyone will ever forget the blood curdling yell of Michael Eisner (no not THAT one) when the Mickey Mantle came out of the 1955 Bowman Cello pack. I know my ears are still ringing and I was a couple of hundred feet away at the COMC booth when that roar emitted from his mouth.

(if you look carefully at the video you can see one Rob Bertrand sitting next to Mr. Eisner)

The good news is this should able to bring great publicity to the hobby as well as generating lots of hobby excitement. Now, perhaps a better way will be thought of for this, but there should be a way for the general public to enter the stadium and witness this part of hobby history. One of the great aspects of case breaking is the enthusiasm generated and some of that from live in-person viewers would be, in my opinion, a really cool idea.

A couple of other issues, one of which has already been discussed and another one which may not have been brought up at this time is how are all the cards going to get to their recipients? Will UPS, USPS, or Fed Ex or some other shipping agency be stationed at the site? Will there be enough hobby supplies to ensure safe packaging so the breakers, most of whom will be coming in from out of town, don’t have to have that headache added to their already stressful trip.

The next issue has been brought up and is related to the previous question, which is, because 2020 Topps Series 1 is just as important for the base cards as for the “hits“, “parallels” and “Inserts” that will every dealer send only the better cards or just the “hits“. Now for some teams, such as the 2020 Rangers, the base cards will end up, even in DFW, in your friendly 10 cent boxes at local shows but if you have the Astros in your break you probably would want the Yordan Alvarez cards. Yes, somehow Alvarez did not have any 2019 cards although he was certainly eligible under any rookie card rules to have those cards in the later 2019 sets. His cards will start the year at a nice price level and with the renewed interest in base rookie cards, people will want to either sell or use those cards as trade bait.

Klein's Korner: Preparing for an Epic Baseball Card Break

My only other slight complaint, is I wish there had been more notice on the event. That way a nice show could have been planned for the weekend before this event so everyone could come in, perhaps break even more product, meet their customers in person and spend money with local DFW collector/dealers.

However, let’s be honest, this whole concept is great in theory and I’m sure these issues and others which will arise will be worked out and the event will be a huge success. I just hope there is some way I can attend in person to do some in-person reporting and interviewing for future columns. And while no 1955 Bowman Mantles will be pulled, perhaps some really cool 2020 Topps one of one insert will find it’s way out of these packs.

For more from Rich Klein, follow him on Twitter @sabrgeek.

Klein’s Korner: Preparing for an Epic Baseball Card Break
Rich Klein

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