2023 Big League Cubs

The Big League set returned in 2023 after a one year hiatus.  I guess that means there is hope for some of the brands that were killed this year like Gold Label, Fire, and Gypsy Queen.

The set has a checklist of 310 cards but there is a catch - the set is tiered.  The first 200 cards are the commons.  The next 50 are Uncommon Foil and they come one per pack.  Things get progressively harder after that with Rare Blue Foil (#251-275) – 1:18 packs, Super Rare Red Foil (#276-300) – 1:90 packs, and Legendary Gold Foil (#301-310) – 1:360 packs.

Big League is supposed to be Topps alternative to Opening Day, an inexpensive set geared toward the kids.  And the tiered approach is said to be modeled after other kid sets that do the same thing, Pokeman and Magic the Gathering.  However. it seems counter-intuitive to me to have rare and expensive cards in a set geared toward kids.  

I got a bit lucky with the Cubs because most of their cards are in the common tier.  That's where you'll find seven of their ten.  Two more Cubs were in the Uncommon Foil level, and they weren't too hard to get.  There aren't any Cubs in the Blue Foil and Red Foil.  The final Cub was in the last tier, Legendary Gold.  That card was a bit of a challenge and a bit of a shock to the wallet.

 

 

These are the common cards.  The cards for Bellinger, Hosmer, and Mancini are their first as a Cub and are all Photoshopped.

Morel and Swanson (also making his Cubs card debut) are in the Uncommon Foil level.  Topps is all in on Morel, who also has a few inserts in the set.  Too bad he is in Iowa right now.

This is the killer card, Ryne Sandberg, in the Legendary Gold Foil subset that shows up once in every 360 packs.  Being both rare and Ryno made it pricier that what I'd usually pay, but you got to do what you got to do to complete a set.  I did it.