If You Build It, They Will Come

 Its been a couple of months now, and I am still Wander-less.  I have purchased 3 blasters, 1 hanger and 1 jumbo pack and have not had the pleasure of pulling his rookie card.  Yes, I have found his Home Run Challenge card and a couple of the cards with Vlad, but no base.   Prices on his base rookie have dropped a bit as supply has started to fill up.  We all knew that would keep value down, but I really would like to have one of his flagship rookies.  A Heritage or Bowman would be neat, but I'm a basic guy so I'd like the one with a pretty cool photo. Now, I could just buy it.  Nothing is stopping me.  I'm pretty much done with sorting 2022 Topps at this point, there is no insert set that is really grabbing me that I need to get.  So it make sense to just buy the single card.  But.....gosh it is way more fun to pull one out of a pack. That why I'm here.  I love this hobby, and I want to have fun with it.  I want to collec...

 This week is the official start of the 2022 MLB season with the drop of Topps Series One.  There is 330 cards in the base set, probably a bunch of SPs and SSPs that will become apparent soon.  Its always exciting to get the new Topps set because it always holds so much promise.  Rookie cards of players you haven't seen on cardboard yet, players on new teams, etc.  However, this year the common refrain online has been complaints about the weak checklist for Series One.  The complaint is that there is only one player to chase.  From what I can tell looking at the base checklist, I agree with this sentiment. THERE IS ONLY ONE IOWA CONNECTION AND HIS NAME IS MITCH KELLER! Now I know I've only seen the base and clear checklists, and perhaps Bob Feller (a often seen Topps staple) will be in an insert set or as a SP.  I doubt that we see any others until Series Two. The best Iowa Connections options for Series 2 are: Michael Wacha Nick Allgeyer Erik Swa...