You can’t open up any baseball media these days without someone getting misty eyed and talking about the magic behind the phrase “pitchers and catchers,” and while I’m as excited as anyone about the dawning of my fiftieth season as a Yankee fan, the opening of spring training was never the milestone I yearned for as a boy. Since I didn’t grow up in the New York area and this was years before baseball was covered on a national level, news from the Yankees spring training compound never would have found its way to my local paper. The only date that mattered for me back then was Opening Day; February was more about sitting in the kitchen with your fingers crossed on the morning after a snowstorm, hoping the voice on the radio would say the name of your school district.

For me, the true sign of spring arrived when the first packs of baseball cards landed in the liquor store like geese flying in from warmer climes. I had survived the long winter of the baseball eclipse, and soon enough my heroes would be gripping bats, sharpening spikes, and toeing the slab. Baseball was coming.

It’s a habit that lingers fifty years later. So when I wandered into the collectibles aisle at our local Target this week and found an employee stocking the shelves with packs of Topps 2026 Series 1, I did what I’ve done for the past five decades. Once the goal was to buy pack after pack in hopes of collecting an entire set, but now I’m only hoping to find a few Yankees and a glimpse back to my childhood.

In what I hope to be a recurring item here, I give you the first installment of Waxing Poetic, in which I’ll write about baseball cards in some manner or fashion. Today, reminiscent of Jack’s Packs, the YES Network rain delay filler, I’ll walk you through my own version (Waddles’s Wax?) as I open my first pack of 2026. Let’s see what we’ve got…

First of all, I love the packaging. You’ve got Henry Aaron up top alongside Ken Griffey, Jr., the player who drove the collecting boom of the 1990s, and the two best players in the game down below, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. Here’s hoping there’s a Judge card on the inside.

Card #1 — Bradley Rodríguez, pitcher, San Diego Padres
Never heard of him.

Card #2 — Brendan Donovan, outfielder, St. Louis Cardinals
Wasn’t there talk that the Yankees might have been interested in him as a bargain bin replacement had Cody Bellinger not returned? I’m not sure, but this is a beautiful card. It’s in landscape orientation rather than portrait, and Donovan is caught diving into third base with his hair flying behind him like a cape. Good stuff.

Card #3 — Jack Perkins, pitcher, Athletics
I don’t know this guy, either, but what strikes me is that his team is just “the Athletics.” It’s bad enough that Major League Baseball has allowed one of its teams to spend two years in minor league purgatory, but why in the world won’t they just call them the Sacramento A’s? Do they think people might forget that they’ve left Oakland or think they’ve already arrived in Las Vegas? It makes no sense.

Card #4 — Sean Murphy, catcher, Atlanta Braves
It was largely because of baseball cards that I could name ten or fifteen players on every team (plus every manager) when I was a kid. Now? Not so much. This name sounds familiar, but that could just be because all of us have run into someone named Sean Murphy at some point.

Card #5 — Will Warren, pitcher, New York Yankees
It’s funny that even now, even though these cards will likely become bookmarks rather than keepsakes, pulling a player from my favorite team still means something. Warren is caught here mid windup, his front foot about to plant before he brings the baseball around and fires it home. It’s a classic pitcher card, the same thing we’ve seen from Topps for seventy-five years. I really like Will Warren. Here’s hoping for a nice year from him.

Card #6 — Brandyn García, pitcher, Arizona Diamondbacks
The back of the card tells me he made his major league debut last season, throwing two innings for the Mariners and then 12.1 innings for the Diamondbacks, so I feel no guilt for not knowing him.

Card #7 — Hunter Goodman, catcher, Colorado Rockies
I know Hunter Goodman! But only because while tracking how horrifically bad the Rockies were last season, I casually texted a friend something about how they don’t have a single decent player. He responded immediately: “Hunter Goodman is good! He’s on my fantasy team!” His baseball card confirms this. In 144 games he hit 31 home runs with a .520 slugging percentage and an OPS of .843. Not bad at all.

Card #8 — Bryce Miller, pitcher, Seattle Mariners
I’ve got nothin’.

Card #9 — Shinnosuke Ogasawara, pitcher, Washington Nationals (Rookie Card)
My first thought here is that Bob Sheppherd, who once tabbed Shigetoshi Hasagawa as one of his favorite names to announce, would’ve loved this guy.

Card #10 — Andrew McCutcheon, outfielder, Pittsburgh Pirates
This is some type of parallel version of the regular McCutcheon card. They used to call these refractors, and they’re honestly kind of irritating. To me, they’re emblematic of the downfall of this hobby. (I’m about to tell you to get off my lawn, so feel free to skip to the next card.) Once upon a time, we’d just open the packs and hope to find players we didn’t already have so we could build a collection. No one today is trying to do that. Each pack is a lottery ticket, with “collectors” hoping they’ll scratch one and find an Ohtani autograph or a limited run rookie card. Back during the pandemic I got it into my head that I wanted to build a set the old-fashioned way, like I’d done as a kid, but then I quickly realized how unfeasible that was. It works when the packs are 25¢ a piece, but the big ticket potential has pushed the price to five or six dollars for twelve cards. Even if you never get any doubles (and you will get lots of doubles), it simply isn’t worth it. And that’s a shame.

Card #11 — Samuel Basallo, catcher, Baltimore Orioles
Speaking of chase cards, here’s another one. I’ll admit that it’s pretty cool looking. It’s part of a series called “Big Ticket Players,” and the card is a stylized design reminiscent of a movie or concert ticket. Apparently there are 26 of these players, ranging from prospects like Basallo to bonafide stars like Judge. Unfortunately I got Basallo.

Card #12 — Roman Anthony, outfield, Boston Red Sox (Rookie Card)
This is another insert set, the “Stars of MLB,” featuring 30 different players. This isn’t my favorite design, but it’s likely one of the more desirable of the low-end chase sets given Anthony’s potential. (I see some early eBay listings in the four to eight dollar range.) I don’t think I should use this as a bookmark, so I’ll likely drop it in the mail and send it off to a friend of mine who’s a Red Sox fan.

So it’s official. Baseball is almost here, and I’ve got the cards to prove it.