Cheap Wax Wednesday Box Breaks: 2005 Topps Opening Day Baseball
Opening Day is here! The full regular season kicks off (checks notes) tomorrow!
2005 Topps Opening Day Baseball has a slimmed down checklist of just 165 cards. The design parallels that of the regular flagship release, but with an Opening Day logo and blueish foil player last names. Honestly, I like the blue foil look more than the regular release’s silver foil. Opening Day packs were only available at retail.
As far as chase cards go, there are no inserts, no parallels, but there are autographs. The list of signers is tiny, with just six players: Aaron Hill, Anthony Whittington, Chad Cordero, Felix Hernandez, Omar Quintanilla and Paul Maholm. They are also extremely tough to find, landing just once in every 965 packs. That is about one in every 27 boxes.
2005 Topps Opening Day Baseball Box Break
Cards per pack: 6
Packs per box: 36
Price paid: $40
Shop for 2005 Topps Opening Day Baseball boxes on eBay.
Pack 1 highlights:
Mike Mussina, Nomar Garciaparra, Torii Hunter & Miguel Cabrera
Pack 2:
Chipper Jones, Mike Piazza & Moises Alou
Pack 3:
Paul Konekro, Edgar Renteria & Ichiro Suzuki
Ichiro makes just about every card he appears on look cool.
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Pack 4:
Adrian Beltre & Billy Wagner
Pack 5:
Ken Griffey, Jr., Manny Ramirez, Jake Peavy & Red Sox 2004 World Series
Pack 6:
Craig Biggio, Lance Berkman & Gary Sheffield
Pack 7:
Derek Jeter, Matt Holliday & Mike Cameron
Pack 8:
CC Sabathia, Magglio Ordonez, Jeff Bagwell & Randy Johnson
Pack 9:
Alex Rodriguez, Eric Chavez & Derrek Lee
Pack 10:
Mariano Rivera, Albert Pujols & Jason Bay
Pack 11:
Barry Bonds, J.D. Drew, Justin Morneau & Joe Mauer
Pack 12:
Francisco Rodriguez, Cliff Floyd, Ivan Rodriguez & Bartolo Colon
Pack 13:
Greg Maddux & Barry Zito
A couple of Cy Young winners, Maddux with four and Zito with one.
Pack 14:
Zack Greinke, Kevin Brown & Bernie Williams
Pack 15:
Kevin Millar, Jose Vidro & Travis Hafner
Pack 16:
Curt Schilling & Jimmy Rollins
Pack 17:
Carlos Delgado & Jose Reyes
Pack 18:
John Smoltz, Johnny Damon, Jim Thome & Bobby Abreu
Pack 19:
Nomar Garciaparra, Torii Hunter & Miguel Cabrera
Pack 20:
Magglio Ordonez, Red Sox WS & C.C. Cabathia
Pack 21:
Paul Konerko, Edgar Renteria, Ichiro Suzuki & Craig Biggio
Pack 22:
Adrian Beltre, Mark Mulder & Billy Wagner
Pack 23:
Carlos Delgado, Garret Anderson & Todd Helton
Pack 24:
Lance Berkman, Gary Sheffield & Eric Chavez
Pack 25:
Derek Jeter, Matt Holliday & Jim Edmonds
Pack 26:
Scott Rolen, Roy Oswalt, Moises Alou & Ken Griffey, Jr.
Pack 27:
Derrek Lee, Alex Rodriguez & Frank Thomas
Pack 28:
Vernon Wells & Miguel Tejada
Does anyone else immediately notice any card pictures taken at their favorite ballpark? Just me?
Pack 29:
Manny Ramirez, Jake Peavy, Larry Walker & Tim Hudson
Pack 30:
Sammy Sosa & Mark Prior
Pack 31:
Ben Sheets, Shawn Green & Vladimir Guerrero
Pack 32:
Jeff Bagwell, Randy Johnson & Pedro Martinez
Pack 33:
Andruw Jones, Jorge Posada & Johan Santana
Pack 34:
Eric Gagne, Alfonso Soriano & David Ortiz
Pack 35:
Carlos Beltran, Kerry Wood, Mark Teixeira & Pat Burrell
Pack 36:
Jeff Kent & Carlos Lee
Lastly, the Kent card back. Look at those 1997-2004 numbers.
No autograph card here, but that is to be expected. There aren’t a ton of these boxes out there. Sadly, Opening Day made its final appearance (at least for now) in 2022.
Shop for 2005 Topps Opening Day Baseball cards on:
Want more installments of Shane Salmonson’s Cheap Wax Wednesday? Check out his other breaks in the archives.
