NYCC 2023: Unboxing Hit Parade’s ‘Sapphire Baseball 2023 Series 1’ Blind Box
by Brendan M. Allen
One of the things I really love doing is bringing nerdy fandoms together. In addition to comics, I also nerd out to baseball, pro wrestling, and music. It makes me very happy to see vendors and representatives from all my nerd hobbies exist in spaces dedicated to my other nerd hobbies. It’s like seeing a couple of your really good friends make friends with each other.
That being said, imagine my pure delight when I found Hit Parade’s booth on NYCC’s show floor last weekend. They were selling all manner of sports blind boxes. There were hockey boxes, baseball boxes, football boxes… boxes from every major sport, in every price range.
For $375, the Sapphire Baseball Box caught my eye. I attend Cactus League in Arizona every year. One year I came home with a signed Mike Yastrzemski jersey, thinking it would look great on my wall. I had no concept of how much real estate a mounted, framed jersey actually occupies on the wall. Now I bring home baseballs. I have a pretty solid collection of Giants players from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 teams.
Anyway, three balls seemed like the best fit for my personal collection, so I plunked down my cash and picked up lucky #13/100. The limited nature of these blind boxes is important. The folks at Hit Parade will show you a list of the balls that are included in the mix, and you have a 1:100 chance to get each of the big value names that are included.
With three balls, I think (I never took statistics, so feel free to correct my math here) that gets your odds up to 3:100 for each individual name, and the sheer number of amazing players on the list makes it all but certain you’ll end up with at least one of the amazing pulls.
Some standouts on the list include Hank Aaron, Aaron Judge, Ken Griffey Jr, Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuna Jr, Vlad Guerrero Jr, Andruw Jones, CC Sabathia, Cal Ripken Jr, Carl Yastrzemski, Didi Gregorius, Noah Syndergaard, Albert Pujols, and so many more.
Unboxing video below. Check out how I made out!
If you’re feeling lucky and want to grab a box from this same series, here’s the link, and it even looks like they’re on sale right now for less than I paid, which is making me consider snatching up a second one.
