After picking the shelves clean at Target, I've got the last of my Chrome packs to share.
Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom: 205 Jim Thome (Remember toys made by the company Tomy, pronounced the same way as Jim's name? I don't remember having any, but I recall one of my de facto childhood playmates, a kid of my mom's friend, having many of these. They were usually weird robots and wind-up stuff, often somehow indistinctly, yet undeniably less violent than the toys I owned, and therefore less fun. Somehow I think that if Jim Thome swallowed a quarter, it would be much harder to retrieve it than it would from this guy.) 217 Brett Myers 85 Carl Crawford Refractor (A basic rule of thumb is that the more a card has going on, the more bells and whistles it has, the weirder it scans. Refractors, however, tell this conventional wisdom to take a flying fock, as they scan beautifully. Any optics experts out there who would care to explain?) 304 Jose Garcia (RC) Not a bad pack. I'm still trying to decide if this edition is better than this year's. As other APAD contributors have pointed out, two inserts per four-card-pack makes set-building a difficult proposition. If it's inserts and parallels you're after, then 2008 is for you.
God I miss Ultra. And not that Ultra "SE" crap, butFleer Fuckin' Ultra. So I was pleased to have found a pack of the 1999 edition in the TemDee dollar box.
Ok, Ok. So, design was never Ultra's main selling point. (How many ways can you possibly design a full-bleed card?), but something more important was: brand consistency. Year in and year out (2007 Ultra SE, notwithstanding), you knew what you were getting with Ultra: A 250-300 card base set (with 30-50 SPs), a one-per-pack Gold Medallion parallel, and collectible inserts.
Something interesting on the back of each card is a feature called "DARE TO COMPARE." Wedged between the player's stats and a Did You Know? snippet, D2C paired that player's stats with a retired star at the same point in both of their careers.
Listed besides each player is the legend Fleer "Dared to Compare" stats with.
Base:
Fatolo Colon DARE TO COMPARE: Ralph Terry
Craig Counsell DARE TO COMPARE: Davey Lopes
Mike Piazza DARE TO COMPARE: Yogi Berra
Henry Rodriguez DARE TO COMPARE: Bo Jackson
Rondell White DARE TO COMPARE: Gary Matthews
Andy Benes One of the few cards without a D2C.
Mike Lansing DARE TO COMPARE: Davey Johnson
Frank Thomas (Checklist)
Parallels Gold Medallion (one-per-pack): Royce Clayton Another one without a D2C
Here's another pack from the Fairfield Co. repack. The only 2007 UD cards I have are the Orioles team set, but I love the simple design and crisp photography, so a pack of this set is always welcome. The cover boy is Derek Jeter. Bleah.
723 Mike Lamb - The photo is from the 2005 World Series, oddly enough. Check out the bunting and the WS patch on A. J. Pierzynski behind the plate.
579 Kyle Snyder - How does a guy with a career ERA near 6.00 get rescued from Kansas City by the Red Sox?
777 Jeff Kent - If this card were a slot machine, I think it would be a jackpot. 843 Doug Mientkiewicz - Ah, Dougie Alphabet.
905 Mike Thompson - First-year starting pitcher with the Padres. His glove has "A2000" printed on it. At first glance it looked like "AROOO". I thought he was a werewolf, maybe.
828 Scott Schoeneweis - This is the "impossible to spell" pack.
691 Neifi Perez - I Googled "Neifi Perez sucks". His YTMND page is a letdown.
672 Garrett Atkins - I've lost track of him since he's not on my fantasy team this year. Seems he's about on pace with his good numbers last year, except he doesn't like walks any more.
What a pack full of meh. But it's pleasant to look at. Next time...GOUDEY!
Brian chose the new Artifacts pack for the last post, then Steve threw a curve and selected the Star Wars pack. I got this pack sometime last year and forgot about it, but figured it deserved a little APAD love. I unfortunately got screwed out of a card and to add insult to injury there was no insert in the pack. Between the parallels, magnets, die cut puzzle cards and animation cels in the product, it's dang near impossible not to pull an insert, but them's the breaks. The cards themselves are pretty nice though, with good photos, spot UV coating on the front and judicious use of foil. Plus it's freakin' Star Wars. Ya can't go wrong with Star Wars cards. Here's the pack.
65 The Death of Dooku
Christopher Lee is a bad mothersucker. The recent movies catch a lot of deserved crap, but Dooku's character helps to justify their existence. It's also another notch for Lee in his rivalry with Ian McKellen for the most bad-ass old dude on the planet. Ian has been Gandalf, Magneto, Hitler, will play Number Two and has been damn near every Shakespeare lead including a fantastic Richard the Third (Best Shakespeare movie ever in the history of everything), while Lee has Saruman, Dooku, Death, Willy Wonka's dad, Sherlock Holmes and DRACULA on his resume. That's a tough choice, I say let 'em fight it out.
76 Muppets and Merriment
I don't know what's more fantastic about this card, Mark Hamill flirting with Miss Piggy, or the "surprise! buttsecks" look on Kermit's face. Yoda's having none of it though and appears to be checking out Miss Piggy's rack and I'm not talking about spare ribs. Dirty old alien. This seems like a good a time to link to the Muppets StarWarsepisode, eh?
92 Old and New Friends
Other than a couple clips here and there I've thankfully managed to avoid the horror that is the Star Wars Holiday Special, but any card with Carrie Fisher on it is all right in my book. According to the text on the back, she is singing the Star Wars theme with Thanksgiving themed lyrics. Ok, curiosity's gotten the better of me. I gotta hear this. YouTube to the rescue.
Oh Dear Jesus MY EYES. MY EARS. THEY BURN.
97 Charal the Nightsister
I don't know who the heck this character is, but she's sorta hot in a Goth cougar kind of way. Read all about her here, I'm moving on to the next card.
100 Introducing Boba Fett
Another Star Wars Holiday Special card, but this is supposedly the lone good thing to come out of that debacle. When I first saw the card, the drawing reminded me of early Ralph Bashki cartoons (please don't click on Ralph Bashki cartoons at work), but the sequence was actually directed by Ken Stephenson. He went on to direct episodes of Ewoks, Droids and the first clip of Heavy Metal, which is way way too filthy to link. That's probably why I recognize the very '70s style artwork. Here's the Boba Fett cartoon, which actually is pretty damn good...
119 Sneak Peek: New Animation
Speaking of animation, this here is a sneak peek at the new Clone Wars cartoon that is debuting on Cartoon Network this fall. It looks like a video game to me. I'll take the old crappy 70's animation with the goofy faces and rubber Artoo any day of the week. But, yeah, I'll be watching it anyway.
This is one of the repeating series that I keep seeing as I open 432 packs of this stuff. I went in on a case auction with a friend. Well, all I can say is it was on sale.
This pack isn't bad for the HOFer and star content. And if they don't stick together too bad, it isn't a bad pack. Let's rip it...
311 Orel Hershiser 339 Troy O'Leary 250 Gary Sheffield 371 Dave Winfield 384 Mike Lansing 397 Jeremy Burnitz 470 Jim Abbott 259 Craig Biggio 284 David Cone 323 Tim Wallach 348 Robin Yount 234 Alex Arias
I like Pacific, they're a little different than the rest. This set is a decent design. I like the backs with the portrait photo and the stats & logo under the ripped edge. The one thing I think needed work is the font used for the names. And some of the color combinations are hard to read. But I guess after opening as many packs as I have, anything would be hard to read....
As I continue to post the packs that came in the 16-pack box from Wal-Mart, we come to a pack of 1986 Topps Tattoos. To refresh your memory, the packs contain 18 tattoos, some of which are players and some are generic baseball-related pictures. There is also a stick of gum, should you feel the urge to chomp down on a 22 year old piece of history... First up, we have Alfredo Griffen (A's), a couple of non-descript players, a couple more non-descript players, Frank White (Royals), Ozzie Smith (Cardinals), and finally two more generic players. Not bad at all! It's always a good pack when you can pull Ozzie out of your hat! The second set of tattoos gives us Scott Garrelts (Giants), Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd (Red Sox), Donnie Moore (Angels), Tony Perez (Reds), two generic players, and Vince Coleman (Cardinals). There are a couple players here I have never heard of, but then that doesn't really come as a surprise to most of you, I know. :-) Garrelts was an all-star in '85 and went to the World Series in '89 (a few years after these were made). Boyd was indicted in 2005 for threats he made to his girlfriend. Ironically, Moore is known for giving up a pennant-losing home run to Dave Henderson (no relation). Perez was part of the "Big Red Machine" in the mid-late 80's, in case you didn't know... :-)
In 1989, Donruss opted for a patriotic pack wrapper (Red, er uh Yellow, and Blue). The wax packs featured 15 cards and 3 puzzle pieces on a single card. This year's fragmented face was of Warren Spahn. There were 26 MVP 'insert' cards collectors could try to find as well.
The cards themselves sported nice, big player photos that were flanked on either side by a black border. The tops and bottoms of the fronts were done up in varying color gradients that really had nothing to do with the team's colors at all (purple to light purple for Yankees, green to blue for Boston - though I suppose a stretch argument could be made that it stood for the 'green monster,' orange to yellow for Brewers, and so on). The player's name is shown at the top in white with the position following the name. In one corner of the card (seems to be randomly selected) is the team logo and in another corner (again, seemingly randomly placed) is the Donruss-89 'logo'. The back of the cards featured a hunter-orange color with black text covering most of the back. The only white on the back was reserved for stats. The card numbers were placed in a baseball icon, and the backs showed the player's full, given names with 'nicknames' listed in parenthesis (such as Christopher (Chris) Louis Bosio). There is also bio info, contract status info (did anyone ever really care what the contract status of the players was??), and some career highlights (if any). Let's open the pack, shall we? Here, we see the wrapper and the first two cards: Richard (Rick) Alan Rhoden (Yankees) and Bruce Vee Hurst (Red Sox). I was a Rhoden fan as a kid while he played with the Pirates, though I will say that is quite the furry caterpillar he's got under his nose. Hurst opted to let his two fuzzies play above his eyes instead... Next, we have Patrick (Pat) Arthur Sheridan (Tigers), Michael (Mike) Lewis Grenwell (Red Sox), and Christopher (Chris) Louis Bosio (Brewers). Sheridan was just hoping that he could gain the same notoriety as Billy Ripken by taking this pose, but someone forgot the Sharpie that day... The Greenwell card is BC-13, an MVP insert. Not sure why any grown man would pose with his hands on top of each other in the "mama's Angel" pose, but there it is... Poor Bosio nearly lost his entire face to shadow in this photo! Richard (Rick) Spencer Schu (Orioles), Jeff Robinson (Tigers) Diamond Kings, and a checklist round out the next three cards. Evidently, Rick's mother was concerned about him losing his glove, so she wrote his name on it. It's a pretty sad day when your baseball card features a whopping seven people in the background stands... Perez-Steele is the "king" of the Diamond King prints, for sure. Though, in Jeff's case, I think Robinson sneezed or something, as his moustache and upper lip seem a bit out of whack here (not to mention his ear seems a bit on the dominant side of sizing)... And, there's nothing like a good old checklist to make your day, huh? When I was a kid, my friends and I would actually trade cards based on the names listed on a checklist - if you had Schmidt or Rose on your checklist, it was 'worth' more in a trade... Ah, to be young an naive again... The next guys out of the pack are Michael (Mike) Darren Young (Brewers), Billy Mike Smithson (Red Sox), and Miguel Angel Garcia (Pirates). Young, who was 29 in this photo, appears much older than his age. At least he is smiling though, and would make excellent fodder for the girls at Dinged Corners! Smithson is about to fire in a shot, making for a decent picture, though how many Red Sox players can Donruss put in one pack!? Garcia had his picture taken out behind Three Rivers, where no one could see him... Francis (Andy) Andrew Nezelek (Braves), Jay Canfield Howell (Dodgers), and Alexander (Alex) Madrid, Jr (Phillies) make up the next trio to see daylight. This card represents Nezelek's rookie card (as far as Donruss goes), and it sure has the look of a young kid just happy to have his face on a card at all! Howell is caught hurling (or about to anyway). Notice how your eye is drawn from the logo, down to his shoulder, out to the glove and back to the lowered hand with the ball? Nice piece of photography. Madrid should have taken up acting in an 80's cop show or sitcom where he has to take care of a daughter while living in the same house as her single mother... Oh wait... Nevermind... And, rounding out the pack, we have Jerald Dwayne Clark (Padres) and the eyes of Warren Spahn. To me, Clark's pose is reminiscent of the old-school (50's-60's) poses. I mean, if this card were ratty and had a different border on it, he could be playing with Mays, Robinson, et al. In fact, the picture almost has a Goudey "Big League" card look to it...Spahn's puzzle includes pieces 22, 23, and 24, which feature menacing eyes looking straight at you. Oh yes, there will be a strike out....
This is the pack readers at Thorzul Will Rule voted against last week. It's the Gore/Kerry ticket of packs. Let's call it An Inconvenient Pack. Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom: 093 Pedro Martinez 041 Andre Ethier 059 Justin Upton Orange Parallel (190/300) Redemption Card Carlos Marmol/Geovany Soto Co-Signers Autograph 082 Carlos Zambrano 016 Joe Mauer
I'm not sure what I did to deserve such punishment. Perhaps it stems from the winter when I hit my little brother in the face with an ice ball. Maybe it's retribution for all of the cheating that took place on middle school social studies tests. In any case, I consider this pack my penance. First you've got Joe "Citizen Douchebag" Mauer, a guy who couldn't take my heckling the last time he came to town and actually broke down and started crying in the batters box. (Well...) Then there's top-rated A-hole Zambrano, a guy who lacks personal self-control to the point where he will fistfight his own teammates in the middle of a game. And finally, there's the redemption card. Only in my world would this be considered punishment. While it might be on morally shaky ground to hope for players on an opposing team to get hurt, perhaps I could find a loophole around this by praying that some of the players who currently ride the bench for the Cubs get the chance at big league action they so richly deserve.
And by the way, what is up with the numbering system on these? Do we really need the zero as the hundreds place holder?
To celebrate, here's a pack of 1999 Sports Illustrated.
One thing I miss about Fleer, is the intense shine their cards had. 1999 Sports Illustrated had so much gloss on them, I swear, you need a pair of sunglasses just to view them. They're also very slippery, for some reason.
1999 was the third and final year for the SI brand, and it followed the same formula as before: 150-200 cards, heavy on the subsets. The backs have full career stats, but no other copy. And despite a 30-card "Team 2000" subset, there are no prominent rookies.
Ok, this is a pack of 2008 Upper Deck Artifacts. These are retail packs, 5 cards for 3 bucks. The pack, uh, looks a little familiar... Hey! SHENANIGANS!!! It's the same stuff with a different picture of Griffey on the front! Yup, A Piece of History has been rebranded Artifacts for the retail version, even though they're the exact same cards. They even have "A Piece of History Baseball" underneath the Artifacts title. I have no clue what's going on here, but I hope it counts towards the 17 sets dictated in their license with MLB. Anyhoo, you can get these in 5 card blister packs (probably to deter searching for the ridiculously thick Hollywood memorabilia cards) or go for a 7 pack blaster with a guaranteed relic and a weird new box where the left corner is curved for some reason. I got a really ugly David Ortiz jersey card in my box, which I'm not bothering to post because a) it was a boring box other than this pack and b) I already sorted it. Here's the good pack out of the box though.
10 Chipper Jones
YES!!! The rest of the pack could have been David Wright mooning me and it would still be the best of the bunch. This pack has a distinct Braves flavor however as you will see:
145 Jeff Ridgway
Ah! A rookie card. How nice. Acoording to Upper Deck, Jeff is a pitcher for the Rays even though he was actually traded to the Braves LAST FREAKING JANUARY. Jeez UD, it's only been 6 months.
180 Hindenurg
Keeping with the Braves theme, here is our pitching staff.
CSC-60 Magglio Ordonez & Curtis Granderson Cut From the Same Cloth #446/799
Pretty typical insert card. Heavy gloss, serial numbered, two foil Tigers logos for no reason, bland text on the back and potential relic placement design given far more importance than the player photos. It's pretty difficult to get excited about the kitty cats this year too.
173 Hubble Telescope
I have extremely mixed emotions about this card. I had a bit of a nerdgasm when I saw it since I'm a big fan of its work. However, the card looked a bit... off. Compare the border with that of Led Zeppelin up there. That's right, it's a tiny fraction lighter. It's got a slightly less tarnished look to it. I checked the rest of the box and the last card in every pack are all like that. So there's a one a pack parallel where the big difference is the borders look a little more polished than the other cards if you look at them side by side. You might want to stick to the Hobby boxes if you like this set, no parallels there as far as I can tell.
Up next is a pack from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. You can vote for the pack you want to see after that here.
All right now, my first pack posted in about 2 weeks. Didja miss me? Chris Harris picked out this '99 Bowman Series 1 pack that I picked up today (or yesterday, depending how late it is when I finish this) for my return post. You can pick the next pack I post here if you so desire. I got this and a '98 series pack, and for the life of me I can't remember which one cost a buck and which cost two. Let's split the difference and say it was a buck fiddy. Pat Burrell, Nick Johnson and Austin Kearns are the big rookies in this mess, so let's see if one is hiding in here.
Checklist and $125 Guarantee certificate 186 Doug Mientkiewicz RC 170 Gabe Molina 180 Billy Koch 119 Glenn Davis LB2 Late Bloomers Jim Thome 39 Brian Hunter 134 Jason Tyner RC 11 Gary Sheffield 103 Jack Cressend RC 83 Manny Aybar International Foil
I opened up the checklist card before I found out it was worth 15 cents in the 2002 SCD price guide and now I feel bad for de-minting it. The $125 guarantee is as follows: You give Topps five bucks, and if you managed to build the entire 440 card set, you sould sell it back to Topps for 125 clams if you weren't completely satisfied. The catch? You had to redeem it between August 31st and December 31st, 2002. What a deal! Check out that mind-bending Thome insert. It looks like a fractal puked. I think Late Bloomers refers to the fact that Jim was picked in the 13th round of the '89 draft, because the guy was in the bigs in two years and was a pretty solid major leaguer by age 23. No Burrell, but I did get a rookie of a decent player in Doug M. If you put a gun to my head and told me to answer the question "Who has Doug played for since he caught the last out for Boston in the 2004 World Series?" or die, I'd be pushing up daisies right now. Of the other prospect cards only Jason Tyner is barely clinging to hopes of playing in the bigs. Poor Billy Koch has that creepy skin disease that no doctor will admit actually exists. I tried like damn to get a decent scan of the beautiful palm trees on Manny Aybar's card but the stupid foil made it look like Hurricane Bertha was wiping out the Dominican Republic no matter what I did. Instead, I leave you with the Then and Now pictures on the back of Gary Sheffield's card.
In 1998, Fleer renamed their flagship brand "Fleer Tradition." But despite the name change, '98 FleerTrad is your standard issue late-90s base level product.
The first series was 350 cards with the last 50 (all of the subsets) short-printed -- the first time Fleer SPed the base set. Fleer also went back to a standard UV-coating after two years of giving their cards a matte finish.
Each pack came with three different one-per-pack inserts. The first (and most valuable) was Vintage '63; a Hobby only pesudo-partial parallel done in the style of the 1963 Fleer set. The second one-per-pack insert was a "Million Dollar Moment." These were part of a contest where, if you collected a full set of 50 MDM's, congratulations, you won $1,000,000! The catch being, the last five cards in the set were all extremely short-printed, and Fleer only made one copy of Joel Youngblood's card. MDM's were randomly inserted into packs of various Fleer baseball products in 1997 and '98.
The last insert is a Diamond Ink Point card. Diamond Ink was a redemption program where collectors who accumulated 500 point cards of a particular player could then redeem them and receive a genuine autographed baseball of that player. Point cards were seeded at the rate of one-per-pack in just about every 1998 Fleer product and ten different players signed for the program. It was a pretty neat idea, and I'm a but surprised that somebody else hasn't tried to replicate it.
The only thing that sucks about 1998 FleerTrad -- other than the unnecessary short-prints -- is the lack of any copy on the backs of the base cards. Just stats and a photo.
Base: Shigetoshi Hasegawa (1997 MLB Debut) Andres Galarraga (Free Agent Signed) Wally Joyner David Justice John C-3POlerud Kevin Orie ('97 Debut) Deivi Cruz ('97 Debut) Joey Cora
Inserts: Vintage '63 (1:1) Larry Walker The front notates his 1997 NL MVP.
Rookie Sensations (1:18) Todd Helton In the early 90s, the Rookie Sensations were the shit. By '98, they had become just another insert. (And a rather unremarkable one if that.)
Million Dollar Moments (1:1) Frank Robinson Diamond Ink (1:1) Tony Womack 1 Diamond Point
The good news: I'm back from vacation. You didn't even know I was on vacation did you? Ha ha. I'm so sneaky. Anyway, I'm back and I have packs. (and cards, and autographs. just gimme about an hour to get a post up)
The bad news: I'm exhausted from the trip. I got a bunch of packs in front of me waiting to be ripped and posted, but I don't know which to do first.
In no particular order the packs I have are: 1988 Pacific Eight Men Out 35 cards for $1.99 junk blister 2006 Bowman 2007 Fleer 2008 Upper Deck Football Heroes 2003 Fleer Double Header 2007 Topps Star Wars 30th Anniversary 1998 Bowman Series 1 1999 Bowman Series 1 1995 Finest 2005 Ultra 2003 Fleer Patchworks 2008 Upper Deck Artifacts
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Post in the comments which pack you'd like opened first. I'll rip 'em in the order you post. Yep, I'm totally crapping all over Thorzul's Choose Your Own Pack Adventure and Chris Harris' Dirty Dozen but I have cards to send them so they'll get over it. First post in the comments, first pack ripped. Second post, second pack and so on. This is the next two weeks of A Pack A Day from me except for the inevitable Allen & Ginter "I spent the night in front of the card shop waiting for the UPS truck to arrive" first pack opening. Choose wisely.
Oh, and the blog has been quite vigorous in my absence. Good job everybody! Keep it up or I'll buy a case of 1990 Fleer Football and open that stuff exclusively on this blog for a solid year.
Not only did I choose one, I chose a dozen different junk waxpacks. All of them from 1997-99, and all of them for only $1/each.
But will they make me "better feeling?" That is the question.
First pack is 1997 Finest Series Two. This was the second (and thankfully) last year Finest was configured in it's multi-fractured, multi-subset format. The 175-card base set was divided into 100 "Commons" (or "Bronze" as they more commonly known), 50 "Uncommons" (Silver), and 25 "Rares" (Gold). The Silvers and Golds were short-printed and seeded into packs at the rate of 1:4 and 1:24 respectively, with refractors inserted at the rate of 1:12, 1:48 and 1:288.
The set is divided further into five different subsets, each with their own distinct design: Acquisitions (players who had changed teams), Masters (superstar players), Blue Chips (rookies), Power (power pitchers and power hitters), and Competitors (who compete, or something).
Like I did in the 20-for-$40 pack bust, in lieu of commentary, I'm just going to re-print the copy on the back of each card.
Base: (All are Bronze)
Dean Palmer COMPETITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS "At the plate: An already-productive hitter, Palmer outdid himself in1996 with a career-best 38 HR's and 107 RBI. In the field: His reliability and range improve every year at third, where he led the American League with 135 starts in '96."
Jim Leyritz ACQUIRING TASTES "A valued utility player for the 1996 Yankees -- and a hero of their World Series win -- Leyritz offers the Angels a dangers bat and skills at catcher, first base, thrid base and left field. He hits for power against righties and lefties."
David Justice ACQUIRING TASTES "After a 40-game 1996 season (thanks to shoulder surgery) in Atlanta, Justice arrives in Cleveland healthy and eager to join its revamped outfield corps. In a lineup looking for a lefty bat, he is penciled in for 20+ homers and 100+ RBI."
Ismael Valdez POWER POINTS "Whiffed six or more batters 18 times, and seven or more 15 times, in 33 starts of 1996 ... Reached the seventh inning in 82% of his appearances ... Owns career high of 11 SO's (8/16/95) ... Had '96 season high of 10 on 4/24 versus Houston."
Walt Weiss COMPETITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS "At the plate: Weiss is a bat control artist, selective hitter and tough out. In the field: He has committed more tham 19 errors at SS only once in a decade. On the basepaths: Maximizing average speed, he was 27-for-32 in SB's, 1995-96."
Jeff Cirillo COMPETITVE CONTRIBUTIONS "At the plate: Cirillo, once lightly regarded, is now an XBH machine and reigns as club's single-season record holder for RBI (83) by a third baseman. In the field: He has outstanding range and one of the better hot corner arms in the game."
Pack number three from the Fairfield repack box is 2007 Bowman. Bowman doesn't really do anything for me, so this is my first pack ever of the stuff. Yippee. I had to cut the top of the wrapper and pull the cards out, since the pack just wasn't ending its marriage to the cardboard.
Cover boy is Royals' 2006 #1 pick Luke Hochevar. Up and at them!
12 Carlos Quentin - Was hit by 43 pitches as a minor leaguer in 2004. Holy crap!
74 Brian Giles - Signature bears his full name. Middle name is Stephen.
173 Mark Teixeira - "i" before "e" my Aunt Fanny.
100 David Wright - Shown rounding the bases in a home run trot at Shea, as Royce Clayton of the Nationals hangs his head in shame.
117 Carlos Silva - His name is an anagram for Sr. Saliva Loc. I think that's also his Wu Tang name.
BP29 Gerrit Simpson Gold - A #5 draft pick of the Rockies in 2001, he last pitched in the minors in 2006 with AA Huntsville (Brewers). Another great "prospect", Bowman.
BC55 Matt Palmer Chrome - Currently a 29-year-old in his third season in the AAA Fresno Grizzlies (Giants) rotation. At least he's still pitching.
BC60 Gilberto Mejia Chrome - Kicked around the Tigers system for five years, with a .697 OPS and only 64 games as high as AA. Not in affiliated baseball as of 2008.
BP82 Ricardo Nanita - Now 27 and enjoying his third season at AA Birmingham (White Sox). Seems to have peaked in 2006. But hey, he enjoys salsa music.
BP109 Ryan Mullins - Still 24, currently has 7 wins at AA New Britain (Twins). As close as this pack is getting to an actual prospect.
This pack did nothing to convince me of the usefulness of Bowman. At least I finally have a Gerrit Simpson card for my collection, though.
Apologies for this taking so long, but I had some unexpected guests over last night. For those of you who aren't aware, I had a reader participation vote going over on Thorzul Will Rule asking what pack I should post first. The readers have spoken, and I must applaud all of you for your bravery. The vote went 11-3 in favor of a pack of Berenstain Bears Story Cards over a pack of 2008 Topps Co-Signers, but in a somewhat mysterious development, all three Co-Signers supporters posted their votes anonymously. Punk bitches.
Let's tear in.
Before we start, I should point out that this product was released as a series of six sequential packs. This one I'm posting is actually pack 2 in the series, with all pack 2's being identical to one another. Furthermore, a story started in one pack is finished in another. Let's begin now. Apparently the basic arc of this story involves the Bears' treehouse being in a state of filth and disrepair. I'm not sure if Brother is at fault for this mess, but something needs to be done. I'm not sure how dirty wash gets on the line. It kind of seems like going out of your way to make more work for yourself. Unless, of course, there was a mud fight that I didn't read about from pack 1. Father's quick thinking makes it look like the house might get cleaned after all. (Note: I implore you not to miss the social commentary going on here. Let me paint you a picture of the exploitatitive labor practices that are taking place here. Bear = "White Person", Woodland Creature = "Illegal Migrant Worker". Turns out Stan and Jan know their shit.) Cutest card ever...possibly on a par with Hamtaro's Snoozer. Or anything holding a sunflower seed the relative size of a baked ham. The filthy vermin continue to clean. In the end, everything turns out OK. Lesson learned: Upon reaching an adequate level of financial resources, hire someone with darker skin than you to carry out the most menial of tasks. The social commentary is scathing. The pack is rounded out by an art lesson. On the back side are two of the greatest stickers I've ever seen. Well, that's that, readers. Actually, that's only half of that. A second story is begun on the second half of pack 2. I will try to post that and its second half (from the first part of pack 3, the only other one I bought) on one of these blogs soon.
While you wait, why don't you help me out with one of the Berenstain cards I left out of this sharing experience. Let's all head across the quad to Thorzul Will Rule...Caption Contest!!!
Continuing with the $10 repack box, here's a fifth pack that was loose inside the box. This means that I didn't have to bend the hell out of the cards inside by trying to rip it free from the outside of the box. I want to find the adhesive they use for these stinking things...if I ever spring a leak in my pipes, I can't imagine anything more powerful. I got a nice wash of nostalgia when I saw "Donruss" on the wrapper.
The cover boy is Albert Pujols yet again. No idea what the original price was, but it has one of those $1.59 markdown stickers on the back.
138 Nomahh Garciaparra - Still sort of weird to see him in that Cubs uni.
320 A. J. Pierzynski - Got jobbed out of the All-Star Game this year. His peers apparently hate him so much that they decided a decaying 'Tek was more worthy than a guy hitting near .300.
250 Livan Hernandez - Not only an Expo card, but a big fat pitcher swinging the bat! Nice.
303 Jack Wilson - One of my former co-workers went to high school with him. Six degrees and all that.
400 Vernon Wells: Blue Jays Team Checklist - Only seven Jays in this set (including Vernon's Diamond King)? This must have been a small set.
148 Wilson Valdez - A White Sox rookie shortstop. Steve, any fond memories of this guy?
347 Chad Gaudin - Someday he'll probably tell his grandkids that he was traded to the Cubs in 2008 to lead their pennant drive...and the A's threw in Rich Harden as well. The kiddies won't know any better.
300 Pat Burrell - Pat the Bat! It would've been a hoot to see him on the All-Star team this week. The poor guy took enough abuse from Philly fans in the past; I think the least they could've done is take a week off from work to stuff the ballot box for him. ;)
127 Pedro Martinez - This card's a bit dinged at the top. You get what you pay for, I suppose.
111 Miguel Tejada - Awesome action shot of Miggy covering second as Nick Punto slides back into the bag. They're decked out in the polyester glory of 1975, don'tcha know.
All in all, not a bad little pack. I would've loved to see a Diamond King, but there was some decent star power and an Oriole in a throwback ensemble. Thumbs up.
Hey hey! Friday my roommate told me she was heading to Target, and my ears perked up. It's been too long since I've bought any packs, and I've had a hankering for a cheapo repack box lately. Plus, I desperately needed groceries. But that was more of a secondary concern. I don't blog about Cinnamon Life cereal, after all. Though maybe I should. Anyway, as I was pushing the cart through the store and near to the checkout lines, I just happened to pass the baseball card racks! Who'da thunk it? Seeing as how I was already there, it would've been rude not to pick up a $10 Fairfield Company repack box. It's one of the ones with four packs and a grab bag of 100 loose cards. There were two to choose from, so I went with the one that had a pack of 2007 Goudey in one of the windows. Wouldn't you? So here's one of the boring packs, before I get to the goods in the coming days.
The cover boys on the pack are Vlad Guerrero, Derrek Lee, and Albert Pujols. Six cards for an original price of 99 cents. Dig in!
UH278 Jake Postlewait First Year - Not to be confused with creepy British character actor Pete Postlethwaite.
UH1 Sammy Sosa - HAHAHAHAHA...ugh. Not one of the shrewder trades in Orioles history.
UH35 John Olerud - Olie shares my birthday, as do Carl Crawford and Mark Mulder. I barely remember him being on the Sawx, though it's even harder to remember his time with the Yankees (49 games in 2004).
UH50 Jeff Kent - Think Jeff Kent has a shot at the Hall of Fame? Considering that he's got a well-earned reputation as a poophead, his chances of getting elected by the highfalutin BBWAA are slim and none.
UH188 Derrek Lee 2005 MLB All-Star - The Fish traded him for Hee Seop Choi and a minor leaguer. For their sake, I hope it was just a salary dump.
UH28 Jason Vargas - Card back says he was born righty and his father taught him to throw lefty. Smart dude.
Checklist 2 of 3 - Mostly the inserts. Hmm, I could've gotten an Andre Dawson relic or a Pedro Martinez signature. But hey, at least I didn't pull a damned Barry Bonds Home Run History card.
Let's take a look at a Score 1993 Pinnacle Baseball Series 1 pack of cards. We might even find a "Team Pinnacle" card in here (oh, boy!):
The pack itself is black and bronze with red accents. Very shiny, sop as to attract kiddos away from other packs. The black is also slimming, so the players inside who let themselves go during the off-season don't look as big... The cards feature large player photos surrounded by a black border. At the top of the card, the player's team is listed, and the bottom features the player's name and "Pinnacle" logo. The logo is in gold foil. After all, the card company is much more important than any player that happens to be pictured, right?
The first two cards are Lee Stevens (Angels), Derek Bell (Blue Jays) Next up, we have Mo Vaughn (Red Sox), Juan Gonzalez (Rangers), and Dave Hansen (Dodgers).
The backs of the cards are black and feature a "studio"-type head shot in the middle. On the left, there is the card number, position, bio info, team logo, MLB logo, and MLBPA logo. The right has the Pinnacle logo again with a brief write up about the player. All of this is kept apart from the bottom of the back by a horizontal line with the player's name. The bottom portion features stats from the previous year, career totals, and copyright info. In the next group, we have Jack McDowell (White Sox), Mike Bordick (caught in a very cool shot!) (Athletics), and Dennis Eckersley (Athletics). The Eck-man is ripping one in, and if I didn't understand the laws of physics, I'd be ducking while looking at the card, since it looks like the ball is coming right at me - as if Eck said, "oops!" :-) Tom Gordon (Royals) who has nothing to do with the Stephen King story, Jeff Bagwell (Astros), and Paul Wagner (Pirates). Finally, we have Barry Manuel (Rangers), Dennis Martinez Now&Then (Expos/Orioles), J.T. Bruett (Twins) caught in an awful bunt pose (just look at the poor man's face).
The last card in the pack (not scanned) is Mike Raczka (Athletics). All in all, not too bad of a pack. I mean, heck, it had Eckersley, Bagwell, McDowell, Gonzalez, and Martinez. Now, if it had just had a Triber.....
Today, we pop open a pack of 1991 Leaf Studio. I have always liked the Studio series because I liked the 'professional' poses and the wacky info they collected about the players. After opening this pack, I use the term 'professional' very, VERY loosely....
Mike Scott (Astros) - He collects golf clubs, watches Rocky & Bullwinkle, and his hero is Dennis Libo
God I miss Ultra. And not that 
