Saturday, November 03, 2007

Wal-Mart Blister pack


So it's Saturday morning at 7:30 AM and I'm standing in the feminine products aisle of a Wal-Mart looking for something with wings. I capture my quarry and head to the card aisle because I actually deserve some cards for this. Still no Updates & Highlights blasters, but they got in a crapload of repack stuff. A stack of the $10 Cubes Chris Harris bought, a bunch of $5 blisters that guarantee $15 book value (at time of packing), some $2 blisters that make no such grand promises, and some $4 blisters that have two or three unopened packs. I found a repack with a pack of '06 Topps Heritage and snagged it. Here's what I got out of it. And yes, a blister counts as one pack for A Pack A Day even though I'm opening two packs. Don't blame me for being efficient.


I'll start with the appetizer pack before moving on the the main course. The Heritage pack was paired with a pack of 2007 Opening Day so they could justify charging 4 bucks for the blister. Time to rip.

one piece of chewable gum
165 Philip Humber RC
207 Prince Fielder Rookie cup
93 Scott Kazmir
75 Ryan Howard
46 Derek Jeter
Puzzle 19 - Vlad Guerrero's crotch

Since it was less than a calendar year old, I went for it and chewed the gum. It was a little tough at first, but it got better after a minute or so. This is a pretty kick ass pack for something that was a lame throw in. Prince Fielder with a Rookie Cup, Ryan Howard in his signature stance, Kazmir pitching well in a bad situation and a Philip Humber rookie. Humber's still only pitched in 5 games in his career, but he could end up a starter next year. The big pull is the Jeter sans goofy schmuck in the background. OK, that's not really fair, not even W with his silly grin is as dorky as the dude with the bright yellow shirt and flowing mullet in the background of this pic. The insert is the oh so attractive puzzle piece featuring Vlad's nethers. It's got a teensy picture of Andruw Jones on the back so that's pretty cool. Good start! Let's get to the main attraction.

one piece of stiff yet pliable gum
379 Craig Biggio
476 Brad Thompson
248 Tom Glavine
434 Adam Kennedy
319 Carl Crawford SP?
84 AJ Pierzynski
132 Mark Kotsay
161 Pittsburgh Pirates

The Carl Crawford short print is pretty damn sweet. He's in a posed photo where he's apparently looking to catch a meteor falling from the heavens. Every card in the pack is a posed shot, some more effective than others. Biggio looks great in a Billy Ripken pose, although he's too classy to have anything written on his knob. Adam Kennedy is fielding a grounder in the outfield with his back to the infield. On the flip side, Pierzinski's card is completely washed out and he looks like he's in someone's back yard. Brad Thomson looks like a bored 11 year old. Tom Glavine looks bored and irritated and is posing in what appears to be a wet parking lot. The whole scene looks so weird I'm having a hard time thinking it's not photoshopped.The only real dud card in the pack is the Pirates team. The team photo is black and white, pasted onto a color background and then an extremely fake wall with a pirates logo was stuck over the bottom third of the photo to obscure the bat boys. Uuuuug-leeee. It is interesting to note on the back of the card that Arky Vaughn is the Pirates all time leader in batting average at .385 though. They should have gone ahead and photoshopped Arky into the team photo.

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