2005 Topps Total

To bide the time while I wait for my damned 2008 Topps to ship, here's the last two packs from the Legends repack I picked up so very long ago. (So sue me; I like to pace myself.) These will be the first 20 Topps Total cards in my collection. I'm the kind of weirdo who likes cards of scrubeenies; the whole point of making it to the big leagues is to get your face on a baseball card, isn't it? So cheap + completist = sign me up. Or does it?

511 Laynce Nix
73 Ty Wigginton
222 Luis Rivas
245 Bobby Abreu
636 Gary Glover/Jorge De La Rosa (Silver)
295 Scott Rolen
596 Mike Lincoln/Randy Flores
465 Miguel Cabrera
738 Sean Marshall/Bear Bay First Year
668 Kevin Gregg/Jake Woods

Well, we've got a couple of All-Stars in Abreu and Rolen (I sure seem to be pulling a lot of Scott Rolen cards lately), one monster hitter in Cabrera, and a pitcher whose name is BEAR. Okay, so it's actually Ronald. I'm guessing he went by "Bear" to panda...um, pander to the Cubs. It didn't work. He's never actually made it to the bigs, and is still shlepping around A-ball. Sean Marshall could be an Oriole very soon. In MacPhail time, I believe that translates to "mid-2009".

216 Jason Kendall
196 Tony Womack
604 Chin-hui Tsao/Ryan Speier
TT-AR Alex Rodriguez Total Topps
520 Todd Helton (Silver)
288 Ruben Sierra
47 Oliver Perez
626 Matt Wise/Tommy Phelps
477 Randy Winn
364 Jay Gibbons
TTC 14 of 30 Vladimir Guerrero (Angels Team Checklist)

Check out this pack! An A-Rod insert of some sort (with an incredibly stupid name), two more tremendous power hitters, and two of the more crappy Yankees in recent memory (the better to taunt my Yankee-loving roommate). As far as Jay Gibbons goes, he's one of the worst Orioles you can pull. With the PED abuse, the injuries, the lousy performance, and the unfortunate physical appearance, he's a perfect storm of disappointing.

So I'm actually underwhelmed by 2005 Topps Total; go figure. I realize they're trying to keep the size of the set manageable, but those 2-for-1 reliever cards seem kind of cheesy. The back of the card is a hot mess, with a smaller version of the same photo on the front (LAME), a scouting report and some stats, and a whole bunch of space taken up by some game that must be confusing as hell to play. Give me Strat-o-Matic any day. Better yet...

GIVE ME 2008 TOPPS ALREADY!