2006 Ultra

I've been fussing over the Javier Vazquez trade all evening so I need a quick & easy post for tonight. 2006 Ultra retail? Five cards a pack? Perfect.

74 Victor Martinez
18 Rich Harden
179 Mariano Rivera
SOK1 Roger Clemens Strikeout Kings
128 Michael Young Gold Parallel

Three base cards in a pack. Lots of sets were built of this stuff, I'm sure. Not a terrible pack though, there are two future Hall inductees in the pack (I'm assuming the voters overlook the steroids and teenagers for Rog) and some second-tier stars. Ultra looks good though, and the design never drastically changed from about '96 to it's last set in '07. What I want to know is why Upper Deck murdered them off by making them an expensive hit-per-pack product last year. I also want to know why Topps copied that exact same strategy with their ridiculously priced return of Stadium Club. UGH. Can some one please give a license back to Donruss? Or will they just bring back Leaf as a $100 tin with an autographed fake letter patch per pack? Ya know what, forget all that, BRING BACK TOPPS TOTAL.

2006 Fleer Ultra

Whew, just getting today's pack in under the gun. Pack two from the repack, and the first issue of Ultra that I've ripped since 1995. Whoa.

126 Freddy Sanchez - Upped his batting average from .158 in 2004 to .291 the following year. Sure, he only had 19 ABs in 2004...details, details.

70 Randy Winn - I'm sure Patricia and Lucy like the action shot with Randy kicking up dirt behind him as he digs for the next base.

14 Barry Zito - Despite the fact that he has oodles more money than I will ever see, I kinda feel for this guy amidst his struggles in San Fran.

URS1 Ryan Howard Ultra Rising Stars - Oooh, Brand New World Series Champ Ryan Howard! I opened this pack before tonight's game ended, and took it as a good omen for the Phils.

78 Cliff Lee Gold Medallion - And a parallel of the AL Comeback Player of the Year and likely Cy Young winner to wrap it all up.

2006 Fleer Ultra Retail

The World Series is on, Joe Buck is making me sleepy, and I'm not feeling very witty tonight, but A Pack Must Be Ripped.

16 Bobby Crosby
137 Edgar Renteria
81 Richie Sexson
DP1 Derek Jeter Diamond Producers
66 Cesar Izturis Gold parallel

Got a Brave, got a Jeter insert, good pack. Back to watching the World Series now. If there are any alien lifeforms reading this blog, please abduct Tim McCarver and Probe with Extreme Prejudice.

1993 Ultra

This is the 4th pack I'm opening from a 16-pack repack box from Vintage Sports Cards, Inc. I really liked the 1993 Ultra. There were a few mainstream sets which offered full-bleed photography, UV coating, and gold foil in 1993. Flair, Leaf, SP, Stadium Club, Studio, and Ultra. By 1994, most sets sported this look. Eventually, there would be a backlash against this trend but the mid-1990s was a time for full on shininess. There are two long term problems with UV coated cards. Depending on how the coating is done, it can cause a card to curl. This is because the coating and the paper do not expand and contract together with changes in temperature or humidity. One or the other shrinks or expands more than the other and the card curls. The other problem is that after being pressed together in a pack for 15 years, the cards tend to stick together. This pack of Ultra wasn't too badly stuck together but it has a noticeable curl. What have we got?

#149 Scott Cooper


#94 Mike Williams - the first Phillie I've pulled out of one of these packs. and I already had 4 of them. I included it here because its a rookie card. He was a not very impressive starter for the Phillies but was converted to a closer later in his career. He saved 46 games for the Pirates in 2002. He came back to the Phillies in 2003 and retired at the end of the season.
# 181 - Frank Thomas. One of my favorite players. Frank hit 41 homers in 1993, to go along with 128 rbis, and a 0.317 batting average.
#254 - Mike Bordick
#160 - Mike DiSarcina
#107 - Brian Jordan
#171 - George Bell. Another of my favorite players and another White Sox. Originally signed by the Phillies in 1978 but never played for them. 1993 was his final season.#24 - Sammy Sosa. Another guy playing in Chicago. He hit 33 home runs in 1993 but he's still a few years from the monster years.
#13 - Mike Stanton
#294 - Mike Timlin
#273 - Dave Valle
#69 - Chris Nabholz#236 - Kirby Puckett. Another favorite player. If I'd bought this pack new in 1993, I'd have been pretty happy with it. But, every card so far I already have.
#248 - Melido Perez.

So that's it. I score this pack a 4, mainly because I already had all the cards. So far: 2007 Fleer (14 points), 2007 Bowman Heritage (12), 1991 Score (2).

Clearing out the Draft Folder

It's Spring Cleaning time at Casa de Dayf, and I'm flushing out a whole bunch of pack rips so I can start fresh. I know it's late summer and not spring, I'm just slow, ok? These were options that were never voted on in my Lucky 13 post, so now you get the rip, a card and nothing else. Sorry guys, you should have voted...

1998 Bowman

$125 Certificate card
216 A.J. Hinch RC
92 Richie Sexson
116 Adam Eaton
176 Robbie Bell
137 Mike Kincade foil
195 Marcus MacBeth RC
189 Todd Dunwoody
132 Eli Marrero
25 Edgar Renteria
175 Jon Garland

1988 Pacific Eight Men Out

27 Sport Sullivan
48 Chick Leaves Buck Stranded at Third
32 Shoeless Joe
106 Chick Gandil
93 Hod Eller
82 Slim Sallee
8 Eddie Collins
55 Felsch Scores Jackson
70 The Swede's a Hard Guy
73 Kid Gleason Takes the Stand

2006 Bowman

179 Chad Tracy
138 Carlos Lee
147 Carlos Beltran
13 Carlos Guillen
152 Carl Crawford
188 gold Lance Berkman
BC81 Adam Bourassa Chrome
BC42 Michael Ekstrom Chrome
B106 Carlos Guevara
B59 Vince Cordova
Checklist 2

2007 Fleer

317 Orlando Hudson
170 Derek Lowe
219 Joel Zumaya
50 Jason Marquis
77 Adrian Gonzalez
325 Brian Burres RC
364 Brian Stokes RC
RS-JP Jonathan Papelbon
RS-CJ Conor Jackson
CA-TH Trevor Hoffman Crowning Achievement

2005 Ultra

162 Johnny Damon
86 Brian Roberts
56 Javier Vazquez
28 Greg Maddux
122 Miguel Cabrera
196 Lance Berkman
213 Ryan Howard All-Rookie
43 Matt Lawton

BONUS: The relic card in the package with the '07 Fleer pack


Enjoy...

2007 Fleer Ultra Hobby

We all know what happened to Ultra last year... Upper Deck tried to rebrand it as a premium product and their plan went over kind of like this:



The twenty dollars a pack, hundred dollars a box premium version of Ultra can now be found pretty easily for under forty a box. I found this pack for eight and figured why not. It sure beat the similarly plummeting Co-Signers that were on the table next to it.


182 Mark Teixeira
177 BJ Upton
106 Justin Morneau
118 Carlos Beltran
155 Brian Giles
143 Zach Duke
181 Ty Wigginton
195 Frank Thomas
DM-WI Dontrelle Willis Dual Materials #070/160
69 Dan Uggla
9 Jeff Francoeur
58 Matt Holliday
55 Todd Helton
78 Craig Biggio
18 Melvin Mora
215 Mike Rabelo Ultra Rookie

Heh, Upper Deck goofed on the wrapper and put 5 cards per pack instead of 16. The hit of the pack was a Dontrelle Willis dual jersey with a stripe. I've had a lot of luck pulling Dontrelle this month. More luck than he's had recently at least. The rookie of the pack is Mike Rabelo, who has his own problems right now. The base cards ain't too bad though. Tex, Biggio, Big Hurt, Frenchy, Uggla, Helton, Holliday, Morneau, Upton... You could do worse. I wonder if '07 was Ultra's swan song or if UD will allow the last vestiges of Frank H. Fleer's legacy to survive just a little longer. I see some pre-sell info for '08-'09 Hockey at least so maybe there's still hope.

1994 Fleer Ultra Series 1 pack completely unharmed by any trucks or other motorized vehicles

I seem to be running across a bunch of '94 Ultra packs lately. I'd wouldn't bother posting if I got a lousy one. This pack is not lousy however.

151 Tom Glavine
75 Doug Henry
226 Darrin Fletcher
173 Kevin Mitchell
9 Cal Ripken Jr.
104 Kurt Abbott
261 Paul Wagner
98 Bobby Munoz
161 Mike Harkey
289 Royce Clayton
47 Eric Plunk
87 Ken Hrbek
273 Mark Whiten
238 Jeff Kent
275 Andy Ashby
39 Frank Thomas
15 of 25 Barry Bonds Award Winners

Gotta like this pack. One certified Hall of Famer, two more who will be in not too long after they retire and one guy who obviously belongs in the Hall of Fame, but will have to wait until the voters are no longer mad at him to get in. Or until all the voters die and are replaced by Sabermetric robots. I, for one, welcome our new Sabermetric robot overlords. That's potentially four Hall of Famers in one pack. Oh, and Jeff Kent. I don't even know what to think of Jeff Kent. I mean, the numbers are certainly there - his stats are most similar to Yogi Berra's for Pete's sake - but it's still. Jeff. Kent. I'm not sure how I'll be able to live in a world where Jeff Kent is in the Hall of Fame but Dale Murphy is not. I mean, Gary Carter has already messed up my world view pretty badly. Kent is still plugging along, so I don't have to worry about it for 6 years at least. Maybe they'll at least get Ron Santo or Minnie Minoso in by then.

None of this really matters because the best card in the pack is Royce Clayton by far. It's so good I've written a second paragraph to this post entirely dedicated to this card. Yeah, the Thomas and Glavine photos are really nice shots of them doing what they do best, but they didn't lay out in a full dive on both the front and back of their cards like Royce has. This is just a very well designed, good looking card. I wish someone would make a card like this today.

2006 Fleer Ultra

All right, 2006 Fleer Ultra. This is a retail pack that was ganked out of a blaster as it has no barcode on the back. It's one of the skimpy 5 card packs as well, but that just means a higher insert to card ratio. I hope Upper Deck doesn't murder Ultra like they did Fleer. It's not Ultra's fault that UD screwed up the product last year. Time to open this little neglected pack.

143 Aaron Harang - Woefully underrated pitcher.
87 Juan Pierre - These guys say it better than I could.
31 Carlos Lee - Carlos also seems under appreciated to me until I remember 100 million ways he is very much appreciated.
SOK5 Curt Schilling Strikeout Kings - I'm not a huge fan of Curt, but 3,116 strikeouts is pretty damn kingly.
86 Gold A.J. Burnett - Why do I hate Bowman's gold parallels like death, but love Ultra's Gold Medallion cards? There is no logic behind my collecting.

Not bad for a little five card pack. The next pack from my cube is a six card pack that is not likely to be nearly as interesting. Topps Ahoy!

The 20 for $40 re-wrap: 2005 Ultra Hobby

Fuck it, this sack-o-packs is just too enticing. I know the gimmick behind this blog is one pack per day, but I'm ripping a second. Let's reach into our sack and see what I get.

2005 Ultra Hobby. I already have the set, so I'm hoping for either an All-Rookie short-print, or an insert.

Base
Paul Lo Duca (again?!?!?)
Alexis Rios
Tom Glavine
Tony Batisita
Justin Leone
Jody Gerut
Gavin Floyd All-Rookie (1:4)

Parallel
1 Gold Medallion (one-per-pack) Mike Lowell

Nope, I already got 'em all.

2005 Fleer Ultra Hobby and Retail

We're up to packs 7 and 8 of my Braves team set impulse buy repack box.The storage box had not one but two packs of 2005 Ultra. There was one pack of hobby and one pack of retail so I'm going to fight the two, brother against brother. The Hobby pack has the advantage since the odds are much easier to pull stuff out of them. Rookies are 1:4 instead of 1:5, Gold Medallions are in every pack instead of one in three, Inserts are 1:12 instead of 1:24 and game used is much easier at 1:12 while retail is 1:48. There's also autographs and patches and one of ones and crap that isn't in retail at all. The retail pack is about twice at thick as the hobby pack, so it does have a fighting chance in this battle. Allez Cuisine!

Card 1: Hobby - 86 Brian Roberts, Retail - 38 Brad Penny
Brian Roberts would be a Brave right now had Peter Angelos not meddled it up. I have Penny's autograph on an official minor league baseball. Advantage - Retail

Card 2: Hobby - 56 Javier Vazquez, Retail - 23 Jeff Bagwell
Bags is a Hall of Famer. Javy is a Yankee goat. No contest. Retail leads 2-0.

Card 3: Hobby - 28 Greg Maddux, Retail - 72 Adam Eaton
Maddog with the BUNT! I don't care if he's in a Cubs uni, this is a win and a half for Hobby.

Card 4: Hobby - 4 of 15 Manny Ramirez Follow The Leader, Retail - 219 Terry Tiffee All-Rookie Gold Medallion
Inserts face off... Follow the Leader is the easiest insert to pull at 1:6. Retail counters with an All-Rookie die cut, but it's a guy who is described as 'organizational depth' on a team that's burned through a bunch of third basemen recently. Manny dances all over the die cut. Hobby leads 2 1/2 to 2.

Halftime - The retail pack blesses me with another Die-Cast truck decoy card. Zzzzzzz....

Card 5: Hobby - 177 Orlando Cabrera Gold Medallion, Retail - 188 Angel Berroa
The Red Sox acquired Orlando Cabrera in a trade to replace Nomar Garciaparra. Orlando bolted to the Angels in the offseason, prompting the Sox to sign Edgar Renteria. Edgar got the yips his first year in Boston and was booed to the Braves for overhyped flopspect Andy Marte. Edgar played like an All-Star with the Braves, allowing them to trade him to the Tigers once Yunel Escobar was ready to take over at short. Edgar's high value coming off a season where he hit .332 helped the Braves get a desperately needed upper-level starting pitching prospect in the deal. So Orlando Cabrera signing with the Angels indirectly led to the Braves getting Jair Jurrjens to shore up their creaky old rotation. Thanks Orlando! Hobby 3 1/2 - Retail 2.

Card 6: Hobby - 105 Corey Koskie, Retail - 136 Jason Varitek
A Georgia Tech alum beats a Twin any day. Am I still bitter about 1991? Youbetcha!

Card 7: Hobby - 189 Miguel Tejada, Retail - 212 Jason Kubel All-Rookie
Man, I'm getting a lot of Twinkies... So, can we finally forgive Rafael Palmeiro for his "Tejada gave me a B12 shot" excuse now that Miggy got pinched? I PREDICT: In 2025 or so when the big baseball cheating scandal is Bionic Infrared Eyeballs, the Veteran's committee will sneak Raffy into the Hall. Kubel's got a chance to start in right field for the Twinkletoes since Michael Cuddyer went on the DL, so Retail wins this battle. Retail 4, Hobby 3 1/2.

The winner of this match wins the game! Who will be victorious?

Card 8: Hobby - 135 Frank Thomas, Retail - 63 Mark Mulder

Mulder checks the runner at first... the windup... and the pitch...
Thomas with the line drive! Deep to left!
You can put it on the boooooard, yyyyess!!!

Walk off homer by Big Hurt spoils Retail's comeback.
Hobby 4 1/2 - Retail 4.

$10 Wal-Mart Legends Re-Wrap: 2006 Ultra

Alright folks. A pack from a product that may not suck. 2006 Ultra.

Base
Albert Pujols
David Ortiz
Chris Heintz (RC)

Parallel
Gold: Edgar Renteria

Insert
RBI Kings: Todd Helton (clean shaven)

Now that's what I'm talking about. Phat Albert, Big Papi, and a Todd Helton insert. Too bad I already have all these cards.

2004 Fleer Ultra Update

Here's the fourth pack from my Storage Box, Braves set what I oughta bought last year and 10 random-non Opening Day pack box. To recap, the '05 America's Pastime pack was meh, The '06 Upper Deck pack was Bleargh, and the '94 Ultra pack was great except for the whole mangled and destroyed bit. This here is a pack of 2004 Ultra Update, which was a one time deal by Fleer to get Roger Clemens on a pack wrapper in a 'Stros cap. They did a factory update set for Ultra in 1991, but this set kinda came out of nowhere. It's rookie driven for sure... 75 base cards, and 100 rookies in the set. 87 of the Rooks are inserted 2 per pack while the "Lucky 13" are numbered to 500 each (1:2000 packs). Next time you complain about stupid Rookie Logo cards, focus your venom instead on crap inserts like Lucky 13 that caused the whole mess in the first place. I can't find a checklist anywhere and they're not listed in Beckett, so I guess those rookies weren't so lucky to begin with. It looks like my colleague concurs, 2004 was particularly bad for stupid rookie sets. Let's rip.

261 Derrek Lee
225 Alex Rodriguez
281 AJ Pierzynski
268 Bobby Crosby
356 Lino Urdaneta rookie
302 Ian Snell rookie
247 Nomar Garciaparra
263 Craig Wilson

Dang, talk about a star studded pack... I forgot how many stars switched teams in 2004. It looks like I got most of them here in this pack. A-Rod in the Yankees uniform, No-Mah and Derrek Lee with the Cubs (tell the truth, who did you think would be the Triple Crown threat out of those two at the time?) and AJ in the Giants uniform is probably a Twins fan's most cherished card. Bobby Crosby makes two appearances in this pack, on his own card and on Derrek's as he looks helplessly as Lee slides in with a double.

Since this set is all about the rookies, lets look at the rookies. Ian Snell's a nice card and it looks like it's a genuine rookie card... imagine that. Snell was the Opening Day starter against the Braves on Monday and pitched a good game. Unless the Pirates ruin his arm, he looks to be their ace until the Yankees sign him for 15 mil a year. The other rookie is a little less spectacular, Urdaneta is a Mets farmhand who got pinched for the juice last year and got a 50 game suspension. He 's pitched one inning in his career and might not pitch a second. Still, I gotta say this is a damn good pack to be pulling out of a junk box. Up next: 1994 Flair.

1994 Fleer Ultra Series 2 pack that was run over by a truck

Here's the third pack from my "Card storage case and value pack with a bunch of old reject packs that didn't initially sell that you would have never bought if you'd just gotten that Braves team set last year you big dummy" box. I'm opening them from what I thought would be the worst to the best. '94 Ultra beat out '06 Upper Deck and whatever that Pastime pack was by virtue of it being the oldest pack in the box and the guaranteed mid nineties gaudy insert. Unfortunately, when I took a look at the pack it was obvious that it had been sorely abused. There's a big warp right in the middle of the Ultra logo and the pack is hard as a brick. I don't think this one will end happily, folks.

Yep. There's our solid mass o' cards, stuck together like glue. Bad, bad, things happened to this pack. At the bare minimum it got wet and fused all the cards together at some point, but it also looks like someone maybe used it to even out the legs on a table. The cards are just loose enough on one corner so I can make out the name and card number on some of them, so here are the former cards that make up this pack.

486 David Nied
520 Chan Ho Park
526 Larry Walker
554 Curt Schilling
572 Derek Bell
stuck together
stuck together
stuck together
somebody on the Red Sox
stuck together
somebody on the White Sox
somebody on the Indians
somebody on the Royals
somebody on the Brewers
Kirby Puckett
Jim Abbott
5 of 5 John Smoltz Stikeout King
Aww, man. The wrecked Smoltzie hurts. Of course that is the only card that looks salvageable out of the pack. The others are fused together pretty tightly. It's a shame too, there seem to be a lot of stars in this pack. Puckett, Schilling, Walker, Abbot... dang. Oh hell with it, I'm gonna chuck it anyway, I'll try to rip the cards apart to see who else is in here.
Revised list after successful prying apart of fused cards:
486 David Nied
520 Chan Ho Park
526 Larry Walker
554 Curt Schilling
572 Derek Bell
586 Todd Benzinger
354 Eric Davis
308 Rafael Palmeiro
320 Frank Viola
328 Chuck Finley
333 James Baldwin
345 Dennis Martinez
362 David Cone
372 Tyrone Hill
394 Kirby Puckett
397 Jim Abbott
5 of 5 John Smoltz Stikeout King
Dangit, the pack actually got better. Eric Davis in the Tigers uniform. This will probably be the best pack out of the box and the cards are all mangled. Some good pitchers in Martinez, Finley and Cone. The Chan Ho Park, James Baldwin and Tyrone Hill Cards are stamped as rookie cards. And I know Rafael Palmeiro is as popular as Judas nowadays, but I don't care if he failed a test I'll always respect him for telling that congressional panel off. Those hearings were a showboating waste of time, and they had better things to do than play MLB commissioner even if the actual commissioner is a gibbering fool. There are 800 wars going on, the banking industry is about to go belly up, jobs are being outsourced, the gray wolf is endangered, Britney done lost her mind, Hillary's still in the race, giant radioactive starfish found in Antarctica, Hertiage has supershortprints, Georgia's in a drought, frikin' sharks with laserbeams on their heads, superbugs, genocide, terrorism, racism, housing bubbles, religious extremism, the New York Mets, all these problems in the world and do they address any of them? Do they sit Britney's ass down in front of the committee and tell her: "You get wise! You get to church!" Nope, they chastised some athletes for having the gall to go out and entertain people. Meh, feh, and bleh on all of them. The whole lot in Congress is as worthless as my dinged, warped and mutilated Chan Ho Park rookie card.

Larry Walker sez:
"Aw crap, Dayf's ranting again. It's only a pack of baseball cards, man..."