Last Call: 2007 Topps '52 Rookies

Last pack of this stuff from me, I promise.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
13 Matt DeSalvo (Now a Brave.)

44 Andy LaRoche
TCRC2 Angel Sanchez Chrome Refractor (512/552)

195 Romulo Sanchez
207 Brett Campbell (Picked up by my Brewers, but since released.)
161 Ryan Budde

Well, I'd better slip both of the Sanchez cards into protective sleeves, lest they get "dirty." And alas, none of these guys, as of today, has gotten into a 2008 game.

I busted a hobby box of this stuff a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm ready to complete my set through trades or sell off any doubles I have.

What I Need
What I Have to Offer

Or just hit up Thorzul Will Rule for complete listings.

2004 MLB Showdown Trading Deadline

Last pack out of my Wal-Mart Cube. I think I've done ok so far between the UD, Ultra and the fact that the Box is already holding my 2008 Finest and Bowman cards. This pack here can push the box over the top and make it awesome if I can manage to pull a shiny premium card or a Hall-of-Famer out of the pack. Another Ben broussard will make me pull hair out of my head, so it could go both ways. The quest stands on the edge of a knife! Run Frodo! Run to Mordor and pull me a Yogi Berra card out of this pack!

National League East Checklist.

A quick pause here to note that Horacio Ramirez is the only Atlanta Brave in the set, and Kazuo Matsui is deemed worthy of being a premium card. THIS BODES NOT WELL.

En Fuego! Strategy card featuring a random Cardinal batter.
Lefty Shift Strategy card with #17 from the Rockies fielding a grounder.
Swing for the Fences! Strategy card with a Diamondback whose face is in the shadows.

Ok, now for the real cards in the pack.

106 Tino Martinez Super Season
053 Pat Hentgen
111 Nomah Gahciapahrrah Shiny Super Season premium card
046 Miguel Cabrera
078 Joel Pineiro
069 Derrek Lee
042 Reed Johnson
015 Arthur Rhodes

Well, you can't beat that pack with a dead cat. I got my shiny card and it was actually a decent one in Nomar back when he was good. Miguel Cabrera, Derrek Lee and Tino Martinez ain't too shabby either. Even haters of oddball collectible card came cards wouldn't mind this pack too much. I shoudl have known Pugde wouldn't let me down when I saw him on the wrapper. I think I got my money's worth on this box, even if Ben Broussard ganged up on me.

Another pack of 2006 Topps Updates & Highlights

Okay! Big Rookies! Big Rookies! Inserts! NO WHAMMIES! Big Rookies! NO WHAMMIES AAAAAAAND

STOP!

UH101 Roberto Hernandez
UH 63 Ben Broussard
UH250 Carlos Lee All-Star
BB728 Barry Bonds Home Run Travesty
UH209 AL Saves Leaders
UH266 Tom Gordon All-Star



HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO PULL A BEN BROUSSARD CARD IN THREE STRAIGHT PACKS????

One pack to go folks, and this cube is mercifully dead.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition

After my most recent let-down in the world of pack opening (1994 Fleer Sunoco-Atlantic), I just had to pick up a pack to redeem my faith in wax packs. It's hard to say if I accomplished my goal or not. You be the judge:


In a 10-card pack, there were THREE Oakland A's cards: rookie left-hander Jerry Blevins, right-hander Chad Gaudin, and the Piazza formerly known as catcher.


Also included in the pack were two Rockies (Yorvit Torrealba and Jeff Francis) and Yankees' Johnny Damon. His card is actually very well laid out, as the "position line" near the bottom adds a little "action line" to the card:


Let's see, we also have Dodgers' Matt Kemp, Blue Jays' Shaun Marcum, and Pirates' Jack Wilson. In addition to the regular issue cards, each pack includes a "StarQuest" card. This pack's insert turns out to be someone that "After 19 years in the Major Leagues, still garners a tremendous amount of respect. The 1997 AL MVP was intentionally walked 14 times during the 2007 season - good enough for seventh most in the National League. (paraphrased)" Uhhh... Well, I guess that's one way to look at it. Have you figured it out yet? It's none other than Junior himself:


All-in-all, not too bad, I guess... I mean, we're talking a 1st round HOFer (Piazza) and another possible potential HOFer (Junior). Still, three cards from one team and two from another strikes me negatively. Of course, if those were Tribers, I might not feel the same... LOL

2007 Topps Series One Rack Pack

I don't even know why I'm opening this pack, I already have almost a shoebox full of doubles and a complete set. It's Topps though, and you can't have too much Topps. I wish this was a 2006 Rack pack, at least those had Vintage cards. Last years racks sucked. Who cares about a 12 card All Star set? If they weren't going to do the whole 22 card set like they used to, why do it at all? Topps has abandoned Rack packs this year in favor of copying the Fat Pack that Upper Deck uses.

Left pack:
AS7 Chase Utley All Star
106 Ryan Garko
330 Ryan Howard
204 Juan Rivera
163 Dave Roberts
301 Derek Jeter Gold Glove
139 Prince Fielder
182 Ramon Ortiz

I have passed on this very Chase Utley card in the local card shop's 50 cent bin probably 20 times. I guess it was the right choice... The pack also nets a Prince Fielder and the wrong 2007 Topps Series 1 Derek Jeter card.

Middle pack:
142 Trot Nixon
47 Ben Broussard
283 Drew Anderson
144 Jack Wilson
285 Stephen Drew
212 Richie Sexson
225 Robinson Cano

Kids, how would you like to pull... a Richie Sexson card!
Meh.
But the TV gave the impression that...
We said meh.
M-E-H. Meh!

Right pack:
205 Cory Sullivan
126 Daryle Ward
6 Edgar Renteria
194 Edwin Encarnacion
233 Houston Astros
crummy checklist
167 Royce Clayton
158 Noah Lowry

Great Googely Moogely, if I thought the last pack was meh, what can I say about this? Not even Edgar makes up for a team card and a checklist. And Daryle Ward?? Super Meh.

Ok, that was sort of painful. Back to the bland squidgyness of '06 Updates and Highlights next. At least I have a shot at a Mickey Mantle home run card or something.

1994 Fleer Sunoco Atlantic

I saw these packs on eBay and hadn't heard of them that I could recall. I knew of some Sunoco cards in '97 or '98 that featured two hall-of-fame players from several teams, but I had not seen these ones. When I opened the pack, I knew I had not seen them. They look just like Fleer 1994 cards, but on the back, they have a Sunoco and Atlantic logo.


Bagwell looks like he is putting his mouth on some glass and blowing real hard. His mouthpiece is two sizes too big. You would think I would be pretty excited to get a Bagwell out of the pack, and I was... Until I saw there were TWO of them, followed by TWO Roberto Alomars:


The last card in the pack is a John Olerud (who looks like he is about to swat the logo with his bat):


So, two duplicates in a pack of five cards!? Man, talk about lousy collation!

I ended up with seven packs in the lot that I purchased, and based on the first pack I opened, I may save the others for a rainy day...or a hurricane...or a black hole into which to chuck these puppies. Then again, I will be playing "Tribe-or-no-Tribe" with one of them, just for the sake of doing it....

2006 Topps Updates & Highlights

There has been at least one of these in every Wal-Mart cube I've opened. Usually two or three, but always one. I'm counting on them to start putting 2007 U&H packs in soon so I can finally finish up that set. I'm not sure if I've completed this one yet to be honest... I must have, I spent enough time futzing with checklists for it, but I can't remember for sure. Here's six more cards towards the set if not.

UH126 Endy Chavez
UH63 Ben Broussard
UH132 Mike MacDougal
UH247 Chris Capuano All-Star
UH186 Albert Pujols NLCS
UH261 Roy Halladay All-Star

No rookies or inserts. A couple all stars and Pujols though. I noticed the cartoons on the back of the three regular cards seemingly have absolutely nothing to do with the player. The cartoon on Endy's card is about the 1916 New York Giants. New York Mets... New York Giants... ok there's sort of a connection. MacDougal's card has a factoid about the 1987 Blue Jays hitting ten home runs in one game. Mike doesn't give up that many homers so I'm not sure what's that about. Ben Broussard's toon is the weirdest, elevating former Umpire Doug Harvey to deity status. Poor Ben paid for Topps' blasphemy, and was cut by the Rangers last week.

Up next - A whole lot of Topps cards I already have!

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!

2007 Upper Deck Series Two Fat Pack

Ok, the second pack in the repack cube is a Series Two Fat Pack from 2007 Upper Deck. I don't think I bought a single pack of UD Series 2 last year, the only series two cards I have are from the combo Fat Packs. At least there will not be a lot of doubles in this pack...

Top half:
588 Wily Mo Pena
999 Josh Towers
934 Jarrod Washburn
576 Javier Lopez
984 Mark Teixeira
920 Russ Ortiz
692 Curtis Granderson
943 Brandon Morrow RC
892 Adam LaRoche
898 Jason Bay
971 Ben Zobrist
543 Chipper Jones
804 Pat Neshek
742 David Riske
668 Brian Lawrence
MVP9 Aramis Ramirez MVP Potential

I can't complain about the first pack with Chipper, Tex and LaRoche. Plus I got everyone's favorite Pat Neshek!

Bottom half:
795 Claudio Vargas
737 Zack Grienke
655 Franklin Gutierrez
787 Brain Shouse
720 Wandy Rodriguez
643 Fernando Cabrera
828 Scott Schoeneweis
767 Joe Beimel
530 Edgar Gonzalez
625 Jermaine Dye
538 Randy Johnson Checklist
834 Dave Williams
952 Russ Springer
896 Jonah Bayliss
875 Abraham Nunez
MVP27 Nomar Garciaparra

Not as good on the second half. Jermaine Dye's probably be best other than the checklist card of Randy Johnson. I like the K.C. Monarchs uniform on Zack Grienke. One Rookie card in the whole pack seems odd. The exclusive inserts didn't impress me that much, Nomar Garciaparra hasn't been a legit MVP candidate since about 1998. Overall not a bad pack though.

Three-peat: 2008 Topps Heritage

Before this week goes completely insane (I'm throwing a bachelor party on Saturday, and the wedding is next Monday), let me regale you with tales of a not-so-mystical triumvirate of packs from the land of Heritage. Huzzah? Sure.

Pack 1
374 Baseball Thrills: Kenny Lofton Breaks Postseason Steals Record - Expertly analyzed recently by dayf.
123 Sam Fuld Rookie Stars RC - Sam holds an economic degree from Stanford. The card doesn't say when he plans on giving it back.
47 Jason Marquis
420 Noah Lowry - Who hit you, Noah? WHO HIT YOU? YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE AFRAID ANY MORE!

361 Joe Borowski - Oh no, here we go! JoeBo's going to blow!
195 Carlos Quentin - Think the D'Backs want a mulligan on that trade?
231 Kevin Gregg SP - He's the highest-paid Marlins player. Yes, really.
224 David Wright black variation - If I can grab him for my fantasy team for a third straight season in '09, I think we'll technically be married.

Pack 2
289 Brett Myers - I believe he's allowed 45 home runs this year, give or take a few.
374 Baseball Thrills: Kenny Lofton Breaks Postseason Steals Record - Oh come on!
237 Derek Jeter, Chien-Ming Wang, and Robinson Cano: Run Preventers: Poor timing on this card.

345 Chris Carpenter - Have you ever seen Chris and Jon Henson in the same place at the same time?
6 Jacoby Ellsbury - Or as I now call him, Tacoby Bellsbury. Thanks, FJM.
393 Pittsburgh Pirates Team Card
322 Richie Sexson - Not pictured: His projectile batting helmet.
122 Ross Detwiler Rookie Stars RC black variation - Yeah, he's nice enough for a top-ten pick. But I'll stick with Matt Wieters, thank you very much.

Pack 3
376 Randy Johnson - Grandpa!

289 Brett Myers - Sonofa...
345 Chris Carpenter - Okay, either this was one crappily collated box or the hobby shop was mixing and matching packs. Either way, I'm annoyed.
331 Travis Hafner - His nickname, Pronk, is short for Pronkwell Q. Smashington. No, it's not.
293 Edgar Renteria
79 Mark Loretta - Loretta?
NF8 News Flashbacks: USSR's Luna 2 Becomes the First Man-Made Object on the Moon - Impressive, but it's no Laika.
12 Curt Schilling black variation - Yep, still doughy.

2005 Donruss

This is the first pack from my Wally World cube. This pack has a security device plastered to the back, but I can't tell if it was already on there or if it was placed on the pack to deter the theft of the cube. Like they'd check if I just shoved the thing down the front of my pants and walked out. "... Sir? is that a... down your... in your...?" "No. I just find you incredibly attractive." I might get cards and a hookup out of the deal. I don't have much to say about the final edition of Donruss baseball (until they get their license back next year - count on it) other that it's kind of boxy and gaudy and just a little bit ugly. But it's still Donruss, dammit, and if their was a 2008 set out, I'd be able to build that set instead of buying these crap repacks boxes. Let's open.

229 Junior Spivey
331 Jamie Moyer
342 Scott Rolen
168 Garrett Atkins
21 Scott Rolen Diamond Kings
183 Eric Munson
224 Milton Bradley
320 A.J. Pierzynski
261 Richard Hidalgo
363 Alex S. Gonzalez

Any pack where I have to type Pierzynski twice is a bad pack. Scott Rolen fans (are there any left?) would like it though as it has his base card and Diamond King. The most interesting card is Alex Gonzalez bounding after a double play attempt. Eh, not a great pack but I have 6 more to go.

2007 Topps '100-48 Rookies

Another day, another pack of Topps '52 Rookies.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
120 Yovani Gallardo (Great start, hurt player. See you in '09 Yovani!)

85 Josh Hamilton
130 Tim Lincecum SP Action Shot

174 Asdrubal Cabrera
118 Gustavo Molina

141 Devon Day

After my Brewers got swept by the Red Sox, I just don't have it in me to write anything else. It's a bad feeling to know your team's already out of the race in mid-May. Milwaukee will extend its current MLB longest playoff drought (and I'm not counting the Expos/Nationals franchise, which gets to spread misery across two cities). Sour times.

Hidden Treasures "Uncover the Babe"

I got paged at 4:30 in the morning so now I'm up and groggy and mostly incoherent so this is obviously the best time to write a post for this excellent blog. I'm not in a good enough mood to write about a decent pack. Instead I will foist upon my unsuspecting readers a Hidden Treasures garbage pack I pulled out of a repack box. This is from the "Uncover the Babe" series of crap, where the odds are astronomically against pulling one of the Babe Ruth cards prominently featured on the wrapper, and even if you did actually pull one of the golden redemption tickets it's probably just enough of a big ticket item to get the IRS to stick their nose in and tax you hard enough that you'd have to sell the card to pay them off anyway. Don't believe me? Ask Patricia Gibbs. I don't like these packs and I really hate getting them in repack boxes. I don't want to open one of those boxes up and get a pile of these things that I wouldn't pay a buck each for in the first place. It's enough to put me off repack boxes and then I'd have to work to find junk wax to open on this site. Let's go through this pack card by card.

First card ain't too bad, a 2005 Bowman Edgar Renteria. An ex-Brave in a pre-Brave uniform. Dude got us Jair Jurrjens so I love me some Edgar. I wonder if this is the 'star' card that is guaranteed in every pack. The top left corner has a big ding on it, so hopefully not.


Ah, a 1995 Fleer card of Terry Steinbach. I'm one of maybe three people in the world who likes '95 Fleer's lysergic acid diethylamide inspired designs. Incidentally, this is the only card in the pack that can be legitimately considered 'mint'.

'88 Donruss: check. New York Met: check. Evidence of a mouse nibbling on the top right corner: check. You can't get cards like this in any old pack.

Watch where you're pointing that thing, Scott.

This must be the star card. Bedrock won the Cy Young Award in '87 so his '88 Topps card is definitely starry. The corners are quite mooshy though. I'd put up with this in a card from the 70's but not '88 Topps.

Ugh. I'm going back to sleep.