2005 Topps Total

Topps... Heritage...

You wouldn't LIKE me when I rip ...

Topps...

Heritage.................



GRAAAAAAAARRRR-oh hey, look a pack of 2005 Topps Total! Let's open it!

673 Jason Grimsley & BJ Ryan
26 Yadier Molina
484 Doug M. (you know who it is)
AW20 Manny Ramirez Total Award Winner
11 Joel Piniero
477 Shea Hillenbrand
225 Orlando Hernandez
577 Tim Redding & Brad Baker
121 Ricky Ledee
351 Einar Diaz

I love this stuff. I hate that this is gone and lousy phoned-in Opening Day is still around polluting the shelves. 770 card set, a bunch of combo cards of relief pitchers and scrubs, a handful of ok insert sets and a neat little game on the back for a buck a pop. Gotta love it. I'm not sure if I ever completed the set because I have it sorted into teams. Yeah, I actually played the game. I had some long late night shifts under heightened internet monitoring conditions so you do what ya have to. This pack was actually pretty crappy other than the Manny insert Since I don't have anything more to say about the pack, let's play the game. We'll match up El Duque and a very stoned looking Ricky Ledee since Ricky's the only one in the pack capable of hitting a homer.


All right here's the match up. The colors match up in a stop light fashion:
Yellow beats Green
Red beats Yellow
Green beats Red .
There's an Orange on the seecrit special shiny cards that beats everything but I didn't pull one of them.

Underneath the card number you'll see a number from 1 to 10 in a gray box. That's the number for the pitch. Let's use BJ Ryan's card.

8. Don't worry about the Rating number, that's used when building teams.

You check the cards and #8 shows both results are Green. Tie goes to the pitcher and Ricky strikes out. Here's Yadier's number:

Yellow beats Green so we go with the result on Hernandez' card which is a fly out. Ok, it's the same result on both cards, but you get the point. Here's Doug's card:

Ricky strikes out again. El Duque's throwing the heat. No number on Manny, so Piniero's up next:

Green beats Red so Ricky wins the matchup. A Pyhrric victory as he turns a single into a ground out. Ledee can't catch a break. If you look carefully at the two cards, you'll see that the only favorable result for Ricky is a number 7, which results in a bomb to right. Since I didn't get a 7 in this pack, we'll mercifully end Ricky's batting practice.

WASN'T THAT FUN?!?!

Ok, not that fun. But ten bucks for a blaster meant ripping 11 packs full of good looking cards you could build into teams to kill a couple of hours. A blaster of Opening Day gets you red retinal burn, a rehashed set and eternal sorrow. BRING BACK TOTAL!!! Or at the very least a cheap 700+ card decent looking set to build that isn't from the 1980's. Is that too much to ask?