For this week's football pack, I went to the local overpriced card shop looking for a pack from 2000. Since Tom Brady has all but won me my fantasy league's championship (three games up, with three to go!) I wanted a pack from 2000 to try to pull one of his rookies. The store I got this from never clears out anything so there's plenty of old packs there for the picking. I found this pack and 2000 Fleer Tradition packs there, but I already have Brady's Tradition rookie. The odds are long in pulling any of the serial numbered rookies out of one of these packs, but what the hell. I really like the mini cards from this set so it's worth taking a shot.
13 Steve Beuerlein
56 Randy Moss
PS2000 Action 46 Isaac Bruce
PS2000 Action 7 Cade McNown
Gold parallel 40 Peyton Manning #036/181
86 Jerry Rice
83 Junior Seau
No Brady, but I got an awesome serial numbered parallel of his arch-rival. I'll bet there's at least 182 Peyton Manning player collectors out there. The pictures on the base cards are slightly blurred with an added canvas texture to make it look like a painting. The cards are actually smooth though and don't have the bumpy feel of a Diamond Kings or UD Masterpieces set. This looks good on some (Rice), not so good on others (Moss). There's a regular portrait on the back so they are not completely artsy fartsy. They are also really thick, these are heavy duty cards. Three out of the four base cards have Hall of Fame players on them, not bad at all. There are also two mini cards per pack designed to like like T206 cards. They do look kind of like an old tobacco card design, except for the gold foil and UV coating. Isaac Bruce is a nice card, but Cade McNown is a big busterooni. Then again, he dated Heather Kozar, so I only wish I could suck as bad as him. Heather left Cade for Tim Couch (why the hell didn't I ever learn to throw interceptions) and I'll bet he doesn't have a sweet Peyton Manning card like I do. Sucks to be you Cade, that'll teach you to park in handicapped spaces.
This is the baseball version of the football pack I opened this weekend. This set is the same deal as before, the base cards are really thick with a computerized photo that looks vaguely like a painting and two mini T206 size cards per pack. There's not a whole lot in this set other than short printed Alfonso Soriano and Rick Ankiel prospect cards, but I'm a sucker for the mini cards. This pack was cheap though because it's the retail version instead of hobby. Plus Tony Gwynn's on the pack. How could I pass up Tony? Time to open.
114 Jason Kendall
Sweetness. A gorgeous Ripken card and two superstar minis. Plus Jason Kendall as a Pirate. A real, actual bloodthirsty pirate. Arrrrrrrr...
