2008 SP Rookie Edition football

Stopped by Target yesterday (on company time....sssssh!) and picked up a blaster of these. I had been to my local shop last weekend and had seen some of the base cards to this set in a monster box I was digging through. So I figured I'd try a blaster to see how much I liked them.

It's a nice looking set, but they repeated the "rookies in retro designs" concept from UD Timeline baseball. Blaster contained seven packs of six cards and a clear cello pack of six Legends (also in foil retro designs). Got my Bo Jackson for my player collection at least. The base cards are all horizontally oriented photos with the name, position and team info at 90° across one end (or the top depending on your point of view). In about half the packs, the first card had a bashed or layered corner.

For your enjoyment, the packaging and the best pack....

The box panel:


and the uncrumpled wrapper:

The base cards:

#92 Anquan Boldin - will he or won't he be traded?

#42 Derrick Johnson - not Brooks (formerly of Tampa) or Thomas (passed away 2000)

#64 Brian Urlacher - Kinda overrated, at least when I've seen him.

#77 Roddy White (back of card) - Teamed with Matt Ryan, did pretty well for the Falcons (and my fantasy team).

The Rookies:

#109 Jake Long (left) and #116 Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (right). Long is Howie's son, and Dom wins the Jarrod Saltalamacchia Nameplate Stitcher's Wristcramp award (NFL version). These cards are the "New SP design". Gold foil didn't scan so well.

Inserts and Legends appear in the 1993, '94, '95, and '96 SP designs.

Jury's still out on building this set. Even that will probably be only the base cards, since I'm a contrarian and don't care about rookies that much. But the horizontal design almost commits you to storing these in the eight pocket sheets (that they'll fall out of), but since the other info is at a right angle, it makes them a little awkward to really view as a whole. Maybe I'll browse EvilBay for a cheap base lot....

2008 SP Rookie Edition Football

I liked the SP Rookie Edition baseball set from last year so I decided to try a retail pack of the new football version. It's kind of like an upscale Timelines, with a base set and retro rookies. It's a little more pricey though at three bucks a throw. Blasters have a free pack of "Legends" cards in them and now i'm intrigued by this set...


56 Plaxico Burress
21 Braylon Edwards
8 Laurence Maroney
82 Drew Brees
105 Colt Brennan retro rookie
185 Kevin Smith retro rookie

BEWARE THE ZOMBIE BRENNAN

He's a zombie, 'cause the Bulldogs KILLED him in the bowl game last year. Great pic from Upper Deck on that one. I guess it's a retro card but I've never seen the design before so I don't know what one it is. I got a laugh out of the Plaxico card with the big Falcons logo in the background. THE CURSE OF THE FALCONS STRIKES AGAIN. I really like the base design. It reminds me of a horizontal take on '94 Upper Deck. The '93? SP design is also cool, they textured the foil for the football release which looks kinda neat. Kevin Smith is not kinda neat. I've pulled more Kevin Smith rookies than I've watched Kevin Smith movies. And I have not bought that much football this year and I've watched a LOT of Kevin Smith movies. I saw a hobby pack and it had 4 base and 4 rookies (and probably a hell of a lot better auto odds) for $5 so if you like it, hobby is probably a better deal on this.

2007 SP Legendary Cuts

I've always wanted to buy a pack of this stuff but it was too dang expensive. During my wax binge I found a box of them for five bucks a pop. Still expensive for 4 cards, but I love the set and since Upper Deck totally screwed up this year's product by relegating the legends cards to a short print '07 is probably the last year I would want to buy anyway. I grabbed one of the packs out of the box and then watched as someone who got to the box before me pull a Nolan Ryan jersey of some sort. Oh well. Next time I won't spend so much time going through the box full of early '80s commons. I made dang sure big hit guy didn't get any '82 Fleer commons that afternoon, that's for sure!

55 Casey Stengel
83 Juan Marichal
47 Ralph Kiner
61 Don Mattingly


Ok, five bucks is a little pricey for four base cards.


But can you name one thing wrong with the four cards I pulled?

Didn't think so. I think the ol' Perfesser has some some words of wisdom about this expensive non-hit pack:

You gotta lose 'em some of the time. When you do, lose 'em right.

Hawks v. Celtics Game 7 Basketball Card Extravaganzapalooza

I went to Target and bought a bunch of basketball packs to commemorate the Hawks taking the evil Celts to the brink in their playoff series. I'm gonna rip 'em all right now and post them all at once because when if my Birds falter tonight I'll never bother to write up these packs. I got three from Upper Deck and three from Topps to make it all even. I probably should have gotten one more pack in honor of game seven but there's a limit to how many basketball cards even I can stand. Whoever has more cards out of these packs, Hawks or Celts, will surely win the game tonight because all sporting contests in the world ultimately hinge on which packs a blogger purchases from a Target on Highway 41 in Acworth. rrrrrrrrrrip!

2007-2008 Fleer Basketball

78 Zach Randolph
74 David Lee
49 Dwight Howard
170 Rafer Alston
140 Elton Brand
160 Marcus Camby
191 Amare Stoudemire
86R-137 Wilson Chandler '86 Fleer retro

This pack was chock full of Knicks, but the '86 retro card makes up for it.

2007-2008 Fleer Hot Prospects Basketball

45 Shaquille O'Neal
7 Ray Allen NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
48 Brandon Roy
upperdeckstore.com code
NN-3 AL HORFORD Notable Newcomers
$2 off a Spanding basketball Target coupon

Ray Allen almost ruined the pack, but the Horford insert card makes not only this pack, but the resto f them as well. I guess it's technically tied even though Ray is still in his Sonics uniform. I got two coupons in this sucker too. While I don't need a basketball, I might actually use the Upper Deck code for once. There's a Phil Niekro trading card/car thingy on there that has caught my eye. Yeah, it's stupid, but I love the ol' knuckleballer.

2007-2008 SP Basketball

20 Michael Redd
AP-50 Dr. J
100 Josh Howard
87 Chauncey Billups
61 Kobe Bean

DAMN that Dr. J card is frickin' sweet! I wonder if there's a 'Nique?

2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars Basketball

70 Andrea Bargnani
75 Andre Miller
11 Yao Ming Chrome
108 David Lee
45 Chris Paul

This pack sucked. If it says Rookies on the pack there should be rookies in the pack. I expect better from Bowman. A shame, because the cards look slick.

2007-2008 Topps Chrome Basketball

88 Ryan Gomes
85 Clyde Drexler
117 Thaddeus Young
101 Tracy McGrady

Ugliest set of the year in any sport. The Baseball chrome looked so good too. I only got this pack hoping for a refractor and was denied. Clyde the Glide is a pretty good consolation prize though.

2007-2008 Topps Trademark Moves Basketball

49 DOMINIQUE WILKINS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
47 Magic Johnson
23 LeBron James
8 Richard Hamilton
29 Eddy Curry

Nique saves the day on the last pack! Take that ya Irish bastids! Three of the 5 cards are miscut though, LeBron and Rip have a little extra bit of a basketball on the bottom of their cards. Who cares, man. Hawks are gonna win and I got a card of Magic to boot. W00t!

Update: Apparently this was A Pack A Day's 500th post and I didn't even notice. Oh well. Time to write another 500.

2007 SP Rookie Edition

Ok, enough contest stuff, it's time for a pack. I was looking for a box of '94 Leaf for my box rip, but I found this pack instead. I was laser focused on Allen & Ginter when this came out last year so I never picked up a pack. Upper Deck goes Retro by using designs from their mid 90's SP sets for Rookie card parallels. When your company is not old enough to buy alcohol, you have to take Retro where you can get it. The Rookie part is seen on the wrapper featuring Delmon Young, Dice-K and Tulo. Half the pack is supposed to be rookies (on average!) so let's see if any good ones come out of this pack.

94 Michael Young
68 Joel Zumaya
69 Jeremy Bonderman
95 Mark Teixiera

The horizontally oriented base cards manage to be novel yet boring. The single color backgrounds and little SP logos everywhere do have a Retro 90's feel to them though. (this is not a good thing) I got the Tigers pitchers vs. Rangers batters pack. Tex gives the Rangers a big win over Guitar Hero. On to the rookies.

168 Gustavo Molina '95 SP
118 Sean Henn
265 Daisuke Matsuzaka '96 SP
127 Miguel Montero

Now we've got all catchers and pitchers. Molina is not even with the White Sox anymore and is in the Mets' farm system. Montero is a backup for the DBacks and is on the DL. Sean Henn is also on the DL and will likely be a reliever for the Yankees this year unless the rotation blows up. I think everyone is familiar with Dice-K. As far as the design goes, the base cards take the basic theme of the veteran cards, flip it vertical and add a second foil photo on the right side. They are a little busy for my tastes and the gold lettering on silver foil isn't the easiest to read. It goes without saying the entire subset is completely unscannable as you can see. The '95 Retro cards look bad. It has boring old silver foil instead of the holographic red and blue from the original set. Basically they took the best thing from that set's design and threw it out the window. The '96 cards look good though. Very close to the original, which was one of the better looking sets of the '90s in my opinion. I can't tell which of these (if any) are short prints. I think maybe the '93 and '94 cards might be the tough ones though if Beckett's pricing can be trusted. Dice-K pretty much saved this pack for me even with Tex.

2007 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts

Alright, here it is. The undies are fresh, clean, and dry, and that means it's time to open the pack.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
34 Hal Newhouser
63 Rollie Fingers

WG-RJ When it Was a Game Reggie Jackson Game-Used Jersey

76 Ozzie Smith
27 Johnny Vander Meer

Well, it didn't quite live up to my lofty expectations. My favorite card is actually the Vander Meer. When I was little I had some sort of book that was filled with amazing sports stories. Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no hitters amazed me, simply amazed me. Of course, this was probably around the time Juan Nieves no-hit the Orioles in a game that ended with Robin Yount's diving catch, so to think that he could do that twice in a row blew my mind.

I guess it's a lesson learned. Guaranteed memorabilia or AUTO packs are not always the best deal. Plus, it's more satisfying when the odds are against you and you pull something big. See for yourself.