1993 Pacific Nolan Ryan Texas Express

The pack for tonight is a 1993 Pacific Nolan Ryan 27th Season Texas Express pack. Pacific released two 110 card tribute sets to Nolan Ryan in 1991 and 1992, this is a third series of 30 cards that was put out to commemorate his 27th season in the league. This quarter pack has cards from the entire 250 card set inside. I picked this pack up at Arlington Stadium when I attended a Rangers/Yankees game in 1998.

See, that's an official 1998 Arlington Stadium price sticker. It would have been cooler if it had a Rangers logo on it or something, but oh well. I've been holding onto this unopened pack for a decade, I may as well brag about where I got it.

234 - 24 of 26 Seasons

The 24 of 26 is the number of seasons Nolan struck out 100 batters or more. This is the only third series card in the pack, it's different from the others due to the 27 logo, the pacific logo on the top right and the font used on "Nolan Ryan" on the left side of the card is slightly different from the other cards. Yes, I notice these things.

211 - Nolan Ryan Seven No-Hitters

The seven are listed on the back: 5/15/73, 7/15/73, 9/28/74, 6/1/75, 9/26/81, 6/11/90, 5/1/91. I'd normally link to the box scores on baseball-reference.com, but it's getting late.

115 - Nolan at Age 20

Ok, this is easily the coolest card in the pack. Nolan's styling in his Jacksonville Suns jersey.

130 - Number One

Number One is his first No-Hitter. Pacific reprinted the box score on the back. Looks like Bob Oliver hit a homer in that game!

169 - Texas All-Star

This card commemorates his victory in the 1989 All-Star game in Anaheim. The pack netted 4 second series cards and 1 third series card. At that rate you may as well just buy the high series set using the offer on the back of the pack. 30 cards and a special collector's box for $5.95! How can ya beat it?!

Garbage Pail Kids Series 3

Believe it or not Topps has a long and storied history of causing recess ruckuses. Back in the 1960s they had a card of a dog getting zapped by an alien in the classic Mars Attacks! set. A decade ago (yes, it's been that long) kids were bringing their Pokemon to school and rather than work the battle points into a math lesson, teachers banned them from their classrooms. But the set that I remember most fondly as a child of the 80s was Garbage Pail Kids. With their origins as a spoof of the Cabbage Patch Kids, GPK was a school kid's dream of pee, puss, potties and other pre-pubescent grossness. GPK  were so big during the mid-1980s that they were able to churn out 15 series between 1986 and 1988. Today's pack hails from the early part of the run with Series 3 from 1986.

 

Before you rip in you can see Topps laughing in the face of Cold War propaganda. Adam Bomb is taunting ole' Gorbie to a game of chicken (or with that remote control, maybe it was Pong).

 

88a. DINAH saur

In case you're not familiar with GPK, they're cards with stickers on the front and a surprise on the back. Each image had an "A" version and a "B" version where the only thing that changed was the name.

Looks like there's going to be an Uncle Sam puzzle. Dinah's pretty tame for GPK standards.

 

 84a. JOE blow

It's nice to see there was a time when Topps Corporate knew not to take themselves too seriously. JOE is a polite send-up of Topps Gum mascot Bazooka Joe. No runny noses or missing body limbs but it still gets a solid. The wanted poster is a nice touch, although the gum stain is scaring me a little seeing as how there's still three cards to go after this. If I die from the toxic fumes produced by the 22-year-old gum, please tell my family I loved them and tell Topps that their gum is deadly.

 104a. silent SANDY

Where's the blood and guts? There's a little on the back but I want the grossness on my stickers. Bigger gum stain. It's now on the front too.

 

99a. beaky BECKY

We have blood! Bonus points for animal parts. 

115a. warmin' NORMAN

No blood, guts or bodily fluids for Norm. Just old-school stereotypes about how the West was won. On the back, that's what you can call a gum stain. Me - I'm going to frame it and put it on eBay as a piece of modern art.

Overall, this was not a good pack for the GPK. Although JOE blow is iconic, there's simply not enough ickiness. If I showed my mom this pack as an eight-year-old she would have pinched my cute little A-Team-loving cheeks and sent me to bed with a, "Gee, son. They're awfully cute."

The reaction I want with my GPK would be more along the lines of, "Those are horrid, vile, disgusting, something your shady friend would think of. We're going to march right back to the store where you bought these and I am going to demand a refund. Let's make a fire and burn these buggers before the neighbors see them."

One final note: avoid the GPK Movie from 1988 but enjoy the clip to keep you in the spirit.

 

Guest Blogger - 1992 Stadium Club Series 3

Here's a guest rip from reader Greg A. It goes to show that not all packs are good ones...

I got this pack as a freebie with a large lot of football cards in a trade. I figured “Hey, nice bonus, wax to rip. What fun.” Unfortunately, this one was in the red on the Lame-meter. If Rick Cerone is the most well-known player in the pack, you know it’s not good. Let’s shred it:

614 Mariano Duncan

618 Craig Lefferts

622 Joe Magrane

625 John Smiley

655 Sid Fernandez

671 Barry Jones

705 Rick Cerone

709 Junior Noboa

749 Dennis Rasmussen

759 John Wetteland

778 Terry Leach

787 Mike Morgan

821 Al Newman

832 Scott Garrelts

867 Bruce Ruffin

Whew. A case study in commonness.

2007 Topps Updates & Highlights

I'm in a crazy mood this week, so like my Bowman Draft pack I'm going to try something different on this pack as well. I've already got a big chunk of this set (255 out of 330 cards) and I'm now regretting just not getting a factory set. As an experiment, I shall rip this randomly selected Target pack of Updates & Highlights and see just how many cards I have already. By doing this I hope to prove how useless it is to open packs to try to complete a set. This better work out, because I'm counting on this experiment to justify all the oddball basketball and hockey and otherwise packs I bought to open the next couple of weeks. Let the experiment begin!

Card 1: 142 Jeremy Guthrie - HAVE
Card 2: 195 Marcus MacBeth RC - HAVE
Card 3: 130 Eric Gagne - HAVE
Card 4: 206 Tom Glavine Highlights - HAVE
Card 5: 176 Kurt Suzuki RC - HAVE
Card 6: Carlos Carrasco/Chris Denorfia error - HAVE *
Card 7: Dustin McGowan - HAVE
Card 8: MMLB-9 Mickey Mantle Life in Baseball insert - Hey, I ain't got one of these...
Card 9: ARHR380 Alex Rodriguez Home Run Foolishness - Sinead O'Connor said it best
Card 10: 280 Crawford & Guillen Classic Combos - HAVE
Card 11: 299 Edinson Volquez - Hey! I need this one! Woohoo!
Card 12: 234 Francisco Rodriguez All Star - Need this one too!

Ok, the inserts kind of blew my argument there even if one was a waste of space card. Still, the point remains that of the 10 base cards I got, 80% were doubles. Considering I already had 85% of the set, that's actually pretty good. Once you get a certain percentage of cards in a set buying random packs will likely only get you a bunch of doubles - or worse, the dreaded double pack... So trade with others or buy up the singles that you need and you'll have more money left over for other wax. Like hockey packs that you would never ever have bought otherwise... hrm, bad example. Well, I'm doing this all for science, and it's really more of a guideline anyway.

* Hey Topps, why wasn't this error card fixed, huh? Why? Its a pretty blatant error you know... Why not this one, Topps? You fixed the Joba card, why not this one? Huh, Topps? I thought you only did one print run and couldn't fix errors at all? How did Joba get fixed? Why not this one? Why, Topps, WHY?

2007 Topps Updates and Highlights, errr..., Series Three

Just got back from the Granite Run Mall, and picked up a Hobby box of Topps Updates and Highlights Series Three. I was tempted to rip the box, and post the contents of each pack here. But then, I wouldn't have any material for my own blog.

Base:
Jason Phillips
Chad Gaudin
Freddie Bynum
Yunel Escobar (RC)
Placido Polanco All-Star
Wilson Betemit
Chris Schroder

Parallels:
"Red Letters:" Jason Marquis & Magglio Ordonez HR Derby (two-per-pack)

Mirrors:
Generation Now: Curtis Granderson #2 (1:4)

Remember that old rent-a-car commercial? "Did you ever get the feeling that they just stopped trying?" Well, did you ever get the feeling that Topps just stopped trying? The last Topps baseball release of the Shorin era can be summed up in a single word: disappointing.

I pulled two meaningless "Red Letter" parallels and a Curtis Granderson mirror insert. No contrived Joba Chamberlain "errors." No short-printed Jacoby Ellsbury's. And no cards of furry animals.

I'll go into further detail on my own site sometime either this weekend, or next week -- depending on whether or not I'm motivated to continue my graduate school application.

2007 Topps Series 3

IT'S HERE!

We can finally stop buying crappy Target packs, Topps Series three is live! Updates and whatsit? No, no, no. This is Topps Series 3. If Topps won't have the decency to call this Traded, then I'm not calling it that convoluted name they made up. This is Series 3 all the way.

I went to the local den of iniquity today meaning only to pick up a shoebox, a bubble mailer for a trade that just went down and maybe a couple of Topps basketball packs. To my surprise, after already being pushed back a couple weeks the new Topps was sitting there waiting for me! Ah, sweet, sweet, nectar... I instantly bought 10 packs out of a freshly opened box and cracked them open. Lets just say while they were good (Ryan Braun RC for the win!), if I posted just those ten on my blog I'd be laughed off the internet. A confirmed Topps fanboy just cannot post a pack break where he pulled FIVE Generation Now cards and three Bonds Desecration of History cards out of ten packs. I decided the 8 bucks in my pocket was worth sacrificing to defend the storied reputation of the Topps brand. I grabbed 5 more packs and after the first one, I knew her Honor had been restored. Oh yes, this pack goes to eleven.

UH119 Matt Stairs
UH65 Angel Pagan
UH132 Scot Shields
UH329 Roger Clemens red parallel
UH102 Adam Eaton red parallel
AST-OVS Roy Oswalt, Justin Verlander and Ben Sheets All Star Game Stitches Triples numbered 16/25
UH18 Adam Jones
UH259 Freddy Sanchez NL All Star

When I was opening this pack, all I was really hoping for was to pull a Brave card. I went 0-for-Atlanta with the first 100 cards I pulled from this set. The closest thing I got to a Brave was Jarrod Saltalamaccia in a Rangers uniform. The Triple Thread featuring two of my favorite pitchers (and the third one's not too shabby either) was a bit of overkill, frankly. Unfortunately the red cards are back again, but a Clemens parallel isn't too bad a pull. Who really cares about the rest of the pack, there's really not much there. This is an odd pack in that I pulled no rookies. I think this may be the only one out of 15 that didn't have at least one. Check out my blog to find out what else I pulled, I hope to have the rest of the break up by this evening July, maybe.