2005 Donruss Team Heroes

I have no idea what these cost when they were new, but with only four cards per pack, the price was too high. I suppose this was a 'premium' set, but after looking at the photos and cards themselves, there is no way I'd be calling this 'premium.'


Mark Teixeira (Rangers), Mike Schmidt (Phillies), Jose Contreras (White Sox), and Armando Benitez (Giants) are the cards that came out of their shell for today's APAD. I have to say the Schmidt looks good considering the actual photo is who knows how many years old. That is some serious photoshopping!

2005 Donruss Team Heroes

Before I get to today's pack rip, I should wrap up last week's Royal Rumble Contest. Sam chose #8, represented by Shannon Stewart (see below). The eighth entrant in the Royal Rumble match, Randy Orton, won the whole magillah. So Sam is the winner! I'll need you to email me (brotz13 AT gmail DOT com) with your address and your favorite team so that I can send your prize. If I don't hear from you by the end of the day Wednesday, I'll move on to the runner-up.

So, are you going through Donruss Withdrawal? Never fear, a repacked pack of Team Heroes is here! I don't quite get the graph paper background on these, but I do like the team-color gradient bar on the left side. What do we have here?

241 Marlon Byrd - The card back mentions his 5-RBI game against the Expos. I miss those guys.

222 Barry Zito - Rockin' the double-knit flashbacks. Love the stirrups.

204 Tom Seaver - Hey, an actual Team Hero! Who'da thunk it? Great action shot of Tom Terrific in mid-delivery.

186 Justin Morneau - Probably didn't deserve his MVP award a few years back, but since he denied Derek Jeter the honors I can't complain.

373 Carl Pavano - One of Cleveland's big offseason pickups. Stop snickering.

349 Derek Lowe - It's D. Lowe, not to be confused with D'Lo.

308 Jose Cruz, Jr. - Shown in the Diamondbacks phase of his long career descent.

197 Victor Zambrano - One of the most useless of the Orioles parade of pitching horrors in recent years (0-1, 9.49 in 12.1 innings).

2005 Donruss Team Heroes

This pack was showing on the outside of one of those repack boxes where you can see the four packs on the outside and there's some "bonus" stuff inside. I took this one specifically because it had a Donruss pack showing because, well, how often can you buy a "new" Donruss baseball pack anymore? Well, aside from that silly unlicensed stuff, of course...

Anyway, I failed to notice the fact that this is not the base Donruss set but instead a set called Team Heroes. And I'm pretty sure I've bought a pack or two of this before, which makes me doubly unobservant. Oops.

417 - Gavin Floyd (Floyd finally had a breakout season in 2008 for the White Sox, posting a 17-8 with a 3.84 ERA after showing promise earlier in his career. He only turns 26 this month, so he could be a solid starter for years to come. He looks like he's about 14 on this card, though.)
375 - Logan Kensing (I've never heard of this guy, but he's a right-handed reliever who logged a career high in innings and appearances in his fifth season with Florida.)

333 - Ervin Santana (Santana was an All-Star last season for the first time and finished 6th in Cy Young voting. Still, he'll probably always be the "other Santana.")

108 - Jason Jennings Showdown Red (I'm not sure what Showdown is supposed to mean, but I guess it translates to an excuse to have multi-colored parallels. Jennings is not very good.)
69 - Corey Patterson (Patterson is one of those players whose name only comes up in fantasy league discussions. He seems to struggle to find a job every season in the real league.)
52 - Abe Alvarez (Another guy I've never heard of. Alvarez hasn't appeared in the majors since 2006.)

34 - John Smoltz (I keep getting Smoltz cards lately. It must be a Red Sox thing.)

1 - Adam Kennedy (Kennedy tried to get out of St. Louis last season after they signed Felipe Lopez for the stretch run. Then the Cards tried to trade him this offseason and found no suitors. He'll likely be the starter at 2B again, which to Tony La Russa means about 100 starts.)