2008 Upper Deck Documentary: What's the point?

Yipes, no posts to this blog since Tuesday. So much for A Pack a Day. Sorry, but this stuff is all that I have handy. Unfortunately, I couldn't just take everyone's word for it when they said that Documentary was pointless and a waste. I just had to buy FOUR packs and find that out for myself. I'll post one pack here, and list the player pictured and the player that is actually described in the accompanying text. We'll see how often they match up, okay? Okay.

88 (CLE9) April 9: Angels 9, Indians 5. Travis Hafner/Indians offense. Well, that's at least in the ballpark. However, Pronk is not one of the hitters mentioned on the card back, which references Blake, Peralta, Shoppach, and Dellucci's extra-base hits. Hafner went 0-for-4 and was hit by a pitch. Whee.

2559 (MIL89) July 7: Rockies 4, Brewers 3. Jason Kendall/Prince Fielder. Bravo, UD. Bravo.

2598 (OAK88) July 6: White Sox 4, Athletics 3. Bobby Crosby/Rob Bowen. Seriously, how hard is this?

297 (WAS7) April 6: Cardinals 3, Nationals 0. Paul Lo Duca/John Lannan. Geez, now they can't even distinguish between a catcher and a pitcher.

287 (TOR7) April 8: Athletics 9, Blue Jays 8. Frank Thomas/Frank Thomas and Vernon Wells. HEY! Blind squirrel finds nut. Film at eleven.

HRD-5 July 14: Home Run Derby. Justin Morneau/Justin Morneau. This commemorates the Canadian slugger's winning effort in the derby. I actually like the foil All-Star Game logo, and they would have had to work overtime to screw up this subset card. Back to the crap.

3923 (CIN132) August 26: Reds 2, Astros 1. Jay Bruce RC/Bronson Arroyo. At least this pack his its first card depicting the winning team in the featured game.

3920 (CWS132) White Sox 8, Orioles 3. Jim Thome/Gavin Floyd. Boooo! The loser was Brian Burres, recently salvaged by Toronto. He's your problem now, Jays.

3917 (CHC132): Cubs 14, Pirates 9. Rich Harden/Geovany Soto. I like the picture, with a batters' eye view of Harden peering toward the plate.

3959 (OAK132): Angels 5, Athletics 1. Carlos Gonzalez/Jack Cust. It's also fantastic that Upper Deck chose not to label the player pictured anywhere on the card. I don't know Gonzalez from Adam, and had to look online to figure out who wore #28 for the A's in 2008.

So yeah. You're probably smarter than me anyhow, but on the off chance that you're tempted to pick up a pack or two of Documentary because it sounds like a neat concept, or you're curious, or Ken Griffey, Jr. is on the pack, or Target is fresh out of 2009 packs, or any other reason you can conjure up...DON'T.

DON'T.


Don't.

2008 Upper Deck Documentary

I recently won a contest over at A Cardboard Problem. My prize? A hobby pack of 2008 Upper Deck Documentary. Can I find something worthwhile in this pack? Will it be a complete dud? Will I find a game involving the White Sox? We shall see.

I love the idea behind Upper Deck Documentary. Showcasing each game played from each team’s perspective. Sounds very interesting… right? It could have been, if Upper Deck didn’t cut some corners here and there.

The first card out of the pack illustrates this perfectly.

2138/BAL78 – Orioles 11 – Cubs 4

Is that a home uniform on the Oriole? I would certainly appear that way. But that can’t be… they’re supposed to be playing at Wrigley.

On through the rest of the pack!

2407/LAA87 – Blue Jays 7 – Angels 5

2715/AZD95 – Diamondbacks 3 – Phillies 6

1006/DET36 – Red Sox 5 – Tigers 1

1045/LAD35 – Astros 7 – Dodgers 1

1035/KCR35 – Orioles 7 – Royals 4

1133/SFG33 – Giants 6 – Pirates 12

1123/SDP33 – Padres 3 – Braves 5

HRD-1 – Josh Hamilton

3234/NYM109 – Mets 3 – Astros 7

3231/MIN109 – Indians 1 – Twins 4

3228/MIL109 – Cubs 11 – Brewers 4

3269/WAS108 – Phillies 8 – Nationals 4

3266/TOR108 – Rays 3 – Blue Jays 2

447/LAD17 – Dodgers 1 – Braves 4 (Gold?)
What was it on the Cosby Show? You can have a steak cooked to perfection with all the trimmings, but if you serve it on the underside of a garbage can lid, you wouldn’t want to eat that steak. That’s how I feel about Upper Deck Documentary. All this cool information was gathered and printed on each card, only to be undermined by a photo that was unrelated to the game being documented.