2009 Upper Deck Icons (Retail)

Another one of those packs that's been sitting around for almost four years.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
36 Edinson Volquez (Camo is not a good look for the Cincinnati Reds organization.)

99 Vernon Wells

1630 20th Anniversary Retrospective New England Patriots (Every time I clicked on Yahoo to check my email this week, there was a headline suggesting that I feel sorry for Tom Brady, Wes Welker, whoever will be replacing Wes Welker, and anyone living within 500 miles of Boston. What's up with that?)

97 Tim Lincecum

7 Alfonso Soriano

Grade: B-

2005 Upper Deck Pros & Prospects

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
9 Brian Giles

55 Randy Johnson
7 Alex Rodriguez

40 Gary Sheffield
46 Shawn Green
52 Rafael Furcal

So this is some set from 2005 that WAITAFUCKINGMINUTEHOLDONWHATTHEFUCK???

1980 Topps Pepsi??? And there's a Robin Yount card in it??? My BBCP search to find more about this wretched Pros & Prospects set led me to this information. Great, another Robin Yount card I can never dream of affording. I blame you, Brian Giles.

2009 Upper Deck Icons Football

Let's open a pack of football cards. I've had a retail pack of 2009 Upper Deck Icons lying around for years. Let's see if this will be a crystal ball into this weekend's future. Let's say the likelihood of a team winning is increased by the presence of a card in this pack. The chances double if the player is still active for that team.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
61 Eddie Royal
The Broncos gain a slight advantage, but Royal played with the non-playoff Chargers this year.

89 Andre Johnson
The Texans are guaranteed victory over the Patriots on Sunday. Andre Johnson pulls in 26 catches for 417 yards.

44 Earnest Graham
Retired. The Buccaneers never make the playoffs again.

7 Brandon Jacobs
The Packers dodge a huge bullet here, with Jacobs being released by the 49ers this past New Year's Eve. Jacobs reportedly celebrated the holiday by retrieving a box of noisemakers from the basement and eating three Banquet brand pot pies, alone. The Giants insignia on this card ensures that for the 2013-14 NFL season, Eli Manning will squeak a 6-10 team into the playoffs and then tear through them by an average victory margin of 39 points.

5 DeMarcus Ware
No prognostication from this card, other than the offseason strangling of Tony Romo by a defensive teammate.

Well, the pack had little to say other than predicting the Texans' upset of the New England. Have fun this weekend. If you get a chance, build a time machine so UD can make their '09 Icons baseball cards look as good as the football brand.

2007 Upper Deck Series 1 Retail

First pack of the new year, a Target cheapie that had been lying around for some time.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
89 Neal Cotts

269 Tim Hudson
76 Jon Lester
217 Tyler Walker

360 Rickie Weeks

422 Geoff Blum
345 Nomar Garciaparra
CRTG38 Cal Ripken, Jr. / Tony Gwynn Heading to the Hall

Seven base cards.
Three guys with the same team in 2012: Hudson, Lester, Weeks
One playing with a different team in 2012: Blum
Three no longer in MLB: Cotts, Walker, Garciaparra

2009 Upper Deck X

This is one of those products I keep going back to if I find a Target cheapie. I'm working on the die-cut set, so hopefully I'll get one I need.


Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
65 Alex Rodriguez

34 Garlos Guillen
44 Bobby Abreu Die-Cut (Got it already, dang.)

X3-PF Prince Fielder X3 Xponential (Didn't have this one yet. Even though he's no longer on my team, I still like getting his cards.)

68 Jack Cust
19 Aramis Ramirez

Well, I only needed one of those, but it was a good one. Most likely not my last pack of X.

2005 Upper Deck Pros & Prospects

It's gone past the point of becoming cliche to point out that no one posts here anymore. In fact, it's now cliche to point out the cliche regarding the lack of posts. So here we go. I'll just tell a lie about each player.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
35 Jason Schmidt
Mike Schmidt was a well-known practitioner of Onanism. If you've got a test tube and a quick, nimble hand, and you're in the general area when the seed is spilt, you can make a name for yourself in the AI game. Jason, I hate to tell you this way, but this is your origin story in a nutshell.

49 Alfonso Soriano
No fewer than 43 Major League Baseball teams have been disappointed when a post-Yankees Soriano failed to capture lightning in a bottle for them.

32 Ben Sheets
Sheets owns the world record for creating and cooking the world's longest knackwurst on the world's smallest grill.

88 Kerry Wood
Currently hanging above table 14 in a Wilmette, Illinois, Applebee's.

69 Livan Hernandez
Provides the voice for the Car Fox on those Carfax commercials.

29 Jason Kendall
Removes the toilet in each home he inhabits, just squats above the hole.

All of these guys were seasoned pros then, where are the prospects?

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Hobby

I picked up this pack at the card show from two weekends ago. It came from the table of "Overpriced Wax Guy." I always feel a little bad, since he's at every show and all I do is look and run. As it turned out, he had a bunch of 2011 Topps singles I needed, so I added this old hobby pack to round out the lot.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
121 Fausto Carmona

82 Andy Sonnanstine
43 Buddy Carlyle
4 Justin Speier
281 Mark Buehrle
86 B.J. Upton
(Did you ever get a look at the back of this card? Everyone else's name on the back of their cards is written with colored print on top of a white drop shadow. On Upton's, the color starts to crap out at the period. I'll have to run a check to see if anyone else's is like that.)

203 Shane Youman
89 Josh Wilson (Future Brewer.)
11 Roy Oswalt
162 Mike Bacsik
84 Al Reyes
42 Chuck James

81 James Shields
159 Damion Easley
369 Jake Peavy (I've probably pulled this card eight times. and I've opened maybe seven packs.)
306 Jerry Blevins
387 Fred Lewis Season Highlights
324 Joe Koshansky
360 Eric Byrnes

OPC-ER Edgar Renteria O-Pee-Chee

Not an amazing pack, by any means, but still the best photography of any set since I've gotten back into the hobby.

1996 Upper Deck Johnny Quest

The date of my birth puts me in just about the perfect wheelhouse NOT to be a fan of Johnny Quest. The original series aired in 1964-65, and probably lived on through the 1970s through reruns. This was followed decades later by The New Adventures of Johnny Quest, which theoretically should have been on my radar, but wasn't, probably because the series lasted only 13 episodes. The the time the series on which this pack of cards was based, The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest, was on television, I was nearly finished with high school, and the only cartoons I watched were The Simpsons and Space Ghost Coast to Coast. This pack of cards is as problematic as the final TV series. I'm familiar with the broad outline of the show, but none of its intricacies. Adult Swim meta-cartoons have provided much of my knowledge of Hanna-Barbera staples, namely the simmering undercurrent of homosexual tension between Benton Quest and Race Bannon.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
26 Dr. Jeremiah Surd
Good God, these cards are a mess! I cannot tell you how difficult it was for me to identify the subject of each card. With no fewer than seven separate places for text on the front of the card, the design seemed to combine early Geocities elements with a seventh grader's myspace page circa 2005. I don't know where to look, and I feel defeated.

35 Dr. Jeremiah Surd (???) Again?
I'm not sure if this card is part of the base set or not. It doesn't seem to be one of the listed inserts, but the card numbering is of a different style than the first one. Surd's profile is on the back, but we have this URL group shot on the front. I want to track down a laserdisc of this show so I can unscramble my brain.

22 Hadji
Back to the base design, I see. Hadji is a familiar main character, albeit with a rebooted wardrobe. The post-1993 WTC bombing environment most likely dictated a turban-free cartoon. Also clearly a Power Rangers derived look.

HC2 Hadji's Clues - Courage Overcomes Fear
If I rub off a portion of the back of this card, I'll get a clue that will help me while I play the Johnny Quest CD-ROM Adventure. I'm not falling for that one. (Turns out I was wrong on the turban thing, too.) Odds on this insert were 1:5.

47 Villain ^2 -- Ezekiel Rage / Dr. Jeremiah Surd
All Surd, all the time baby!

44 Tools of the Trade - Surd's High-Tech Wheelchair
Seriously, I cannot get away from this guy. And another design shift. Can anyone tell me what the base design even is? I give up. Just watch Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. At least that has more Race Bannon than this pack.

Repack Resurrection: 2007 Upper Deck Series 2

The long, arduous journey comes to a close today with the only pack worthy of the closing ceremonies: 2007 Upper Deck Series 2.
After all, for a blog whose purpose is to open and showcase packs of trading cards, it is certainly fitting that the final pack would be one that serves no other purpose other than to be opened for others to see. Which brings up the philosophical question: Does this blog exist because of this pack, or does this pack exist because of this blog?

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
747 Emil Brown

571 Danys Baez
921 Barry Zito

799 Kevin Mench

654 Joe Borowski

Isn't it great to see the Toxic Avenger signing autographs for the kids?

Repack Resurrection: 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions

With a four-card pack, there's not a whole heckuva lot to write about. To keep things interesting, I will share my favorite thing about each card.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
75 Carlton Fisk
Favorite Thing: The funky design element behind those red red socks

102 Curtis Granderson
Fave: Flip-ups

66 Buffalo Bill Cody Mini
Fave: The push-broom 'stache/wily Van Dyke combo and the 5"x7" picture frame belt buckle (tie)

62 Yogi Berra
Yogi's disproportionately small head.

Four cards per pack? No wonder I didn't buy this stuff.