2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks (Again!)

With yesterday's pack it was fun to look up the status of a bunch of no-names. Here's more of the same.


Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom:
31 Michael Kopech
Is up with the AA White Sox affiliate Birmingham Barons and apparently throws some heat.

26 Foster Griffin
High-A Wilmington Blue Rocks (Royals) with a 1-0 record and 0.82 ERA so far. Not too shabby.

21 Michael Chavis Minors Gold Prizm
High-A Salem Red Sox. Likes to keep injuries from his club.

22 Chris Ellis
AAA Memphis Redbirds (St. Louis) - Being part of this parent club, of course, ensures that Chris will eventually strike out every Brewer he faces for all eternity.


So the insert was pretty cool, and I gained a newfound appreciation for the logo of the Blue Rocks.

Pretty cool, but from my digging I found that Wilmington has a secondary mascot, Mr. Celery.

I want to go on a road trip with Mr. Celery. I wonder if he shares an affinity for any of my favorite car treats (Gummy Life Savers and beef jerky)? Either way, he won't even have to chip in that much for tolls. We will get all the babes.

2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks

I have a particular disdain for minor league cards. Just not my cup of tea. However, they are a bit more fun to open when they are a few years old. The possibility exists that you hit a guy you've actually heard of. Let's check in and see where the guys we pull are at in their careers.


Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom:
36 Isan Diaz
Diaz was part of the trade that sent Jean Segura (featured in yesterday's pack, coincidentally) to the Diamondbacks. Just last week, Diaz was promoted from the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers to the High-A Carolina Mudcats.

64 Trace Loehr Prizm
Currently on the Class A Beloit Snappers, batting .083 in 12 plate appearances this season.

37 Jordan Montgomery
Today was the biggest day of Jordan's life so far. Not long ago, he was named the Yankees' fifth starter in a surprise announcement. Today he started his first major league game, pitching 4 2/3 innings and giving up two earned runs in an 8-4 Yankees victory over the Rays. He was not the pitcher of record, but he struck out seven batters. Pretty cool to get his card today.

37 Austin Cousino
Released by the Mariners while in single-A last year, Austin is not listed on any team's roster for the 2017 season.


Fun, interesting pack with guys at a variety of success levels.

A Pack(et) A Day: 2007/08 Panini UEFA Champions League Update

APAD cintributor, John in the UK, sent me another (unsolicited) goodie bag full of football cards to bust here. First packet up is from Panini: 2007/08 UEFA Champions League Update.

For those of you who don't follow football, the UEFA Champions League is a competition that crowns the club champions of Europe. When it was first devised in the 1950s (as simply The European Cup) it literally was a "Champions League" -- only those clubs that had won the championship of their domestic league the previous season were allowed to participate. Since then, the competition -- which runs concurrently with the domestic leagues -- has been expanded to include more clubs, most of whom come from the larger and stronger countries.

Of the 51 winners of the Euro Cup/Champions League, 33 have hailed from the "Big 3:" England, Italy, and Spain. Not surprisingly, all three of these countries send up to four clubs into the Champions League. Despite this, the champions of the smaller nations also are invited; however they are, for the most part, eliminated before the group phase (the "real" start of the competition) begins.

The group phase of the 2008-09 Champions League begins later this week. In addition to the usual suspects, (Chelsea, ManU, Fc Barcelona, Inter, et al) for the first time teams from Belarus and Cyprus have advanced to the group phase.

For those of us in the States, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic will be showing games this Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. If you have a chance, take a late lunch and check 'em out.

---

2007/08 Panini UEFA Champions League is 250 cards, followed up with a 100-card Update set. This packet is from the Update series, which was released only seven weeks after the first. It features players who changed teams, or "transferred," before the start of group play.

A Pack(et) A Day: 2006/07 Magic Entertainment Shoot Out Update & Panini EURO2008

The other two packets of soccer cards sent to me by John in England.



Yes, I fully realize that I'm ripping English football packets while wearing a Celtic kit.

Paninipalooza!

I liked my pack of 1988 Panini stickers so much I dug up my sticker album and ripped three more packs. Lets see if these packs have any stickers I need!

Pack 1:
211 foil Blue Jays uniforms
228 Willie Randolph and Wade Boggs All Stars
259 Leon Durham
327 Tim Wallach
10 an action shot with #20 from the Yankees I think
225 Lloyd Moseby

Stickers I needed: Leon Durham and the mystery Yankee

I have about 75% of the album filled so 2 out of 6 ain't bad. The mystery Yankee sticker is actually one half of the Baltimore Orioles' action picture with Cal Ripken. I'm not going to bother looking up #20 because some fanatic out there will know and post it in the comments. Here's the full shot:

Leon Durham is the last Cub player I needed, all right! I'm still missing the logo and and action sticker but it's nice to complete something. Check out Sandberg's 'stache!



Pack 2:
J-1 Yankees Logo and Pennant
395 Curt Ford
267 Jerry Mumphrey
268 Rafael Palmeiro
79 Mel Hall
140 Gary Gaetti

Stickers I needed: The Yankees Logos and Curt Ford

Two more I needed including the last Cardinal. I'm only missing their big foil logo now. Curt looks a little bit worried to be stuck in between Vince Coleman and Willie McGee.

The Yankees sticker is a two-parter. There's a small pennant that goes on the useless pennant page:

And a circular logo that can be stuck on a mini poster:

I'm not sure what the pluses and asterisks I wrote in mean, they're pretty much on every page. My best theory is I ordered some stickers from Panini to complete my collection and I never mailed it off, or forgot to stick them in or actually hit puberty or something and stopped collecting stickers. Screw puberty, it's overrated. I'm going to display my unfinished pennant in my favorite place and HAVE FUN!

Pack 3:
317 Expos logo
437 Tony Gwynn action
231 Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield All Stars
54 Bob James
121 Greg Brock
355 Lance Parrish

Stickers I needed: None, zippo, nada, bupkis

Man. I already have all these stickers. Now I feel like this guy:

Of course this setback only encourages me to find more of these packs. Here's the rest of the unstuck leftover stickers for your viewing pleasure. Anyone need 'em for YOUR sticker album?

1988 Panini Stickers

Ok, enough newfangled crap, it's time for some twenty year old stickers from our favorite Italian manufacturer. I found a few of these recently and had to get them. Somewhere packed away is my '88 Sticker album and finishing off the set is on my list of "things I need to do before I die". No I'm not calling it that other thing. Let Jack Nicholson plug his own damn movies.

398 foil San Diego Padres uniform
230 What appears to be Cal Ripken and George Bell all stars
310 I don't know who the hell this is, some Dodger
331 Mitch Webster
214 Jimmy Key
370 Sid Bream

Ecxuse me a moment while I dig up my SCD and figure out who the unnamed stickers are. It's going to drive me nuts until I do. Until then, enjoy this foil stripey brown Padres uniform sticker.


I was right on the All stars. George Bell and Cal in front of the Oakland All Star game logo. The price guide says card 310 is one half of the Dodgers Action sticker and it's either Mariano Duncan or Junior Ortiz. Junior never played for the Dodgers so by process of elimination it's Duncan. I would have never guessed that in a million years. The rest of the stickers have names on them, thank God. After all those years of nondescript Topps stickers it was nice to see stickers with an actual design on them. Topps actually had Panini producing all those sticker sets from 1981-1987, but when Topps switched to producing their own sticker-cards in 1988, Panini struck back with this massive set. 480 stickers! In a 64-page album! And they actually looked good! This surely is the pinnacle of sticker sets. I want to know why with all the hand wringing about kids not collecting cards anymore why there isn't a sticker set and album in every grocery store in the nation. Kids love the hell out of stickers, they can't be that hard to produce and at 6 stickers for 25 cents (I guess 50 cents or a buck nowadays) you could make a killing. They'd screw it up though and try to put a piece of game used bat on a sticker and give some kid a splinter and get sued. Topps actually tried a sticker/album gimmick in a Bazooka set a few years ago, but they made the stickers an insert and screwed it all up. Put stickers in every pack! Make them cheap! Encourage us to stick them all over the place without hesitation that we are ruining a chase card! Bring back fun baseball cards, dammit! Mariano demands it!

1989 Panini Football Stickers

Through my recent purchase of a 100 ct. box of this product, I was able to complete this set. Many of the boys in my 5th grade class owned the book into which these stickers were placed. One of the greatest collecting choices which I have made in my life was the decision to not jump further onto the bandwagon and begin a collection of Panini Hockey stickers that same year. Sure, there would have been great sticks featuring bearded Calgary Flames players, but not much else.

Now, my album is torn to shreds and is being held together by several strips of mailing tape. The Super Bowl insert poster is somewhere else in my basement, along with several more unopened packs.

Let's tear in.


71 Mark Lee - Packers (Mark is obviously congratulating an opponent on their well-earned victory, which is basically what happened following every Packer game played in the 1970s and 1980s.

K Super Bowl XV Foil Insert (Unfortunately not bearing any likeness of Dick Vermeil, although he hadn't yet begun his work as America's preeminent crier.)

257 Frank Minnifield - Browns

366 Erik McMillan - Jets

414 Super Bowl XXIII Highlight (John Taylor's TD catch with 34 seconds left: The decisive play in one of the greatest Super Bowl games of all time.)

189 Doug Williams (Super bowl XXII MVP; also used as ammunition by Ice Cube's character in the film Three Kings to dispute Spike Jonze's character's assertion that white quarterbacks are better than black quarterbacks.)

Pack Grade: B
I got a Packer, a decent foil sticker, a meaningful action shot, and a Super Bowl MVP. Not bad for an Italian company whose bread and butter is European football, not American football. And what's not to like about a design which incorporates the shape of the goalposts?