2008 Donruss Americana II

My last trip to the store ended up with me taking home a blaster of Donruss Americana II. From what I've seen so far this year's checklist is a lot worse than last year's, but I couldn't resist. So far I've opened up just the first pack (actually, the second in the box, but I'll get to that later.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
115 Ray Park (Darth Maul)

172 Gigi Edgley (Never heard of her. Apparently from "Farscape.")

126 Joyce DeWitt ("Come and knock on our door...")

183 Evan Mariott ("Joe Milionaire".)

140 Nicholas Brendon (Never heard of him, either. Apparently from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer.")

Yeah, that pack sucked. The rest of this blaster better not be this terrible. Series Three of this product, if it's ever released, should be called "Donruss D-List Celebrities." To stave off the imminent infection that is this box, I've decided to take action. Each pack in this box after this one will be a contest in the making. When I post a pack, one of the cards will be highlighted in bold. This is the person whom you will use to play "Six Degrees of Gene Wilder." How does one play? It's simple. It's played just like the Kevin Bacon game. I will not insult anybody by explaining it here. All I'm doing is substituting Gene Wilder for Kevin Bacon. Why? Gene Wilder is my favorite actor of all time. I even own this amazing shirt, possibly the best T-shirt in the world.

What you need to do is connect the selected person to Gene Wilder in six moves or less. The first person to post the chain in the comments wins the card. It's not a great prize, but this is probably not a great set. We'll see.

This pack is a practice round, and as you can see above, Joyce DeWitt is the playing piece here. One might make this connection:
Joyce DeWitt was in Airplane II with Rip Torn, who was in Men in Black with Will Smith, who was in Enemy of the State with Gene Hackman, who was in Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder.

The first pack in the blaster, incidentally, felt about 60% thicker than the one I opened here. Hopes are high that it will contain one of the box's big hits, although it could be a decoy, or maybe an overstuffed pack. It will be posted on Thorzul Will Rule some time today, at which point the game will commence.

1992 Pinnacle Series 2 - Glavine wrapper

Here's the last one of the Pinnacle packs, this one features Tom Glavine, who won the Cy Young the year before. The ad on the back is for their Rookie Idols insert set. I was about to make fun of the Todd Van Poppel/Nolan Ryan card advertised, but I checked the price guide and it doesn't book too badly. The odds on these cards are no greater than one in 125 per the back of the pack. Let's see what I pulled.

573 Hector Fajardo
588 Willie Stargell and Dave Justice The Idols
618 Nolan Ryan blueprint
603 Jose Lind Shades
544 Jarvis Brown
444 Jay Howell
456 Carlos Hernandez
464 Jeff Johnson
476 Reggie Jefferson
484 Russ Swan
417 Tom Henke
314Tom Brunansky
326 Von Hayes
334 Craig Grebeck
346 Luis Rivera
354 Scott Aldred

This pack wins. Between Pops and Justice on the same card and a cool as hell Nolan Ryan, there's no need to look over the usual group of relief pitchers, role players and forgettable rookies. The Shades cards were pretty popular back in '92 if I remember correctly. Jose Lind should have been wearing these cool shades in the 7th game of the '92 NLCS to keep the moon out of his eyes. If you see any '92 Pinnacle series two packs out there and decide to pick one up, remember that you'll get a couple of cool looking subset cards and probably not a whole lot else.

1992 Pinnacle Series 2 - Mattlingly wrapper

Here's pack three of my Pinnacle haul, this one features #23 Don Mattingly. The ad on the back of this wrapper is for the SCOREGUARD™ AUTHENTICATOR™ LENS that was thoroughly discussed in the comments over here. This is too good not to share so here's a scan.

That's right, this thing is so bad-ass it requires two trademarks. For only one dollar, you too can see the unscrambled Score logo through the secret decoder lens. I do have one question though... if the coded SCORE logo cannot be duplicated, then how did they print it on all the cards? The offer is good while supplies last, so I'm sending a buck to El Paso. I bet there's still a pile of these things sitting next to the checklists. Ok, onto the cards.

613 Rod Beck
539 Jim Abbott
554 Ben Rivera
569 Scott Hatteberg Draft Pick
584 Rod Carew & Don Mattingly The Idols
470 Jeff Brantley
475 Mike Flanagan
490 Scott Livingston
495 Bob Kipper
510 Archi Cianfrocco
515 Juan Berenguer
352 Trevor Wilson
368 Brian Downing
372 Luis Salazar
388 Rich Delucia
392 Pedro Guerrero
Mattingly has a card in his own pack, a really awesome one with Rod Carew. Jim Abbott is the closest thing to a star that was not in a subset that I've seen in one of these packs. It's got a great shot of his follow through on his delivery. It also has another floating baseball in the border. Once I finish opening these packs I need to count the number of cards with the floating baseball. I bet it's over 25%. Brian Downing does the floaters one better. His photo catches him in mid-swing and it looks like he's slicing through the border with a katana. Senior Smoke is cool, the Scott Hatteberg rookie isn't bad and I always liked Pedro Guerrero as a player. Not much else in here though. I looked through the checklist (no not the dollar one, the price guide one) and there are a few stars in here. Bonds, Griffey, Gwynn, Murray and a few others. The Jeff Kent rookie is the key to the whole set, booking at three whole dollars. We'll see what Glavine brings us tomorrow.

1992 Pinnacle Series 2 - Sierra wrapper

Here's the second of my Pinnacle packs, this one has Ruben Sierra on the wrapper. Ruben is in a Rangers uni where he belongs even though he was a big contributor for the A's and Yankees. Sierra was apparently George W's favorite player for the Rangers back when he owned the team, which explains why he got traded to the A's for Jose Canseco around the time this pack was on the shelves. No anti-drug PSA on the back of the wrapper, there's an ad for a 1992 Baseball Player list for the low low price of one dollar. Who the hell buys a checklist for a dollar? I wonder how many of those things sold, there can't be that many floating around right now. Time to rip.


592 Orel Hershiser Sidelines
607 Jack McDowell Grips
533 Jeff Branson
548 Bobby Jones Draft Pick
563 Pat Hentgen prospect
466 Paul Assenmacher
474 Bryn Smith
486 Ken Hill
494 Joe Magrane
506 Cory Snyder
514 Dante Bichette
333 David West
347 Al Osuna
353 Mark Eichhorn
367 Chris Bosio
373 Lance Johnson

Three Cy Young winners in the pack. Pat Hentgen beat out Pettitte for the award in 1996. Bulldog's looking sharp on the links. Jack McDowell is showing off his split finger. Jack was one of my favorites back in the early 90's. I've got a binder with a bunch of pages filled with his cards somewhere. I liked that Sox team with Fisk, Ventura and Big Hurt and Black Jack was dominant for a few years. Plus he plays in a band, so how cool is that? It sucks that his arm got screwed up. Bobby Jones was supposed to win a Cy Young but it didn't quite happen. There's another Sox player in the pack, Lance Johnson. One Dog and Raines were lethal in that lineup. There's a lot of pitchers in this pack, Assenmacher, Eichhorn, Magrane, Bosio, West... sheesh. This is definitely a series 2 pack. Dante Bichette and Cory Snyder look a little weird in their Brewers and Giants unis.

I'll have to give the nod to Bagwell so far in the battle of the best pack, although it's pretty close. Flying Belliard pushes Bags over the top. Next up: #23 Don Mattingly.

1992 Pinnacle Series 2 - Bagwell wrapper

I found packs of this stuff today three for a buck. There are four different wrapper designs featuring four stars of 1992: Don Mattingly, Jeff Bagwell, Tom Glavine and Ruben Sierra. I got one pack of each so let's see what player has the best pack. I'll open them up in order of uniform number so #5 Jeff Bagwell is up first.

Each wrapper has not only a different player, but also a different advertisement on the back. Here's what's on Jeff's wrapper:

All right! Jeff knows the score. Do cards, not drugs kids! Heh. Knows the Score. I made a pun. The best athletes take care of their bodies and don't use toxic substances. Toxic substances such as...

Barry shoulda collected Pinnacle cards. Lets crack this thing open.

585 Jack Morris & Steve Avery - The Idols
600 Rusty Meacham
615 Benito Santiago blueprint
541 Donovan Osbourne
556 Denny Neagle
462 Mike Bordick
478 Craig Lefferts
482 Kenny Rogers
498 Joe Girardi
502 Glenn Braggs
518 Matt Young
357 Rafael Belliard
363 Eric Anthony
377 Mariano Duncan
383 Charles Nagy
397 Dave Martinez

The first card in the pack is cool, but kind of painful. From the back:

Growing up in Michigan, Steve was inspired by the pitching mastery of the Tigers' Jack Morris, who won no fewer than 14 games per season from 1979 through 1988. Little did Steve know then that his childhood idol would defeat his team in the seventh game of the 1991 World Series. Steve has a chance to dominate in the '90's as Morris did in the '80's.

This card was a real kick in the ass for a Braves fan in 1992. It's even worse now since Avery ended up flaming out in the mid-90's. The blueprint cards were some of the coolest cards around back then. Not only is the design neat, but there's "how to throw out a runner" tips on the back. Seeing Donovan Osbourne and Denny Neagle as rookie prospects makes me feel old. Kenny Rogers is stylin' in his Rangers uniform and 5.42 ERA. Think he'll apologize to put that uni on again? He booted Boras, so that's a start. The photos in this set are all pretty cool. There are 6 cards in this pack where the player has thrown the ball and it can be seen floating in the black border after the release. The Yankees' new manager is in full catcher's gear chasing after a pop-up. My favorite in the pack has Rafael Belliard floating in midair. This being a second series, there are a lot of marginal players in the pack, but it's still a good start. Let's see how Ruben Sierra matches up on Monday.

1991 Stadium Club Series 2

Ok, I've already given you my big Stadium Club story, let's just bust open this series two pack. It can't possibly be as good as the first one, CAN IT?!?!? (this is called foreshadowing, folks. All the cool writers use it)

543 Mo Vaughn $4.00^
465 Albert Belle $1.50
595 Ed Nunez 20¢
548 Chuck Knoblauch $2.75^
576 Luis Gonzalez $4.00^
388 Jeff Bagwell $11.00^
517 Tim Hullett 20¢
598 Checklist cards 301-400 20¢
Stadium Club BARS ad
365 John Smoltz 20¢
457 Junior Felix 20¢
452 Mark Whiten $1.25
432 Ernie Riles 20¢

WHERE THE HELL WERE THESE PACKS IN 1991 WHEN I COULD HAVE USED THEM? This pack has just about every good rookie from series two, including the only two that book anymore. Plus I got John Smoltz, who bestows automatic win to every pack he's in. The rookie cards all have the exact same picture on the front as on the back. Mo's card is on the front and the back! Whoooa... All except for Luis Gonzalez who somehow has his 1991 Topps debut card on the back, which is labeled as 1990 debut just to make things more confusing. Since the price guide mention got a lot of comments, I am shamelessly pandering to my audience and listing the book value next to the cards. This time I'm using the November 1991 Beckett (the one with Bo in a White Sox uni on the cover) for my reference. Look at all those up arrows! I wonder how many people bought the Mark Whiten for a buck fiddy and left the 20 cent Smoltz on the counter. I pulled 3 of the top five cards out of this set according to that guide. Bags at $11 is the top card obviously, and Luis and Mo are in a three way tie for third. Can anyone guess the other two cards?

Hint: #2 on the list booked for 9 bucks and played for a team in this year's World Series.

Another hint: You'll never figure out #5 unless you look it up in your Bo Beckett even though he was in the top 5 in NL Rookie of the Year voting in '91.

1994 Fleer Ultra Baseball (Series II)

Another Toys R' Us repack box pack.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:

495 Yorkis Perez (RC)
497 Benito Santiago
441 Woody Williams
598 Checklist
483 Marcus Moore (RC)
489 Kurt Abbott (Crimeny, that's three Marlins, a Blue Jay, and a Rockie! Are there any cards in this pack depicting players on teams founded before 1977?)
321 Brian Anderson (RC)
562 Luis Alicea

310 Chris Sabo (Heck yes, Ol' Rec Specs himself! I got reacquainted with this baseball stud not too long ago when I came across his endorsement of the Nutty Buddy. Hope you enjoy. Sabo comes in toward the end of the clip, so be patient. One view, and you'll change your pronunciation to "testiclees." (Long "e") He's even in position to start picking at his balls on his card here. Jeesh.
343 Carlos Baerga
443 Mike Kelly (RC)

519 Ramon Martinez (Dang, got the not-as-successful brother!)





524 Pedro Martinez (Wow, back-to-back brothers! I wonder, with Fleer's collation tendencies, how common this was?)





7 Juan Gonzalez All-Star Team Insert

Grade: Pretty good pack, so I'll give it a B. A nice early card of Pedro in an Expos uniform. Too bad none of the rookies in here panned out. The set itself was another step backwards for Fleer. It's a bad sign when a card has to be tilted at a specific angle in order to read the player's name. Our economy undoubtedly suffered from an aluminium foil shortage in the mid-1990s. Good to know that we're finally back on track.

Oh, and the 1981 Topps Showdown has reached the semis on my personal site, Thorzul Will Rule. Visit and vote, it's your constitutional right!