1988 Fleer Cello

I used to love cello packs as a kid. For just slightly more money than a regular wax pack, you could get a nice thick stack of cards and you could even get a sneak peak at what lurked inside by looking at the front (and back) of the pack to see if you could spot a pack with your favorite player in it. This was a surprise lurking inside a repack cube that I picked up a few weeks back. It beats the heck out of '88 Donruss or Topps any day. I can't say Sid Bream was ever one of my favorite players, though, and his awkward photo is definitely a sign of things to come in this pack.

324 - Sid Bream

19 - Kirby Puckett (Hardly the best photo of Puckett. I fondly remember this set as one of the last great Fleer sets - it all fell apart in 1990 - but I'm starting to wonder with all the photography here.)
212 - Roberto Kelly (I used to have a 3-ring binder that I kept full of "stars" which eventually ballooned to several binders. Roberto Kelly was part of it for some reason.)
112 - Tom Henke
265 - Melido Perez

36 - Ricky Horton (The lone Cardinal in the pack. Ricky is a Cardinals announcer/blowhard these days.)
348 - Ellis Burks (My "stars" binders had an Ellis Burks section at one point.)

646 - Randy Velarde / Adam Peterson (I recall Velarde being on a World Series team for the Yankees and also being mentioned in the various steroids scandal-type things. I don't remember Adam Peterson at all.)

84 - Dave Henderson (Hendu was a Mariners broadcaster for a long time. I'm not sure what he's up to these days. It's amazing how many players in a 20 year old pack went on to have careers as announcers.)
338 - Al Pedrique
408 - Gary Redus
529 - Bob Welch

640 - Bill Ripken / Cal Ripken SuperStar Specials (There will always be a special place in my heart for '80s Fleer SuperStar Specials cards. A SuperStar Special place in my heart, if you will.)
541 - Al Hall
- Braves/Tigers stickers

- Red Sox sticker (This is back when the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry was quirky and amusing. Actually, that applies to the Red Sox themselves as well.)
325 - John Cangelosi
1 - Keith Atherton (Fleer card sets were numbered according to the player's team's finish the previous season, and then alphabetically within that team's group of cards. The Twins won the World Series in '87, and Atherton is alphabetically the first player in the team grouping. The team with the worst record ends up near the end of the set, right before the SuperStar Specials and Checklist cards. Just so you know...)

308 - Steve Jeltz (Jeltz was a former Portland Beaver, who I remember watching as a small child. He's an interesting looking dude.)
617 - Greg Swindell
233 - Nick Esasky
116 - Manny Lee

451 - Bob Knepper (This is the one decent action shot in the entire pack. I like how he's throwing the ball through the Astros logo. Hold on, though, because he's making a weird face...)
405 - Steve Lyons (is creepy is the end of that sentence. He's also an announcer.)
435 - Rick Sutcliffe (ESPN announcer.)
173 - Bill Schroeder
535 - Marty Clary

384 - Ken Phelps
97 - Harry Spilman
75 - Lou Whitaker (Right-to-left, these are the final three cards in the pack. I don't know if you could find three weirder facial expressions. This is like the 20 year old baseball cards version of the opening title sequence to 30 Rock.)

2000 Upper Deck Redux

Yeah, I know, I've posted this junk before. I can go much lower, though. I bet I could even dig up one of those World's National Greatest Hidden Card Chases packs if I really wanted to. Don't dare me. I actually am starting to like this set a lot right now, and at $1 a pack it's not much of a budget burner. I'm not entirely sure what "Game Jersey Edition" is supposed to mean, though.

338 - Brian Rose (With a 8-10 record and a 5.58 ERA in 3 major league seasons, this guy would probably still have his own talk show and popular website in this day and age considering that he played for Boston, but as it stands I've never heard of him.)

312 - Armando Reynoso (Okay, Snakes fans. What's up with that cap there that Armando is sporting? I don't recognize it at all.)
519 - Darrin Fletcher

479 - Ruben Rivera (Rivera has been out of MLB for five years now, but he was on Team Panama in the WBC. That's one of my favorite things about the WBC. I want to see more Bernie Williams.)
453 - Gil Heredia

427 - Jacque Jones (A fancy gold seal for Mr. Jones.)
344 - Jose Nieves

526 - Derek Jeter All UD Team (The white dead space in the upper right corner is kind of strange looking.)

275 - Jason Marquis (Marquis and J.D. Drew will likely go down as the least popular Cardinals of the current decade, and they were essentially traded for each other. The awesome thing is that the Cards got Adam Wainwright out of the whole ordeal.)
396 - Roger Cedeno (A former cup-of-coffee Cardinal.)
- Reggie Jackson sweepstakes entry card thing

2008-09 Topps Tip-Off

I've tried to make a point to buy one basketball card pack every time I make a trip to a big box retailer or a card shop to buy a bunch of packs. For 99 cents, I felt like this Topps Tip-Off set was a low risk/high reward type of product for someone who is only marginally interested in basketball cards and only cares for one NBA team. I was expecting the NBA version of Opening Day, but was pleasantly surprised with a completely different card design and what I'm assuming are different photos from the base set.

17 - Mike Dunleavy (PLUS! The aforementioned card design. It's different. MINUS! It's um, different. And it kinda looks like a crappy Bowman design rehash. Plus, there's some kid's middle-aged adult's creepy fingernail scratch all over the top card, no doubt searching for that jackpot of an autographed Marreese Speights rookie card.)
82 - Raymond Felton (PLUS! These cards are cheap. MINUS! So cheap, in fact, that the first four cards in this pack are slightly miscut.)
87 - Chris Kaman (PLUS! At least Chris Kaman cut his hair. MINUS! He's hurt, and the Clippers are horrible.)

59 - Elton Brand (PLUS! This card reminds of of early Series 2 style NBA Hoops cards when there would be a big offseason trade or free agent signing. Almost all of the players that switched teams had cards with cheesy studio portrait photos. MINUS! Brand is also hurt, and now he's brought two franchises down to their knees with his injuries.)

33 - Dwyane Wade Some Sort of Red Parallel Card 0589/2008 (PLUS! It's, um, red. And it's Dwyane Wade, who is an MVP candidate this season. And there's those shiny gold serial numbers. MINUS! Dwyane spells his name like an idiot. And I bet these parallels are one-per-pack inserts since they aren't even mentioned on the back of the wrappers and there's currently one selling on eBay for $1.40.)

132 - Courtney Lee (PLUS! It's a Rookie Card, which actually sort of means something in the NBA. MINUS! Well, I can't really say anything bad about Courtney Lee. He's a rookie and he's doing alright, I suppose.)
- Checklist (And that wraps it up. Without this, I wouldn't have even known Marreese Speights was a real person.)

1992 Donruss - Finding Myself

Mr. Castle sent a box of Indians cards along with quite a few non-Indians which made me do some research. Turns out the non-Indians had all donned the Tribe uniform at one point in their careers. Included in the box of cards was a pack of 1992 Donruss, which I present to you because you can never get too much of the 1992 Donruss set. Well, maybe you can, but I present it anyway. After all, I found myself in this pack.

The first three cards feature one Bob Milacki. I had never heard of Milacki that I knew of until the box of cards from Castle. You see, Milacki's card (though a different one that is) was in my pile of non-Tribers. He had a very brief stint with the Indians (it lasted about 5 games) the year after the card below. Also in this trio is Steve Howe (Yankees) and Frank Tanana (Tigers):

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As I slid the Tanana card aside, I revealed my own baseball card. Well, not really MY card, but the card which bears my name. Dave Henderson (A's) has always been a favorite of mine, and yes, simply because we share the same name. Next is a pitcher with a most unfortunate name: Bob Walk (Pirates). Not only does his last name reflect what most pitchers wish to avoid, but even his first name refers to movement. It's a lot like having a vasectomy done by Dr. Pickelman. I should know. I did. Wrapping up this group is Charlie Leibrandt (Braves). I've always wondered, is it "Lee-Brandt" or "Le-Brandt?"

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If you've read Thorzul lately, you may remember Mr. Belcher (Dodgers), as one of the Dr. Steve's Altered Cards. We also have Roberto Kelly (Yankees) and former Triber Harold Baines (here in an A's uni).

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I did manage to pull an Indians player in an Indians uniform: Carlos Baerga. Unfortunately, he is caught in one of the worst baseball card poses I have ever seen. Who at Donruss said, "Yeahh, use THAT one!" Yeesh. Charles Theodore Davis (Twins) is up next. Of course, most fans know him as supper on a cold winter's night. Last in this group, caught doing his version of the Hokey Pokey, is Gregg Olson (Orioles).

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The final three cards in the pack are these: Juan Samuel (Dodgers), Jay Bell (Pirates), and a checklist. When I was a kid, I always thought checklists were 'worth more' depending on which names you found on the card. In this example, we see Cal Ripken, Ken Griffey Jr, Wade Boggs, Kenny Lofton, and others on the front. Cal Ripken, Junior and Boggs!? Man, that'd be worth flipping for many years ago. Though it occurred to me while writing that: in 1992 I was less than a year away from my Bachelor's degree. My childhood days were far behind me then.

The puzzle card was pieces 61, 62, and 63 of the Rod Carew. Why is it that only Harmon Killebrew's puzzle (as memory serves) was done in silver foil? No one else's that i can remember was done in 'chrome.' Hmmm...

1997 Score Series 2

Continuing on in the "50 cent pack" series, here's a pack of 1997 Score Series 2. My interest in Score waned after 1991, so most of their sets from the the '90s are pretty unfamiliar to me.

367 - Orlando Miller
417 - Rich Becker
400 - Scott Erickson (On the back of the card, Erickson is credited with "nearly" taking his Orioles to the 1996 World Series. That's some feat for a guy with a 5.02 ERA, not to mention a plus-5.00 ERA in three of his previous four seasons. I just remember him as the guy who could never live up to his 20-win season in his second season of major league ball.)

500 - Andruw Jones Goin' Yard (Such a scrawny dude at that age. He had 5 career HRs at the time according to the back of the card.)
452 - Jim Eisenreich (Eisenreich was coming off a .361 season at age 37.)

337 - David Wells (Quite possibly one of the worst baseball card photos of all time.)

442 - Dave Justice (Awkward!)
386 - Armando Benitez

535 - Tony Gwynn True Grit (Grit is not a very tangible quantity in baseball. How does a front office determine what percentage of the payroll they should allocate to grit in a given season? What impact, truly, does grit have on a team's performance?)

475 - Jason Dickson Showcase Series (Sort of a poor man's chrome card on a 50 cent budget. I thought it might be a one-per-pack parallel, but some research indicates that these show up 1-in-7 packs.)

363 - Darryl Hamilton ("Hey guys, I'm here! I know I'm late, but does anyone still want to play some ball today? Guys?)

550 - Chase Common Checklist (I'm not really sure who Chase is. I think this is Mike Piazza.)

484 - Jose Guillen (A fresh faced rookie who would later fall in with the bad crowd.)
352 - Jeff Kent
404 - Cal Eldred (True story: My father's side of the family wanted to name me Eldred. Yikes.)
441 - Pat Rapp
482 - Brant Brown
362 - Jeff King

503 - Bernie Williams Goin' Yard (Bernie was coming off of a then-career high 29 HRs for the '96 champs.)

515 - Gary Sheffield Goin' Yard (The regular card backs have no photo and have a ton of tiny text. This subset features a photo on the back.)

Be strong, kids!

1995 Donruss

If my memory isn't as faulty as I believe it to be at times, I think this is the third pack of 1995 Donruss I've ever purchased. Something about the full-bleed photos and the marked down price tags (currently 50 cents) keep bringing me back. The last two packs have each produced an Alex Rodriguez Rated Rookie card, which unfortunately doesn't bring me a whole lot of joy these days. Let's take a look at what I got the third time around.

4 - Luis Lopez (Lopez is shown with a position of "IF", which is never a good sign for a baseball player's longevity and notoriety.)
12 - William VanLandingham Rated Rookie (Wow. From Wikipedia: "On May 29, 1996, Van Landingham started against Jason Isringhausen, then a starter for the New York Mets. They tied a record for the longest combined names of two starting pitchers. Van Landingham also set the record for longest complete name in Major League Baseball, at twenty characters. The record has since been tied by Jarrod Saltalamacchia.")
194 - Darryl Strawberry (I had completely forgotten how awful Strawberry was after signing his big deal with the Dodgers in the early '90s. I wouldn't have guessed he played for the Giants, either, but I stopped paying much attention to baseball for a few years in the mid-'90s.)

253 - Ryan Klesko (I always thought Klesko had a bigger future than Chipper Jones.)
173 - Rey Sanchez
167 - Brian McRae (His rookie cards were good trade bait in 1991 for some reason.)
157 - Bobby Ayala

292 - Jose Rijo (Rijo was one of the most underrated pitchers of his era. He was extremely good. Unfortunately, he might be best remembered for his role in a recent recruiting scandal as a member of the Nationals front office.)

52 - Mike Piazza Elite Series 3454 / 10000 (I've never pulled a card like this. I bought boxes and countless numbers of packs of 1991 Donruss, but never found nor ever even witnessed an honest to goodness Elite card from that set. I don't know how the odds compared to the Elite cards in the 1995 set, where you apparently get one per 210 packs, but this was pretty surprising. Not bad for 50 cents.)

It seems like 10,000 of these cards floating around the world would make it fairly unremarkable, but I could only find one on eBay. I know that early '90s cards were incredibly overproduced and therefore worthless, but I don't see a lot of mid '90s to early '00s stuff floating around.

297 - Jeff Frye
121 - Pat Rapp
86 - Andy Ashby

95 - Felix Jose (I always think of him as a Cardinal, but he only spent 2+ seasons with them.)
108 - Jeff King
225 - Jose Lind (A surprising number of Royals graced this pack.)

14 - Walt Weiss (The former AL Rookie of the Year had the distinction of playing for both new expansion teams - Marlins and Rockies - in their first two seasons.)
39 - Shawon Dunston (Dunston was a walking strikeout machine and just a terrible baseball player and no one can convince me otherwise. He even made a stint with the Cards late in his career, but I will not be swayed by that. Sometimes Alfonso Soriano channels Shawon Dunston in his play, and I think that's hilarious.)
124 - Jose Oliva Rated Rookie

2009 Topps parallel sets

Collected from Cardboard Junkie, Night Owl, and JayBee's Topps blog. These are the parallel Topps sets found in blasters...

1986 Topps

A few weeks ago I traded Zach a 1969 Topps Frank Howard for a few packs of junk wax. Among them, two packs of '86 Topps, the first cards I got as a kid as a way to get me away from Garbage Pail Kids.

Let's see what we have...

Greg Walker, White Sox
Randy Bush, Twins in the classic powder blue
Joe Carter, Indians
Sixto Lezcano, Pirates
Steve Lake, Cubs
Darrell Porter, Cardinals
Tim Corcoran, Phillies (who?)
Dan Pasqua, Yankees
Jackie Gutierrez, Red Sox
Ron Roenicke, Giants
Walt Terrell, Tigers
Len Barker, Braves
Bill Krueger, A's
Willie Randolph, Yankees
Enos Cabell, Dodgers, with gum stains on the back

I guess Joe Carter was the best player in the pack. Grade C-.

2008-2009 T51 Murad

Man, I haven't posted a pack in a month. Let's break the slump with a product I've been wanting for a long time - T51 Murad. This is Topps' foray into Tobacco-style Retro cards like A&G or Mayo. This set copies the T51 Murad set, which inserted cards featuring a college and a sport that college plays on the card. This set is the first one to have a basketball subject appear on a trading card although there were many other sports featured as well including baseball. I'm a big fan of retro ripoff sets and my lousy stinking Hawks are in FOURTH PLACE in the East right now which is good enough to host a playoff series. Hawks? In the playoffs? MADNESS! Oh so delicious madness... I'm looking forward to picking more of this up once I've finally gotten over my Heritage crazies. Let's check out a hobby pack:

119 Rashard Lewis

Ok, first of all these cards are busy. Really really busy. I'm guessing about 30% of people who see these cards will despise them off the bat. They're just following the design of the originals though, and they do a great job of it. It's hard to see on this frist card, but Murad is circling the border in gold ink (ink, not foil) and there are more gold ink highlights on the pennant and logo in the background. Something that will really frustrate some people is that the player's name is not on the front of the card. Hey, that's just how the originals looked.

Here's the back. Typical A&G minimalist design. I dig how the lineart logos contrast with the typeface. It is a little hard to read though.

137 Maurice Cheeks

Mo! the only thing I love more than retro cards is retro players on retro cards. I haven't actually taken the time to figure out the checklist or the short prints yet (Topps' recent crazyness has been too distracting) but these horizontal cards might be a variation of some sort. If I'm incorrect, someone please let me know. The original cards were all horizontal and I think the design works a lot better that way.

178 Joe Alexander mini RC

This is a mini card of some rookie named Joe. I have no clue who this guy is, so let's hope he's no good so I don't look like an idiot. The mini cards are bigger than A&G minis, but smaller than Goudey minis. The card it's closest to in size is a 1951 Topps red or blue back card, if you've ever seen one of them.

Checklist 10 of 30

The decoy card in the pack is an action photo that doubles as a checklist. This one here has Jason Kidd and Steve Nash facing off on the front, and the boxloader and autograph checklists on the back. Thirty cards isn't too bad a size for this set.

194 George Hill RC

The gold ink really pops out on this card. These look really good in person and they really are very similar to the original tobacco cards (Think T205 gold borders for the ink). Obviously there is a big difference between modern printing and old-school lithography but I still say they did a good job.

148 Walt Frazier

The best card was saved for last. I wouldn't mind a card of Clyde in every pack I rip, thank you very much.

I wish there was more than 6 cards in a pack, but I'll survive. The stuff looks really good and one of these days I'm going to break down and buy a box. They're going for about $70 right now which isn't too bad. Once I get a few more packs I'll do a full review on my blog.

2009 Topps Commemorative Patch Pack

I held out on buying any more '09 Topps until I saw what they were putting in their blasters. Each box at Target will contain one "Retired Legend Commemorative Patch Card." I know there are a lot of people out there who frown upon manufactured patches, and I understand how they feel when those are coming out of high-end boxes. When it comes out of a low-end retail product, you have to take a look at the past and compare.
Last year: Eric Chavez.
This year: Babe? Gehrig? Ripken?
Looks like a no-brainer to me.

Let's tear in.

#LPR-37 Carl Yastrzemski Commemorating the 1972 MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta

Pretty neat card, if you ask me. The logo is very typical 1970s graphic design in appearance. Think 1973 8-cent LOVE stamp. Of perhaps Spokane World's Fair (Expo) in 1974.
I like it, but maybe I'm just too hungry for real baseball to start to think clearly.