2002 Fleer Tradition

Taking a step up from the last few baseball packs I've posted on this blog, here's a pack of 2002 Fleer Tradition that I forked over a whole dollar for. I'm a sucker for anything "heritage", "traditional" or "retro", so I was pretty excited about this one.

455 - Jason Romano Prospects

454 - Ryan Drese Prospects (Hmm, I'm not so sure what's "traditional" about these first two cards. Nothing says tradition like a guy with 191 career ABs and another guy who has a 5.31 career ERA. At least Drese is still kicking around AAA in the Pirates organization, or at least was as of last season.)

278 - Brian Jordan (Ahh, this is starting to look familiar now. I have a couple of these in my collection already. I'm not sure what the USA flag is for. This being released sometime in 2002 does explain it a little, I suppose.)
372 - Jeff D'Amico

336 - Gary Sheffield (For some reason I thought he had retired, but he's still a part of a questionable Tigers team.)
358 - Billy Wagner (Wagner will make 10.5 million dollars this season and not pitch at all.)
406 - Ruben Quevedo

166 - Derek Lowe (I have this guy on a couple of fantasy teams this season. I hope that he's solid.)

4DH - Tony Gwynn This Day in History (Nice! I wish the picture was a bit bigger, but this is a pretty nice card to pull. This card commorates his 3,000th hit in 1999, which was barely history at the point this set came out. These apparently show up at a ratio of 1:18 packs.)
255 - Edgar Martinez (Edgar should absolutely be in the Hall of Fame. He's one of the greatest, if not the greatest DH of all-time. I think the DH rule is terrible, but since it exists, the Hall should honor the best DHs. And honestly I can't think of anyone else who has hit as well as Edgar Martinez has hit from the DH spot. Most players go into decline at that phase of their careers, either because they're no longer actively on the field the entire game or... more likely... because they were already heading into decline in the first place.)

As always, all of these cards are up for grabs. 10 days until real baseball!

2008 Bowman Chrome...Sigh

Alright, I'll post a pack of baseball cards. I think I'm up to the madding challenge. This one has been sitting on the shelf for a couple of weeks, though. My wife had her friend stay with us for a weekend, and I was goaded into buying some cards on a trip to Target. Whenever you're coerced into buying cards, the decision-making process becomes compromised, and bad things happen. I give you...Bowman Chrome.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
145 Joba Chamberlain (Coverboy.)

95 Austin Kearns (Got paid $5,000,000 in 2008 to bat .217.)

BCP168 Zach Britton (Got as high as regular-A with the Delmarva Shorebirds last year.)

Here are five things I could have more wisely spent my money on at Target:
5. Three things from the Dollar Spot, the crapstravaganza located just inside the door of most Targets. Lord knows I need a new Spiderman activity book.
4. A package of Easter candy. Easter is a very underrated season for candy. Putting aside the disgusting Peeps, there are a lot of good candies out there that Easter-fy their offerings, many of them involving peanut butter.
3. A St. Patrick's Day greeting card. These were purchased before the 17th, so those things were available a-plenty. SPD might soon overtake Christmas in the card sending arena.
2. Some sort of frozen treat.
1. A bottle of store-brand dishwashing liquid. Not very fun, but at least it can clean your dishes. Apparently, part of the "Joba Rules" called for no washing dishes. Lucky fuck.

2008-09 Upper Deck First Edition Basketball

Several years ago, when I succumbed to buying baseball cards again, I decided I would commit to buying cards from one sport and one sport only. Back in high school, when I worked for a hobby shop for a time, I collected three sports and had no idea what self-control was. However, I really do like basketball, and recently I've allowed myself to purchase one basketball card pack whenever I am making a decent sized baseball purchase. Upper Deck's First Edition is great for me, because it only costs 99 cents a pack and doesn't make me feel guilty. Not only that, since I don't really collect basketball cards anymore, I don't even notice how crappy the product is.

28 - Sasha Pavlovic (Pavlovic is a Bruce Bowen-wannabe who doesn't really do a whole lot of good things on the basketball court. Sorry, Cavs fans, I just don't see it.)
21 - Andres Nocioni (Nocioni is a decent player, but isn't quite the player that fellow Argentine Manu Ginobili is. Unlike Ginobili, however, Nocioni has stayed reasonably healthy.)

55 - Baron Davis (Highly talented, selfish scoring guard - the NBA has a lot of them.)
224 - Karl Malone UD Legends (I'm not sure how difficult it is to get these cards. Malone is one of my least favorite non-Lakers of all-time.)

237 - Kosta Koufos (Rookies are one-per-pack according to the wrapper. Koufos apparently played with Greg Oden at Ohio State and his name reminds me of doofus. That's all I really know.)

53 - Tayshaun Prince Gold (Here's a gold-ish parallel card. Once again, I have no idea how difficult these are to pull. Nice variety in this pack so far.)

SQ-1 Carmelo Anthony Starquest (The Blazers are one game behind Denver, who is in 1st place in the Northwest Division. That alone is enough for me to hate the Nuggets, but their players are reason enough. Starquest cards are one-per-pack, I think, and don't have parallel versions unlike the regular set.)
193 - Ronnie Brewer (This is an anti-Blazers pack. Two Jazz cards on top of the Nuggets card.)

103 - Michael Redd (Check out the look on Redd's face. Maybe he got a sign from the future that he was going to miss a huge chunk of the 2008-09 season and put his team at risk of missing the playoffs.)
165 - Mikki Moore

So... who wants to post a baseball card pack?

2008-09 Upper Deck Champs Hockey

I guess I really haven't been keeping up with recent releases, as I wasn't even aware that 2008-09 Upper Deck Champs had been released earlier this week. This set looks like Upper Deck's answer to Allen & Ginter baseball, it's incredibly similar as you'll see. I very nearly picked up a hobby box on eBay last night for just over $100, but at just 24 packs and 5 cards per pack I wanted to see what it looked like before going for it. Here's one of the two packs I picked up...

#1 - Alex Hemsky - Edmonton Oilers - From the quick breakdown I saw of the set, there is a 100 card base set of regular sized cards, like this Hemsky card. I think you typically get 2 of these per pack. Pretty cool that the first card I pulled from a pack of this stuff was card #1.

#140 - Alex Goligoski - Pittsburgh Penguins - I believe the rookie cards are short-printed. Not a bad looking card, but I think I like the simple design of the base cards better. Goligoski did see a good deal of action with the Pens this year, but was recently sent down to their AHL affiliate.

#C141 - Paul Stastny - Colorado Avalanche - These mini cards were what really drew me to the set. They're roughly the same size as A & G minis. I'm pretty sure these fall two per pack as well, although I could be wrong about that.

#C332 - Cave Bear - Awesome. I'm a sucker for oddball cards. This one comes from the Natural History Collection subset, and it's a mini as well in case you couldn't tell. Some experts think the Cave Bear grew as large as 2,200 lbs. and most seem to agree that it went extinct somewhere around 27,000 years ago.

#97 - Vesa Toskala - Toronto Maple Leafs - My final card was one from the full-size set. I seem to pull Vesa Toskala cards in every product I buy, even products I seem to only pick up a pack or two of. Unfortunately for me I don't think this guy is in the picture for the Maple Leafs' future. I've watched 3 or 4 Leafs games this year where he started and have not been impressed.

I'm really liking this set. I may have to pick up a hobby box after all...

1995 Score Series 2

And on we go with my seemingly endless string of 50 cent packs. These sets are, by and large, all pretty much new to me because I lost interest in collecting after I graduated from high school in 1993. Let's see if I can opt in to the "4 Tier Chase Program" advertised on the wrapper.

390 - Dave Gallagher (According to the back of the card, Gallagher platooned with Ryan Klesko in left field in 1994. I wonder if he'll tell that to his grandchildren.)

401 - Cliff Floyd (Any guesses as to what Floyd just did in this photo?)
359 - Lenny Harris (Pinch-hit specialist and occasional reserve.)

385 - Chris Sabo (Wow, this isn't the Chris Sabo I know... knew. Who knew that Chris Sabo had a life after the Reds?)

336 - Kevin Mitchell Gold Rush (This is a one-per-pack parallel card. The foil is gold-ish and the background is faded and slightly chrome-ified. Mitchell hit 30 HRs in only 310 ABs in 1994.)

563 - Mo Vaughn Hitters Inc. (Wow, this is creepy.)

586 - Nate Minchey (This is what the Rookie cards look like. Minchey appeared in 15 games over 4 major league seasons.)

572 - Moises Alou (Still creepy.)
475 - Dave Magadan

508 - Scott Sanders (The backs of the cards are pretty nice looking by Score standards. Much better than the '96 cards, anyway.)
549 - Mike Huff
470 - Luis Sojo

No Cardinals in the pack, so any of these cards are up for grabs as usual.

1997 Topps Series 2

We're just hours away from the start of some college basketball tournament. For all the disinterested people out there, here's something that has nothing to do with basketball whatsoever. This is a pack of 1997 Topps that I got in a repack cube from some evil corporate giant store.

484 - Armando Benitez (I've only seen a few cards from this set and I haven't liked what I've seen. Upon further review, it's not the worst design I've ever seen, but it's certainly not great. I do like how the UV coating only extends to the borders of the picture frame and no further. The giant player names are pretty garish, though. And I always prefer it when cards show a player's position on the front.)
408 - Bill Pulsipher (Pulsipher made his way to the Cardinals minor league system but never got through it.)
409 - Jose Rosado (Another observation: these cards are extremely thin. They are thinner than any Topps set I've ever dealt with. I often complain internally that Topps cards these days are thin and frail, but I put this next to a 2009 card and it was noticeably skinnier. Flimsy.)

313 - C.J. Nitkowski (I'd never heard of the guy, but his name came scrolling across the bottom of the screen on ESPN awhile back in connection with Clemens/McNamee/etc. Apparently he plays in Korea now.)

SB15 - Rafael Palmeiro Season's Best Kings of Swing (Quite a shiny insert card we have here. Too bad it isn't someone more likeable.)
361 - Bobby Jones
311 - Rocky Coppinger

388 - Dennis Eckersley (I'm guessing a good number of baseball fans did not know that Eckersley pitched for the Cardinals. That's okay, though. It was a hazy time for me, too.)
302 - Wendell Magee Jr. (Let's pretend this player is important. His name sounds important.)
391 - Mark Carreon

419 - Jeff Blauser (Unusual for a Topps set - there's a photo on the back of each card.)

1992 Action Packed Football

1991 Action Packed Football was the best football set ever. So when I found this sealed box of 1992 Action Packed on the 'bay for $1.75....... I pounced. Yes. Someone my size pounced. Quite the visual.
Remember Kids!!!

Shiny wrappers!

First card

John Elway QB Broncos

Erik Kramer QB Lions

Nick Bell RB Raiders

Terry Allen RB Vikings

Mark Ingram WR Giants (and we hate the Giants)

Rickey Reynolds CB Bucs (the popsicle uni's!!!)

I'm breaking the rest of the box over on Waxaholic... stop by and check it out.

2009 Topps Jumbo Pack!

Before we get to today's pack, I have a special announcement. Now, I normally wouldn't shamelessly promote my blog like this, but I have free cards to give away. Free baseball cards. Free basketball cards. In today's economy (tm), that's called a win-win situation. Go here to find out why I am bothering you before I post the contents of a baseball card pack here. All you have to do is fill out one of those ubiquitous NCAA tournament brackets.

Now that the little... unpleasantness... is out of the way, let's check out some baseball cards. This was the first Topps jumbo pack I bought this year. It's just plain old basic Topps, but I think they have really put together a solid base product this year so far.

136 - Tim Hudson

193 - Zack Greinke (There's something to be said for a crisp, straight-forward portrait on a baseball card. Zack looks kinda ticked off, though.)
37 - Erick Aybar
211 - Ryan Rowland-Smith (In the Mariners disasterous 2008 season, this Aussie was asked to do just about everything. He made 12 starts in 47 appearances, saved two games and put up respectable numbers in the process.)

122 - Joe Mather (Mather seems to have the 3B job locked down until Troy Glaus gets back.)
155 - Roy Halladay (The ace of one of my fantasy team's staff for something like 3 or 4 years running.)
81 - Ryan Howard / Adam Dunn / Carlos Delgado NL Home Run Leaders
43 - Joe Mauer / Dustin Pedroia / Milton Bradley AL Batting Average Leaders (During a fit of computer trouble, Yahoo saw fit to draft Joe Mauer for me, and now I'm stuck deciding whether or not to dump him. Pedroia's commercial for some PS3 game is annoying and Milton Bradley is no longer in the AL.)

4 - Chipper Jones / Albert Pujols / Matt Holliday NL Batting Average Leaders

115 - George Sisler (At the time that I got this, I didn't know how tough these short print things were to get. And I had already pulled a couple of Mickey Mantles, so I didn't realize that his card wasn't special but this one was. I'm trying to decide whether or not to sell this card on eBay.)
TTT22 - Tim Lincecum Topps Town
97 - Willie Harris
108 - Alcides Escobar (RC)

194 - Jeremy Guthrie (Sometimes pictures just have to tell the story.)
306 - Javier Vazquez (Hopefully his transition to the NL goes well, because I drafted the guy.)
29 - Jerry Hairston (Went from "I can't believe this guy gets paid to play Major League Baseball just because his dad was some unheralded ex-player" to "wow, he hit .326 and stole a few bags in part-time duty" last year)
33 - Jose Guillen (I'm not sure what he's pointing at, but it's kinda funny. I didn't scan the card, though, so I might have to save it for another post.)
142 - Brad Penny
156 - Carlos Pena
76 - Marcus Thames
213 - Jeremy Sowers
210 - Geovany Soto (Currently stealing ABs and face time from Yadier Molina for Team Puerto Rico.)
328 - Doug Alphabet
260 - Manny Ramirez (What's the over/under on the first date he runs out a ground ball this season? June 3rd?)

153 - Lastings Milledge (Everything you've heard about the improved photography from Topps this season is absolutely true.)
163 - Ross Gload

LG12 - Mel Ott Legends of the Game

121 - Greg Golson (RC) (In no way does the subject of this photo represent a Major League baseball player.)
137 - Angel Salome (RC)
144 - Matt Tuiasosopo (RC) (My girlfriend thinks it's hilarious when I say Tuiasosopo outloud. When you come from Pac-10 football country, it just rolls off the tongue.)
237 - Aaron Cunningham (RC) (Never heard of the guy until right now. I guess he has a generic name.)
236 - Kelly Johnson (Still a Brave, right?)
198 - Conor Jackson
277 - Asdrubal Cabrera

2 - Omar Vizquel (A final Topps stats-on-the-back tribute to Omar Vizquel, a fine example of a shortstop. Wait... Omar didn't retire? What are they thinking?!)
57 - Jo-Jo Reyes