Pack 21:
76 Ivan Rodriguez
71 Jarrod Washburn
97 Clint Sammons RC
269 James Loney
216 Ryan Garko
20 Daisuke Matsuzaka
YR11 Craig Monroe Year In Review
187 Dustin McGowan
David Wright TotC
31 Ronny Paulino
75 Felix Hernandez
Oh well, after the heady excitement of getting four All-Star rookies in a row, I come crashing back down to earth with a continuity insert. The cards are 18 billion times better than Generation Now and I'm sure a lot of people will be collecting the set, but they make me sleepy. I am writing this at 12:30pm, so it may not be the cards. I need to scan the checklist for Braves. There should at least be a "Braves Bullpen blows 19th win for Tim Hudson" card in there somewhere. If our bullpen had been worth a shit at any time in the past two years, Huddy and Smoltz would have won 27 more games. Each. Per year. Clint Sammons is nice, but he lost any shot at a backup catching job when the Braves signed Javy Lopez. Pudge's card is the first Tiger not photoshopped to death. The Tiger fans bundled up in Eskimo parkas in the stands is a nice touch. The McGowan card is actually a Gold Foil. I went through the pack three times before I caught that. I have my first damaged card in the box, James Loney has a nice divot in the side. This pack also has my first meaningless Dice-K card. It feels nice to no longer have to deal with the hype. Daisuke and King Felix fight for "Best 'O' Face" honors in the pack.
Pack 22:258 Manny Ramirez & Kevin Youkilis Classic Combos
56 Seth Smith RC
63 Jason Michaels
306 Scott Olsen
262 Brett Myers
299 Cesar Iztruris
C08-BO Barack Obama Campaign 2008
Rookie Cup ad
283 Jorge Sosa
226 Kurt Suzuki
267 Chris Burke
Obama! Pulled right after he swept the caucuses this weekend, sweet. I guess there's another candidate card in pack 24. Maybe I'll pull a Hillary and they can fight. I'd almost forgotten about these cards to be honest. Manny and Youkilis high five each other after a home run. There are stats on the back but for some reason under "club" there is an asterisk instead of the team name and underneath that it says "*Played with Boston". Why not just put Boston instead of the asterisk? Wow, I didn't realize Manny had 490 homers. Rest of the pack is boring. The Kurt Suzuki card perplexes me though. Shouldn't he have a RC logo? He was a rookie last year... I guess he might have had a card put out in 2007 though. I know he had a super short printed rookie in 2004 that probably helped prompt the RC rules in the first place. It was in something like Fleer Hot Prospects, it was released way after the beginning of the year and it was serial numbered to 500 or something so you had no shot of getting this guy's only rookie card. Then they put Kurt on the wrapper just to piss you off. Kurt looks like a member of the leprechaun riot squad with all that green catcher's gear on.
Pack 23:227 Alfredo Amezaga
35 Cole Hamels
218 Clint Hurdle
197 Melky Cabrera
48 Zach Duke
273 Rafael Soriano
YR8 Scott Kazmir Year In Review
108 peeling Gold Foil B.J. Ryan
Checklist 3
253 Bronson Sardinha RC
68 Kevin Millar
This is the pack that finally put me to sleep. Not even BMF could keep me awake enough to rip another pack.Let's go down the pack shall we? Amezaga went crazy with the eye black like he was John Randle or something. As a Braves fan, Cole Hamels scares the crap out of me. Yay, a manager. Melky is a great name. Someone force the Pirates to trade Zach Duke before they kill yet another young arm. This cat Soriano is one bad mother- Shut your mouth! But I'm talking 'bout Sori! Then we can dig it! Kazmir insert, sweeeeeet. Now, I don't technically mind the Gold Foil inserts, but this one of BJ Ryan has foil mange. The Topps logo is flaking off the thing. 23 packs in, and I have 2 sets of checklists. Time to start marking one of them. Anyone remember the Beavis and Butthead episode where they made fun of The Beastie Boys' Sabotage? Remember how Beavis said "Vincent Gardenia"? That's how my brain insists on pronouncing Bronson Sardinha. Sardinha! Heh Heheheh. Kevin Millar looks like he's about to go SCUBA diving. He'll probably beat the crap out of a shark with that donut-weighted bat too.
Pack 24:251 Dan Johnson
12 Jason Bartlett
323 NL Saves Leaders - Jose Valverde, Francisco Cordero & Trevor Hoffman
203 Jason Tyner
133 Mike Bacsik
85 Jason Bay
C08-DK Dennis Kucinich Campaign 2008
329 Lou Piniella
212 Moises Alou
163 Doug Davis
Oh well, no John McCain or Hillary to fight it out with Obama. This is an odd looking photo too, there's a weird Yin/Yang thing going on with the colors. Topps should have used a photo with him and his wife, it would be the hottest card out of the set. Jason Bay - Comeback Player of the Year 2008. Write it down. Looking at the back of the Save leaders shows that Jose Valverde, Francisco Cordero, Takashi Saito, David Weathers and Kevin Gregg saved a combined 195 games last year. Hands up who picked them in your fantasy draft? Liars. Mike Bacsik, the fink, gets his own card for being infamous. Finally Lou Piniella looks like a big blue slug. Oh wait, Lou Piniella IS a big blue slug, my bad. The next four packs have got to be better than these.
The box so far:Base cards - 200
Checklists - 6
Dupes - 0
Parallels:
Gold Foil - 12
Gold #/2008 - 4
Inserts:
Own The Game - 4 - Howard, Webb, Penny & Berkman
Mantle Home Runs - 2 - 531, 533
Mantle History - 2 - 48, 49
Trading Card History - 2 - Santana, Mauer, Okajima & Votto
All Rookie Team - 2 - Anderson, Willis, Zimmerman, Powell, Ellis & Francoeur
Year in review - 2 - Everett, Reyes, Kazmir & Monroe
Campaign 2008 - 2 - Obama & Kucinich
2 comments:
Keep rubbing it in for those of us that can't buy any 08 Topps yet because be live in the country and the closest thing to a card store is the local Walmart.
Dude, boxes are all over the internet. Plus they are also 10-15 buck less than they were charging at the local shop...
Plus this way it's like vicariously ripping a box. On my dime, yet.
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