Pack 5:257 Classic Combos - Austin Kearns & Dmitri Young
324 Jake Peavy NL Cy Young award winner
24 AL RBI Leaders - Rodriguez, Ordonez & Guerrero
60 Jose Reyes
309 Ryan Church
AR28 Garret Anderson 50th Anniversary All-Star Rookie Team
62 Gold Foil Rich Thompson RC
David Wright Topps of the Class
270 C.C. Sabathia
170 Scott Rolen
66 Brad Wilkerson
Well, it looks like I'm going to be pulling a Met in every third pack for the rest of the year. Can't complain though, it's a step in the right direction. Can someone explain to me why the Reds traded Austin Kearns again? And why the hell didn't they trade him to the Braves? I thought I was slick and found a no sig Peavy variation but then I realized that it was a Cy Young award card. Topps has got my mind messed up. The other Cy Young winner is in here as well, good 'ol Carsten Charles. If I haven't said it before now, I really like the backs of the cards. They continue the motifs from the front and have the same team color coding. I also like the baseball field behind the player name and the bold card numbering. Yeah, I actually notice this crap. I can't help it. The first leaders card I pulled has some heavy duty superstars on it. It looks good, I can't wait to get Chipper bookended by Holliday and Ramirez. I pulled the first 50th Anniversary Rookie card insert, this set will be collected heavily. Topps did't put a glossy coat on these cards so they have a slightly retro feel when compared to the rest of the pack. By retro, I mean 1993, but they do have a different feel to them. They are pretty dang nice though and at 1:5 packs will be easy to pull.
Pack 6:
134 Matt Stairs
105 Roger Clemens
207 Jeff Kent
260 Chad Cordero
49 Orlando Hernandez
MMS48 Mickey Mantle History
TCH13 Johan Santana Trading Card History - 1933 Delong
Topps All-Star Roookie ad
18 J.D. Durbin
182 Billy Buckner RC
80 Alex Rios
Ah, good 'ol Clemens. Picking up the torch from Barry as the most overexposed steroid soap opera. Maybe Allen & Ginter can have game-used gauze cards in this year's product for their DNA relic. El Duque is one of those Mets I can't bring myself to hate. Apparently Billy Buckner was just traded to the D-Backs, I missed that somehow. Two inserts in this pack which seems to be the norm assuming you count the Gold Foil parallels as an insert.Two good ones too, Johan and The Mick. The Mantle card confused me at first, I kept looking for the home run number. Nope, just a continuation of the Mantle History set. This card has a write up on the home run Mickey hit completely out of Comiskey park off of Billy Pierce in 1955. This history set is a pretty nice piece of work by Topps, it will be interesting to see how long they keep it up. He has cards up till the 1969 set, so they can milk it till 2012 if they want to. I got my first Topps Trading Card History card, which is going straight into the binder. This is the set I will be completing this year one way or another. I wish the back talked about the 1933 Delong set this card is pattered after instead of just another factoid about Johan though.
Pack 7:
120 Andruw Jones
160 Ben Sheets
247 Edgar Gonzalez
84 Brian Fuentes
279 Damion Easley
AR23 Dontrelle Willis 50th Anniversary All-Star Rookie Team
251 Gold Foil Dan Johnson
Checklist 2 of 3
151 Adam Loewen
156 Brandon McCarthy
271 Chad Tracy
ARGH. My heart. It HURTS. It Hurts like PAIN. I knew I was going to see a card of Andruw in a Dodgers uniform sooner or later, but I never really prepared myself for it. Ugh. Why didn't the Topps airbrush artists do this good a job on Mark Teixeira last year. Andruw in a muumuu would have helped me cope with this a little more easily. The Ben Sheets card helps dull the agony. The Dontrelle All-Rookie team card is very nice. This set would look great in pages. Pretty pedestrian pack otherwise, another useless Gold Foil card and a bunch of marks on the checklist.
Pack 8:
94 Bud Black
4 Rick Ankiel
19 Robinson Tejada
274 Jermaine Dye
246 Jason Isringhausen
MMS49 Mickey Mantle History
TCH10 Joe Mauer Trading Card History - 1941 Baseball Card
307 Shawn Hill
281 Carlos Ruiz
126 Brandon Jones RC
Brandon Jones Rookie! Aaaaawesome! Brandon will be fighting with Matt Diaz for playing time in left this year for the Braves. This might be the first card I have of Brandon unless there's a randon Bowman card floating around I forgot about. I'm not sure why Topps felt the need to airbrush out the Richmond Braves logo on his helmet. The poor Richmond Braves are getting airbrushed out of existence next year too. The Rick Ankiel card is pretty cool, I'm still amazed he was able to make it back as a slugger after the Braves ruined him in the playoffs. There's another Mantle/Trading Card History combo in the pack. Kind of weird since the Trading Card insert hits at 1:12 packs and the Mantles are 1:18. I guess I've got my two Mantle History hits for the box now. The back tals about Mickey's 100th home run. Did Mickey ever hit any doubles? Game Winning RBIs? A nice game-saving catch perhaps? Enough with the homers already. Joe Mauer is shown in a 1941 Play Ball design. Apparently Uxxxx Dxxxx has the name trademarked since it's called just a 1941 Baseball Card on the back. I wish Uxxxx Dxxx would just let Topps call the card a Play Ball on a freakin' history lesson. In return maybe Topps could let Uxxxx Dxxx do a non-bootleg 1969 O-Pee-Chee design. Let's get this done for series two people!
The box so far:
Base cards - 66
Checklists - 2
Dupes - 0
Parallels:
Gold Foil - 4
Inserts:
Own The Game - 2 - Howard & Webb
Mantle Home Runs - 2 - 531, 533
Mantle History - 2 - 48, 49
Trading Card History - 2 - Santana & Mauer
All Rookie Team - 2 - Anderson & Willis
6 comments:
Hey, I like the card backs too. The best in recent memory, that's for sure! Truly top-notch.
BEAT LA!
I'm planning on picking up a couple of packs in the next few days. I called around to the card shops here and no one had them in yet.
did I miss the scan of the back? haven't seen them yet. I really like the simple appearance of these cards.
I scanned the card back for my pack rip on A Pack A Day. I'll post another one soon.
Kearns to Atlanta? Hmmmmmm. Let me see why not. Not enough over the hill middle infielders to last 20 games before injuries set in. No weak hitting, bad fielding infielders to use as future trade bait. No high E.R.A. middle innings pitchers that can easily be pawned off. Like Atlanta needed another great fielding outfielder who has some power and a good eye anyway. What would the with that? Freakin Jim Bowden.
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