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Friday, February 8, 2008

2008 Topps Box Break - Packs 9-12


Pack 9:
284 Lance Broadway RC
179 Chris Young Postseason Highlights
190 Russell Martin
224 Mark Buehrle
268 Daric Barton RC
194 Chad Billingsley
298 Gold NL Home Run Leaders, Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard & Adam Dunn #0989/2008
122 Jason Varitek
52 Trevor Hoffman
118 Marco Scutaro

Not a whole lot to say about this pack. There's a few stars in the pack though. Russell Martin helped me win a fantasy baseball championship last year. The league was on CBS Sportsline, who had a weird drafting setup. You had to choose a position to pick in each round and the draft would autopick off the rankings on that position. I set catcher to pick in round 2, hoping to get Brian McCann. I about blew a gasket when I got Russell instead. I had no idea a catcher could get 20 steals in this day and age. Varitek is an alum of the Georgia Tech teams that are loaded with stars but can't seem to get it done in the College World Series. I still can't believe what happened to Trevor Hoffman in that playoff last year. Daric Barton looks like a keeper. I got the first Gold card of the box, a killer league leader card with Prince, Howard and Dunn. Scutaro's got some nifty shades.

Pack 10:
65 Billy Wagner
217 Josh Beckett Postseason Highlights
98 Classic Combos
235 Rich Harden
2 Barry Zito
228 Geoff Blum
YR9 Adam Everett Year in Review
113 Gold Foil Kevin Frandsen
David Wright TotC ad
90 Vladimir Guerrero
313 Kameron Lowe

Argh, dirty Met card. I have no problems hating Billy Wagner since he's been a big pain in the Braves' ass ever since his days with the Astros. The Beckett card is cool, he made a blowout in game 1 of the World Series compelling with that amazing pitching performance. Why couldn't Colorado have won one lousy game so we could see Josh pitch one more time. Vlad is a beast and just murdered a ball with the swing on this card. Here's the first continuity card from the box, and it's an eight thousand percent improvement over the GenNow cards from last year. The highlight on the card is insane though. Adam Everett set the Astros career home run mark for a shortstop with thirty-four? There's no way that can be right, can it? He beat Dickie Thon for the record. Heh heh. Dickie Thon. Ryan Howard and Chase Utley are two awesome ballplayers, but their Classic Combo card is boring as mud. David Wright Class card count: 3.

Pack 11:
110 Justin Morneau
249 Chris Sampson
161 Matt Garza
14 Jerry DiNardo
173 Jamie Moyer
294 Brian McCann
217 Gold Josh Beckett Postseason Highlights #0111/2008
Rookie Cup ad
70 Dan Uggla
157 Tim Redding
37 Jason Marquis

Brian McCann in full catcher's gear. Awesome. The second Gold card hits here and it's the Beckett World Series card I got last pack. Jamie Moyer barely has enough room for his stats on the back of his card. A couple more years in Philly and he'll need two cards. Dan Uggla hit 31 homers last year? I did not know that. MVP Justin Morneau looks like his .271 average is the norm instead of the .321 he hit in '06.

Pack 12:
206 Geoff Jenkins
112 Jacque Jones
7 Mickey Mantle
285 Tony LaRussa
91 Marcus Giles
199 Adrian Beltre
YR6 Jose Reyes
77 Gold Angel Guzman
Checklist 3
314 Ian Kinsler
9 Randy Wolf

Mickey! That's a fine looking Mantle card. I keep looking for Spiro Agnew in the stands though. Jose Reyes shows up in a continuity card hitting triples from both sides of the plate. It looks like the pattern for the rest of the box will be to pull two of the same insert twice in each of these 4 packs as you go down the box. This is why the local hobby shop mixes up packs when he opens a new box. You can learn a lot from stats. One thing I learned from the back of Adrian Beltre's card is that he will never, ever, ever have another season like he did in 2004. What the hell happened to Marcus Giles. I didn't realize he hit .229 last year. No wonder he signed a minor league deal.

The box so far:

Base cards - 100
Checklists - 3
Dupes - 0

Parallels:
Gold Foil - 6
Gold #/2008 - 2

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
Year in review - 2 - Everett & Reyes

3 comments:

Kevin said...

Yeah, Peter Angelos gets a lot of shit from Orioles fans (myself included) for meddling with the team, but that proposed LaRoche + Giles for Hayden Penn and Brian Roberts deal that he vetoed last year would have been a disaster. The week after the trade died, Atlanta released Marcus! No wonder Angelos dumped Duquette and Flanagan.

Wax Heaven said...

Wow, that Mantle is hot. I want it! I better pull the Gold when I bust a box!

Bay Rat North West said...

You dare mock the Great Dickie Thon? The man who was Biggioing before Biggioing was cool? The original dual threat of the 80's for the Astros. I don't blame you.