Pack 15:
307 Kelly Johnson
112 Corey Hart
17 Jimmy's All Stars
385 Geoff Jenkins
417 Nate Robertson
28 Ivan Rodriguez
42 black Jason Jennings
I love opening a pack and immediately seeing a Brave. The next card was not as nice though, I watched Corey Hart bop a homer off John Smoltz to beat us in a game last year. A quick question about the combo card - who the hell is Jimmy? The original card from '59 was "Danny's All-Stars" which was fine, because Danny Murtaugh was on the card. We could see for ourselves who Danny was. There is no Jimmy on this card and a Jimmy is not mentioned on the back. Is Jimmy the Pirates' Manager? Didn't they just fire their manager? Does anyone actually know who the manager of the Pirates is? The last Pirates skipper I can recall is Jim Leyland. I guess that's who they are talking about. Unless Ivan is a short print I don't know about, there's not much else in this pack. The airbrush job on Geoff Jenkins is spectacularly bad though. 1976 Traded series bad. I love it. Hey wait... is this another 7 card pack?
Set Completion - 22.6%Pack 16:
242 Huston Street
236 Mark Grudzielanek
39 Joe Mauer
88 Clay Buchholz RC
396 Joe Blanton
49 Bill Hall
NAP15 David Ortiz New Age Performer
332 black Howie Kendrick
Two more A's cards with mountains in the background. For those playing at home, Seattle Mariners card = cinderblock wall in the background, A's card = mountains. I guess Clay Buchholz is the big rookie from the set. He didn't get be be in the Rookie stars subset though. Joe Mauer unfairly gets the pink border although his cartoon is the funniest in the pack. Mark I-refuse-to-try-to-spell-his-last-name has a toon that could be construed as an 'adult' card by those with dirty minds. I pulled my first New Age Performer, the insert set that is usually my least favorite. This year's design is Green Burlap. It's better than the shotgun murder card I suppose.
Set Completion - 24%Pack 17:
10 Alex Rodriguez
184 Bronson Arroyo
144 JR Towles RC
140 Bronson Sardinha RC
378 Johnny Estrada
391 Ryan Zimmerman
92 Phil Hughes
NAP8 John Lackey New Age Performer
135 black Mitch Stetter
Well, I found my missing card. I got another New Age card, this time of Angels pitcher John Lackey. John is so boring that half the write up on the back is about Senators pitcher Camillo Pascual. I would have preferred a green burlap card of Camillo. Ok, so there's stuff about Gil Hodges on the back of the Ortiz card too. I guess the old-school references give a boost to this set, even if it is ugly. Not a bad pack at all. I got the A-Rod with a hideous orange border, a Zimmerman card with a snazzy looking yellow border and a handful of rookies. JR Towles looks shell-shocked on every card I've seen him on. I'm rootin for the guy though, especially after his goofy looking Bowman Heritage card from last year. How common a name is Bronson anyway? Charles Bronson really was that big a star in the 70's and 80's. Paul Kersey would shoot Arroyo's ass with that hippie haircut of his. Holy crap, I didn't know Bronson had Alzheimers, now I'm really sad. Johnny Estrada's card is a good argument for not airbrushing photos. The guy was traded from Milwaukee to New York in the offseason so Topps did the chop job on him. Thing is, he has already been cut by the Mets and signed by the Nationals, but here he is in a Mets uni he'll never wear.
Set Completion - Pack 18:
66 BJ Ryan
235 Roy Oswalt
77 Jonathan Broxton
33 Jose Lopez (argh)
412 Jason Bartlett
207 Dave Roberts
438 Kaz Matsui SP
372 black Ryan Howard Baseball thrills
Whoops, I just noticed that I already have the non-black version of the Howard thrills card. I also have the Stetter card. Time to revise my completion percentage. I finally pull another SP and it's Kaz Matsui. Roy Oswalt is nice though, he used to be my secret weapon in Fantasy leagues before anyone knew who he was. Now Aaron Harang is my secret weapon. The Jason Bartlett card is quite possibly the ugliest card in the history of cards. Everything about it is just terrible. I didn't see it the first time but there is someone making a really strange face on the Ryan Howard card.
Set Completion - 26.8%Pack 19:
156 Ace Hurlers
261 Livan Hernandez
326 Brian Roberts
158 Aaron Cook
355 Edgar Gonzalez
155 Johnny Damon
TN 6 Johhny Podres & Erick Bedard Then & Now
291 black Pitching Partners
Then & Now is my favorite insert set out of this product. I like the combination of old and new players. I don't understand why Podres is featured on this card though. The stat on the back is strikeouts per 9 innings and while Bedard led the league in that category, Johnny did not. He was actually sixth behind Herb Score, Don Drysdale, Sen. Jim Bunning, the aforementioned Camilo Pascual and Sad Sam Jones. Brooklyn based Topps must still be grateful to Johnny for that game in 1955. There are two other pitcher combos in the pack, a neat card of Brandon Webb and Jake Peavy and the black version of that sneaky looking Nationals combo. It looks like I hit a run of black duplicates. Rats. Livan Hernandes - bleecchh. Johnny Damon - bleecchh. Brian Roberts woulda been a Brave had stupid Peter Angelos kept his nose out of his GM's business. Edgar Gonzalez is the scruffiest looking man on the planet. And poor Aaron Cook... Not only does he have a hangdog look on his face, but the cartoon on the back has the caption " Aaron's had a rib removed to relieve blood clots" with an illustration of a very sad man lying in a hospital bed wistfully watching a baseball game on television. Bummer.
Set Completion - 28.0%The box so far:
140 different base cards (common, black back & SP's)
19 black backs
6 Short prints
2 Chrome
1 Flashback
1 News Flashback
2 New Age Performer
1 Then & Now
1 Buyback
1 auto redemption card
6 comments:
I must have missed it..... what was the buy back?
I opened a box and pulled a Andruw Jones bat card, it's up for trade!
"Jimmy's All-Stars" would refer to deposed manager Jim Tracy. This year's Pirate All-Stars will be "Johnny's All-Stars," assuming they don't change managers again before July.
i was hoping someone could help me out with this question i want to collect topps 2008 baseball( reg. set) but i'm not into inserts, parallells, foil.. etc... just the base set, does anyone know if the retail flow packs that have just 7 cards and a stick of gum just have base cards included, i'm thinking it might be cheaper and make more sense to buy maybe 2 boxes of flow packs i beleive its 24 packs per box, than it would be to buy 1 box of hobby of course (actually i'm thinking it might take 2 hobby boxes to maybe complete series 1). i've found flow packs for .99 each and i've seen prices for hobby box 36/packs for about $60.00 sure i'm going to get doubles, but with all the extra cards thrown into the hobby boxes don't i stand a better ,and maybe cheaper chance of completeing series 1 by buying 2 boxes of reatail flow packs, any info would be great thanks!
If you just want the set and no inserts, the best thing to do is not buy packs at all. Either buy a complete set on eBay or better yet, wait a few months and get a factory set. Unless you just like ripping the packs it is actually more expensive and more difficult to complete a set by ripping wax.
I'm not sure what a flow pack is exactly, are they a dollar apiece? If so you'll be spending $50 for that and $60 for the hobby box. You'll get 336 card in the flow packs and 360 in the hobby box. From personal experience I got 300 cards for the set in my box with no dupes. You buy 2 seperate boxes and you will more than likely be getting a lot of doubles.
Bottom line, if you just want the set, buy it online or buy the factory set. If you want to build it by ripping wax a Hobby box and trading for the 30 or so cards you need it the better way to go.
In 1989 I decided it was time to stop buying sets (like I had since the 1973 set) and put together with boxes. I'm now down to being 1 card away from Topps and about 10-30 away from the Donruss, Fleer and Score (fortunately, I bought the UD set). For the current sets unless you're addicted to pain and having 7 doubles of Frank DiPino, go with a set, whether hand collated or factory. The only sets I'll try to put together by hand now are those going backwards. I'm about 30 away from a 1972, 18 away from a 1971 and a 1964 and I just started a 1970.
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