2009 Upper Deck Blaster Insert Review

All righty then. I finally picked up my blaster of 2009 Upper Deck. I hate to say it, but I like this set a hell of a lot better than 2009 Topps and I actually really like Topps. 500 card base set? Full bleed borders? Twice as many insert sets as Topps? Frickin ALIENS? Yeah. drooling Topps fanboi here likes '09 Upper Deck better. What a revoltin' development. You don't care about my existential angst though, you just wanna see the cards.

This bizarre spiky haired anime looking kid is all over the packaging. On the front, on the side, on the wrappers, he's everywhere. The box has ten packs in it with 8 cards each. Like the hobby packs, the wrappers all have a code inside them for the Upper Deck U site. So one blaster = 10 codes. If you want to play the games or whatever on UDU, blasters are a good value. Inside the box the pack with the guaranteed jersey card was over by itself on one side. Now that know that actual people pack out these things I am now curious if putting the hit pack by itself is company policy or just the personal preference of Earleen J. McGillicuddy, Blaster Packer Outer #47.

Hey look! Cards on the side of the box! I love cutting out cards on the side of the box! Ok, so they're just examples of the 20th Anniversary cards. I can dream of cards on the bottom of wax boxes, can't I? Besides, I don't remember that Desert Shield card being on the other boxes. Maybe they're different? Maybe I can collect them all?!? No, it's too good to be true. I just didn't notice Upper Deck using a card of a war in Iraq to promote their flagship set on the other boxes. It's a pretty obvious choice actually. At least they didn't use something wildly unpopular like A-Rod. Boy Howdy, what a disaster that would have been!

I'm going to do this box break a little differently. Every single pack had an insert in it. As a matter of fact, every single pack had a different insert in it. Plus 7 base cards (except for the pack with the hit in it), but I'm not going to get into them right now. Instead, let's go over all these wild and wacky inserts. We'll start with the StarQuest cards which were in half the packs in the box.

Pack 8:
SQ-8 David Ortiz StarQuest Blue Uncommon
Pack 4:
SQ-4 Chipper Jones StarQuest Gold Rare
Pack 2:
SQ-11 Hanley Ramirez StarQuest Emerald Super Rare
Pack 9:
SQ-9 David Wright StarQuest Black Ultra Rare
What are the odds that I would get four different kinds of StarQuest cards in one box? Unless there's a StarQuest Plaid Ludicrous Rare card out there somewhere I think I got 'em all. The blue Uncommon cards look black to me, but maybe they're a midnight blue or navy. I got two of them in the box including one more in the hit pack. The Gold Rare cards actually look gold and in my opinion are the best looking ones of the bunch even though they don't have the shiny holo foil like the next two cards. The Super Rares look really green and the black Ultra Rares (bring back Fleer Ultra ya bastids!) look black. There's no telling how rare is Ultra Rare since once again Upper Deck doesn't deem us proles worthy of insert ratios on the packs. I'm guessing they are not easy, but not impossible either. Of course this leads to the question: where the heck are the Common StarQuests? I have no idea, but here is my wild theory: Remember how last year First Edition had those shamrock green StarQuest cards just in time for St. Patrick's Day that were the same as the normal StarQuest cards, just really really green? I'm going to guess that instead of putting common StarQuests one per pack in Upper Deck, they put them all in First Edition instead. That way Upper Deck gets the cool funky StarQuest colors like, um, black and First Edition gets the common SQs that people can actually build a set with. I have no idea if this is actually the case, but that's what I think will happen. Didja notice I got Chipper? WOOOOOOOOO!

Pack 1:
GG-RB Stars of the Game Ryan Braun

This card is way shinier than it appears. The bits that look puke green are actually gold with a holographic shine on them. It looks a lot better in person, let's just say that. I've seen this ZAP design somewhere before though. I want to say a Donruss product, maybe? Someone help me out here, sleep deprivation has killed my memory.

Pack 3:
OPC-37 Magglio Ordonez O-Pee-Chee sort of retro

It's not exactly like the original '75s but it's close enough for government work. They're a lot closer than the UD '70s Decade set that originally ripped off 1975 Topps. Plus the back isn't that horrible red and green unreadable combination. I'll probably do a post one of these days comparing the originals with the fakes as long as five other blogs don't do the same thing in the meantime.

Pack 5:
248 Cincinnati Reds 20th Anniversary

You know, this 2500 card set is catching a lot of flack. Probably deservedly so. However, every time I see one of the cards posted online I usually can think of at least one collector out there that would scream OH MAH GAWD I WANT THAT CARD as soon as they lay eyes on it. I'm sure all the Reds fans out there will be pestering me for this.

Pack 6:
18U-JB Jake Barrett 18 and Under USA Baseball

What the hell? This kid was born in 1991! I was in COLLEGE in 1991! A kid born the year I went to college isn't allowed to be in a baseball card set! That means I'm an old geezer! Damn you Upper Deck for turning me into an old fart before my time!!! OH NO now I've got the gout. Just up and got the gout the moment I opened this pack because I'm so damn old now. I'm now an old fogey with gout and bad lumbago and senile dementia because Upper Deck had to put someone born the same year I was a freshman in college into a baseball card set at least 6 years before he'll even have the longest of longshots at making a Major league roster. Get off my lawn, Upper Deck!

Inexplicably, these cards have gold foil stamping on them while the rest of the set has silver.

Pack 7:
YSL9702 Alex Rodriguez Yankee Stadium Tedium

BAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRFFFFFFFF

I'm ditching all these damn things as soon as I can figure out what I did with 'em. Babe and Yogi I'll keep, the rest are up for grabs. Eric gets the Pettittes, Steve gets the Yankees vs. White Sox and one of the gals from A Cardboard Problem (I forgot who is collecting the set) gets whatever they need out of what's left. Everyone else put your claims in, 'cause I'm done with these annoyances.

Pack 10 AKA 'The Hit"
2 base cards
SQ-13 Josh Beckett StarQuest Blue Uncommon
Upper Deck U Ad Card

They're really pushing this aren't they... Too bad it's not even online yet.

HP-7 Historic Firsts Predictors

You see, I'm not sure about this set. I love the hell out of the Alien card, but last year's predictors were at least funny. I mean, what have we got here...

College Football Adopts a Playoff System

BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!

*gasp*

AAAAAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!

College Playoff. Yeah right. That'll happen when the College Presidents and the greedy bastards in the NCAA give up all that loot they're getting under the table. I.E. When it's pried from their cold dead crooked moneygrubbing hands. The back even insinuates that President Obama will have the justice department put the squeeze on the colleges to institute a playoff. You know, once Barack has a little free time after keeping the entire global financial system from crashing and burning. And winning two wars with his bare hands. And fighting Rush Limbaugh to the death. Naked. In a pit of Jello. Lime jello. With pinapple chunks in. This set is pretty damn funny after all!

Ok, I've drug this out long enough. All you vultures want to see is the hit. Show me the hit! Base cards are for composting! Where's that mojo! Ok, here it is:

GJ-CD Chris Duncan Game Jersey/Auto #16/99

Hmmm. Not bad. The card looks pretty damn good, this is how to use a sticker auto. That looks more like Chris Snyder than Chris Duncan to me though. I looked at some of his other sigs on eBay and most of them have that odd squiggle in the last name so it's not another mix-up. I shouldn't look a gift blaster auto in the mouth though. I am now firmly convinced that the Upper Deck spies are trying to butter me up with autographs to get me to voluntarily submit to the New World Order before they have to resort to torture. Hello spies!

Well, I'd say that was one of the better blasters I could have picked out. AutoRelic AND Chipper? Can't beat that with a stick. Much better than that dog of a Mayo blaster I got. Blech. I'll show that off once I find a short print list for that set.

What's that you say?

Base cards?

You wanna know about base cards?

Really?

Well ok, then...

64 base cards in the box. (12.8%)
1 double (A.J. Pierzfbvitazriqhki)
1 Brave (Kelly Johnson)
4 RC logo cards
4 Team Leaders
2 Highlights
4 Team Checklists

Here's the top 3 base cards I pulled other than the Jeter and Mauer cards that I showed off already.

If there a law that every card that Russell Martin is on has to make him look like a complete badass? I'm getting tired of this. If Russell doesn't stop having cool cards than people are going to start thinking he's a better catcher than Brian McCann, which is JUST PLAIN WRONG.

Even though this might be Trevor Hoffman's last Padres card it's a pretty awesome one.

Ok, so I just like the car ad in the background on this one.

Honorable Mention:

This would have been my choice for most awesomest base card in the box were it not for the fact that Andre Ethier just scored on Molina. Than again, that makes this card extra awesome for Dodger fans.

Oh there was one more card I pulled that I forgot to show you.

Wooooooo! Ken Griffey Jr. buyback auto! What an amazing pull this would be if I hadn't cut if off the box. Hooray!