Last Pack/Best Set of 2009

Last pack of the year, last post of the year, last anything of the year, as soon as I'm done typing this I'm going to bed. I've thought it over very carefully and I think I've finally chosen a set of the year:

Allen & Ginter and Goodwin Champions are right up there with it, but I chose Topps206 for two reasons:

1) It's an all baseball set. I like the oddballs in my retro sets, but there's a purity to this set I find refreshing.

2) The short printed cards are variations that are technically outside the base set. This means that f I want to complete this set I could just go with the 1-300 base cards and call it a day. As someone with neither the time or the ca$h to be chasing a bunch of shorties, I appreciate this a lot.

So there it is, my set of the year even though I don't do award thingys on this blog. Let's open the last pack of '09 in its honor.

260 Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller either suffers from cripping social anxiety disorder or Topps is overusing the hell out of this pose. This is the 4th or 5th card where he's peeping over his glove.

64 Corey Hart

I tried so hard not to do this, really I did, but I can refrain no longer.

Corey Hart: Sunglasses at Night

(why the hell can't I embed a crappy Corey Hart video? Seriously WTF YouTube?)

198 Brad Nelson RC

Brad's a big 'ol dude playing first for the Brewers. I think they have one of those already. This is Brad's rookie card, but he made his debut in '08. Since Brad is hopelessly blocked at first, he played in the OF last year in his September callup.

282 Ian Kinsler Piedmont mini

This card is why I collect cards. Just look at how cool this is. THE BALL'S IN THE GLOVE!

Also: this. Topps nailed this card.

Phil Hughes Auto Redemption

Have you ever seen a miscut redemption card before? Wild and wacky schtuff. Is it just me or are there a bunch of redemptions in this set?

262 Tommy Hanson RC

PPPPPBBBBTTTTHHHHTTTBBBTTTTTTHHHHH!!!!!

This card makes me grin like an idiot.

Mantle Checklist 5 of 7

Ending the year on a Mick. I'm tempted to check this checklist just out of principle.

There it is, so long crappy 2009 and hello awesome 2010! Happy happy everbody!

Eternal Optimism Pays Off

I knew he was coming back...

I never even took his RSS feed off my iGoogle page.

Confirmed by Facebook, Tribe Cards and Stale Gum...

The Baseball Card Blog is Coming Back.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go behold the greatest post ever in all of cardbloggery.

I want to get High

NO NO NO.

Topps Heritage High.

Number Series.

Presented by:

TOPPS

2009 Baseball

Updates & Highlights.

Major League Baseball

6 Heritage High Number Cards + 2 Updates & Highlight cards + 1 Stick of Bubble Gum.

Packs with a relic card contain 7 cards.

Patent Pending.

Here's a pack to open you pothead degenerates. Do cards, not drugs!

633 Tony Gwynn

Cool stat on the back: Tony's 1st hit was 24 years to the day after his dad's first. Sadly I dinged up this card pretty badly with my keys. D'oh!

653 Nyjer Morgan

That DC on the helmet is pretty slick. If Liberty Media ever move the Braves to Bermuda for a tax dodge shelter I might have to become a Nats fan just for the swag.

533 Carl Pavano

fdgakjndf

No, really. fdgakjndf just about sums it up.

Abominations to the Lord

Get this CRAP outta my Heritage!!!

Actually the Masterson throwback uni is pretty slick, it just doesn't belong in my pack of Heritage.

CHR180 Brett Gardner Chrome 1361/1960

A lot of people on the Braves Beat blog were hoping for this guy instead of Melky in the Vazquez trade. I don't understand what Atlantans got against Melky. Melky's a good player dammit! Also: I know bupkis about Gardner.

519 Bud Norris RC

Of Bud, I know nothing. Bud looks like he may be familiar with the Bud, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN AND I THINK YOU DO

583 Garrett Jones

I JUST saw this card on another blog and I wasn't paying attention enough to glean any info on this dude out of it so I could be able to write something coherent about him here. This is the problem with Heritage High: I DON'T KNOW WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE. Now, you could say this is a me problem and not a Topps problem, but I'm not the one selling nobodies for the same price as regular Heritage with two less cards in the pack. BRING BACK BOWMAN HERITAGE! Or Topps Total. Either one works for me.

I'M YELLING AND I DON'T KNOW WHYYYYYYY

Peachy O-Pee-Chee

Here's pack two of my massive Wal Mart haul. I just realized that if I am going to just post packs for the rest of the year, I have no pack for New Year's eve. Guuuuuuh. O-Pee-Chee is another set I really liked this year. Boxes are cheap as dirt right now, maybe I should sell some plasma and pick one up.

420 John Lackey

Someone remind me... Did the Yankees or Red Sox sign this dude? (had to be one of them)

550 Jonathan Papelbon Moments black parallel

Oh goody... a parallel of a double printed subset. The borders are all dinged up to boot.

571 Scott Elbert RC mini

I do like the minis in this set. I get warm fuzzy memories of '75 Topps minis. A blurb on the back of Scott's card caught my eye:

"Considered one of the best pitching prospects in the Minor Leagues as far back as 2006"

Being considered a great pitching prospect 3 years ago is not necessarily a good thing. Elbert looks like he might have a future in L.A. though.

528 Phillies Team Checklist

Wooooo! A checklist card of Citizens Bank Park. Every set collector's dream. Thanks to parallels half the pack consisted of various incarnations of the one per pack 'short print' cards (which are actually statistically easier than the base cards to pull).

223 Chris Iannetta

Gotta love the full catcher's gear. Chris still ain't as good as McCann.

251 AJ Burnett

Yet another big-money Yankee pitcher. Ho Hum.

Upper Deck U ad card

I feel sort of bad for not only completly ignoring the Topps and Upper Deck online amusement parks this year, but also for not even bothering to share the codes with someone who might be able to use it. Here you go, have a pack code.

Enjoy your UDU Code experience!

Pack O' Obak

Christmas well and truly kicked my ass, so I'm going to be lazy 'till 2010 and just post some packs. I got no cards for Christmas (although I might use a gift card towards some eventually) but I picked up three retro packs from Wally World yesterday. I had planned to snag a Topps206 blaster, but some cretin appears to have bought them all. I was going to be the cretin to buy all the Topps206, dammit!

Christmas shoppers completely demolished the card aisle at Wally World. The blasters were more or less ok, but all the gravity feed containers for the loose packs were a random mix of pretty much every type of pack that had been sold there over the past 12 months. I found a Topps Heritage High pack in the Upper Deck Football feeder. Four packs of O-Pee-Chee were in the top of a Score football box. Allen & Ginter and American Heritage jumbo packs were shoved in a basketball feeder. These Obak cards were in the Spongebob box. I even saw a rogue Obama pack floating around. I bet I could have found some vintage packs from the '70s had I dug deep enough. I'm glad I finally found the Obak, this set has grown on me like mildew.

50 Arnold "Jigger" Statz

My favorite thing about Obak are the old timers. Here's five factoids about Arnold.

1) He played for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League.

2) The PCL Angels had nothing to do with Anaheim and were affilliated with the Chicago Cubs.

3) Arnold played 8 years in the bigs with the Chicago Cubs, New York Giants, Boston Red Sox and Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers).

4) Arnold played 18 years in the PCL and has the record for most hits with 3,356.

5) The man's nickname is Jigger. Seriously, Jigger.

30 Josh Vitters

Josh is a highly ranked Cubs prospect and may very well be the Cubs' only high ranked prospect judging from the amount of times his name pops up on MLBTradeRumors.com. This card has an odd stormy background which made me wonder if it was a variation of some sort. After some research I found the checklist has plenty of variation cards, but Vitters' ain't one of them.

NNO Rollie Zeider mini

Sweet! A 1909 original card reprint! Tristar 'forgot' to number these cards, but I'm guessing that this was on purpose. I've become so cynical and jaded, haven't I? Here's a pic of the original Rollie. I'm not going to do the research right now, but Rollie might just be the only player who ever played for Chicago's American league, National league and Federal league teams.

87 Abner Powell

Another old timer. Abner looks like a refugee from a Mack Sennett comedy. He's actually an unheralded innovator of the game, responsible for rain checks, ladies' day and the infield tarp. If it weren't for this guy, we would never have had this.

97 John Heisman

Heisman was the president of the Atlanta Crackers?!?!! (Yes, that's this Heisman) This might be the best card in the set. Heisman is better known for his football exploits, including the infamous 222-0 whoooping Georgia Tech put on Cumberland.

DAMMIT now I'm going to have to find a box of this stuff. And I don't mean a blaster.

The challenge of an incomplete page #1

Aaaah, the thrill of the chase.


(I told you I was putting Bronze cards in the binder)

Holiday Lazies

I was going to do a Blaster break of Topps206, but I'm too lazy. In my defense, between family and job, this Christmas was a lot of work. Here are four cards from the rip that caught my eye instead.

But first, the reason why Topps206 blasters are better than hobby boxes...

Mini sized mini cards that you can cut off the box! The Lou Gehrig mini had Howard's card encroach on his border a bit, but Lou looks pretty jacked up on that card anyway so no biggie.

Tommy Hanson goes full Bumgarner on his Topps206 rookie card. Never go full Bumgarner. I'm kind of peeved that I'm going to have to track down his short print to get a Topps206 card of him where he doesn't look ridiculous.

There can never be enough cards of Campy. The sunset horizon adds to the greatness of this card. A lumber yard full of bats don't hurt either.

I don't care what anyone says, I like the bronze cards. They look nifty and I'd rather have these to fill out holes in my set than have to chase another decoy card insert set on my current paltry card budget. Yes I'm putting bronze cards in my set binder. At least until I get a base card to replace it. I'm cheap like that. The Howard closeup in full swing is a pretty neat photo choice.

Poor Hunter looks bewildered. Kind of how I feel right now as I realize I'm blogging at 11:00pm when I'm frikkin' exhausted and ready to pass out. ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Three

What a poor, naive, unorganized, geeky obsessed fanboy I was.

Oh wait, I'm still like that.

Maybe this year I'll get my act together!

(nah)

Merry Christmas!

Frank Wren left a present under the tree!


Everybody out there have a Merry Christmas! Unless you don't celebrate Christmas, then have a Happy Friday!

Here's Stan Lee reading The Night Before Christmas for all those of good cheer...

And the true meaning of Christmas for all the Grinches!

Happy Merry, ever'body!

The Twelve Days of Cardmas - Day 12

On the twelfth day of Cardmas, my true love gave to me.....

Twelve Murderous Monkeys

(go buy these, they're cool)
(ESPECIALLY these)

Eleven Helmar Minis

Ten Framey Mojos

Nine Baseball Movies

Eight '90s Inserts

Seven Comic Books

Six Braves (in 30)

FIIIIIIIIVE L. A. KIIIIINGS

Four Mayo Inserts

Three World on Wheels,

Two Baby Bulls

and The Most Awesome Card in All of History.
Merry Christmas everyone!
(don't worry folks, the tiger and snake fought to a draw and went out for tapas afterward)