WBC Redemption

(Originally scheduled for 9/7/09)

MY WBC REDEMPTION CARD BETTER BE HERE TODAY GODDAMNIT

Oh, well lookie here, it is!

This came over the weekend. I saw Tristar Fullfullment on the return address and began to hope that it was my Jesse Ventura Feather Boa relic, but alas, it was only my WBC redemption card. I wonder if the reason Topps is taking so long with Jesse is that I've whined so much about really wanting a feather boa relic (and I want it SO BAD) that they're trying to track down a feather boa to put in the card to shut me up? Well they knocked out the WBC redemption a month and a half early so I should cut 'em some slack. Here's my card:

Jin Young Lee Chrome refractor. Looks pretty good! Too bad I don't know who Mr. Lee is. I don't even remember who won the WBC now that I come to think of it. The refractor is really purdy though. Thanks Topps! You did good on this one! I'm still not buying any more of your base set this year after the Black Border debacle, but Good Job on this!

(note to all who were waiting all weekend to see what I meant about the 2009 Topps - get your wantlists ready. That is all for now.)

My Mistake

"Unfortunately Topps has helped by letting you know which blasters are which. How stupid! Now instead of multiple purchases to get the cards you know exactly which one."

I hit Wally World on my lunch break. Since Hand Collated stated that Topps told him the variation blasters were marked as such, I wanted to check 'em out and maybe walk out the store with one. The two black border Topps series 2 blasters were still there so I took a closer look.

I was wrong about them, there is a notification on the blasters. It's hard to tell the two apart at first glance, but there is a little black oval in the middle of the blaster stating that black border cards are inside.

Two packs of black border cards.

So instead of a full blaster of black border variation cards like in series one there's two packs of 'em. About 12 black border cards per box instead of 60. So if you like the black borders better and wanted to build a set of them instead of the normal base cards, you will now be spending over five times as much on blasters if you chose to do so. Which you might have thought about doing if you already invested heavily in series one black border blasters building that set. and if you bought up a bunch of white botrder blasters planning to buy the black bordered ones when they came out, well, now you just got a whoooooole lot of white border doubles if you do so. Nice one Topps. Yep, I made a mistake.

My mistake was buying a single pack of 2009 Topps base cards and not just going with the factory set like I planned.

I'm tired of being jerked around. I'm tired of having the rug pulled out from under me by some new gimmick every time Topps releases a series of their base set. Even though I have been building Topps sets since 1981 and have at least 10% of every damn set they've put out since 1951 I'm officially completely utterly sick of the Topps base set now and I'm not wasting any more of my money on it. I'd rather waste my money on Heritage or Goudey or A&G or O-Pee-Chee or Goodwin because while they are difficult to build gimmicky messes, at least they're not annoying difficult to build gimmicky messes. 2009 Topps is done for me and 2010 is looking bleak.

Anyone who still likes Topps base cards, watch this blog this weekend.

Topps Series 2 Black Border Wal-Mart Blasters Are Live

Saw two of 'em at the Wally World on Mansell Road in Alpharetta.

Check the bar codes, the variation blasters have #13 in the code.

No matter what Topps told Hand Collated, I didn't see any differentiation between the blasters. I could have missed it though because I went straight for the bar code when I looked at them.

No, I didn't buy one 'cause I'm broke from my Ginter binge.

Yes, I'll probably go by tomorrow and succumb to temptation.

(someone please buy them, I really am broke)

Stuff inna mail - part 1 Toppswap

Quickie mailday from this weekend. I recently got an offer from JD's dad to help with some 2009 Topps series 1 cards. We hashed out a trade and my side came in the mail this weekend. Included were:

10 2001 Topps cards

With my Target retro box ripped and soprted, (but not posted or YouTubed because I'm lazy) I finally had a wantlist together. Ten were knocked out incliding this nice catcher above.

A whole mess of Turkey Reds

INCLUDING CHIPPAH

There was at least a dozen in the package but I was too dazzled by Mr. Jones fielding under a purple sky. I have packed up a few Turkey Reds and some assorted pitchers (including a messload of King Felix) to send off. One card I couldn't find is this Lou Gehrig Career Best insert that he's looking for. Can anyone help him out?

Why the hell am I watching Caddyshack 2

Seriously. Dear God, that movie is dreadful. Just the friggin gadgets Jackie Mason uses makes it too embarrassingly painful to watch. Not even Ted Knight could have saved that mess. I need to do something productive to break me away from the mesmerising awfulness. Like post the third pack from my retro Target box. This is the one with the good card!

Pack 3:
313 Jamey Carroll
157 Haren & Webb Classic Combos
176 League Leaders AL RBI
270 Tris Speaker SP variation
TTT11 Nick Markakis
144 Matt Tuiasosopo RC
322 John Buck
214 Scott Elbert RC

Wooooo! Got my first SP variation. I always associated Speaker with the Red Sox, but he actually played more years with the Indians. Too bad I don't know any Indians fans who would want to trade for this thing. The short print variations thankfully are not printed on the retro stock. They are too tough to find in teh first place, we don't need three different versions. I just sorted in the retro cards into my set and this turned out to be a not-so-good box. Most of the cards I got I already had a white or black bordered version. Even the Topps Town cards were doubles down to the Gold card. Oh well, nothing left to do but DANCE

Hello mah baby, hello mah darlin, hello mah ragtime gal...

Look at Matt dancin! Dance Matt, dance! I think he's doing the French Mistake.



Ok, good news is I have my Topps Series 1 want list together. Bad news is I'm not posting it right away. I have about 10 other packages to get together before I start on a Topps trading binge. I'll post it soon though. Also, the video for this box break will hopefully be posted tomorrow night. Maybe Tuesday. Labor Day at the latest. I've got all the cards scanned so I can keep doling out bits of the box until I get my act together. Back to Caddyshack 2...

OH GOD THE GOPHER TALKS IN THIS ONE

Proper Crop Props

Mario's right, (Beardy too) there's too much negativity. I've been busting Topps' chops over some lackluster photos that could use a bit of editing while ignoring the fact that this year's product has the best photography the flagship has had in years. To make amends and accentuate the positive, I offer to you 10 cards out of a jumbo pack I just purchased less than an hour ago (well, now about two hours since it took me a while to write and scan) because I was looking through the card aisle and accidentally broke the tab at the top of the pack that keeps it on the rack. I had to buy it, it was the only honorable thing to do at that point. I was rewarded.

Closely Cropped

Just like Walter Sobchak's noggin.

Nelson Cruz

Did he beat the tag?!?

Brian Duensing

The glare from the pitcher as a fastball comes straight at you.

Joe Girardi

The skipper cheering on the troops.

Medium Crop

You don't need an extreme closeup when there is additional context available.

Victor Martinez

Candidate for card of the year. Why? The hand reaching out to catch the ball VMart is tossing into the stands.

Alfredo Aceves

Great use of the horizontal layout with the high leg kick.

Jacoby Ellsbury

An unconventional shot of the bench but hey, that's why it works.

19th Century Smut

AKA: Ankle showing. You get to see EVERYTHING.

Pitch

Now, if you crop this one tight, it's just a guy straining during a follow through.

Hit

You can never have enough of Howard connecting.

Field

Oddly enough, I just sent this card to Andy of Traded Sets this morning. I'll probably send this one to Canuck.

By the way, check out the contest at Traded Sets. Mind bending!

Run

Chris Young takes a long lead with Tulo shadowing him to the left and Barmes holding at second. At least I think that's who those Rockies are.

And Finally: The Most Perfectest

Sometimes that little tab at the top breaks for a reason.

2009 Topps Series One Target Retro Blaster - Box summary and patch

The video break is still in production, but I want to start showing off my Target retro blaster box. I'm going to just spoil the whole thing at the outset and let you know exactly what I got in the box:

65 base cards
1 SP variation
9 Topps Town code cards
1 Gold Topps Town code card
2 Turkey Red
1 Legends of the Game
1 Gold Parallel
1 Patch card

Not a bad break at all, SPs are about 1:12 boxes so I was really fortunate on that. There are usually about 4 inserts per box so that was right on the money as well. One thing you should know: blasters are absolutely not the best way to build the set. You're basically paying for the patch card and getting a few base and insert card in on the bargain. For the same twenty bucks you can get about 10 hobby packs with 100 cards in them, two jumbo packs (if you can find them) with about 100 cards and a good shot at a hit, 10 packs of retail with 120 cards, 2 cereal boxes with 110 cards or 4 jumbo packs with 144 cards. A blaster gives you 81, but you have the patch. Since that's really the focus of the whole thing, here's the patch I got:

Ernie Banks with a Yankee patch from the 1960 All-Star Game. Ernie was the starting shortstop and had a hit in the second of two All-Star games in 1960. This card (and the Tom Seaver I pulled a long time ago) is up for grabs to anyone who has a Chipper Jones patch from a Series two blaster. And I mean anyone, I'll gladly trade this to a Cardinals fan who only wants it to taunt Cubbie fans in exchange for a Chipper.

Here's the first pack in the box:

205 Miguel Tejada
106 Marlon Byrd
257 George Kottaras RC
65 Mike Pelfrey
TTT18 Miguel Cabrera Topps Town
273 Brian Roberts
182 Daniel Murphy
49 Kazuo Matsui

Not great, but not terrible. The thing that really struck me about these cards is the numbers:

Easy

Difficult

Hard

Impossible

How the hell are you supposed to read these numbers??? I'm goin' blind here people. BIGGER NUMBERS - MORE CONTRAST. Don't make me drive up to Duryea to smack you people.

Here's pack two:

161 Brendan Harris
285 Justin Duchscherer
216 Emmanuel Burriss
147 League Leaders NL RBI
TTT10 Jake Peavy
137 Angel Salome RC
287 Greg Maddux
325 Dustin McGowan

Ah, I love that old curved T logo, even if it is foil stamping. The thing I really like is this:

Why couldn't Topps have done white numbers for the whole set?? Ok, maybe not for the ordange and yellow bordered cards, but all the dark blue, red and brown ones need white numbers. I'm bummed that the only cards I'll be able to sort without squinting are the league leader cards.

Jackie vs. Mickey: Teh Winnar

Chris Carpenter won in a rout so as promised, I picked up a pack of series 2 with Robinson on the wrapper when I stopped by the card shop for some bubble mailers today. Here are the results:

453 Javier Valentin

Full catcher's gear throwin out a RUNNER! Awwww yeah.

520 Adrian Gonzalez

Does he have a nickname? 22 homers in two months you need a nickname. Gonzo perhaps? A-Gon? Skippy? Yeah, that sounds right. Skippy with the mighty cut.

583 Francisco Cordero

The joys of cropping. I think part of my obsession with this is that I'm becoming an old geezer very quickly and the eyes (which were never good to begin with) are starting to go.

607 Jarrod Washburn
636 Armando Galarraga
Not interesting enough for scans.

416 Josh Whitesell RC

The red jersey and border and orange dirt make this a nifty looking card. Is he playing on Mars or something? Did the bag get swiped by a Mars rover?

606 Nick Johnson black border #17/58

These black border cards are nifty. I like the sparkly on the border. I've got an autographed minor league ball of Nick in my collection for some reason. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

TTT48 Blech.
536 Khalil Greene
Boring

325 Jim Thome

Posed shot of a 500 home run hitter! Do this more often Topps!

595 Vernon Wells

Crash imminent!

Pretty good pack, it was the last Jackie in the box too. Lots of David Wright packs in the box for some unknown reason.

As for the next war, 17 of you wanted to see Jumbo packs of Topps and UD, 5 of you wanted to see a 1989 Topps 100 card pack fight with a First Edition basketball blaster, 7 preverts wanted me to make love not war and the winner with 25 votes was...

2009 Topps Heritage Jumbo

vs. 2009 Upper Deck Goudey Jumbo

But wait, there's more! A third party has jumped into the ring!!!

2008 Topps Baseball Updates and Highlights presents 2009 Topps Heritage High Number Series with Three Completely Superfluous Updates and Highlights Cards Per Jumbo Pack!!! AND GUUUUUM!!!!!111ONE

A three way battle for Retro Supremacy! I think the High Series pack may have snuck in a FOREIGN OBJECT! Stay tuned for this one folks! But don't hold your breath, I have 46 cards to scan for this thing. I'll start this puppy by Monday at the latest.

2009 Topps Series Two Hobby Packs - Jackie vs. Mickey - Card 10

I have a cold today and I just don't feel like writing anything at all. This is the last card in both the Topps packs though and the winner essentially decides who takes all the marbles. Mickey is up 5-4, but he had a David Wright filler card in there which automatically docks him a half point. Here are your choices, vote for the winning pack:

Jackie Robinson pack last card:
CHRIS CARPENTER

Card front: See what I mean about cropping the photo tight? Would this be a better card if we could see the pitcher's mound? I think not.

Card back: In '07 Chris was the first opening day starter in history to not make another appearance for the team that year. That's somewhat surprising. I think my favorite top o' the card stat is 'Lowest Career OPS Against' just for the crazy low OPS totals. Jack Wilson has an .086 OPS lifetime against Chris. That's like, a full 100 points below his career OPS against everyone else!

*waits for the Pirate hate mail*

Mickey Mantle pack last card:
ERVIN SANTANA

Card front: ANKLE, YAARRRGH. Actually, you can kinda see some dudes hanging out in the dugout so that's cool.

Card back: 'Lowest Career OPS Against' for Ervin: Kurt Suzuki at .118. I'm disappointed he didn't have someone under .100. Ervin was pretty good last year with a 16-7 record, 214 Ks and 3.49 ERA. I hope the arm problems he's suffering don't derail him this year. As far as card back name dropping goes, Ervin's got a pretty good one: Nolan Ryan, who like Ervin, had at least 7 straight starts with 7 Ks.

VERDICT:

Chris is back from a full scale arm blowout and is pitching well. Ervin is an up and comer, but he's got a sore arm. I'll be honest, I'm leading toward Chris (mainly so Madding doesn't get mad at me again) but I'm not going to decide the winner of the pack battle, you are.

Vote for the winner of the battle in the comments. I'll pick up a pack featuring the winner next time I hit the local card shop and rip it for ya'll.

Jackie Robinson 4, Mickey Mantle 4 1/2

Cropping Topps

Topps has done a vastly better job on their photos this year after a few years of really bland photography. However, my annoyance with some of the photo choices by Topps has reached full blown obsession so I did what any real man would do and took matters into my own hands. Gentlemen, it's time to open up... MSPAINT.

Original Topps Series Two Jason Kendall card:

Now that same card cropped and horizontal'd

Even with the mess I made with the background on the left side, which is the better looking card? Are his shin guards really that interesting? Ok, here's another one:

2009 Topps Series Two Adam Wainwright

Cropped a little

Cropped a lot:

I don't know about you, but I'd rather see these guys' faces instead of their ankles. I'm not a professional photo editor and I hacked these up using stretch, cut and paste in MSPaint. The cropped cards seem to be better looking to me at least. This might be in part becauseI grew up on Topps cars from the '60s, '70s and '80s where close ups were the norm, not the exception. What do you guys think? Do they look better or should I not quit my day job? (Oh wait...) Let me know thumbs up or down in the comments and let me know if you can do a better job with your own custom crops.

2009 Topps Series Two Hobby Packs - Jackie vs. Mickey - Card 9

Jackie's gotta win this one or it's all over despite the extra Gold card in the pack. Let's see what he throws at us when his back's against the wall.

Jackie Robinson pack card 4:
TONY LaRUSSA

Card front: See how good a card looks when it's cropped tight? You don't need to see Tony's ankles. Tony looks crotchety and bedraggled as befits a manager with almost 2500 wins.

Card back: There's a lot of amazing stats in his bio write-up (won 3 straight division titles twice, Won a World Series for both leagues, Third all-time in wins) But the list of 'Most Wins By Cardinals Managers' up on top floored me. Here are the guys behind Tony: Red Schoendienst, Whitey Herzog, Billy Southworth, Branch Rickey, Frankie Frisch. Notice anything about those guys? All Hall of Famers except Whitey, who will get in on the Veteran's ballot sooner or later.

Mickey Mantle pack card 4:
MARK BUEHRLE

Card front: I'm officially obsessed with ankles now. Crop that card!!! This isn't a particularly good picture of Mark, it looks less like he's following through on a delivery and more like he's lumbering around like an idiot.

Card back: I'm struck by how durable Mark is. Eight straight seasons of 30 or more starts for the Sox, and he's pitched very effectively every single year. The back states that his 8 game home winning streak at US Cellular Field is the longest for a Sox pitcher since LaMarr Hoyt. He passed LaMarr this year after winning four decisions at home before losing to the A's. The craziest stat is the 'Lowest Career OPS Against' mark. Jacque Jones has an .074 OPS against Buehrle. Not batting average, not on base percentage, OPS.

VERDICT:

I'm a fan of Buerhle, but he can't beat a guy with almost 2500 career wins. Jackie stays alive going into the last card in the pack.

Jackie Robinson 4, Mickey Mantle 5

Found One

I got my 2009 Series One Target Blaster. You guys were right - they're out there, you just have to scrounge a bit. I made sure that this was on the box:


That's right, Retro, baby. (if you don't know what the UPC code means I'll tell ya later) I now am fully prepared to build my 2009 Series 1 FrankenSet, card stock variations be damned. The video break (two-parter!) is in the can and is currently in post production. I'll also do full text pack opening and wrapup posts with scans for the blog. The first one will probably be up tomorrow.

*Spoilers*

Cubs fans, start looking for that Chipper patch from Series Two... Yankees fans too. I also got something an Indians fan would like, but JayBee already has one.

Damn it feels good to rip a blasta.

2009 Topps Series Two Hobby Packs - Jackie vs. Mickey - Card 8

If you voted in the poll for the 100 card pack of '89 Topps vs. the First Edition Blaster the only blaster I've found so far is a First Edition basketball box. It looks like the '09 options are winning anyway, so there's still time to switch your vote. To the one guy who voted for me to 'make love not war', you really want to see that? I might break the interwebs.

Jackie Robinson pack card 4:
CARLOS GONZALEZ

Card front: Carlos waits for a pop up to come down. I likethe fact that Topps is using more interesting photography, but is it completely necessary to show everyone in a full body shot? It's like there's a photo editor at Topps who feels his mission in life is to document the height players are wearing their socks at in the new millennium. Crop this sucker.

Card back: I had no idea who this dude was until I saw the back and realized it was the guy who played on the A's last year. Series Two is good for all those second tier players who changed teams over the offseason that no one bothered to photoshop a new uni onto him immediately to get him into Series One. Carlos' first seven MLB hits were all for extra bases. Last guy to do that was Johhny Mize.

Mickey Mantle pack card 4:
JASON KENDALL

Card front: I will never, ever get used to Jason wearing a uniform where yellow is not the primary color. I love the full catcher's gear but here's another card that could use a closer crop. We do not need to see the shin guards, but it would be nice to be able to actually see Jason peering out toward the mound.

Card back: Jason's stats eat up the entire back of the card so there's no place to put a "Niche in History"factoid. What scares me about this is that he has only been playing since 1996. I remember when you had to have been playing since the Sixties in order to pull that off on the back of your card. Two names on Jason's "I Own These Pitchers" list that pop out: Mark Buehrle .467 average against and Roy Oswalt .390 average against.

VERDICT:

Jason is on the downward slide of his career while Carlos is just starting his. Right now they're both hitting under the Mendoza line though. In a few years from now, Carlos might be a heck of a player, but right now Kendall has some name recognition and better yet, the tools of ignorance. Jackie Robinson is backed up against the wall with another Mantle victory.

Jackie Robinson 3, Mickey Mantle 5

2009 Topps Series Two Hobby Packs - Jackie vs. Mickey - Card 7

Mickey won the battle of the ToppsTown cards by virtue of Vladimir Guerrero's 9-7 win over Prince Fielder. Mantle takes a formidable 4-2 lead into the home stretch, but as it turns out he really needed that victory. That is because card 7 is kind of a blowout:

Jackie Robinson pack card 7:
ANDY PETTITTE GOLD #0833/2009

Mickey Mantle pack card 7:
AJ BURNETT

VERDICT:

Do I really have to elaborate?? The guy with a .631 winning percentage (.609 in the playoffs) vs. BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE. Even AJ's bullpen warmup session picture is far inferior to Pettitte's card. This is not up for discussion, Jackie wins this round. If a certain Pettitte Pursuer needs this card e-mail me.

Jackie Robinson 3, Mickey Mantle 4