Pack 20:
73 Dustin Pedroia
209 Lance Berkman
141 Seth Smith
55 Josh Beckett
388 Jason Varitek
67 Rich "All Glory to the Hypnotoad" Hill
C36 chrome Derrek Lee #1311/1959
black Jerry Owens
I don't have the number for the Jerry Owens card because I traded it to Steve already. Rich Hill's card could easily fit in the 1959 set. He has that look of Eisenhower era ennui going on. Probably because he realizes that he's a Cub and will never, ever win a championship. It's funny, I make a lot of cracks towards Mets and Cubs on this blog, yet the Mets fans are the only ones who fight back. Where's the Cubbie faithful? Why no snarking back? Was Lee Elia right? I got an actual good Cubbie in this pack, a Chrome Derrek Lee, so speak up out there. Three Red Sox in this pack and all are photographed against a black glossy painted wall that leaves a big flash glare on the photo. This set is gonna be murder on team collectors. That's three teams each having the same background for all their cards. Seattle has the firing squad wall, A's have the mountain range and the BoSox have the glossy black underground bunker wall. I'm pretty sure the Braves mostly have the Disney spring training stands in their photos, but Topps has been using them in every dang set since the Disney complex opened.
Set Completion - 29.2%Pack 21:
165 Jeff Francoeur
233 Hanley Ramirez
340 Hank Blalock
217 Jered Weaver
292 Chad Tracy
301 Ronnie Belliard
409 Jon Lester SP
90 black Hideki Matsui
FRENCHY!!! That's all I have to say 'bout Jeff. Jon Lester is one of the low number SPs, he also has the Men In Black right as they use the flashy thing background. Hanley's a great player and he'd be even better if Marlins management didn't just pull the rug out from under him.The rest of the pack is just marks on a checklist. Oh yeah. FRENCHY!!!
Set Completion - 30.6%Pack 22:
273 Josh Barfield
51 Chad Cordero
299 Jose Reyes
411 Sergio Mitre
359 Paul Byrd
175 Jeff ARGH Weaver
BF4 Bill Mazeroski Flashbacks
196 black Jose Valverde
FRENCHY!!! Sorry, wrong pack. Jeff Weaver is becoming one of my favorite players just for the goofy faces he makes on all his cards. This pack is a whole lot of ugly. Jose Reyes is the only one that doesn't look like they belong in a brute squad. Jose Valverde IS a brute squad! Six foot four, 255 pounds for a relief pitcher? Zoinks. Josh Barfield looked less like this Barfield and more like this one last year. He needs a bounce back year with the Tribe. I got another good flashback card, this one of Bill Mazeroski. I have a feeling he'll be plastered all over the 2009 Heritage set.
Set Completion - 31.8%Pack 23:
189 Kenji Johjima
85 Jayson Werth
46 Jason Bergman
339 Ian Snell
418 Shaun Marcum
335 Brandon Phillips
NF2 The Day Insert Sets Based on Non-Baseball Subjects Died
176 black Preston Wilson
Great Googlely Moogely this pack sucks. At least posting a scan of Brandon will make Joe happy. He's really the only player worth mentioning at all. 30-30 men are hard to come by. Kenji Johjima always reminds me of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Which is ridiculous because I don't think there is even anyone named Kenji in that series. I guess Kenji and Shinji got cross wired in my brain somehow. You think that's nerdy? I have the entire series on tape. IN JAPANESE*. You think that's really nerdy? I think Misato is totally hot. Completely insane ass kicking anime chicks do it for me, I guess. She's #3 on my anime chicks I like list. No one will ever guess #1 on the list. Not in a million years. The first one who does gets 100 free Heritage cards. No one will get them. Ever. Because no one will guess it correctly. I'm not giving any hints, either. See how terrible this pack is? I would rather let everyone know I like watching anime with pretty girlies instead of writing about these cards. How embarrassing. I'm not saying anything at all about the crappy out of focus Don McLean is overrated guitar card. Everyone knows Buddy Holly died in a student residence in England, not a plane crash anyway. So I'm ignoring this card. I'm just going to yell FRENCHY!!! one more time.
Set Completion - 33.2%Ok, I'll just make comments for each player on this last one so I avoid another trainwreck like the previous pack.
Last Pack:105 Alfonso Soriano is a beast. Too bad he's a Cub.
93 Mike Piazza is still out of a job as far as I know. That's just not right.
255 Khalil Greene had a damn good year in '07. Time will tell if the 27 homers was a fluke.
254 Freddy Garcia pitched for the Phillies last year and this card still looks airbrushed.
219 Orlando Hudson just ate a whole pack of extra sour gummy worms.
7 Joey Gathright has played for Tampa and Kansas City. What did he do to deserve that?
432 Yadier Molina is my 8th short print. Only 67 more to go!
337 black Lyle Overbay is glad I'm not yelling Frenchy again. CHIPPER!!!
My, what a long and arduous box break. Let's wrap this one up.170 different base cards (common, black back & SP's)
24 black backs
8 Short prints - Jon Lester, Yadier Molina, Kaz Matsui, CHIPPER JONES, Chone Figgins, Jose Bautista, Carlos Guillen All Star, Victor Martinez All Star
3 Chrome - Ichiro, Derrek Lee, Barry Zito
2 Flashback - Bill Mazeroski, Brooks Robinson
2 News Flashback - Murder and Death
2 New Age Performers - John Lackey, David Ortiz
1 Then & Now - Johnny Podres & Eric Bedard
1 Buyback - Charley Maxwell
1 auto redemption card - Freddy Sanchez
Set Completion - 34%Now I can rip open my second box with reckless abandon! I got over a third of the set with this box, so a second one should net me 50 to 60 percent of the entire set easy! Right? Right?? (This is foreshadowing, folks. Ugly things are about to happen)
*Actually most of the tapes are Japanese. There are one or two in English. Japanese is really the way to go on this series, the English dubbed voices can get really obnoxious. Especially the southern drawl of Asuka and constant whiling of Shinji. Yes, I know you don't care. I don't care that you don't care.
