Instant Karma

I recently received a package of football cards from Jack Plumstead at The Pursuit of 80'sness. I had offered a hostage exchange program between our two shores. He send me some World Cup Cards and I'll fly over some baseball goodies. I'm hoping to video the cards he sent, but I haven't had the time to work the kinks out of my new setup yet. In the meantime, I went over to Target to a) look for a Goodwin blaster and b) pick up some packs to send to Jolly ol' England. I found plenty of Goodwin - 2009 Goodwin. Having failed in that, I picked up a rack of Gypsy Queen, a hanger of Topps 2 and a few random packs. I split the rack and hanger between Jack and myself. Out of one of the packs of Gypsy Queen came this:

This is one of those shiny Bronze framed cards numbered to 999. I am going to send this over with the packs so I blocked out the name and number. You know, so it can be a surprise. This was good for Jack. The next card was good for me:

Omar Infante short print. Wait - that's a really short print. #01/10? PALINDROME-JO! Here's the front.

Awwww yeah. stamp card in a retail rack. I've done better with retail Gypsy than I ever would dropping 150 bones on a hobby box. Just think, I never would have bought it had I not been looking for packs for Jack. And no, I'm not going to tell you the one store in Georgia that still has Gypsy Queen racks and blasters. Not gonna be that altruistic.

I never have to buy another pack of Topps206 ever again

BEHOLD: The joy and beauty of hat-laden J-Hey....

Ok, just one more pack...

(I'll end up pushing my luck, you know I will)

Derek Lowe is not the only Lucky Bastige out there

The day after declaring his intention to collect every single Ken Griffey Jr. card from his second go-around with the Mariners (something I had planned to do with Ken when he was seemingly going to sign with the Braves), He ends up getting one of the scarcest Griffey releases in Thorzul's A Piece of History group break. What are the odds?

I do know the odds of getting this:

If you're keeping track, that's three lucky bastiges, Derek, Matt and me. I pulled this Babe Ruth Chase '61 Variation out of a retail pack last week. I was killing time on my lunch break and went to Wally world for a couple packs of Heritage and some popcorn shrimp when the Babe made his appearance. When I saw what I had pulled I nearly pyew- wait, no. I was very excited by my good fortune. I'm not inspiring Thorzul any more.

I consider this card to be a variation and not a gimmick. Basically because Topps put the odds on the pack. the stupid stealth color variation cards that no one would ever be able to pick out in a million years without having a doctorate in advanced cardology, those mickeyfickeys are gimmicks. I love variations, gimmicks not so much. This is a pretty sweet looking card even though the design is as boring as a box of rocks. The Babe tends to bring up everything around him to his level. The only complaint I have about the card is the fact that the stats on the back are near microscopic. That's pretty nitpicky though, I'll just have to get the Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass out when I look at the card and be happy about it. So what's the chance of pulling this beast?.

There are three of the Chase '61 variations that fall at 1:435 retail packs. I got extra lucky and got Ruth over Maris and the overdone Mantle versions. Sure this card is tough, but how tough is it compared to any of the other cards in the set? there's a lot of short prints out there, and there's only three of these suckers. Let's check out the approximate odds for pulling any single card from the set.

Base cards: You get about 7 in a pack and there are 425 of them. 425 divided by 7 gives you a ratio of about 1:60 packs to pull any single base card.
Short prints: these are one in every three packs. Since there are 75 of them, you're looking at 1:225 packs to snag that one short print you need to complete your set.
Dice back variations: I kinda want to collect this set, but I'm so far behind in trading that I don't dare go begging for them. Seriously, I suck right now. Sorry to anyone waiting on cards from me. There are 18 of those cards and at 1:72 packs you're looking at odds of 1:1296 to pull that Pujols for your collection.
Chase '61 variation: Three cards, 1:435 odds. are these the hardest to pull? Do the path. 3x435 = 1:1305 packs. So really, these are about as tough as the dice backs. Even so, pulling the Ruth out of retail makes me the king lucky bastige for the week.

Two more lucky bastiges tonight:
Tommy Hanson for getting taken off the hook for a loss by two-out homers from Troy Glaus and the J-Hey kid with two outs in the ninth.
Billy Wagner for getting the win courtesy an improbable walk-off homer by Mr Slump Nate McLouth.

Actually all Braves fans are lucky bastiges tonight!

The luckiest SOB on the planet

Pitching ghastly. Runners all over the place. More walks than innings pitched. Sweating bullets the whole game. Throwing more junk than Eddie Harris. Getting his ass saved by Yunel all night. Barely getting through the sixth by the skin of his teeth.

And then the Braves jump all over the Giants' errors, walks, balks and just plan bad pitches. Seven more runs for Lowe, which is as many as Jurrjens, Hanson and Hudson got combined when they all pitched a hell of a lot better than Lowe has this year. It ain't fair, I tells ya. It ain't far.


Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Rumors of Jason Heyward's demise were greatly exaggerated. I will take any and all Heywards anyone wants to pawn off on some poor sucker before the inevitable Frenchyesque Crater.