Football season means football video rip!

Ok, so it's Premier League football.


And I kinda went waaaaaay overboard on the ponies this time.


It's the thought that counts though, right?

right?

Rack Pack Madness Part 1 - 2010 Topps Update

Throughout the latter months of 2010, I was compulsively picking up Rack Packs of various Topps products from retail establishments at an alarming rate. There were several reasons for this. Topps' ruination of blasters with patches and parallels, a lack of compelling products worth dropping more than a fiver on, interesting shiny gimmickry on the Chromy packs and my gnawing addiction that precludes me from walking out of a Target without some cardboard. I need to get this all out of my system so as not to ruin another year blowing cash on retail wax so I'm going to showcase some racks this week. Here's a run of consecutive cards out of a rack of 2010 Update that I found interesting.

Adam Wainwright workout joisey Mojo. Former Brave. We got a year out of JD Drew at least.

J-Hey and formed Atlanta Hawk draft pick Dave Winfield.

Spahnnie Tale of the Game.

Stupid Attax card that almost ruins the run. I remembered that Markie Mark played high school ball in Georgia so this tenuous Atlanta connection keeps the streak alive.

Ok, as much as I've bagged on them in the past year it is really cool that they picked the Lou Burdette switcheroo card for the Yo Momma set.

Formeerd Brave pitcher who was traded to the Yankees for Aroldys Vizcaino. Melky was a throw-in, people.

Former Brave first baseman what we should have never gotten rid of in the first place. How nice would it have been to have Roche nailing down first for the past few years?

But at least we got this guy to replace him for a month last year.

Nice little run of locals there if you don't count the Markakis. I see Attax cards like one of those puffy sweatshirt advertisement cards from the '80s so it's easy to pass right over it.

This post is just for Tom The Ripper

Anyone else who clicks on this link (and then goes on to click on the embedded video therein) is walking the paths of Madness.

You have been warned.

TARGET MADNESS - Part 2: Basketball Relic Repacks

Here's some more of the useless crap I got from Target this winter while I was bored to death waiting for the '09 products to come out. If only American Heritage or Mayo Football had been out (or if Heritage High Series hadn't been so annoying) I might have avoided this stuff. When you've got a serious pack ripping itch and you're standing in front of a card aisle filled with Updates & Highlights, Bowman Football and The Tale of Despereaux packs panic sets in and you buy stupid stuff. Target has had these blister packs on sale for a couple of months now with two packs of basketball cards and a memorabilia card for $5.99. This was actually one of the more sensible stupid worthless things I could waste my money on to tell the truth. I like basketball, my Hawks are looking good for a playoff spot and you're getting a 'hit' in every package for 6 bucks. Ok, so the hits are utter garbage and you're buying two moldy old packs that didn't sell in the first place for full retail for the priviledge of pulling that garbage, but at least I wasn't buying $20 repack boxes.

I'm not going to admit to the exact number of these things I've picked up, but I will show off the first one, the best one and the worst hit I pulled. So now you know I bought at least three, which is more than enough to be able to mock me mercilessly.

Probably two thirds of the packages I've seen had the same two packs as this blister had: a 2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars pack and a '07-08 Fleer Hot Prospects pack. The memorabilia card is wedged unprotected inbetween the two packs

2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars

59 Jason Terry
124 Alando Tucker RC 0813/2999
16 Pau Gasol Chrome
11 Yao Ming
28 Zach Randolph

You know why I'm not really upset at Panini getting an exclusive NBA license? Because it means Upper Deck finally got smacked by some of their own hubris, and because it means that Bowman Basketball is dead forever. Bowman Basketball is the lousiest, rottenest most worthless useless dog of a set ever. Five cards in a pack. One of the cards is a Chrome parallel. Base rookies are serial numbered and short printed 1:7 while Chrome rookies fall at 1:9 packs. All this for $2.99, the same price as Baseball and Football Bowman only with half the cards. To. Tal. Gar. Bage. Too bad, because the cards look decent. This pack isn't terrible, as I got a Yao, I'm a fan of Jason Terry from his Hawk days and the rookie I pulled actually made the team (although is recovering from knee surgery now). It's still not a good product which is why this pack is on the front of most of these repack blisters.

2007-2008 Fleer Hot Prospects

5 LeBron James
10 Yao Ming
30 Jermaine O'Neal
SC-11 Walt Frazier Supreme Court
$2 off Spalding Elevation Basketball

Typical Fleer semi-premium type set with 4 cards in a pack for 3 bucks. I got tired of these kind of packs in 2003, but I can't complain about this one. King James, Yao and to top it all off a card of Clyde Frazier. Not bad. The coupon is expired though, so no new basketball for Dayf.

Here's the big hit hiding between the two packs:

2006-2007 Topps '52 Style Kurt Thomas jersey

Well that's pretty neat looking. It's got the retro '52 charm but is just different enough to not trigger the involuntary twitching I get when Topps reuses that same damn design for the 500th time. Kurt's not a star or anything, but he's had a nice career as a power forward who can grab some boards.

Here's the best package I've gotten. The packs aren't great, but the hit was spectactular. I should have quit while I was ahead.

2007-2008 Topps Trademark Moves

48 Dennis Rodman
38 Chris Bosh
79 Jared Dudley RC 0668/1999
31 Shawn Marion
10 Tim Duncan

I hope Panini continues to put retired players into their sets, because that's one thing I've really liked from Topps the past few years. To be fair, Upper Deck did it too as long as you didn't mind that their retired players were Michael Jordan, Mike Jordan, MJ, Michael Jordan (23), Michael Jordan (45), His Airness and Michael Jordan. No Wizards allowed. The card of The Worm is nifty. Yeah, he was is a flake, but he also focused on defense and rebounding in an era of scoring titles and ESPN highlights. So good for him. Every time I pull a Tim Duncan card I keep thinking he's one of the stars from the '80s. That shows just how much I hold his game in high esteem. The rookie card is decent as Dudley is still on an NBA roster playing off the Suns' bench. I consider an NBA rookie card pull to be a success if the guy actually plays in the league. This mindset is from pulling literally hundreds of second round and free agent signing scrubs out of mid-'90s packs.

2007-2008 Upper Deck blaster pack

185 Carlos Boozer
JC-10 Jordan Chronicles
68 LaMarcus Aldridge
34 Jason Richardson
13 Rudy Gay

I've seen more and more of these skinny blaster packs in repack stuff. This is a half pack, not a real pack. I liked the Upper Deck basketball design better than the '07 baseball one. Taking out that border on the right makes the photo look much better. The pack is ok, there are some minor stars and a Jordan card. I hate Michael Jordan. I can't stand him. He's so freaking annoying and I'm tired of hearing about him. He lost that damn dunk contest in Chicago too, everybody knows it. Hey Panini - lay off the Jordans. It's a new era, do new things. Except for the Topps retired player stuff, keep that up.

All right. Here's the jersey card that had me dancing in the streets:

2005-2006 SP Game Used Edition Kevin Willis Authentic Fabrics Jersey

Wait, what? I built up this card like it was a Joba Superfractor and it's this?? HEY. I watched Willis kick ass at the Omni in the '80s, and this card has a Hawks logo on it, even though the jersey swatch is from the Spurs. This is my favorite hit, not yours. What else did you expect from a repack crapper?

Now that you are thoroughly underwhelmed by the best hit, just imagine the horrors I have awaiting for the worst. Actually, don't imagine it, just look at it right now:

2006-2007 Bowman Sterling Sergio Rodriguez Autograph

I was kind of surprised to see a Bowman Sterling card in there. I guess it's not that bad a card, and Madding at the very least would be happy with it. Sergio is actually logging minutes on the Blazers' bench. But great googely moogely, just look at that terrible signature. This thing rivals Gellman's favorite autograph stinker, Chris Johnson. Plus it's a holographic sticker auto on top of some weird Chrome texture. And yes, there are autographs in these repacks, just expect terrible ones like these.

Thank Jesus that Heritage is a little over a week away. I need to be spending my money on something I actually collect instead of buying more of these things, even if the Willis is in my top five pulls for the year so far.

TARGET MADNESS - Part 1: 08 Chrome Sorta Blaster

I did some stupid stuff this winter while waiting for the '09 stuff to come out. Well, all of it wasn't stupid, let's just call it imprudent. Inefficient. Unfocused. Most of the time my will broke down at Target although Wally World tempted me as well. Now that the new stuff is out, I don't feel quite as ashamed at buying retail repack junk so I'm going to show some of it off.

Here's the first thing I have to show off. You know those Target $1.59 junk wax boxes? Have you ever wondered where those packs come from? I have a theory that every so often the distributor pulls old unwanted blasters off the shelf, rips 'em open and sticks those $1.59 stickers on them. I've seen a few times where a product has exactly 8 packs in that box. I got 8 packs of '07 Bowman Heritage once in one of those boxes, exactly the count in a blaster. I can't actually prove that's what happens, but last month I saw it again. 8 packs of Chrome sitting nicely in the box. They were right next to a bunch of 2006 Upper Deck 5-card packs which I know were from blasters. Well, that would be the efficient way of doing it at least. Take the old blasters and plop 'em in the junk wax box. I saw the 8 packs as a discounted blaster in any case and picked 'em up in a fit of Target Madness. Here's the results:

Pack 1
122 Chone Figgins
150 Homer Bailey
176 Milton Bradley Blue Refractor
104 Matt Holliday
Checklist 1 of 2

Blue Refractors rock. The Cubs signing a malcontent DH to play in an overcrowded outfield rocks even harder.


Pack 2
72 Brandon Phillips
4 Stephen Drew
110 Aaron Harang copper refractor
209 Fernando Hernandez RC
Checklist 1 of 2

It looks like my knack for pulling Reds cards has continued over from my Timelines box. That's three in two packs. I'm not to unhappy with it, because I know a lot of Reds fans they can go to. I'm currently trying to wrap up a package for Joe, so as long as this guy doesn't need the copper Harang it's off to Joe. I almost hate to give up Harang though, he's a damn good pitcher.

Pack 3
110 Aaron Harang
204 Rico Washington RC
MMRC430 Mickey Mantle Home Run #430
148 Aramis Ramirez

Well, I say I like Harang and BAM! I get another one. Amazing. That's 4 reds now. Stupid Mickey Mantle ate my refractor. Grrrrrr. I'm showing off Rico instead.

Pack 4:
53 Yunel Escobar
TCHC24 Ken Griffey Jr Trading Card History
179 Livan Hernandez refractor
80 Jorge Posada

Ok, getting spooky now... Griffey is the fifth Red so far. Livan I can do without, Posada I can take him or leave him, but Yunel and Griffey are pretty cool.

Pack 5:
49 Scott Rolen
77 Carlos Ruiz
191 Edinson Volquez Xfractor
160 Pat Burrell

MAKE IT STOP. I'm going to get e-mails about my Reds-jo.

Pack 6:
181 Matt Kemp
178 Jo-Jo Reyes
201 Luis Mendoza RC Xfractor
25 Alex Rios

FINALLY. Now the Dodger fans can be jealous of me.

Pack 7:
124 Jacoby Ellsbury
TCHC37 CC Sabathia Trading Card History
211 Blake DeWitt RC Refractor
61 Gil Meche

This is either the third or fourth Blake DeWitt refractor I've pulled from a pack. I've lost count. The cool thing about this pack is I know someone who would want each and every one of these cards so I'm building good trade bait at least.

Pack 8:
192 Jeff Niemann RC
ARC6 Derek Jeter 50th Anniversary
97 Troy Tulowitzki Blue Refractor
121 Derek Jeter

Aaand we wind things up with the Jeter pack. The BlueTuloFractor ain't too shabby either. This wasn't the greatest 8 packs ever ripped but good lord have I got some trade bait. Now I just need to catch up on the trades I've got in process now. If you'll excuse me, I have some e-mails to answer...

Musings on Allen & Ginter

My friend Josh never got bitten by the card collecting bug, but he has witnessed my insanity and understands. He is as cynical as I am, and is able to appreciate the ridiculousness of the industry. One long-running inside joke between us is goes something like this:

Me: "Baseball cards have gone crazy!"

Josh: (in his best Match Game style response) "How crazy are they?"

Me "Baseball cards are soooo crazy that..."

I would go on to account the latest gimmicky weirdness manufacturers were using to push product out the door. The first such exchange was probably about that wacky upstart Upper Deck charging a whole dollar for a pack of cards, and they didn't even have fancy moving pictures like SportFlics. Much of the things we deemed ridiculous at the time are now industry staples. Insert cards in every pack! They're putting serial numbers on the cards! There are whole sets of autographed cards! They took some dude's jersey, cut it up into little squares and glued the pieces onto cards! They're charging a hundred bucks! For a box? For a Pack!! MADNESS!!!

One thing we always agreed on, was that at some point a company was going to put out an official DNA card. The debate was only in what form the DNA would take. A stray nose hair or toenail clipping seemed too obvious to me. There are probably already jersey swatches with blood, sweat or Lord knows what on them, so a little schmear of some fluid didn't seem innovative enough. I always thought Dr. James Andrews could have made some extra cash selling used elbow tendons for use in cards. You could probably find some Julio Franco or Roger Clemens DNA in a mosquito encased in amber somewhere, it would make for a pretty card at least. My greatest idea was to have redemption card for some useable DNA, available for pickup at your local fertility clinic. What would be a better chase card than the chance to have your own little Bonds or Griffey Jr. running around? The only thing we knew is that the idea of hawking a human being's genetic code to sell baseball cards was so perverse that it really had to happen at some point. This is where 2007 Allen & Ginter comes in.

Topps has had plenty of strangeness in their recent sets. This is not really surprising to anyone who is familiar with their test sets of the 60's and 70's, Topps has done some odd things in an effort to move those cards off the shelves. Just in just the past five years or so, we've seen cards encapsulating little crumbled bits from the Berlin Wall (which invariably migrate out of the window and wedge themselves between the layers inside the card itself), cards with chopped up shreds of clothes worn by Elvis, a cut signature card from Che Guevara, cards with swatches of old Army uniforms from stars of the 50's, cards with coins and subway tokens stuck in them and 90+ year old vintage cards entombed inside little plastic holders the size of standard cards.

Allen & Ginter has had its fair share of gimmicks as well. Mini cards, press plates, Rip cards (not really anything new, but whatever), historical and non baseball subjects, along with the standard fare of parallels, autographs and relics. Even though the 2006 version evaporated off the shelves faster than a bottle of Dasani on Mercury, Topps decided to go all out with their 2007 version and add what we have all been waiting for: a DNA RELIC CARD.


George Washington goes from Father of our Country to the provider of the first deoxyribonucleic acid strand to be whored out on a baseball card. Part of me is disappointed they went with the nose hair, but at least my (lack of) Faith in Humanity is confirmed. I'm interested in how eBay is going to handle the eventual auction of this card considering their long time ban on body parts. This might be a golden opportunity for BidVille. Part of me has to wonder though, if Topps is resourceful enough to procure a 250 year old strand of hair from the most famous American to ever live, how come they are having problems managing to not get gobbled up by Upper Deck? You would think something like this would be enough to assure that 2007 A&G would not go unbought like so many boxes of '91 Donruss Series 1, but no... Topps decided to up the ante with an innovation that is sure to rock the foundations of the entire industry:

Dog Autographs.

THIS I DID NOT EXPECT.

Let us say hypothetically that you traveled back in time a decade or so and asked me what sort of innovations the baseball card industry would spawn by the year 2007. If the words "I believe a major card manufacturer will put a card featuring the paw print from the winner of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in their most eagerly anticipated product of the year" had left my lips, I would have immediately blown my head off with a shotgun for fear I had contracted Mad Cow disease from a cheap gas station burrito and it had taken my sanity. I actually want to be there when the first person to plunk down a C-note for a box of A&G pulls Diamond Jim's John Hancock just to note their expression. Of course when I think about it, it can't be any worse than tearing open a Mantle Rip card only to get a Derrek Lee extended mini card I suppose. At least it is technically an autograph card, plus it's also a great excuse to call my buddy Josh and say,

"Baseball cards have gone crazy!"