Go Crazy Folks

Go crazy.

By the power of shiny Tim Howard...

Team USA shall go out and kick some Algerian booty today!

Not literally kick someone's booty mind you... that'll get you a red card. Don't do that, Team USA. That would suck. More of a figurative kicking, as in kicking the ball into the goal. Their goal, please. Gotta be specific about these things.

The results

Ok I entered my code at 7:34am. I was going to do it last night but people kept guessin' so I let the insomniacs have their fun. Before I show you the final result, here's an important announcement:

Stop making these ludicrous trade offers. The only person who is going to trade a vintage card for a 2000 Todd Greene is a 2 year old, someone with brain damage or Todd's mom. Even if you do manage to pull off this trade, you're a bad, bad person. The other two are acceptable. Try to do that.

I know you're all frothing at the mouth wanting to know if I pulled TEH STRASSBORG ZOMG so I will make you wait no longer.

My card:

(epic fail)

Not sure if I could have thought up a worse card than that, but hey, that's what happens when you gamble. Looking at the guesses and....

No one guessed 2006 or Desi so no winner today. Jonathan @ RGB cards was the closest with a guess of 2005 Gabe Kapler, but close only counts in horseshoes and deep water oil rig inspections. I might have to redeem all my cards this way just so horrible commons that I already have can be made interesting. Stay tuned for more Topps shenanigans!

Guessing time

Ok, I got this here out of a rack pack tonight.

I have amassed a small pile of codes now, enough so that if the '50s switch is ever thrown again I might be able to snag one or two. Since I haven't redeemed a code in months I'm going to redeem this one sometime after midnight and before 8:00am. Depends on when I fall asleep, really.

If anyone can guess which card (year & player) I pull out of the transmogrifier I'll send you a prize. If no one hits it on the nose, I'll consider a lesser prize if someone gets the player or the year. Winner gets a random autograph, a card of the player they picked, a card from the year they picked and some assorted detritus I want out of my house. If no one is even close, you'll get nothing and like it. Start guessing.

Taste the Rainbow

In my one card review of Finest, I complained that the design of 2010 Finest was horrible, awfully boring, but maybe the refractors looked good. I found some refractors in the quarter box the other day so here's a comparison of a few of the different flavors of this year's refractors.

Here's a base card of Longoria. Evan is surrounded by a sea of gray gloom.

Here's the base refractor. These are numbered to 599 each. The dull gray is replaced by reflective silver. The logo in the background pops a little more. Nick looks releaved to be out of the dark.

The blue refractors look fantastic. These are numbered to 299 each. The background is a pretty solid blue unlike the next card.

Green refractors are umbered to 99. The scan looks a little better than the actual card. Since refractor technology has that holographic rainbow sheen to it, sometimes the rainbow drowns out the actual color. This one here especially looks more orangy violet than green. It doesn't overpower the blue refractor though.

There are also  red refractors numbered to 25 and one of one purple refractors  but those didn't end up in any quarter box I know of. I'm sure they are breathtakingly beautiful, which is why they had to be artificially made scarce so the plebes can't get a hold of them and harm the product's 'value'. Gotta keep them box prices high, at least in the first couple of months of release.

Bowman Blaster of Shame

A Shame Blaster is one where I bought a blaster of something I really didn't want and probably couldn't afford because I am a degenerate addict of baseball cards and I couldn't find anything else interesting. Very often I will buy it rationalizing that I will do a blaster rip post on the blog, but after I rip through the thing and the adrenalyn- Ahem. Adrenalin rush (damn you Panini) wears off I am too ashamed/embarrassed/depressed to post the results. Usually I put the packs back in the box where the remain to this day. The good thing is now that my mental state has improved I can revisit these blaters later on and post the results. I'm going to try to do that over the next few months, but first here is the shameful Bowman blaster I posted about a while back.

Pack 1

53 Jayson Werth
19 Jake Peavy
175 Tim Lincecum
169 Joe Mauer
BCP99 Thomas Neal
BCP93 Brett Jackson
TP46 Jenrry Mejia Top 100
BP95 Big John slade Heathcott
BP101 Anthony Ratso Rizzo
195 Albert Pujols gold useless
Checklist 2 of 5

Lotsa star power in this pack, plus I can make fun of the names of the prospects. The Pujols photo is awesome, and the horizontal Bowman layout is novel, but these gold cards just plain suuuuuuck. They aren't even used for decoys anymore. Can we please get rid of these damn things, Topps?

Pack 2
38 Howard Kendrick
117 Shane Victorino
161 Alex Rodriguez
183 Carlos Zambrano
BCP77 Steve Lombardozzi
BCP73 Joe Serafini
BT97 Clayton Kershaw '92
BP109 Jaff Decker
BP52 Sheng-An Kuo
49 Clayton Kershaw gold useless

Clayton Kershaw hot pack! Sadly for Night Owl, he has the gold already and I think I'm going to collect the '92s. gcrl will one day benefit from my hatred of gold cards when O get around to putting together a package for him again.

Pack 3

213 Brandon Allen RC
91 Ryan Dempster
188 Jacoby Ellsbury
164 Rick Porcello
BCP60 Neil Medchill
BCP79 Eric Farris Purplefractor
TP37 Thomas Neal
BP45 JJ Hoover
BP32 Eric Niesen
27 Adam Dunn gold useless

This is my first Purplefractor, when I said I got one in this post I goofed. For some reason I got my gold refractor and my purple refractor mixed up. Even though it looked gold in the scan, my mind lied to me and said "no, that's your Purplefractor, dummy, it must have just scanned weird. Lack of sleep + stress is not your friend. JJ Hoover is a Braves prospect who is having a lot of success in the minors this year. 

Pack 4
50 Prince Fielder
89 Wandy Rodriguez
177 Roy Oswalt
184 Erick Aybar
BCP30 Dent Ryan Dent
USA-BC13 Brad Miller USA
BT84 Adam Dunn '92
BP27 Craig Clark
BP18 Pedro Ciriaco
42 Scott Rolen gold useless

You know, Bryce Harper is in this USA Baseball insert set. Yet, despite having been just as hyped as Strasburg, not a single person has gome completely bugshit crazy over his card. All this prospect crap is pure 100% manufactured hype and we're buyin' what they're sellin. Sorry to kill your Bowman Buzz, but I told you this was a shame blaster right there in the title. Why didn't you believe me?

Pack 5
113 Nelson Cruz
181 Neftali Feliz
172 Ichiro
BCP13 Jeff Antigua
BCP21 Luis Exposito
BE16 Andrew McCutcheon/Jose Tabata Bowman Expectations
TP23 Brandon Allen Topps 100
BP9 Nick Santomauro
BP4 Tyler Henley
99 Brade Hawpe gold useless
Checklist 3 of 5

The Bowman 100 and '92 throw backs combine at one per pack, so when you get one of the double sided inserts you get a second insert in the pack. Or conversely, you only get three base cards. Andrew McCutcheon is a heckuva player. a common complaint on the AJC Braves blog is that we traded for McLouth instead of McCutcheon. Well, DUH - The Pirates traded McLouth specifically to give Andrew a spot in the bigs. Sometimes my fellow Braves fans disappoint me.

Pack 6

128 Alex Gordon
171 JA Happ
179 Jorge De La Rosa
BCP5 Andrew Cashner
BCP39 Edinson Rincon
BE12 Ubaldo Jimenez/Tyler Matzek Bowman Expectations
BT53 Johan Santana '92
BP59 Randall Delgado
BP68 Hak-Ju Lee
33 Magglio Ordonez gold useless

Arodys Vizcaino, Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado. Three big-time blue chip pitching prospects coming up all at the same time. Even if acoupleof them falter, one of them is bound to become an Ace for the Braves. This can't possibly fail!!!

Pack 7
140 Dustin Pedroia
141 Justin Masterson
186 Felix Hernandez
182 Yunel Escobar
BCP65 Brian Pellegrini
BCP100 Starlin Castro
TP 12 Carlos Santana
BP76 James Beresford
BP 87 Wilmer Font
68 Carlos Beltran gold useless

Pack 8
125 Chipper Jones
88 Dan Uggla
168 Josh Johnson
176 Denard Span
BCP94 Chad Jenkins
USA-BC5 Gerrit Cole
BT61 Joey Votto
BP94 Chad Jenkins
BP100 Starlin Castro
29 Robinson Cano gold useless

Here's the third Chipper I pulled. After buying the base card out of a 50 cent box because I was never ever going to buy any packs of this crap, I pull a chipper in my first rack pack and my first blaster. Bowman mocks me and my pathetic plans. This Chad Jenkins guy pitched for Kennesaw state which is neat.

There is my shame, laid naked for all to see. 20 bucks for a Blaster and not a Heyward to be seen. Although compared to some of the other stinkeroo blasters I got this is a shining beacon on a hill. Those are posts for another day however.

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.

The Kid Who Could - Page 7

Well... here goes...

And the pitch... WHACK! A screaming liner a good six feet to the right of Peter who still manages to get in front of the ball and deflect it a bit. AND ANDREW STILL ISN'T SATISFIED. "I told you so..." I told you that a ten year old couldn't field a hard line drive from the bat of a major league All Star. Nope, not good enough for my team! I have to admit here that Ozzie has far more patience in this situation then I would have had. Ozzie gives some helpful coaching and hits the next ball more softly to Peter to give him a chance to practice his skills. I would be nailing screaming line drives at Andrew's head. "Oh, Peter can't field eh? BROOKS ROBINSON can't catch my hits, bitch! Here, try to catch this one! POW! And this one! WHACK! You can't catch with your face, fool! Quit bleeding and get yer ass up and PITCH!"

Unlike me, Ozzie remains cool and collected and provides an enjoyable, educational time for all. With that tiger roaming around I'm surprised that Ozzie can keep his composure. Especially when panels like this:

Are somewhat disturbingly reminiscent of this:

Which reminds me of this:

I keep telling you, comic artists are sick and like to put shocking things in their books. I don't care if the movie didn't come out for another 15 years. THEY ANTICIPATED IT.

Three packs, nine cards

This weekend didn't exactly go the way I wanted it to posting wise. Saturday was chewed up completely by work and a power outage at my house that lasted almost 6 hours. Today was 100% Father's Day activities from the moment I got up until the moment I got home about a half hour ago. Luckily for me, one of the activities was to go to Wal-Mart to buy some baseball equipment for my son. Not only did I get some important father-son bonding stuff done, I also sneaked three retail packs of Topps into the cart at the checkout line. Here's nine cards from the three packs since, that's all I can fit on the scanner at one time.

Pack 1:

522 Jordan Schafer

Here's the guy who will put Nate McLouth out on the streets. Assuming Jordan can get over all his many dings and ailments, that is. I'm thinking Jordan knows to get the hell out of the way when Jason Heyward is coming charging straight at him, so he's got that on Nate.

582 Martin Prado

MARTEEEEEEEEEEEN! Your 2010 National League All-Star reserve at second base. Possible starter if Chase Utley is too banged up. Don't you call me a homer, the dude's leading the league in average and hits.

T4 2020 Topps David Price

My Dream: The Braves and Rays win their respective pennants and face off in the World Series. I win the lottery and use the proceeds to buy tickets to all 7 games. The series goes to game 7 and I invite the Collective Troll to see the game with me in Tampa. Game 7 is the greatest in history, with David Price and Tommy Hanson both taking no hitters into the 9th. Price gets the first two batters out in the ninth and Brooks Conrad pinch hits for Tommy. Price hangs a slider, Brooks goes yard, Wagner locks down the ninth and as the Braves celebrate their World Championship, I look over at Bacon and say: "The Price is wrong, bitch!!!" The Bradentucky Bombers then roll into the stadium and hipcheck me into oblivion as I die the happiest man in the world.

549 Derek Jeter

JUMPING JETER!@!!!

That's all, I just wanted to say Jumping Jeter.

Pack 2:

VLC3 Reggie Jackson Vintage Legends

OHMYGOD THIS IS CARD IS FREAKING BEAUTIFUL

LL-43 MIKE SCHMIDT & alex rodriguez Legendary Lineage

OHMYGOD HALF THIS IS CARD IS FREAKING BEAUTIFUL

Pack 3:

710 Darryl Strawberry 1988 Card My Momma Never Threw Out

Oh goody, a 1988 card with the original back.... never seen one of those before.....

No 24 in a series of 45 Dizzy Dean Blue Back

I'd really like to complete this set but singles of retail-only inserts are really hard to come by.

T7 2020 Topps Ryan Howard

The more I see of this set the more I like it. There's a cool Kellogg's vibe going on here and I like the way the stars wave around in the background. The card isn't lenticular like the old Kellogg's or Sportflics cards with the lines going across, there is a little grid of bumps instead. I approve of this slightly-more-futuristic-than-cards-from-the -'70s technology.

Traders from the quarter box

One great thing about quarter boxes is you can find cheap cool stuff to send people. I may not really need these in my collection, but there are others out there who do. I owe packages to about a dozen people so it's good to find this kind of stuff.

Here's a Topps 2020 card of Clayton Kershaw. I don't think I've shown any of these off on the blog yet. I think the concept behind this set is to show off current young stars who will likely be dominating the league in 10 years. I'm just going to say it right now. Here's the checklist, in 2010 half of these dudes will be completely out of the league and only 3 will still be with their current teams. THIS I PREDICT. I also predict that cards won't look even a little bit like this in 2020. This looks lore like a card from the '70s that could be found in a cereal box. I will say that the 3D floaty stars look cool, although I am not a fan of the red back.

I've pulled a Bowman blue card from this year and I must say definitively that the blue on the 2008 card looks much better. It's a brighter, more smurfy blue. Pronk here is numbered to 500. Travis hit a homer off of the Golden One so now he is a mythical creature like the Cyclops or Minotaur. The Bludgeoning Pronk was a monster in Homer's Odyssey wasn't it?

I still don't know if I'm collecting the Turkey Red sets from this year and last or not. I think I am, but I'm doing it in a very nonchalant way. I should really focus n the '06-'07 set first since I'm so close to completing the non-SP set. I haven't even bothered to put a list together for that one yet. Everyone asks me for Brewers cards even though Thorzul has wiped me out so I'll pick up an extra one if I can get it. I like Prince Fielder, but I wish he'd sign with the Yankees. I really want to make Frank Zappa's The Evil Prince his unofficial theme song in my head, but he's too cute and cuddly in the Brewers digs.

I'm not crazy about these double-player Legendary Lineage cards but I can handle them when they at least feature two platers from the same team. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to handle Dale Murphy with Matt Kemp on the same card. This one here's all right though, and half the universe loves the Red Sox so it's bound to be in demand. Of course all four of these just entered someone's trade pile so don't make any offers. Maybe I need to hit that quarter box again. After I go to the post office of course.

I now have new respect for Jim Joyce, Joe West and Angel Hernandez.

Jesus effing Christ, the World Cup referees suck.

Panini World Cup Trading Post

Since everyone's geeked up for the USA - Slovinija match today, I finally got a World Cup trading post together. I only have tn stickers to swap, but all of you who have bought two boxes or live in a civilized nation who knows how to properly distribute football stickers can seek each other out and swap amongst yourselves. Have a drink... mingle... If anyone is interested in setting up a free swap forum let me know and I'll work on that or link it this weekend.

Here's my stickies:

27 - poster

USA
204 - Carlos Bocanegra
206 - Jay Demerit
218 - Landon Donovan

Algeria
232 - Karim Ziani

Denmark
356- -Daniel Agger

ITALIA!!! -
410 - Team
412 - Gianluigi Buffon
419 - Angelo Palombo

Ivory Coast
533 - Kanga Akale

I would normally express my desire for the USA team to capture a victory today, but with the refs deciding games with bullshit red cards right and left I am reluctant to do so for fear of jinxing them. Sooooo.... How 'bout them Dawgs?

Joy of a Completed Page - 2002 Topps Heritage

This is what I post when I want to post something but don't have the energy/inspiration to write anything. I've got 5 really good posts in the draft folder all imaged up and everything but I just can't type anything coherent right now. So enjoy the best page from my very nearly filled '02 Heritage binder.

This is a pretty kickass page though, you have to admit.

Packets from Pursuit

I'll keep adding packets as I rip 'em, scan 'em and stick 'em but the game is too good to leave right now.

Now that I'm watching the games I'm recognizing some o these characters. Heinze was all over the place during the Argentina - South Korea match. Papastathopoulos gave up the foul that let to Nigeria's only goal in their loss. Nigeria would have won that if not for a stupid red card.

Dang, Landon Donovan and Luis Fabiano in the same pack. I already had Landon so I've got some serious trade bait now. Donovan stickers are going for a buck a pop at the card shop.

I got Germany's goalie in this one. Are football goalies as collectable as hockey goalies? Probably not, they don't wear painted masks. The pointy haircut sported by Sulley must be popular, I've seen a bunch of stickers with the conehead cut.

Yay! Another American. I don't have that one. This was an Australia hot pack. Man, the Australia flag and the New Zealand flag sure do look alike. They were impossible to distinguish on the Virtual Album so I had to remember the Aussies wore yellow.

Hellas got their first World Cup goals and win this morning. Pasting the sticker in the album,  leaned that Ballack plays for Chelsea. I've actually heard of them. I need to pick a Premier league team to root for once the Cup is over. Any suggestions?

Woooo! Another Yank! Booooo! Already got him! Australia will be the first team i finish at this rate. Too bad they got massacred by Germany. David Villa is a kickass sticker. I picked Spain to win it all and David to score the most goals in Mark's World Cup contest. So how'd they do in their first game, anyway?

WADDYA MEAN SPAIN GOT BEAT BY SWITZERLAND???


I am the jinxiest jinx to ever jink. No wonder Switzerland won, they cheated - they've got guys from Lichtenstein on their roster. At least I got the Paraguay shiny. I couldn't go 0-8 on shinies. And man those things are extra shiny this year aren't they! Time to finish sticking these suckers, I'll put up a trade post tonight.

England to the rescue

I've had a Thorzulian dedication to posting the packages I've gotten in the mail recently, but a completely unexpected one came in a couple of days ago that I couldn't let pass.

Air mail? Royal Mail? The heck is this?

A customs form? Football cards? Did Canuck send me some 1990 Pro Set or something? Wait... John Arnold... He's that Pursuit of 80sness guy from England. Hey... wait a minute...

ENGLAND

FOOTBALL

COULD IT BE....

YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS

PANINI WORLD CUP STICKERS

AND RANDOMNESS 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I've been hunting down packets of Panini World Cup stickers like Caspar Gutman chasing down the Maltese Falcon and John sees boxes and boxes of 'em at every newsstand. He was kind enough to send 8 packs here to the colonial wilderness. Here's the first one:

I'm officially rooting for England now. Which means I probably put the curse of death on 'em but nothing can be done about that. Panini Stickers + Rik Mayall = I'm a fan of Bloody Ol' England. I haven't gotten any stickers from anyone in Sam's Club so don't give me any mess about how you're gonna get me. Here are the teams I'm rooting for the restof the tourney:

#1 England
#2 ITALIA!!!
#3 United States of CAN'T FIND ANY FOOTBALL STICKERS ANYWHERE DAMMIT
#4 Germany (One of my great great great great great grandfathers was from there or something so I'm not just jumping on a bandwagon)
#5 Anyone playing France. EFFING HEADBUTTING HANDBALLING FROGGIES

I'm ripping the other seven packs today while I watch Mexico beat the hell out of France this afternoon. If I'm feeling particularly saucy I might do a liveblog/rip.

Also: Now that I have some stickers in my hand I'm finally going to do that trade post tonight.

Also Also: Football shall invade A Pack to Be Named Later.

Gotta go, need to chill the beer and warm up the vuvuzela.  Bzzzzzzz.