One Card, 29 Pieces of Gum

I know what you're asking. Where the hell do you find this stuff? Truth is, I don't find it, Lamar at Sports Card Alley finds it. I've been buying stuff from Lamar for years and he always manages to scrounge up something interesting. Last weekend, I was paying for my Marcus Giles Sweet Spot auto when I spied a box full of 1989 Bazooka gum with a free baseball card inside. Somehow he managed to dig up a case of the things and was selling them for 50 cents each. Fifty cents for 20 year old gum (now with 14% MORE old gum!) and a card I could probably find in his nickel box? I'm in! Plus it's got Canseco on the front and I know a certain collector who might be interested. I grabbed a couple and it's time to open one of them. First though, attention must be paid to the back of the box.

The back has three advertising panels in bright primary colors. The middle one is the most important and is in bright eye catching yellow. Hey Kids! We know you just bought a big freakin' box of gum, but if your teeth don't all fall out, buy some more in individually wrapped pieces of a soft Bazooka pack for all you sissy kids who can't handle the chicle! Individual pieces come in all sorts of flavors including cherry, grape, apple-berry (because in 1988 the sour flavor craze hadn't yet become mainstream, so Topps had to soften the impact with a safe and comforting berry), strawberry, raspberry and delicious sugarless original! Specifically noting that the sugarless gum was delicious is complete futility, as kids would never buy sugarless gum even if it was wrapped in 100 dollar bills. The only reason it's on the box is so your mom can point to it when to your horror she buys a tub of the stuff and says "but look, it's delicious!". If you want soft gum, you get original, cherry or grape. No delicious for you! Speaking of Bazooka flavors, has anyone ever actually seen a piece of raspberry bazooka? I've come across cherry and maybe grape, but the rest of the flavors are all news to me. Apple-berry is kind of the Ivy Andrews of gum flavors, so short printed that it's more of a faint rumor than a real flavor, but raspberry flavor was the bomb back in the day. It might have even been dyed blue for all I know. Blue Bazooka tongues would be awesome. Still, I've never seen a single piece.

The side panels are just for ancillary products, not the real chewable money maker. The red panel on the right is basically a large version of the ad on the Bazooka Joe comics (more on them later) and this one offers a giant beach towel. For only $6.95 and 90 (!!!) bazooka comics you can get a 30" by 60" towel. That's a big towel. Every time I see one of these old offers, I kick myself for never sending away for any of them. When I get my time machine, I'm going back to the 80's with a thousand dollars and a roll of stamps and sending away for EVERYTHING. I'll be a real hoopy frood with my Bazooka towel. On the left, in unreadable black on blue is the baseball card ad in the form of a letter from Bazooka Joe himself.

Welcome to card collecting! Because this box of gum is obviously the first time a kid in the overproduced 80's has ever come in contact with a baseball card. The letter starts off with a barrage of legends: "Willie Mays! Mickey Mantle! Ted Williams! And the one and only Babe Ruth!" WOW! I'd really like to get one of those cards! The cards you can actually get though are Jose Canseco, Wade Boggs, Darryl Strawberry and Mark Grace. Does 'infamous' count as legendary? There are 22 cards in this series to collect for your very own complete set. At about a buck a pop for a box of gum, combined with lousy collation and the laws of probability, it would probably cost about 347 dollars to get a complete set. It will also take 14% longer to chew all that gum, so there's probably some poor sap still chewing his way though a complete set.

I opened up my box and you can read all about it over on A Pack A Day. I will share the gum with you however. Isn't it purdy?


Individually sealed in a red white and blue wax wrapper lovingly protected by a comic. The perfect gum. Let's open one up and check it out, shall we?

Here's the wrapper. Opening it up was like ripping a tiny little pack where the cards all got glued together. It's got the classic curvy t Topps logo, the ever expanding lethal blast bazooka logo and a list of ingredients so you know that BHT is in there to maintain freshness. Let's see how good a job it did:


OHMYDEARLORDNO! Aaaaaah! It's alive! Run for the hills! This is how that movie The Blob started off. Not the crappy 80's version, the good Steve McQueen version. Somebody chewed a piece of this and it chewed him back. Ecch, This is nasty. I had to wash my hands about 8 times after touching it. The good news is there's 28 more pieces in there all in the same state of decay. I want the Bazooka Joe comics though, so I donned a biohazard suit and started ripping. Here's a sample comic:

Ha! Ha! Our failing educational system is funny! The kid can't read or spell, but He's a whiz at math. He'd make a great programmer. My fortune is fantastic: "You will never turn into a giant shoelace." Huh?? "In bed." Aaaahh... that's very deep. Actually "In bed" is for fortune cookies, not fortune gum. Fortune gum needs "...and for the love of all that is decent and holy, don't chew this mutant gum lest you end up turning into a Toxic Avenger" (<-- the viddy is a tad dicey, be careful when you click) The advertisement on this comic is appropriate, for $16.25 and 180 comics you can get a factory set of this year's Topps set. Seeing how you can get one for 10 bucks online, not a great deal in retrospect. But wait! The offer says (CURRENT YEAR ONLY), the current year is 2008! Woohoo! a factory set for under 20 bucks! Wait though... I also have to have 180 comics. Since each comic is worth 2 points, I'd have to open 90 pieces of moldy gum. Nope, not worth it. I'll keep the comics instead and enjoy their sublime humor.

Thanks to some sloppy cutting at the factory we have an interesting insight on how the comics and wrappers were printed:


Did you know that the comics and the wrappers were printed on the same sheet? Did you care? Why am I taking the time to write about such insignificant trivials about ephemera? I paid fifty cents for this thing and I'm gonna get my money's worth! If you thought that was useless, what till you get a load of this:


That's right folks, a piece of gum in the shape of the great state of Oregon. There's even a little mildew spot where the state capital, Salem, would be. GoldenPalace.com is gonna pay me a fortune for this! Thank you Oregon!

Out of nowhere in my hour of need

Patricia and Lucy must have psychically anticipated my Heritage crisis on Monday, because I found a package in the mail today with my name on it. After a week of meetings and work emergencies (and a stiletto in the sternum courtesy Duryea, PA), this unexpected bounty is a real treat. Along with the above artwork, here's what else was in the package:

Spidey, who has apparently gotten him into a sticky mess,

A '93 Mike Stanton who has just thrown his patented Flaming Logo pitch, plus an Andruw Jones puzzle insert on the other side.

And a nice brick full of what appear to be Braves.

There's an '86 O-Pee-Chee Mighty Murph on the back. Sweetness.

As you can see from the side view there's a rainbow of different card types in there all looking like the layers in Saturn's rings. I'm looking forward to opening this and I'll have it posted a little later. Right now I just want to take a nap.

I've also embarrassingly neglected to post the gifts of our resident 88 Topps Expert and a Braves fan I know from the Frozen North. I'll be posting them sometime tonight as well. The Box break has gotten my posting schedule all goofed up and I'm putting it on the back burner until I get caught up.

Thanks again Patricia and Lucy! You may be finding a surprise of your own in the near future.

Random Chipper Card To Start The Day Off Right

Aww yeah, Chipper in the long sleeve shirt and shorts. Standin' in the cactus topiary. This will surely get the day off right.

Johan Santana is going to be a helluva pitcher

But really, who didn't see this coming? It's one thing to have old decrepit geezers in the rotation, they can go back to their rocking chairs four out of five days. In the outfield? Running about all the time chasing after fly balls? Not a great idea. At least the Mets have Lastings Milledge ready to go- Oh wait. Now you New York fans know how I felt when Betemit was traded. The Mets are in some dire straights, almost everyone on their outfield depth chart is hurting and the Braves and Phillies are champing at the bit. There's an easy solution though...

Go get him Omar! Do it! You know you want to........... Wide open spot in left field. Two hungry rivals breathing down your neck. Do it Omar. Come over to the Dark Side. You know you want to. Unlimited Power! Otherwise you'll just have to live with your current roster.



(I know I've just totally jinxed the Braves, and someone important will go down for the year with a terrible injury soon due to my atrocious Karma, but it was worth it for the chance to post a Weird Al video)

2008 Topps Heritage Variations

Ok, my existential freakout is over. May as well talk about these new abominations to the lord super short print variations a bit. The first I've heard of them was last night, so I don't know much of anything about the insert ratios really, other than they're tougher than normal. I haven't seen much online about them, Beckett has a "Variations Uncovered" article on their site but it's about racing cards. Are they one a case? 20 cases? Harder than that? Specifically given to a few choice dealers to run the demand up? Who knows. Caveat Emptor.

First of all let's look at the Santana variation. Not much to say really, one has him in his Twins uni, the other has a Mets logo and a photochopped Mets uni. Any idiot can do that. This card is not interesting so let's move on.

The Smoltz variation. First of all, I want to make it clear to everyone that no matter what the eBay listings say, this card is not an error. It is completely impossible to accidentally convince John Smoltz to take photo where he is posing as a lefty, misspell his name as Jon on the front and back and happen to give him the exact same card number as a card of Lew Burdette that also has his name misspelled and shows him posing with the wrong pitching arm. An accident like that is not possible. This is a variation. This was done on purpose. There were meetings held discussing the creation of this card, people were delegated certain tasks in order to make sure the card was created, and a conscious decision was make by a real live person to make it a scarce short print for the express purpose of trying to drum up interest in the product in the hopes of boosting sales. There was absolutely no mistake made when creating this card and it was most likely approved by many different people in Topps' chain of command, just like they signed off on the Alay Soler card, the Bush/Mantle/Jeter card, the Jacoby Ellsbury Card, the Poley Walnuts card, the Lefty Joba card, the Astros Joba card, the Giuliani Red Sox card and the Kazuo Uzuki card. Anyone trying to convince you that it is an error is trying to get your money. Anyone.

Ok now down to the card itself. It's actually a pretty clever card and a nice homage to the original set. Lew was a little bit of a crackpot and liked to play jokes on the Topps photographers by posing as a lefty and giving them the wrong name. Well, he fooled them a few times, and his 1958 card has "Lou" on the front and "Lew" on the back. This card is a little more subtle, but it's a good facsimile. Smoltzie doesn't have the classic windup pose, but he has the glove on the right hand. The name is spelled Jon on the front and back and it even has the same #440 as Lew's original card. Real good By Topps on getting the details right. There is a precedent for this kind of thing, in 2006, Topps created a reverse negative variation of the Andruw Jones card with the same #25 as the orignal Hank Aaron from the '57 set. It was a plain ol' short print though, which means people could actually pull them.

Smoltz is one of those high numbered non-short prints in the '08 edition. I was wondering why they didn't just make everything 426 and up an SP, so I guess this is why. They wanted to match up Smoltz and the Burdette card. Now I'm wondering what the relationship between the other non-SP high cards are. Here's the list of the other four and their 1959 counterparts:

Number 439: 1959 - Brooks Robinson, 2008 - Daniel Cabrera

An Orioles connection. Our friend Kevin (who I JUST realized was not in the blogroll, tell me about these things, people!) would have something to say about comparing Cabrera to the immortal Brooks though.

Number 460: 1959 - Bob Friend, 2008 - Tom Gorzelanny

A couple of Pirates pitchers. Friend had a career year in '58, but crashed to earth in '59 with an 8-19 record. Not sure how much Gorzelanny wants to be associated with that, but 8-19 could possibly lead the staff this year for the Buccos.

Number 476: 1959 - Cleveland Indians Team, 2008 - Cleveland Indians Team

Makes perfect sense. Now I'm wondering if all the team cards correspond to their '59 counterparts. That will have to wait for later.

Number 478: 1959 - Roberto Clemente, 2008 - Jason Bay

Wow, Topps. Don't put any pressure on the kid, Ok?

So basically a lot of thought went into this set and Topss has done a reasonably good job with it. That's why the gimmickization of the Jon/Lou card disappoints me so badly. The set doesn't NEED a gimmick, it just needs a little extra thought and care put into it. The same number of cards as in the '59 set. Short prints corresponding to the original high series, with the black backs. No unnecessary black back parallels. That kind of stuff. Sets like these don't need a high priced chase card. It may push a few boxes in the short term, but when people start buying them specifically to get the one chase card what happens when they don't get it? What happens to the kid who buys a bunch of Topps looking for a reverse negative Joba and he doesn't get it? What happens to the kid who just wants a Poley Walnuts card and they never get it? How many get frustrated and don't come back? Not just kids either, I've seen many long time collectors get fed up and quit because it's just not worth it anymore.

I'm not against chase cards by any means. There's lots of good insert sets out there, Autos and relics are always welcome, press plates and one of ones are neat quests and the crazy stuff like cut autos and certified champion dog hair and what not is fun to watch from afar. I'm just sick of the artificially scarce base card gimmicks that are not necessary and have grown tiresome. The Alex Gordon may or may not have been legit, but all the rest of the special cards, photoshops, "pulled from production" cards and just plain unannounced curve balls like this are really getting tedious. Save the chase card crap for the high roller boxes and leave our building sets alone.

Topps drinks my milkshake. Shlluuuuurp! They drink it up

Argh.

Upper Deck is barely off their ban, so what does Topps do? They do this:


Ah! Cute! An homage to the classic "Lou" Burdette card from the '59 set. That's pretty cool. Plus it's a variation card too? How quaint. So there's an extra short print in the set. Oh wait, it's not a short print, it's a super duper ultra whooper collectors take it in the pooper short print gimmick card? In a set marketed as a set builder's dream? A card that's impossible to find? In a set specifically marketed towards set builders?? IN A FREAKING SET WHOSE ONLY REASON FOR EXISTING IS BECAUSE SET BUILDERS, I.E. PEOPLE WHO ENJOY BUILDING AND COMPLETING SETS, ENJOY THE CHALLENGE OF COMPLETING THE SET SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE IT IS CHALLENGING YET COMPLETABLE?? SO YOU PUT IN A CARD IN A SET SPECIFICALLY FOR SET BUILDERS, OF WHICH THERE ARE A LOT OF SET BUILDERS, WHO HAVE BEEN BUILDING SETS SINCE YOU INTRODUCED THE PRODUCT IN 2001, WHICH IS A LOT OF BUILDERS AND A LOT OF SETS, SO YOU THINK IT IS A GOOD IDEA - A GENIUS IDEA - TO PUT IN A SUPER SHORT PRINTED CARD SO THAT ALL THOSE SET BUILDERS WHO HAVE BEEN BUILDING SETS AND HAVE ALREADY BOUGHT SEVERAL BOXES OF YOUR PRODUCT IN AN ATTEMPT TO FINISH THEIR SETS CANNOT ACTUALLY COMPLETE THEIR SETS BECAUSE YOU PURPOSEFULLY MADE IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO SO? REALLY??? YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA???????

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't mean to raise my voice. I apologize for my rudeness. What's that Topps? You can explain? There's more to the story? Do tell.

YOU MEAN THERE'S TWO FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE ULTRA SHORT PRINTS IN A SET MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR SET BUILDERS????????

Why? Why, Topps, why? Why did you do this?

Ok. I know why. Dumb question. Here's another question not quite as dumb.

Why should I buy any more of this product?

I'm serious Topps. Why should I bother.

I wanted to complete this set this year. I mean really complete the set. Really, really complete the set, no fooling this time. Commons, SP's, Variations, and the insert sets. The whole shebang. Maybe put it in sheets in a binder too. I've come close on a couple of older Heritage sets, but I'm still about 30 SP's short on the one I'm closest to completing. I really wanted to focus on this set and just knock it out for real this year. Now there are two cards in the set that will cost as much as a box each if I want to get them. So now I can forget about it unless I want to spend an extra $100-$150 on them. The fact that now I'll be tormented by a really cool Smoltz card that I have no chance of pulling is just a bonus. For the price these cards are going for on eBay ( and it's a little fishy to me just how quickly they settled in at $45-$55 a pop) I could get a nice looking Bob Feller or Phil Rizzuto or maybe even Yogi Berra for my 1953 set. Why should I try to complete this set instead of a vintage set, Topps?

Why did you change the game now, Topps? You had variations in the past, but they were just another short print. Why are they now ultra short prints? I know, I know. I'm asking a dumb question again.

I have two boxes of this stuff. I'm almost finished posting the first box. I've got a mostly completed post in my draft folder extolling the virtues of this wonderful set. I don't know how I'm going to write up the last five packs now, let alone do a whole other box.

Again, why should I bother buying any more of this stuff? Are you going to pull the same crap in 2008 Allen & Ginter or whatever retro product you throw out to us suckers next? Should I even bother buying that product the first day?

I'll ask the dumb question one more time:

Why?

There are no dumb questions, just dumb collectors apparently.

2008 Heritage Box Break - Part 4: Packs 15-19

Pack 15:
307 Kelly Johnson
112 Corey Hart
17 Jimmy's All Stars
385 Geoff Jenkins
417 Nate Robertson
28 Ivan Rodriguez
42 black Jason Jennings

I love opening a pack and immediately seeing a Brave. The next card was not as nice though, I watched Corey Hart bop a homer off John Smoltz to beat us in a game last year. A quick question about the combo card - who the hell is Jimmy? The original card from '59 was "Danny's All-Stars" which was fine, because Danny Murtaugh was on the card. We could see for ourselves who Danny was. There is no Jimmy on this card and a Jimmy is not mentioned on the back. Is Jimmy the Pirates' Manager? Didn't they just fire their manager? Does anyone actually know who the manager of the Pirates is? The last Pirates skipper I can recall is Jim Leyland. I guess that's who they are talking about. Unless Ivan is a short print I don't know about, there's not much else in this pack. The airbrush job on Geoff Jenkins is spectacularly bad though. 1976 Traded series bad. I love it. Hey wait... is this another 7 card pack?

Set Completion - 22.6%

Pack 16:
242 Huston Street
236 Mark Grudzielanek
39 Joe Mauer
88 Clay Buchholz RC
396 Joe Blanton
49 Bill Hall
NAP15 David Ortiz New Age Performer
332 black Howie Kendrick

Two more A's cards with mountains in the background. For those playing at home, Seattle Mariners card = cinderblock wall in the background, A's card = mountains. I guess Clay Buchholz is the big rookie from the set. He didn't get be be in the Rookie stars subset though. Joe Mauer unfairly gets the pink border although his cartoon is the funniest in the pack. Mark I-refuse-to-try-to-spell-his-last-name has a toon that could be construed as an 'adult' card by those with dirty minds. I pulled my first New Age Performer, the insert set that is usually my least favorite. This year's design is Green Burlap. It's better than the shotgun murder card I suppose.


Set Completion - 24%

Pack 17:
10 Alex Rodriguez
184 Bronson Arroyo
144 JR Towles RC
140 Bronson Sardinha RC
378 Johnny Estrada
391 Ryan Zimmerman
92 Phil Hughes
NAP8 John Lackey New Age Performer
135 black Mitch Stetter

Well, I found my missing card. I got another New Age card, this time of Angels pitcher John Lackey. John is so boring that half the write up on the back is about Senators pitcher Camillo Pascual. I would have preferred a green burlap card of Camillo. Ok, so there's stuff about Gil Hodges on the back of the Ortiz card too. I guess the old-school references give a boost to this set, even if it is ugly. Not a bad pack at all. I got the A-Rod with a hideous orange border, a Zimmerman card with a snazzy looking yellow border and a handful of rookies. JR Towles looks shell-shocked on every card I've seen him on. I'm rootin for the guy though, especially after his goofy looking Bowman Heritage card from last year. How common a name is Bronson anyway? Charles Bronson really was that big a star in the 70's and 80's. Paul Kersey would shoot Arroyo's ass with that hippie haircut of his. Holy crap, I didn't know Bronson had Alzheimers, now I'm really sad. Johnny Estrada's card is a good argument for not airbrushing photos. The guy was traded from Milwaukee to New York in the offseason so Topps did the chop job on him. Thing is, he has already been cut by the Mets and signed by the Nationals, but here he is in a Mets uni he'll never wear.

Set Completion - 25.6 25.4%

Pack 18:
66 BJ Ryan
235 Roy Oswalt
77 Jonathan Broxton
33 Jose Lopez (argh)
412 Jason Bartlett
207 Dave Roberts
438 Kaz Matsui SP
372 black Ryan Howard Baseball thrills

Whoops, I just noticed that I already have the non-black version of the Howard thrills card. I also have the Stetter card. Time to revise my completion percentage. I finally pull another SP and it's Kaz Matsui. Roy Oswalt is nice though, he used to be my secret weapon in Fantasy leagues before anyone knew who he was. Now Aaron Harang is my secret weapon. The Jason Bartlett card is quite possibly the ugliest card in the history of cards. Everything about it is just terrible. I didn't see it the first time but there is someone making a really strange face on the Ryan Howard card.

Set Completion - 26.8%

Pack 19:
156 Ace Hurlers
261 Livan Hernandez
326 Brian Roberts
158 Aaron Cook
355 Edgar Gonzalez
155 Johnny Damon
TN 6 Johhny Podres & Erick Bedard Then & Now
291 black Pitching Partners

Then & Now is my favorite insert set out of this product. I like the combination of old and new players. I don't understand why Podres is featured on this card though. The stat on the back is strikeouts per 9 innings and while Bedard led the league in that category, Johnny did not. He was actually sixth behind Herb Score, Don Drysdale, Sen. Jim Bunning, the aforementioned Camilo Pascual and Sad Sam Jones. Brooklyn based Topps must still be grateful to Johnny for that game in 1955. There are two other pitcher combos in the pack, a neat card of Brandon Webb and Jake Peavy and the black version of that sneaky looking Nationals combo. It looks like I hit a run of black duplicates. Rats. Livan Hernandes - bleecchh. Johnny Damon - bleecchh. Brian Roberts woulda been a Brave had stupid Peter Angelos kept his nose out of his GM's business. Edgar Gonzalez is the scruffiest looking man on the planet. And poor Aaron Cook... Not only does he have a hangdog look on his face, but the cartoon on the back has the caption " Aaron's had a rib removed to relieve blood clots" with an illustration of a very sad man lying in a hospital bed wistfully watching a baseball game on television. Bummer.

Set Completion - 28.0%

The box so far:
140 different base cards (common, black back & SP's)
19 black backs
6 Short prints
2 Chrome
1 Flashback
1 News Flashback
2 New Age Performer
1 Then & Now
1 Buyback
1 auto redemption card

The 792: Gallery 469-486

More 80's cards to get you through your day... Check out Ben's commentary and etc. etc.

469. Storm Davis, 1986

470. Nolan Ryan, 1984

Lost on the hard drive somewhere, I'll find it sometime tonight.
471. Dick Howser, 1984 (MGR)

472. Dyar Miller, 1981

473. John Lowenstein, 1983

474. Kurt Kepshire, 1985

475. Cesar Geronimo, 1980

476. Danny Tartabull, 1987 (RC)

477. Mike Easler, 1986

478. Juan Eichelberger, 1981

479. Expos Future Stars, 1981 (RC)

480. Carlton Fisk, 1981

481. Chris Brown, 1989

482. Rickey Henderson, 1980 (RC)

483. Fergie Jenkins, 1984

484. Ivan DeJesus, 1982

485. Garry Templeton, 1981

486. Otis Nixon, 1987

Scooby dooby doo.....

1-18 19-36 37-54 55-72 73-90 91-108 109-126 127-144 145-162
163-180 181-198 199-216 217-234 235-252 253-270 271-288 289-306
307-324 325-342 343-360 361-378 379-396 397-414 415-432 433-450
451-468 469-486 487-504 505-522 523-540 541-558 559-576 577-594
595-612 613-630 631-648 649-666 667-684 685-702 703-720 721-738
739-756 757-774 775-792