2007 Topps Want List

I don't friggin know how I still need cards from this set. I'm so disgusted I didn't even scan a card from the set. Here's an artist's rendering.

93 Mike Napoli is the last card I need for this damn set please don't make me buy it on COMC for a buck
YOU MADE ME BUY IT ON COMC WHYYYY

at least i'm done

I totally have the Smoltz and Maddux cards I just can't find the buggers right now.

Updates and Highlights wantlist goes here whenever I can find the bloody cards. Whoops, found 'em.


EDIT: moved these to a separate post. stupid traded sets


no names because I hate Updates and Highlights. I bolded by accident trying to fix that stupid white bar over the card numbers. sue me.

2007 Topps Updates & Highlights - Blaster Rip and Product Review

My Topps Updates and Highlights reviews got completely forgotten when Bowman Heritage came out, so here's a blaster box break and a mini review for anyone who's interested.

I was really looking forward to this stuff about two months ago. Not so much for the set, which is kind of the same every year - a bunch of traded and fringe vets, a few rookies, a few subsets and with any luck some decent inserts. I was looking forward to it for a specific insert set, the Wal-Mart exclusive insert set featuring a history of baseball cards. I've been building this set all year and I only need the second series Hanley Ramirez out of the first 36 cards. The cards are pretty slick, like all the Heritage-type sets they swipe a design from an ancient card set from a defunct company that can't sue them anymore and use it in a contemporary set. I love this retro crap, so I've been buying Wal-Mart blasters all year. Here's the break for the last $10 box I picked up.

Box Topper pack:
WM46 Carlos Lee - 1911 Helmar stamps
WM38 Matt Holliday - 1911 T205
WM47 CC Sabathia - 1914 Fatima

This pack kind of bummed me out because all three designs were used in the second series set. The Fatima design was used for Nick Swisher's card, Holliday's T205 design was on Ryan Zimmerman's card and Carlos lee shares a Helmar design with Michael Young. They even used the exact same Helmar stamp design to boot when there are a bunch of different borders from that set. They are still the best inserts from Topps this year and this pack is one sixth of the set. ok, on to the packs.

318 Scott Proctor
138 Sean Marshall
102 Adam Eaton
MMS34 Mickey Mantle History
157 Andy LaRoche RC
236 Johan Santana All Star
Checklist 3

I like the Mantle history set. I'd rather they do something like this if they have to have a hero worship set, using different card designs with different photos on each card. The monotonous mirrors counting down home run after home run can go away. The '54 design is one of the best too.

156 Matt DeSalvo RC
43 Ubaldo Jimenez RC
19 Russell Branyan
The fourth goddamn Barry Bonds Home Run King card I've pulled
312 Joba Chamberlain RC
229 Barry Bonds All Star

I'm more tired of this stupid Home Run King card than I was with the Mickey Mantle home run #1 card that was in every pack a couple years ago. I pull one more of these and I'm going to go all Mark Ecko and brand it with a asterisk before shooting it into the sun.

181 Nathan Haynes RC
187 Kevin Melillo RC
297 JP Howell
92 Brendan Harris
272 Bobby Jenks All Star
246 Ben Sheets All Star

The All-Star set is one of the best things about the U&H set every year.

81 Kelly Shoppach
34 Paul McAnulty
159 Jarrod Saltalamacchia RC
GN425 Ian Kinsler #1 Double
321 Scott Linebrink
231 Torii Hunter All Star

The Generation Now cards are obnoxious enough, but it seems like half the set is this boring blue color like on Kinsler's card. This set can't die fast enough for me. Here's Jarrod Saltalamaccia's MLB Rookie card even though have have several of his Bowman cards from a few years back.

5 Steve Trachsel
35 Hiram Bocachica
48 Chad Durbin
HATT Troy Tulowitski Autograph
213 Trevor Hoffman Highlights
230 Ken Griffey Jr All Star
Checklist 1

A Troy Tulowitski auto out of a ten dollar blaster. I am the luckiest sonovabitch on the planet. I think Topps might be trying to bribe me with good hits because they know I despise this product.

179 Jesus Flores RC
325 Jason Kendall
167 Zach McClellan RC
128 Brad Thompson
275 Mike Fontenot and Khalil Greene Classic Combo
216 David Ortiz All Star

I personally like the Classic Combo cards, but you have to admit this is a rather obscure pairing.

50 Jason Smith
8 Trot nixon
326 Milton Bradley
GN488 Jonathan Papelbon #8 Save
162 Phil Hughes RC
257 JJ Hardy

The Papelbon and the Prince Fielder Generation Now cards are the only ones out of this series that I like. They are both great players and the red and purple backgrounds aren't sleep inducing.

107 Damion Easley
106 Ruben Gotay
118 John McDonald
Barry Bonds HR 735
18 Adam Jones
244 Brad Penny All Star

Barry crap card. Pppppbbbhtthttt.

323 Jorge Cantu
23 Tadahito Iguchi
311 Josh Phelps
239 Gold Mike Lowell All Star #0994/2007
211 Randy Johnson Highlights
267 Brian Roberts All Star
Checklist 2

Gold cards are nice I suppose.

140 Ryan Spilborghs
161 Brandon Wood RC
2 Shannon Stewart
MHR496 Mantle HR 496
276 A-Rod and Russell Martin Classic Combos
264 Victor Martinez All Star

The good thing about this Mantle home run card is that it's #496 and he only hit 40 more after this one. They can't keep this up forever! The can however do a Mickey Mantle at bats mirror set and drag it out another 8102 cards.

So now is where I get to bitch about a set right after I pull a sweet auto card out of a blaster. I don't care, this product does nothing for me. I'm tired of home run cards, I'm tired of Gen Now cards, Topps Gold is necessary but boring, and I just don't want any more Barry cards. The World Series team cards (which I didn't pull in this box) should have included all the teams and better yet, been released in a set that shipped before the World Series was over so people would care about them. Put that in series two and half of them would be traded like mad, now if you pull anything instead of the Sox it may as well be a Stadium Club Super Teams card from the 90's. Like a lot of stuff from Topps lately, it just seems mailed in. The fake Joba error, Squirrel card and Ellsbury don't do it for me either and I actually pulled an Ellsbury. Maybe I expect too much from Topps, maybe I'm burned out of 2007 cards, maybe I'm just jaded and cynical. I've had the feeling that this would be a better buy in factory set form since I ripped my first few packs. The Updates and Highlights sets are actually on the shelves now for $24.95. No inserts, but with these inserts who cares. Try to build the set by ripping packs and you're going to drop $60-$70 before you even get close. Take my advice and get a set instead of ripping a bunch of blasters.

Topps Hobby 20 pack break part 2

I originally said this was a 15 pack break, but you know how it is. I couldn't resist. 20's a nice round number, I promise I'll stop here. At least until the Wal-Mart blasters come out.

Pack 6:
UH301 Bob Howry
UH307 Kyle Davies
UH103 Antonio Alfonseca
UH156 Matt DeSalvo RC
UH43 Ubaldo Jimenez RC
UH119 Matt Stairs red
UH34 Paul McAnulty red
MMS36 Mickey Mantle History
UH11 Matt Morris
UH249 Billy Wagner NL All-Star

Matt DeSalvo's signature looks more like a logo than an autograph. Matt Morris looks somewhat bemused to be a member of the Pirates. It was a pretty bizarre trade, so I don't blame him. Kyle Davies, now he looks pissed. He went from future Braves' ace to Royals' spot starter in about two years time, I'd be upset too. Ubaldo's rookie card comes about a week too late to mean anything. The red cards are boring as hell, and the Mantle History card is really the only thing worth a damn in here. Switching up to the '54 design for this series is a good change of pace, it would have been nice if they had done the same thing with the mirror set. Oh who am I kidding, a bootleg '55 design repeated 532 times with slight variations in photo and color is pure genius and I'm just jealous because I didn't think of it.

Pack 7:
UH64 Cliff Floyd
UH9 Adam LaRoche
UH328 Kenny Lofton
UH153 Mark Reynolds RC
UH212 Justin Verlander Season Highlights
UH230 Ken Griffey Jr. NL All-Star red
UH300 Kason Gabbard red
GN456 Kenji Johjima Generation Now RUNNER CAUGHT STEALING ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME #5
UH281 Cole Hamels & Russell Martin Classic Combos
UH236 Johan Santana AL All-Star

Just when you thought the Generation Now inserts could never get any more ridiculous, Topps pulls out runners caught stealing as an insert-worthy stat. Twenty-nine inserts actually. He threw out Aaron freaking Boone! Who cares! The rest of the pack is star-studded at least. Griffey and Santana All-Star cards, Hamels & Martin at the All-Star game and Verlander's no hitter card make up for a stupid insert. Just barely. Kason Gabbard is another weird choice for a card number divisible by 100. Abraham Nunez, Brad Salmon and now Gabbard get the 100, 200 and 300 cards. Aren't these supposed to be given to decent players? The checklist is kind of dicey since this is a set full of players who were traded, called up this year or just weren't good enough to get into series 1 or 2, but come on. Sosa, Teixeira and Joba. There's numbers 100, 200 and 300 right there. It's not that difficult to do these things right. Then again, the #100 slot was used for the Ellsbury variation, so maybe they put crappy players there on purpose. Perhaps there is a #200 A-Rod variation hiding in blaster boxes shipped to Des Moines and a #300 Bullwinkle J. Moose card variation so rare the only known copy is in Keith Olbermann's sock drawer.

Pack 8:
UH97 Shawn Hill
UH1 Tony Armas Jr.
UH61 Shawn Chacon
UH150 Ryan Braun RC
UH37 Jason Simontacchi
UH164 Chase Wright RC red
UH216 David Ortiz AL All-Star red
B*rry B*nds H*me Run Hist*ry 745
UH74 Luis Castillo
UH265 Jorge Posada AL All-Star

Jason Simontacchi is still in the league? Huh. Never mind that, I got the Ryan Braun rookie! All right! The good one, not the Royals one. I can't believe I have this awesome player's very first card. Oh wait, never mind. Another good red card, keep 'em coming. B*rry B*nds is b*yc*tting my bl*g f*r gr*tuit*us and *bn*xi*us *pplic*ti*n of *sterisks. Don't be mad at me Barry! I didn't want a stupid asterisk branded onto that home run ball. I wanted the damn thing shot into space!

Pack 9:
UH12 Marlon Anderson
UH330 Brian Burris
UH42 Chris Snelling
UH41 Ryan Langerhans
UH9 JD Drew
UH257 JJ Hardy NL All-Star red
UH13 Jorge Julio red
HRK Barry Bonds #1 All-Time Home Runs
UH279 Chase Utley & Ichiro Classic Combos
UH241 Trevor Hoffman NL All-Star

Uh oh, I pissed off Barry and now he's going to keep showing up in my packs. This card is numbered HRK which coincidentally enough is the sound I made in the back of my throat when Bacsik threw him that meatball. It just occurred to me that JD Drew now has a ring. Ugh. Trevor Hoffman helped that happen indirectly. Man this pack depresses me. Let's go to the next one quick before I try to figure out what is going on on that Classic Combos card. Chase isn't really punching Ichiro in the guts, is he?.

Pack 10:
UH87 Jeff Karstens
UH142 Jeremy Guthrie
UH195 Marcus McBeth RC
UH130 Eric Gagne
UH206 Tom Glavine Season Highlights
UH81 Kelly Shoppach red
UH287 Alex Rios Home Run Derby red
GN573 Josh Barfield Generation Now Waste of Space
UH146 Freddie Bynum
UH242 Manny Ramirez AL All-Star

Well, at least I got Manny. I can say one thing about this pack, it's sheer awfulness prompted me to buy 5 more packs of the stuff which turned out to be a great move on my part. Find out why in part three.

For anyone interested here's the breakdown of the first 10:

Base set -70 cards
Red parallel - 20 cards
Gold parallel - 1
Mantle History - 1
Barry History - 2
Barry HRK - 1
Gen Now - 5 cards
Rodents - 0
no dupes

More Topps Goofs

Let's see... Series 1 Jeter & friends. Series 2 Betancourt/Guillen. What could possibly go wrong with Updates & Highlights?

Ruthlessly stolen from the Beckett boards: Spot the patch card!

Is this a patch card?

Or is this?

Before you decide, look closely...


This isn't an isolated instance, it appears to be set-wide. It's not even the first time they've done this, 2006 Bowman Heritage had the bat/jersey jersey/bat mix ups in their relic cards. This is a bit more troublesome though, as the Becketteers note, there are a lot of unscrupulous eBay Sellers who will cut up a patch. stick it in a regular jersey card and sell them for big bucks. Do that with these cards (although I don't know how you could get one in that die cut) and there's a little added authenticity to dupe the gullible. Caveat emptor, I suppose.

It's still a pretty dumb mistake for what is supposed to be a flagship product. I'm starting to think Eisner slipped a few bucks to someone in quality control to cause all these brain-dead mistakes before the sale so Mikey can ride in and look like he's cleaning up the joint.

Topps Shortprint nonsense

More Alex Gordon bullshit going on in the new Topps.

Via Stale Gum, Beckett is reporting that some dude busting 20 cases of new Topps Series 3 AKA Updates & Highlights found 2 unannounced cards, #UH100 Jacoby Ellsbury and some squirrel #SQ1 Poley Walnuts.

The Jacoby card is already getting mentioned on the message boards and some fool has bid up an auction to $200 on eBay.

It can't be that shortprinted if I've already got one. (Pack #13 of the 15 pack bust that I still haven't finished posting)



At least I didn't get the stupid Squirrel.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!

Topps screwed up not once but twice on Joba Chamberlain rookies! We have an '89 Upper Deck Dale Murphy thing going down with a reverse negative picture, and factory sets supposedly have a Joba with the Houston Astros for the team name. As expected, people are freaking out about this one too. To be honest, the Jobas look like photoshop to me. I'm not very trusting though.

Meh. We'll see what happens with all this crap as it shakes out the next week or two. If this causes the price of hobby packs to skyrocket and blasters to vaporize off the shelves before I can get my set, I'm gonna be pissed. If anybody wants my super-rare Honus Wagner knocks up Alex Gordon and they have a short printed lovechild card it's up for trade. All I want in return is a 1954 Topps Hank Aaron. Hey man! This shit's super rare! So pony up the Hammer if you want it so bad.

Update: Poley Walnuts. Ah. A Sopranos pun. How droll.

Updated update: I've never heard of the Alay Soler card before today. Weird.

Yet Another Update: That freakin' squirrel is even being mentioned in blogs in Japan!

2007 Topps Series 3: 15 pack break part 1

Series 3 is out (That's Updates and Highlights to you nitpickers) and I immediately grabbed as many packs as I could. Here's a 15 hobby pack break of this shiny new stuff.

Just as one does not simply rock into Mordor, one can't just open up 15 packs, list them out, scan them all and post everything into one massive post all at once. I'll be breaking this down into three sets of five over the next few days. I'll be updating the posts one pack at a time so you all don't have to wait three days to get the posts polished up before I post them. U&H was already delayed twice, why wait some more? Check out A Pack A Day if you just absolutely can't wait for a pack.

Pack 1:

UH112 Henry Owens
UH81 Kelly Shoppach
UH34 Paul McAnulty
UH159 Jarrod Saltalamaccia RC
UH107 Damion Easley
UH5 Steve Trachsel red
UH200 Brad Salmon RC red
GN522 Curtis Granderson Generation Now Double #3
UH162 Phil Hughes RC
UH227 David Wright NL All Star

Not a terrible first pack. The Salty card is cool and since he's in a Rangers uniform that means Teixeira is going to be in a Braves uni. AT LEAST HE BETTER BE YOU HEAR ME TOPPS. Don't make me smack you. Phil Hughes is a nice card and any David Wright is welcome even though he is one of the enemy. More stupid red parallels mean 30 cards out of these packs are more or less useless to me. Finally, the Curtis Granderson Generation Now card is ridiculous not only in that the insert set is now up to over 500 cards in size, but that Topps deems it essential to honor a double hit off Esteban Loaiza with a trading card.

Pack 2:

UH116 Jason Frasor
UH123 Jack Cust
UH104 Jorge Sosa
UH198 Mike Zagurski RC
UH45 Byung-Hyun Kim
UH173 Kevin Slowey RC red
UH59 Ryan Doumit
UH265 Jorge Posada Gold #0465/2007
UH273 John Lackey AL All-Star
UH268 Carlos Guillen AL All-Star
Checklist one of three

The Posada gold card would appear to be the best from this pack, but you'd be wrong. Mike Zagurski's rookie card takes the prize simply for the fact that he looks like a grown up Engelberg from the Bad News Bears. Walter Matthau version, of course. Nothing much else to speak of in this pack except that Jack Cust once kicked ass for me in an old Front Page Sports '98 sim league I was in a few years ago.

Pack 3:

UH194 Guillermo Rodriguez RC
UH189 Lee Gronkiewicz RC
UH124 Lenny DiNardo
UH322 David Murphy RC
UH69 Claudio Vargas
UH228 Carlos Beltran NL All-Star red
UH311 Josh Phelps red
GN408 Prince Fielder Generation Now Home Run #12
UH157 Andy LaRoche RC
UH218 Derek Jeter AL All-Star

Buncha rookies in this pack. I'm somewhat dismayed to see another rookie card with that cheesy red background that ended up on a ton of Red Sox cards over the past couple of years. Even worse, it's on David Murphy's card which means the red backdrop has infected the Rangers cards as well. Someone call the CDC! Beltran and Jeter All-Star cards are nice to have. I actually like the Gen Now card in this pack. It's Prince Fielder, it's counting down homers instead of catcher's interference or sac flies or some such nonsense, and the card just looks good. The 8th one I pull with the same photo will get tedious though.

Pack 4:

UH106 Ruben Gotay
UH118 John McDonald
UH136 Ramon Vazquez
UH101 Jayson Werth
UH200 Brad Salmon RC
UH138 Sean Marshall red
UH118 John McDonald red
GN543 Curtis Granderson Generation Now Double #24
UH157 Dan Haren AL All-Star
UH218 255 Dmitri Young NL All-Star

Crapped out on this pack. Got my first double in Brad Salmon and yet another Curtis Granderson Gen Now card. So what if the other Salmon is a red parallel and the number is different on the Granderson card. The picture's the same on both and they will end up simply cluttering up my Topps box. How did Brad Salmon get the coveted #200 card anyway? If this was actually Series 3, he'd end up with #861 which seems more appropriate. He's got the stupid beige background instead of the stupid red background. Is the guy at least a decent pitcher for all the aggravation he's giving me? Hrm, average middle reliever. Ok, I'll let it slide this time, but no more annoying cards from you, young man.

Pack 5:

UH209 Troy Tulowitzki Season Highlights
UH115 Casey Janssen
UH134 Reggie Willits
UH185 Nate Schierholtz RC
UH67 Tony Graffanino
UH236 Johan Santana AL All-Star red
UH202 Danny Putnam RC red
Barry Bonds Desecration of History 756
UH286 Prince Fielder Home Run Derby
UH257 JJ Hardy NL All-Star

Lotsa Brewers in this pack. Tony Graffanino has managed to carve out a nice little career for himself. Good for him. If you're going to get a lousy red card, it may as well be of a superstar like Santana. I'll get the base card soon enough once the blasters hit. Tulowitzki's highlight was an unassisted triple play against the Braves. I was watching that game and it was an interesting feeling to be thinking "Holy shit, that was cool!" and "Aw FUCK how did that just happen?!?" simultaneously. I had just about the same reaction to Barry's 756 card. I didn't appreciate just how nice it was not to get any of these damn cards in series two packs.

Up soon... Packs 6-10.

Card Of the Week 10/29

I am a set builder, but I'll be the first to admit I'm not a very good set builder. I'm great at going through each of my sets and meticulously noting which cards I need, writing my lists down on a piece of paper, losing the paper, writing it down again, not labeling the paper so I don't know which set it's for, losing the paper again, writing it down in a notebook, not updating the notebook when I get some cards I need so I have to go through the set again for a reality check, doing it all over again in a different notebook that looks better than the original notebook and then going through them just one more time to put it in a word document so I can e-mail it. I'm not that good at actually getting that last card to finish the set. I'll spend hours scrounging through a common box with a wad of checklists picking out cards I need, but when it comes down to the last few I need I usually get stuck. Part of the problem is most of the new stuff I collect has the artificial short prints meant to provide a challenge to us set builders. For me they mostly provide an excuse. The 2002 Heritage set is one of my favorites of all time, but I am a couple of dozen or so short prints away from a complete set. I have all the base cards though, so I don't feel any urgency to find those scarce cards even though I could probably find most of them right now online with one search.

I have no excuse for not completing the base brand sets I collect. For me that primarily means Topps, but there are a few others I try to complete. My sets from the 80's and early '90s are particularly disgraceful as there is absolutely no reason why I can't finish them when complete sets are selling for ten bucks or less. Case in point: 1990 Upper Deck. I need a Mark McGwire, Nolan Ryan special card and Chris Sabo for that set. I have known that I need those cards for at least a decade, but I can't be arsed to go find them. With all the commons I have floating around I'll bet they are all somewhere in my house right now. Recent Topps sets are another pain for me. I have a lot of them completed but still more that aren't. For last years set I'm only missing a league leader card in Series One and I have all of Series Two. But for some reason I got bored with the Updates and Highlights set and still I'm missing a bunch from that set. I probably got distracted by Bowman Heritage on that one to be honest. My attention span isn't that grea- hey look, shiny thing! Part of the problem is I only have three real suppliers for commons: one who is only open near me once or twice a month, one who doesn't have a good selection of common cards and packs. Buying commons online is a pain in the ass and the other dealers around here like to charge a buck each for commons. Hey, if you need it, it's worth the price right? Meh.

I've got lots of excuses, but I think part of it comes down to a mental block I have on finishing sets. I love opening packs as you can tell my my prolific posting* on A Pack A Day. As long as I still need a card from a set, well I can still open packs from that set! What is the point in opening a pack of '87 Topps when I have two sets already, or an '88 or '89 Fleer pack when I already have the factory sets. Opening a pack of 1990 Upper deck is A-OK though. Gotta find that Chris Sabo! That's got to be why I'm not finishing that '06 Update set, I can still find packs everywhere. There has to be some deep-seated neurosis there where I'm terrified of the finality of completion or some such nonsense. In the past couple of years though, my attitude has been slowly changing. Might be because I'm growing up, might be because I'm sick of all the unfinished sets surrounding me, might be because between the license bloodbath and my disaffection with Upper Deck, there's less for me to try to collect and I no longer try to collect everything. Could be that the sheer thrill of finally finishing that sonuvabitch is finally overriding my laziness. One of my collecting goals this year was to complete each series of Topps before the next one came out. that didn't happen with Series One for a myriad of reasons (more excuses!) including the Jeter freakout, a general lack of commons out there and shifting focus to Topps Heritage. However, I've made my goal for Series Three (Updates and Highlights shall now be referred to as Series Three forevermore - pass it on) and finished up both Series One and Two with this week's Card of The Week:

Yep, #60 John Smoltz was the absolute last card I needed for my Topps set. Somehow despite knowing I needed Smoltzie for months and actively looking for him, I still couldn't find his card in Atlanta. Braves boxes, nope. Common boxes, hell nope. Piles of all John Smoltz cards, not there. Bricks with Braves cards on the front and back, nada. Dozens of packs, uh uh. Looking through Rack packs and those goofy packs with 21 cards and a stick of gum for one showing on the front or back, still no luck. I had even downloaded the Smoltz Topps card wallpaper from the web site of that game card that was in every other pack and I still didn't have the actual card. I had checked all the other ones off my list, but still couldn't find a Smoltz card IN ATLANTA. Finally I had my favorite dealer look through the stuff at his house and got this little beauty for free, no less. Hey, it never hurts to ask. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that after doing a reality check, I found that my set was missing #93 Mike Napoli (really irksome since I had his stupid Generation Now inserts) and #436 Ricky Nolasco so they are technically the last cards I needed for the set. I'm not counting those however because I remember buying them out of a common box and they went sideways somewhere in between the shop and my set. They are likely hiding in a pile of doubles thinking they are being sneaky. I simply got two more from the same place I picked them up in the first place as they had several of each. The Smoltz was the one I really had to dig for, so he gets to be the one to finish it off. Bring on Series Three, I'm ready for you now!

*I originally typed posing instead of posting in this sentence before I went through one last proofread. My Freudian slip is showing.

Barry's Back

Topps signed him up for 2007, so it looks like we'll get more Home Run cards in the series 3 Updates & Highlights set. Oh goody.

More 2007 Topps schtuff

Sorry I'm being slow on the Bownam Heritage posts, but work is kicking my butt this week. Here's some neat info from the Beckett Forums on 2007 Topps baseball.

Inserts look nice, but the checklist scares the hell out of me. With that many insert sets my guess is that it would be pretty good odds to pull one out of a pack, and maybe will even have Fleer-like 'insert per pack' odds. I really like the fact that Josh Gibson is getting his own insert set, even if the HR sets are starting to get out of control. Mickey's set is continued, A-Rod starts his own HR set and Generation Now appears to list several players' HRs including Ryan Howard, David Wright and Justin Morneau. Barry Bonds is conspicuously absent, but to be fair, he hasn't hit any more home runs since the Update and Highlights set was released.

The Distinguished Service insert set, honoring players who served in World War II, also looks great and will probably be one I'll try to complete.

Sell sheets are up at Georgetown Card Exchange, check 'em out.