Blaster of Shame - 2009 Philadelphia

If you've forgotten what a Blaster of Shame is, basically it's an impulse buy on a blaster you didn't really need in the first place that you feel kind of dirty about after the adrenaline rush from the ripping has faded. I have more of these lying around than I care to admit. I only got this one a couple of weeks ago, but I got it instead of a Ginter Blaster so it was probably not the best use of resources. I just can't resist a half off blaster of Football O-Pee-Chee. This was actually a pretty nice set for what it was. I might be blinded by the Retro though. Since the Falcons' first pre-season game is tonight (Friday the 13th - perfect timing) let's take a look at my shame.


Pack 1:
187 Vince Young
111 Gus Frereotte
107 Bernard Berrian
400 Clinton Portis In Action SP
192 Albert Haynesworth
78 Matt Schaub

This would have been the perfect football set if not for the hundreds of short prints of wacky subjects. Too many short prints! That being said the In Action cards look great. They really have a old school football card feel to them.

Pack 2:
1 Kurt Warner
NFL-AC Andre Caldwell Game Day Gear
70 DeWayne White
48 Braylon Edwards

Here's the hit of the box, there goes all the suspense... Andre Caldwell is so good, the Bengals had to go get Terrell Owens to play with OchoCinco. It's a good thing that tigers belong in the circus, because that's what Cincinatti is going to be this year. In other news, two packs, four quarterbacks.

Pack 3:
93 Marcedes Lewis
89 Dallas Clark
13 John Abraham
206 Javon Ringer RC SP
16 Joe Flacco
58 Demarcus Ware

Short printing rookies is rude. Short printing rookies when there are hundreds of other short prints is evil. Got my first Falcon, woohoo!

Pack 4:
185 Barrett Ruud
79 Steve Slaton
NC19 Ted Kennedy Chicle mini
64 DJ Williams
14 Harry Douglas
144 Correll Buckhalter

Fiddlesticks. Pulled a mini card and it's a dupe. I'm pretty sure I can throw Teddy into a package for Heartbreaking Cards or one of the myriad Sox fans out there. The Quarterback streak has ended, but a new Falcons streak has begun.

Pack 5:
5 Larry Fitzgerald
123 Jeremy Shockey
57 Roy Williams
311 Barack Obama SP
186 Ronde Barber
154 Troy Polamalu

Hey, a Barack Obama card I didn't have, that's cool. Has Topps given up on American Heritage? I want another American Heritage set, dammit. European Heritage, Sub-Saharan African Heritage or Bamgladeshi Heritage will work too. I just like Heritage. Oh, and the Steelers should not be wearing yellow helmets. Ever. It reminds me of those yellow Hostess cupcakes that no one ever bought because Hostess cupcakes should be CHOCOLATE, dammit! And why the heck is everyone calling these orange cupcakes?? They're yellow, the package is orange. I must be going color blind or something.

Pack 6:
163 Frank Gore
75 AJ Hawk
380 Randy Moss In Action SP
6 Anquan Boldin
68 Calvin Johnson
4 Tim Hightower

The In Action cards really remind me of the old Fleer football sets from the '80s. I wouldn't mind seeing another set of those cards. Can there be another Fleer set?? I can't remember if Upper Deck lost their football licence completely or not. I know Topps got their license back but don't recall if it was at UD's expense. I'm tired of all the hobby licensing drama to be honest. Someone put a gun to Goodell's head (I'm sure a few of the players would be happy to oblige) and get the NFL to license a new Fleer In Action set and put stickers in there. My childhood isn't going to re-live itself, dammit!

Pack 7:
179 Oshiomogho Atogwe
61 Tony Scheffler
87 Dwight Freeney
284 Darrell Green SP
102 Ronnie Brown
132 Bart Scott

There are legends cards in this set?? Dang now I really want a box of this stuff. I can probably find it cheep if I looked hard enough. Ronnie Brown screwed up my all- defensive player pack.

Pack 8:
175 Steven Jackson
19 Derrick Mason
137 JaMarcus Russell
180 Leonard Little
90 Robert Mathis
130 Justin Tuck

Well it had to happen eventually. The first no-SP suck pack. And such a sucky pack it was. No one from this pack deserves a scan.

Pack 9:
59 Zach Thomas
141 Justin Fargas
53 Marian Barber III
106 Adrian Peterson
138 Darren McFadden
188 Kerry Collins

Gah! Two in a row! At least Purple Jesus redeems the pack. I wonder if AP and Steven Strasburg ever met if there would be a mighty battle ove who is the real messiah.

Pack 10:
73 Greg Jennings
147 Asante Samuel
393 LaDainian Tomlinson In Action SP
NC82 Rey Maualuga Chicle mini
178 Chris Long
28 Jonathan Stewart

Well that's a nice finish! Makes up for the last two packs a little bit. Speaking of Adrian Peterson, did you all nitice how LT fell off a cliff the past couple of years? And now he's on the Jets? Pay heed, AP collectors. I used to collect the hell out of running backs too... The Chicle mini is nice although I've never heard of the guy. Everyone just went Chicle crazy last year, didn't they? I count about three inset sets and an entire product based on Chicle. Hey, it's a great set, might as well steal from the best.

Ok, here's the final breakdown:
Base - 49 cards - 24.5%
SPs - 6 - 3%
1 Rookie (Javon Ringer)
1 Legend ( Darrell Green)
3 In Action (Portis, Moss, LT)
1 Obama
Chicle Minis - 2 - (Ted Kennedy, Rey Maualuga)
Game Day Gear - 1- Andre Caldwell

I've seen worse blasters. Heck, I'm going to post them eventually. I think I'll make this a regular feature. You all have no idea the horrors that awaits you, poor readers of this blog...

2009 Philadelphia National Chicle

Yesterday Ineeded to break a twenty to pay the babysitter so I stopped off at Target. The were slap out of Allen & Ginter packs. I almost decided to get a Sprite instead of a pack but I opted for a pack of Philadelphia. And found this:

CARGASM

Holy crap these National Chicle inserts are cool! After I pulled a McGovern I was thinking about hunting down a checklist of the buggers but got lazy. The Thunderbird actually got me to do it. In case you're interested, the '35 National Chicle insert set is 100 cards and is half football players and half weirdness. If you're not familiar with the '35 National Chicles, think '34-36 Diamond Stars, just with football instead of baseball. If you have no idea what that is, think 2007 Goudey. I found a couple of reprints to scan and show off, but due to a poorly planned and badly executed reorganization of my desk I have no clue where they are. They are with my first pack of Philadelphia actually, which is why I still haven't posted the thing.

The checklist can be found here on UD's website assuming the link works because I didn't test it before I posted. Here's a breakdown of the subsets within the set.

NC1-NC19: Political figures (must get: Spiro Agnew)

NC20-NC29: Muscle cars (must get: entire set)

NC30-NC39: Fighter Planes (must get: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk)

NC40-NC49: Trains (must get: Super Chief)

NC50-NC75: NFL Vets (must get: Hines Ward)

NC76-NC100: NFL Rooks (must get: Stafford & Moreno)

I think I like the non-sports stuff better than the football players. I am kind of ticked that there's no Matt Ryan in the set. What the hell, Upper Deck? I think this insert set is going to force me to buy a little more Philadelphia than I originally planned. The actual Philly set sort of meh though. Yeah the 200 card base set is nice, but there's 100 football SPs plus some weird short printed subsets like the Election card I posted before, A Woodstock tribute that I don't want, a Vietnam tribute that I REALLY don't want, a Barack Obama 25 card subset that Topps did about 6 or 7 months ago and 49 "In Action" cards. Yes, Virginia, there are as many short printed cards in this set as frickin' BASE cards. Double-you Tee Effing Eff, Upper Deck??? How the smeg is anyone supposed to collect this damn thing?

So that's my dilemma. I like the National Chicles but the shortprints are just utterly preposterous. Why can't this hobby be easy for once??

This I did not expect

I know I haven't even shown off my first pack of '09 Philadelphia yet (soon, I promise) but I snagged a couple more today and I had to show off the inserts because they were just too weird. Here are the packs, look at them closely.

I got these packs because Falcons Michael Jenkins and Jerious Norwood were showing on the front. That's right, showing. You can see Michael Jenkins above, here's a close up of Norwood:

It's actually easier to read it in person, the red lettering is almost as clear as the wrapper text. So is this pack searching? In my book, if the pack is transparent it ain't searching. And this wrapper is at bare minimum translucent. If you have a different rulebook and wish to shun me for my evil ways then more power to ya. Besides, what kind of deranged pack searcher targets Falcons base cards?

Anyway, this post is about what was inside the pack not what was showing on top. Inside the Jenkins pack I pulled a mini Goudey insert:

Of George McGovern?!???!

Yep, that's George all right. World War Two vet, South Dakota Senator, Vietnam War opposer and and the 1972 Presidential candidate that Richard Nixon was so scared of he wrecked his entire legacy over him. If you were to ask me who would be the most unlikely person to have a card in a 2009 football product, George would probably have been somewhere on that list. Yet here he is! It's actually a very good painting in the original Goudey art style. I'm very impressed with Upper Deck on this one, even though "Presidential Nominees who lost" is a pretty obscure insert subject. I like it though, although I bet most football collectors would puke if they pulled this card.

Speaking of Tricky Dick...

You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Oh no it waaaaasn't! History junkies know what I'm talking about, the rest of you probably don't have a clue. In 1962, former VP and 1960 Presidential candidate Richard Nixon ran for Governor of California and got beat by incumbant Democrat Pat Brown in Republican (at the time) California. Richard rattled off the above quote in defeat, then bided his time and worked behind the scenes to stage a comeback in 1968 when he beat Hubert Humphrey for the Presidency. Only to screw it all up by getting caught committing shenanigans in his race four years later against the aforementioned McGovern.

It's amazing the weird stuff that comes out of card packs nowadays.

Sympathy for the Devil

Ok, so Upper Deck isn't really the Devil. Richard McWilliam is barely a lesser demon at best. Even so, I felt so bad today about Upper Deck getting their license yanked that when I dropped by Target to pick up some chicken for dinner, I packed up a pick of Philadelphia and UDX to show my support for the fallen franchise.

That's right, I willingly purchased a pack of UDX.

No really, I actually bought it. I didn't shoplift it or anything. Really and truly paid for it. With cash. Which is just as good as money.

I am not in a position to scan the cards at the moment, but I will give brief one sentence first glance reviews of the two products:

2009 Philadelphia Football:

O-Pee-Chee for pigskin.

2009 UDX:

Somehow bolder and uglier than last year.

I'll give a more fleshed out account of my feelings towards these products tonight, assuming I can stay awake that long.

UPDATE: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......