Congratulations Red Wings

2007-2008 Stanley Cup Champs. In honor of your achievement, I will post cards of the Red Wing players in EA NHL Hockey '94 for the Super Nintendo. With these players I kicked major ass, just as the Wings have kicked ass this season.

Steve Yzerman scored at will. Pansies would try to play me using Gretzky or Mario, and they would all be pwned by Stevie Y.

After a line change my opponents would breath a sigh of relief, then Federov would take the ice and skate circles around the chumps. Literally.

BEST. DEFENSEMAN. EVAR.* Scored more than Federov when I played.

Tim Cheveldae? Who the hell is he? I'm playing with Roy. Many games started with that statement from my opponent, and ended with great expletives from him instead.

Slava Kozlov was good for the occasional goal, more if I blinded my opponent with this shiny Leaf Limited card.

Every once in a while someone would get hot, and play me to a tie, and take me to overtime, and just when they thought they had a chance... WHAMMO Dino comes out of nowhere for the game winning goal.

Nicklas Lidstrom = shutout for Chevy. Hell, he's still with the team. Hell, he's the freakin' CAPTAIN.

Vladdie eats your puny forwards.

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGHHHHTTTTT!!!!!!!!

* not named Chris Chelios.

Play Ball - Old and New

Today was a little too hectic to write up my post on the 2003 Play Ball base set, so instead here are some old and new Play Ball cards of some Braves. See if you can tell which are the originals and which are the Upper Deck cards. They're so similar it's SPOOKY.

Tom Glavine - Note that Tom both bats and throws from "From". Also note the hated M-Word on the back of the card.

Chipper Jones - I have literally hundreds, if not a couple thousand Chipper Jones cards, and this is the first time I ever noticed that he is 6'4".

Greg Maddux - 350 wins. Just say it to yourself. Three HUNDRED and fifty WINS. Oh it sounds so damn good.

Andruw Jones - I normally have a nice bit of schadenfreude whenever a player leaves the Braves for more loot and subsequently stinks (see: J.D. Drew), but I really want Andruw to be a Hall of Famer and you ain't getting in the Hall of fame hitting .165. What the hell happened to Druw?

Max West - Slightly above average first baseman for the Braves during The Dismal Period. He was the starting right fielder in the 1940 All Star game and hit a three run homer in his only at bat.

Gene Moore - Another one-time All Star for the Boston Bees. They had to send somebody I suppose. I want to know why his nickname was "rowdy".
Johnny Cooney - Johnny played baseball from 1921 to 1944, and 16 of those 20 seasons in the bigs were with the Braves. He started out as a pitcher, was out of the league in 1931, but returned in 1935 as an outfielder.

Frank Demaree - Frank went from an All Star in Chicago to a backup in Boston. Frank is on the only 1938 Goudey card I own.

Lucky Fours

Look at this skinny kid.

Can you believe that just over 18 years to the day after being drafted, just like a bunch of other skinny kids got drafted today, this particular skinny kid has:

gotten 4 hits to pass Eddie Mathews on the All-Time Braves hit list

one of which was his 400th home run

and he is now hitting .418

Oh, and he also had a steal.

Right now, I am so, so gay for Chipper Jones.

It's feeling a bit drafty

The MLB draft is here and Georgia had a huge impact in the first round. Five players from the state of Georgia were taken in the top 20 picks, including the number one overall pick and two from my beloved Georgia Bulldogs. Foley Field representin'! Here's the Peach State draftees followed by the guy whose autograph I'll be chasing this fall.


#1 overall pick - Tim Beckham - SS - Tampa Bay Rays
All around player at shortstop from Griffin High School. The dude was born in 1990 and just got drafted by a Major League ballclub. In other news, I am older than dirt.

#5 overall pick - Buster Posey - C - San Francisco Giants
Big catcher from Leesburg, GA who was converted from shortstop at Florida State. He's been compared to Jason Varitek but is still really raw.

#8 overall pick - Gordon Beckham - SS - Chicago White Sox
Shortstop from the University of Georgia who has really broken out in his junior season. He's hit 24 homers for a .397 average and could end up at second base.

#15 overall pick - Ethan Martin - RHP - Los Angeles Dodgers
A top prep player from Stephens County High School, Ethan was drafted as a pitcher but also can hit massive home runs when playing third base. It will be interesting to see how the Dodgers develop this kid.

#20 overall pick - Josh Fields - RHP - Seattle Mariners
Georgia's closer the past couple of years, Josh had a good senior season with 16 saves and a 2.27 ERA. Josh was the Braves' second round pick last year, but they couldn't get a deal done with [expletive deleted] Scott Boras.

The Braves' draft can be found here, Out first pick was #40 overall in the compensation portion of the first round.

#40 overall pick - Brett DeVall - LHP - Atlanta Braves
A surprisingly polished lefty pitcher from Niceville High School in Florida. He has three good pitches, a fastball, slider and changeup, and very good command for a high school pitcher. Brett was a star in the East Cobb league right down the interstate from me, and is committed to play for the University of Georgia next year if he doesn't sign. Pete Van Wieren just told me over the radio that he was ranked the nineteenth overall prospect in this year's draft by Baseball America.

The rest of the picks for the Braves so far -

#64 overall pick - Tyler Stovall - LHP - Hokes Bluff HS (AL)
#70 overall pick - Ezekiel Spruill - RHP - Kell HS (GA)
#96 overall pick - Craig Kimbrel - RHP - Wallace State CC
#130 overall pick - Braeden Schlehuber - Col of Southern Nevada
#160 overall pick - Jacob Thompson - RHP - University of Virginia

I'll update as I have time.

Topps Time Out

Ok, I've been thinking about this for the past few days and I've decided Topps needs to go sit in the corner for a while and think about what they've done. I'm going to take a little break from Topps until I'm over this short print gimmick thing. I banned Upper Deck for a month over screwing up an insert set (which they recently fixed anyway) and here Topps goes and undermines the integrity of their entire flagship brand.

Now, the Fukudome and WBC friends cards didn't bug me all that much. I thought it was bloody stupid for them to yank the rookie cards from the set and let their competitor have a monopoly on those rookies for at least a month or so, but they're probably going to stick them in the Red Hot Rookie redemptions anyway. Dumb move, but it doesn't affect me none. The Schwarzenegger and Gore cards hit a little closer to home as I was trying to complete the candidate card set. Oh well, I got both the nominees at any rate and there's a new political set to drool over in series two anyway. The thing that set me off was that goddamn Santana card.

The idea of it is stupid to begin with. Making up a "highlight" card for an event that is supposed to happen four months in the future is goofy by any standards. There are plenty of All-Star and Hall of Fame caliber pitchers who haven't sniffed a no-hitter anyway, and to prognosticate that Santana would not only pitch one, but on the last day of the season yet on a licensed baseball card is a little groan worthy. That's not what bugs me though. Numbering it 661 is what bugs me. Make it a no numbered card and I'd ignore it. Make it the same number as the base Santana card and play it off as a "variation" and I'd be cool with it. Adding it to the base checklist and having a Topps official come out and state that it's "extremely short printed" is insanity. Seriously? Part of the base set is so freaking short printed that there's been exactly one of the damn cards to even show up on eBay? And the Topps base set, mind you, a brand that has been all about the base set since Sy Barger was an intern. And it's not a hoax either, it's been confirmed.

You know, I have eight monster boxes in my basement that are all full of Topps cards going back to 1952. There are a few sets, a few near sets, a lot of half finished sets that get less and less finished the farther back you go. But they're still full of Topps and all full of sets. And in one fell swoop, Topps has undermined that history with one gimmicky card that some suit is smirking over as he brags about extremely rare it is in a press release. Basically what Topps just told me, as a paying customer, is that our base cards aren't really worth a damn anymore and there's no real reason to build a set. If you want a set, get a factory set. Better yet, but one each of the 9 or 10 we'll release this year. But still buy plenty of wax to try to chase a cut auto or a patch card or a letterman card or one of our gimmicks. Um, Topps, sorry to break this to you, but I've been buying boxes all this time so I could build the base sets. The inserts were fun bonuses, and I collected some of those sets as well, but it was still at the heart of it all only about the cards. Now you just told me that I can't have a base set, because you thought it would be better for your bottom line to put in the set a card of an event that hasn't happened yet and probably will never happen and to make it so rare that exactly one has surfaced to far. Well, if you call flushing 57 years of collecting (you know, that thing you print on all your Gold Parallel cards) right down the drain profitable, then hey, knock yourself out.

I bought a box of Topps Series Two the first day. Not because I wanted to rip it and put the good stuff on eBay, not because I was afraid the price would go up, not because I wanted to find a rare card, but because I love collecting Topps sets. You've just taken that away from me with card #661. Now, I can't collect the 2008 Topps set simply because you chose to put that number on the back instead of no number or JS-NoNo or SP1 or the Prince symbol freaking anything but number 661. I have a box of Topps Series 2 sitting in front of me with half the cards still in the packs waiting for me to write about them on my blog (giving you free advertising, by the way) that I just flat out don't want to touch anymore. I have no interest in them right now. I have less interest promoting your product that you obviously don't believe in any more. Some will say "just get over it" or "collect the rest of the set and forget about that card" but the problem is deeper than that. There's a vocal group of people on the internet that gripe and complain about these gimmick cards. Part of the reason that we don't like them is because of what happened in 2006. The Alex Gordon card had to be pulled due to the new rules, not all of them were, and no replacement for that card was offered for the set. That means a whole lot of people are missing one lousy card from their 2006 Topps set because of the Alex Gordon mistake. The thing is, that was a mistake, this is on purpose. You made it so I and hundreds of collectors like me will always have a hole in my 2008 set on purpose.

I don't trust you anymore Topps. Unless you do a major mea culpa and insert a Santana doesn't get a No-Hitter on September, 28th, 2008 card in Updates and Highlights and also number it 661, my set is always going to be incomplete. When you do that to a set collector, on purpose, they tend not to want to bother with your products anymore. I'm afraid to buy any Allen & Ginter now. I've been wanting to buy 2008 Allen & Ginter since before I bought my box of 2007 Allen & Ginter and now I'm afraid to buy it. What crap are you going to pull in that set? If I buy two or three boxes of it to try to complete the set like I did the 2007 set, are you going to add a card 351? Will it be a 1/1 card? What are you going to do next, Topps? And Allen & Ginter is not like base Topps. I could have waited a few months on this product on still found it at every hobby shop and retailer. Allen & Ginter I have to buy it the first day, and be standing outside the store before the UPS guy even gets there or I'm going to pay $125 a box instead of $85 and I can't and won't pay that much for a box of Allen & Ginter. So what do I do now, Topps, I'm asking you. After three years of goofy short print/error cards in your Topps products I'm gun shy now. This year also gimmicked up your Heritage product with super short print variations, indicating to me that ALL set building products are fair game.

I'm pushing the rest of my box break till later. Maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe never, but it's gonna be later. The only reason I'm not banning Topps from the blog altogether is that there's some vintage stuff I've like to post about soon and I'm not letting Topps' stupidity get in the way of that. I seriously have to rethink how I collect cards now though, and that's including deciding whether I want to continue collecting at all. Was it worth it Topps? Was the mention on a couple of hobby periodicals and a few blogs worth possibly losing a customer who has been buying your product almost non stop since 1981? I don't have a lot of time in my life for hobbies anymore. If you continue to make this hobby not fun for me I'll have no problem finding something else to do with my time and my money. In the meantime, don't expect any free advertising from me anytime soon.

tl;dr version of the huge post that will be up in two minutes

Long story short:

• With the Johan Santana #661 card, Topps purposely screwed up their base set in an attempt to cash in once again on collectors chasing another "rare" card.
• This act has greatly upset me.
• I am not posting any new Topps cards on this blog until I get over it.
• I may never get over it.

Focusing on the Collection

For Love of the Cards recently had an article about focusing on what cards to collect. My main focus is to get every card imaginable and cram them into my house. That's what it would seem anyway. Recently I've been trying to get my Heritage house in order, sorting through all my Chipper Jones cards, snagging pre-war cards as I may and working on those Topps sets that I'm not sure I even want to collect anymore after the most recent short print fiasco. Of course in reality I'm surrounded by piles of cards. Autographs here for one blog, my Play Ball set there for another blog, teetering piles of Braves, wax packs all over the place and, well I don't even know what is in that box anymore. Ok, so I'm not focused. I'm never gonna be.

That doesn't mean that there aren't focused individuals out there. There are team collectors, set collectors, player collectors and smile collectors out there. Honorable pursuits, all. Then I saw this guy. All Rutgers cards. Now that's focus! That's dedication! Major respek knuckles for Rutgers dude! This isn't Floria State or USC or Texas or some big school that has a dozen kids drafted in each sport each year, this is New Jersey's finest. It's inspirational, is what it is. It makes me want to finally start that Luis Sojo player collection I've been wanting to do for a while now. I'll have to clear out some space for a new pile first though.

2003 Play Ball - the Promos

Remember when the card companies gave away promo cards in Beckett and Tuff Stuff? You know, to advertise and drum up interest in their new products? Back when there were more than two companies in the marketplace? When card manufacturers actually had to innovate and put out an excellent product instead of crapping out some short printed cards they hoped would get on the news and provide them some free advertising? Yeah, neither do I. That was a looooooooong time ago. Nowadays they only give away promo cards at large conventions to dealers who put them on eBay for 20 bucks a pop. I miss promo cards.

2003 Play Ball - The Short Prints

I was going to post one of the relic cards from the set tonight, but it turns out I don't actually have one. They're not all that special anyway... I'll scrounge around and find an image somewhere to show off tomorrow. Here's an example of the short prints from the set instead.

This is a Ted Williams Tribute card. These were inserted one a box and were numbered 89-103 on the checklist. Joe D got an insert set in his honor and Ted got these painted short prints instead. The DiMaggio cards were three a box and these were only one per, so I guess Upper Deck liked Joe better than Ted. Damn Yankee bias. This is the only short print in the set that I have. I was far more interested in the base set and the Joe-D cards at the time than the expensive short prints. Well, actually, I was far more interested in ToppsT205 cards at the time. Most of my money went to mini cards with various ad backs instead of Play Ball. This one has a nice big dink in the upper left corner so I got it cheep. It's got Joe and Ted chumming up in a nice painting on this card so it's like all the short print sets in one.


Here's the back. See how red it is? You didn't think Upper Deck started the red variation backs in 2007 Goudey did you? You silly person. I'm not sure how many red cards are in a pack, but there sure are a lot of them out there. I've got probably half the set in the red version. Even the DiMaggio streak cards can be found with the red backs. I'm going to go out on a limb and say maybe one red back per pack. There were only five cards in a pack so anymore than that and we'd be talking about the black backs being the variation cards. The text is the same on the red and black backs so it's not a big deal.

The other short print set is "The Summer of '41" and is numbered 74-88 in the set. I don't have one of these cards at all although I've been looking for Babe Dahlgren, the lone Brave representative from the 40's in the set, for a while. While Ted Williams gets 15 cards all by himself, 15 other players from 1941 get one each in this subset. Like the Ted Williams cards, they were one per box and pricey at the time. I don't know if they are still pricey, 'cause I can't find any online. The local shop has one or two mixed into their star boxes though so I might have to snag one for completeness' sake. Most of the subjects can be found in the mini reprint set, although Indian Bob isn't one of them. If I find a card or a scan I'll post it, if not, eh, no biggie. Like I said, I didn't buy these cards for the short prints, I bought them for the base set, which I'll get into next post.

Hey look! I found it! I may even buy the thing if it lasts long enough for my paycheck to hit the bank. As long as I haven't convinced at least three of you to hit eBay and buy every Play Ball card you can that is.

A Must Read

Baseball Cards and Recession by Mario Alejandro.


Apparantly animated gifs don't work in Blogger. Just imagine them clapping.

Smoltzie's Done

Season ending surgery with Dr. James Andrews. He says he'll be back next year but it might be just about time for the career retrospectives. Best quote is from Marlins manager and former Braves coach Fredi Gonzalez:

“It wouldn’t surprise me if he came back as a left-handed pitcher,”

Fredi might be right... a good LOOGY can hang around in the league for decades. Good luck Smoltzie, we're all pulling for ya.

18 Years Ago Today

So 18 years ago, after a whole lot of scouting by this guy:

the Braves decided to draft and sign this guy:

because Tony thought Chipper was capable of doing this:

Here's that kid today:

Looks like Tony was right. Good job Tony!

2003 Play Ball - Joe's Streak

This is the coolest insert set from 2003 Play Ball. Remember the DiMaggio Streak cards from last year's Topps set? These make them look pathetic. First of all, these are hefty cards. They are thick as a brick as the box score is recessed in the card. Completely unecessary, but the shadowbox effect looks nice. UD used the same technique on box score cards and base parallel cards in the 2004 set also, but these look nicer. The set is dedicated to the Yankee Clipper's 56-game hitting streak in 1941. There's one card for each game, each with a photo of Joe, the Yankee half of the box score and a summary of the game. The one above is game 14 of the streak, a rainout in Washington where DiMaggio hit a chopper off the plate for a single before the game was called in the middle of the 6th. Nowadays the umps would rather eat a bug than call a game, but back then with no lights the Sens were probably happy to wait till it got too dark and escape with a tie.

Here's game number 15 of the streak , where Joe barely kept the streak alive with a single in the ninth inning of the opener of a twinbill in Boston. Note that the two photos are different. Upper Deck did this set right, every card has a different photo of Joe, and they are related to the hit in some instances. Card 45 shows Joe in front of a sign stating "45 cracks" and card 56 has him kissing his bat. The box score is cool as this is before you could go on Baseball-Reference.com and pull up RetroSheet box scores whenever you wanted. Actually, the box scores only go back to 1956 right now, so you can't really look these up that easily anyway.

What is extremely cool about this set is that each card has a game summary on the back. It's pretty neat to read about these games that happened over 60 years ago. It adds some context to this legendary streak. These were actual baseball games they were playing after all, not just Joe getting a hit and everyone going home.

These cards were somewhat difficult to find in packs, I think they were maybe one or two a box or so. They weren't cheap, either. I only got these two back at the time, and then pulled a third out of a pack. Unfortunately it was a dupe of card 14. Anyone need card 14 for their set? Sets are pricey nowadays too, there's one on eBay right now for the low, low price of $250. Gotta admit, it's a pretty freakin' sweet set though.

Card #661

I'm just not feeling the Topps Box Break today. The title is the cause of my frustration. Maybe I'll get back to it tomorrow. Maybe not. In the meantime here's a video that's a little late, but I feel it needs to be linked. It gave me a smile on my face anyway.



Topps don't know Diddley.

Blue Heaven also has mo' Diddley

Card Of the Week 6/2/08

Things just got hairy at Casa de Dayf, and I might not get to this till tomorrow. Here's the card(s) though for you to gawk at, from this this week's honored set 2003 Upper Deck Play Ball.

Ok, less crazy now. This card is a reprint of Indian Bob Johnson's 1941 Play Ball card from Upper Deck's 2003 Play Ball set. UD reprinted 25 cards from the original set and inserted them in packs. Each pack had one '41 sized card that was either a reprint or a mini version of the base set. The reprints were stacked with stars, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese, Hank Greenberg and Jimmie Foxx are just a few in the set. Upper Deck paid close attention to detail on the entire set. The base set's artwork has the same 'feel' as the original set without resorting to crappy computer fuzzing effects to make it look old. The reprints are dead on though, from the color to the layout on the back, even to using the exact font from the 40's issues. Instead of focusing on one of the superstars here's one of the lesser known players from the set.

Bob Johnson (no, not this one) (or this one) (or even this one) was one of the top sluggers in the American League in the 30's and 40's but is almost completely unknown today. Born in Oklahoma, Bob was a quarter Cherokee which prompted the "Indian Bob" nickname. He didn't make his debut until he was 27 due to there being a glut of good outfielders in the majors at the time. He was picked up by the Philadelphia Athletics when they sent Al Simmons to the White Sox. Once he made it to the majors he made up for lost time and hit .290 with 21 homers and 93 RBI in his rookie year. Bob feasted in Shibe park and hit at least 20 homers a year from '33 to '41 along with 7 straight years of 100 or more RBIs from '35 to '41. The long time left fielder never led the league in any major categories but he was almost always in the top 10, as you can see from his Baseball-Reference page. The 8-time All-Star also played for the Senators in '43 and the Red Sox in '44 and '45. He hit for the cycle as a member of the Sox in on July 6th 1944. After replacing Hall of Famer Al Simmons in Philadelphia, he retired in 1946 when another legend, Ted Williams, returned to reclaim left field for the Sox. His career home run total of 288 doesn't sound like a lot now, but it was good for 8th all time when he retired. 8th all time now? Mark McGwire at 583. Cherokee Bob is still 126th all time which ain't shabby at all.

Part of the reason I chose Indian Bob is that I have also a vintage card of him. This is his 1940 Play Ball card. As you can see Play Ball ganked the photos from their older sets just like Topps does. This is a pretty cool example of how the color sets created the pictures for their cards by basing the paintings off of photos. Play Ball removed the detail of the players and stadium in the photo for a more abstract background. The also slimmed down Indian Bob by a few pounds ass well by the looks of it. Here are the backs of the cards.

Different years, yeah, but Upper Deck really put the attention to detail on this set. It's a shame they completely butchered the 2004 Play Ball set, but this one still stands out as one of my all-time favorites. Look for more cards from this set all this week as I can get to posting them.

Smoltzie's back

Thank God.


UPDATE: First game back and Smoltzie gets his first blown save! Thank God for Yunel...

2008 Topps Series 2 Box Break - Packs 9-12

Ok, we've had a nice weekend to cool down from all the anger and controversy and fighting and anguish and disappointment. But enough about the DNC rules committee hearing, what about those bastards at Topps sneaking FIVE freaking short prints into this product! What the hell! And I can't even exchange this box for some Upper Deck so I can boycott Topps like all the cool kids! Oh well, time to move on and open my now tarnished box of mediocrity.

Pack 9:
345 Carl Crawford
633 Adam LaRoche
419 Bengie Molina
404 Cecil Cooper
591 Rico Washington RC
653 Endy Chavez
TS4 Josh Beckett Topps Stars
Rookie Cup junk
ToppsTown junk
659 Vincente Padilla
513 Rick VandenHurk
480 Matt Cain

Hey, Rico! I wondered what happened to him. Back in 2000 I bought am opened set of 2000 Topps Traded so I could get the Rico Washington autograph that came with it. I figured with a name like that, he couldn't miss. It took 8 years, but he didn't miss! I'm happy to pull a card of Cecil Cooper after all these years. Coop is doing a pretty good job managing the Astros this year. Topps jinxed Endy Chavez by putting "Endy ... has not made an error since [the Mets] signed him after the '05 season" on the back of his card. Oops. The Beckett insert is shiny and good looking and will end up in a box with all my other half-finished Topps Stars insert sets. If I don't scan and post the Adam LaRoche card, Brian will drive down from Canada just to strangle me, so here it is.

Pack 10:
655 Aaron Rowand
415 Derek Lowe
619 Sergio Mitre
359 Evan Meek RC
614 Rich Hill
366 Jeff Weaver
350 gold Mark Teixeira
Wright Class junk
more Rookie cup junk
592 Matt Morris
555 Josh Beckett
599 Austin Kearns

Well I finally got my Mark Teixeira Topps Braves card where he's not wearing a mu-mu. I am not disappointed either, that's a kick ass card. Of course it's the gold foil version so I still need to chase one down for the set. Derek Lowe is signing a baseball on his card. Don't use a sharpie to sign a baseball Derek! I got two junk cards again in this pack. Speaking of junk - Rich Hill: optioned to Triple-A Iowa. Jeff Weaver: still hasn't been called up to the Brewers' rotation. Matt Morris: dumped by Pittsburgh, now retired. The Topps bump is really screwing up the photography in this set something fierce. Josh Beckett is tiny on his card and Aaron Rowand looks like he's squatting down to avoid bonking his head. This is the first pack with no inserts, odd since there are a ton of insert sets in this product. I guess the gold parallel is technically an insert though. I'll finish up with an Austin Kearns for Joe, wherever you are...

Pack 11:
495 James Shields
397 Brian Wilson
579 Jesse Litsch
411 Jason Kubel
365 Derrek Lee
629 Eric Chavez
TS15 David Ortiz
two girls, one Rookie Cup
Flopps Town
576 Dave Bush
625 Greg Maddux
420 Nick Swisher

Eh, ok pack. I'm getting bored with this box already which is not good. I wonder if the UD Blasters have relics in them again? David Ortiz insert and a Maddux make the pack. I wonder how many trees Topps has killed with their junk cards. I better go to the next pack before a certain Giants pitcher forces me to link to a Barenaked Ladies song. Aw, dammit.

Pack 12:
348 Craig Monroe
463 John McLaren
620 Gary Sheffield
HR-CU Chase Utley jersey relic
AR91 Moises Alou All-Star Rookie
HCM-1908 Taft vs. Bryan Campaign
I'm a big Fathead ad
junk code thingee
556 John Gibbons
483 Mike Jacobs

Here's the big hit in the box! Of course you already knew that because I posted the image at the top and didn't even put a spoiler warning. I'd say this is a pretty damn good jersey card. Chase has 20 homers already, there's a stripe on the jersey and there's even some stitches in there. Aw yeah, this is a premium jersey card! This card and about 5 bucks will get me a small espresso. Too bad this ain't 1998. This card would be worth something. Topps crammed all the inserts in this pack. Moises is still hanging on in New York, not bad for a cup winner from 1992. I got another Campaign card, this time William "Big Daddy" Taft vs. William Jennings "Golden Boy" Bryan. I could write all day about Bryan so I won't. He lost three or four elections so I might get another chance at it later anyway. He had no chance against Taft though for two reasons: One, Taft had an epic mustache. Sure there was peace and prosperity after a wildly popular Roosevelt administration, but seriously, it was the mustache. The second and most important reason though is that Taft absolutely did not want to be president. Aversion to elected office is the most desperately needed quality in every politician and the fact that it is completely ignored by the voting public is why this country is in the state it's in. Basically, Roosevelt wanted to go on a safari, so he said to Taft, hey buddy, will you be president for me for a while? And Taft was his best friend, but he was all like, man, I don't wanna do that crap job. And Teddy was like, dude, I've already bought the tickets to Africa! And Taft reluctantly agreed and TR went on his safari and when he came back he was all like, Dude WTF? You screwed up my country! And Taft was like, I didn't want this job anyway at least don't bug me while I'm doing it! And they had a big slap fight and Roosevelt ran against Taft in the next election and they both lost and Taft because a justice on the Supreme Court which is where he wanted to be in the first place. Sadly their friendship was ruined and there were no more late night Wii parties at Teddy's house after that. Wii parties were much different in 1908. I guess I'd better talk about the base cards a little or else Topps will think they're not important anymore. Oh wait, they already think that! There's a whole lotta cards of players with cool shades in this set. I'm looking at you, Craig Monroe. There are two manager cards in this pack, but John McLaren's card has Ichiro on it so that's cool. And how did Gary Sheffield get so old so fast? Sad. Before I go I have to note that I was right. Topps is taking advertisements in their cards now as we see by the FatHead 10% off ad. I can't wait to rip some 2009 Golden Palace Casino Topps Series BankOne brought to you by Viagra.


The box so far:

Base cards - 95
Checklists - 3
Dupes - 0
Damaged - 1

Parallels:
Gold Foil - 5
Gold Parallel - 2 - Takashi Saito, Ted Lilly

Inserts:
Year In Review - 2 - Wil Ledezma, Chad Gaudin
Trading Card History - 2 - Francisco Rodriguez, Nick Markakis
All-Rookie 50th - 3 - Angel Berroa, Aaron Miles, Moises Alou
Mickey Mantle Story - 1
Topps Stars - 3 - Justin Morneau, Josh Beckett, David Ortiz
Campaign Matchups - 2 - 1872 Grant v. Greeley, 1908 Taft v. Bryan

THE HIT:
HR-CU Chase Utley jersey relic with a stripe and everything!

Junk:
ToppsTown - 7
All-Rookie - 4
David Wright - 2
FatHead - 1

So Much For Completing That Insert Set

Well, Topps has completely screwed any chance of me completing my Campaign 2008 insert set, by sneaking in a bullshit Running Man card and now a card of some dude who is making mad cash on the lecture circuit and wouldn't want the Presidency if the Supreme Court gave it back to him. All I needed was a stinkin' Huckabee card too. Well now that my dream of completing this insert set has been cruelly thwarted, I just have one thing to ask Topps:

WHERE THE HELL IS MY BOB BARR CARD YOU UN-AMERICAN ASSCLOWNS?!?!

You can demean your flagship product with gimmicky crap, you can lose market share to Upper Deck by allowing them to have the only legit Fukudome rookie card on the market, and you can run off your loyal customers with needless shenanigans, but you do not, I repeat, DO NOT FUCK WITH THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY!!!!!

* note - the first person to identify which three cards I used bits of to cobble this card together wins some cards or something. Hint: two I pulled in my last two box break posts and the third is exceedingly obvious.

Fresh 2 U - Terry Pendleton

This, sadly, is the last Florida Agriculture Commission Braves card. While All-Stars get crummy raw broccoli (and Greg is an All-Star so all you haters can suck it) but MVPs get strawberries! And........ stuff. I do not know what is in that bowl. I do not WANT to know what is in that bowl. It's white, and chunky, and has enough density to support several large strawberries atop it. Could it be ice cream? Not in the hot Florida sun during a photo shoot it ain't. Could it be cottage cheese? Possibly, but more likely is that it was strawberries and cream which curdled into cheese in the 100 degree heat and 110% humidity. Could it be Elmer's Glue? I wouldn't put it past Commissioner Bob after he already handed out mutant tangerines and raw broccoli for this set. Whatever it is, Terry's not the least bit happy about it. Now, I'm not the biggest strawberry fan in the world, but no one makes a face like that when nibbling on one. Terry knows exactly what's in that bowl and he's not happy at ALL. I'm beginning to think this whole agriculture set has nothing to do with promoting nutrition and has EVERYTHING to do with MURDERING the Atlanta Braves with poisoned fruit! There are a lot of transplanted New Yorkers in Florida... how do we know Commissioner Bob isn't a... a... Mets fan?!? It all makes sense now! I knew it! Florida was evil the whole time! You can't fool a University of Georgia grad! Screw you Florida, and just watch as the Braves beat up on your Marlins this week!!!

Sticky Sunday - Upper Deck Month

Since it's Upper Deck month here at The Junk, I'm going to shift gears and post the short-lived hologram stickers that were inserted into packs of Upper Deck from 1989-1992 for Sticky Saturday Sunday Weekends. I'll start out with the 1992 sticker and go backwards. Why start with 1992? Because that's the sticker I found first.

This sticker is the end of the line for stickers inserted into Upper Deck products and can be considered officially the end of the line for baseball products with stickers as premiums. Fleer stickers gave up the ghost in 1991, and Upper Deck inserted these gold colored hologram stickers in their '92 set. These full sized team logo hologram stickers were essentially the same as the ones that were found in 1991 packs except for two big differences. The stickers were gold instead of silver, and they went from one per pack to a one per box chase card. That's right, stickers were now chase cards. The sound you hear is the echoes of my childhood dying in agony as baseball cards turned from a fun thing to collect to a growth industry with high-yield investment potential. You can't stick a one per box insert card on your notebook, imagine the book value! Ok, so I was never big into sticking my stickers all over the place anyway, but still. Out of all the '92 Upper Deck wax I bought, to this day I have still only pulled one damn sticker out of pack. And that was of the logo of the American League. For a National League kind of guy that is seriously teh s uck. I found this Braves sticker 16 years after the fact in a 50 cent box.

Baseball logo stickers were dead and this set killed 'em . A few more stickers popped up here and these. Glow stickers inserted into in Upper Deck Fun Packs. Logo stickers into packs for a Topps contest. Those were still insert cards. Not one a pack. Not easy to get. Listed in price guides with pull ratios. It's just not the same.