Craptacular Wax

I went to Target to pick up some last things for my trip and picked up a few of the old $1.59 packs just for the heck of it. I know they have nothing special left in them, but there’s always the chance of picking up a base card of one of my Shlabotniks. After all, wasn’t Curt Schilling in every set this century?

Not a chance.

The first craptastic pack was 2004 Fleer Platinum (which is so misnamed; is the sparkly set the Gold-Pressed Latinum set?)

checklist, cards 1-144 (Schilling is #29. No, I didn’t get one. No Craig Counsell on this CL, either)
95 Matt Stairs
73 Zach Day
some anti-packsearching cardstock (will use for papercrafting)
187 William Bergolla/Josh Hall
112 Eric Chavez
175 Jason Michaels Unsung Heroes
122 Jason Schmidt
173 Mariano Rivera Unsung Heroes

This set is old-school. Fugly old-school. Even worse, there’s nothing in here for the team collectors who read the blog and I didn’t end up with any of my Shlabotniks nor did I get any Brewers. I did get something to make an ATC out of, however, although my art sucks.

Second festival of crap was 2005 Fleer Showcase, which at least looks good–until you see the players I pulled.

22 David Eckstein (arrrgh, this should be one of my trap cards.)
78 Javy Lopez (the catcher, not Javier the Red Sox reliever whom the entirety of Red Sox Nation forgot existed)
50 Michael Young
more cardboard for me to make artist trading cards
26 Jody Gerut
45 Austin Kearns

Wow, that sucks.

Third not-so-crappy pack: 2006 Fleer Ultra

RBI17 Derrek Lee RBI Kings
150 Luis Gonzalez
201 Ken Griffey Jr. Retro Lucky 13
DP19 Pat Burrell Diamond Producers
96 Pedro Martinez
40 Mark Mulder (great, defective foil)
196 Jeff Harris
175 Alex Rodriguez (gold)

Hey, at least there are guys in this pack that I’ve heard of, and according to the Beckett I picked up today at least the Griffey and the Rodriguez aren’t commons, and the common inserts are listed. And wtf, is this pack almost all inserts?

4th pack, a return to total crap: 2004 Upper Deck Series 2.

358 Jeff Kent
424 Josh Fogg
405 Jose Contreras
284 Roberto Alomar
443 Freddy Garcia
cardboard APS device, with no blank side. Drat.
508 Scott Dohmann (severely printing-process damaged card–oops, ink!)
489 Roman Colon
522 Shawn Hill
SL-7 Edgar Renteria Super Sluggers (WHO ARE THEY FOOLING HERE?)

I admit I like Josh Fogg because he’s usually cheerful out there on the hill (or would be if he was employed; oops, Josh, should have taken that offer from the Rockies!) but that doesn’t really mean I’m excited about the card.

I’ll be back on the 20th with an exciting post (at least I hope it’s exciting.) I bought a hobby box of 2008 Upper Deck and it’s going to be opened when I get back from Boston. I also may have a paper-focused convention report. Apparently the hucksters’ room at Boskone is filled with dealers of those little rectangular paper things with pages with words on them. We’ll see. Also, I may ask David Weber if he based the Harrington Treecats on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They both had green uniforms and sucked.

pack openings, 2007 Goudey

I grabbed these Thursday at Target during a flurry of post-Christmas clearance sale shopping. These weren’t on clearance but I needed to get something for myself after picking up too many discounted singing Elmos for my cousin’s 1st birthday gift.

Pack 1:
100 Zach Duke
117 Mike Cameron
118 Matt Holliday
260 David Wright
13 Barry Zito
97 Trevor Hoffman
127 Freddy Sanchez
151 Mark Loretta

Well, it fills holes in my set….

Pack 2:
10 Andy Pettitte
94 Tom Glavine
167 Francisco Liriano
191 Victor Martinez
27 Chipper Jones
62 Joe Mauer
150 Joe Crede
104 Ichiro

Wow, they made a Liriano card for this set. I hope he manages to stay off the DL in 2008, especially now that the Twins have discarded Silva and Garza. (I live in Minneapolis. Even when I say I don’t follow the Twins, I end up following the Twins.)

Please forgive me a Shallow Fangirl Moment here. My goodness, is Tom Glavine looking old, and awfully quickly, too. What happened?

As for Mr Suzuki we could probably start using his family name. Mac Suzuki’s been out of MLB for over five years and it’s not like anyone’s going to confuse Ichiro with Kurt, who plays for Oakland and is taller, heavier, ten years younger, and usually found wearing catching equipment.

Pack 3:
63 Johan Santana
174 Jack Wilson
198 Felipe Lopez
232 Derek Jeter
65 Johnny Damon
72 Lance Berkman
129 Andre Ethier
153 Troy Glaus

They could have put a bit more effort into the photo editing on the Jeter card, but oh well.

various pack openings

Before I get around to my giant Bowman Heritage blaster box post (and there will be one, once I recover from this weekend’s Christmas shopping) here’s some packs I opened on Saturday, obtained on a normal, non-holiday-related trip to Target.

2007 Topps Updates and Highlights:
UH114 Pete Orr
UH131 Marlon Byrd
UH125 Joe Kennedy
UH53 Randy Messenger
UH24 Brad Hennessey
UH47 Scott Hairston
UH317 Chris Schroder
UH120 Jason Phillips
GN419 Prince Fielder Generation Now
UH15 David Wells
UH235 C.C. Sabathia All-Star
UH239 Mike Lowell All-Star

I’m having good luck getting Fielder cards in this set. However, I’m starting to question the collation again; this pack was almost identical to one I pulled a few weeks back, except that one had Wilson Betemit instead of David Wells, 2 different All-Stars, and a Kenji Johjima Generation Now.

2007 Goudey:
95 Torii Hunter
32 David Ortiz
111 Morgan Ensberg
202 Nolan Ryan
40 Garret Anderson
33 Billy Wagner
187 Jose Vidro
107 Dan Uggla

These cards are, to be honest, soooooo cute! No, not the players, the cards. I also intend to document cute things on this blog, and 2007 Goudey are nothing if not that due to the small size and the front designs. I’ve overheard women buying these cards at Target and remarking on the “cute little interesting cards.” I’m also amused by the photo editing. I have the Chien-Ming Wang card and the edit used makes his eyes look like the glassy ones one would stick in ball-jointed dolls. I’m sure someone in Taiwan has already made her BJD look like Chien-Ming Wang. The edit on the Scott Kazmir card, which I don’t have, also looks like the preliminary work on a BJD face-up. (If anyone has a Scott Kazmir doll, I really don’t want to know.)

I really don’t have much to say about this pack itself, other than I’m pleased with having a David Ortiz card.

2007 Bowman Heritage:
173 Xavier Nady
250 Daisuke Matsuzaka (no sig)
54 Bartolo Colon (rainbow)
BHP62 Aaron Cunningham
BHP2 Peter Bourjos
225 Matt Chico
206 Homer Bailey
91 Ryan Garko

Once again, there appears to be a pattern with the collation (which will be even more evident once I get around to posting 3 blasters’ worth of box breaks.) I’m pleased with the pack; I can’t complain about a Matsuzaka card.

pack opening: Topps Opening Day 2007

I was at Wal-Mart tonight after work buying important supplies for my workday tomorrow (OK, it was a gift for our Secret Santa exchange) and picked up a pack of Opening Day 2007. To be honest, I just wanted a stick of gum and at least this one comes with cards.

The oh-so-exciting pull:
110 Jason Schmidt
139 Jeff Weaver
57 Jeremy Bonderman
144 David Eckstein
5 David Wright
39 Jack Wilson

Yay. At least I’m still chewing the gum.