Sale! #1

I was out buying those cases I send my trades out in Tuesday, when I stopped in at K-Mart… and there they were.  2008 Upper Deck X and Masterpieces blasters… buy one, get one free.  2008!  I couldn’t pass those babies up.  I haven’t had so many packs to bust in one sitting for a REALLY long time, and even though I didn’t pull anything spectacular, and my arm was actually hurting by the time I was done, I had an absolute blast.  Few things in the world are more fun than busting a lot of packs at once.

Before I get to the Upper Deck X breakdown though, I’ll mention that I also picked up PS2 game Raw Danger, a game I’ve been wanting to play since I first heard about it a good year-and-a-half+ ago, at K-Mart as well… for $4.99!  Not bad eh?  About $100 worth of stuff for $45 is prety good, right?

Anyway, with that all said, I thought I’d break it down for you.  Here is the Upper Deck X first.

Two Blasters, 10 Packs per Blaster, Six Cards per Pack, One Not Really Guaranteed, Guaranteed Jersey per Blaster.

Base-

51/100… Just over half the base set, so I may try to finish it.  I’ll put down what I need on the Want List Page I’m working on, to debut soon.

Duplicates-

15/100… 6 (Smoltz) 13 (Manny Ramirez), 15 (Josh Beckett), 22 (KOSUKE FUKUDOME~!!), 29 (Adam Dunn), 36 (Garrett Atkins), 43 (Hanley Ramirez), 57 (Prince Fielder), 62 (David Wright), 67 (Hideki Matsui), 76 (Ryan Howard), 81 (Khalil Greene), 83 (Greg Maddux), 97 (Vernon Wells), 99 (Ryan Zimmerman)

Except for Fukudome, these are all up for trade.

Die-Cut-

5 (Dan Haren), 10 (Nick Markakis), 12 (David Ortiz), 17 (Carlos Zambrano), 19 (Aramis Ramirez), 31 (Edison Volquez), 33 (Travis Hafner), 38 (Troy Tulowitzki), 52 (Vlad Guerrero), 54 (Russell Martin), 59 (Justin Morneau), 66 (Ian Kennedy RC), 71 (Robinson Cano), 73 (Frank Thomas), 75 (Jimmy Rollins), 80 (Adrian Gonzalez), 82 (Jake Peavy), 89 (Erik Bedard), 94 (Evan Longoria RC), 96 (Michael Young)

I’m keeping Ortiz, Vlad, Zambrano, Aramis and maybe Frank Thomas.  And it’ll take a good Kosuke Fukudome (one I don’t have), Geovany Soto or MAYBE Alexei Ramirez rookie if you want the Longoria.  The rest are officially up for trade.

Gold Die-Cut-

40 (Miguel Cabrera), 89 (Erik Bedard)

Same with these two, up for trade.

XPonential-

X1: Brian Roberts, Carlos Zambrano, Grady Sizemore, Todd Helton, Jimmy Rollins, Justin Morneau, Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield

X2: Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Beltran, Chase Utley, Derrek Lee, Ken Griffey Jr., Matt Holliday

X3: Jimmy Rollins, Prince Fielder

X4: Alex Rodriguez, Jose Reyes

Zambrano, Lee, Aramis, and Griffey are keepers.  A-Rod goes into the A-Rod stack, which may have a home with Kimaloo now.  Prince goes into the Brewers stack meant for Thorzul if my lazy arse ever gets around to emailing him.  Nobody else have a specific destination in mind except for *maybe* the Phillies.

That goes for most of my cards, actually.  Only my Astros, Braves, Brewers, Dodgers, Phillies, Rays, Red Sox, White Sox, A-Rods now, and of course the favorites of Dinged Corners have specific homes in mind.  If you have another favorite team, let me know, I’ll get some stuff together.  And if you think you are one of the people I’m thinking of sending one of the above teams to, gimme a holla as well.

Oh yeah, the jerseys, such as they are…

Kenji Johjima and Jeff Kent.  Mleh.

How sad that the first Japanese catcher to play in MLB (and up until this past season, a top ten producer amongst catchers), and a first ballot caliber Hall of Fame second basemen would elicit a “mleh”, but such is the state of our world and our hobby.

Overall, I was quite pleased with this purchase of Upper Deck X, I got a surprising number of keepers and a good bit of trade bait, not to mention enough cards to justify going for the complete base set.  And the more I look at them, the more I like the base design of Upper Deck X.  There is something to be said for the design fitting the theme, I think.  And the XPonentials are swank, especially X3 and X4.

That’s it for this post.  Of course I have no scans or anything.  Sorry.  Ahem, hit me up if you see something you like.  Next time on BTHE, Upper Deck Masterpieces.  Lots of pretty base and absolutely nothing else. *thumbs… up?*

See You, Space Cowboy

Cards From Walmart

Sunday night I bought a pack of 2008 Upper Deck Timeline, 2008-09 Topps Treasury, and an 8 for $10 repack box that boasts an $18 value, at Walmart.  Uhh, hell NO!  A box with packs of cards from 1989 not named Upper Deck (Donruss and Topps specifically), 1994 Fleer Ultra, a 99 cent 6 card pack of 2007 Topps, three $1.99 packs (the dinky 5-6 card packs ’07 Upper Deck and Fleer Ultra, and regular-sized Topps), and only one $2.99 pack (Bowman Chrome) do not an $18 value make.

Well… maybe if your math works like Scott Steiner’s.

The sad thing is, even though you could hear the steam shooting out of my ears when I saw the old packs, I got better cards from those three than the five new ones.  First though, a break of Timeline and Treasury packs…

2008 Upper Deck Timeline (6 cards per pack; look for two inserts in each pack, on average!)

46 Torii Hunter

10 Chase Utley

36 Jim Thome- The Pride of Peoria, dontcha know.

9 Mark Teixiera

123 Max Scherzer Rookie- On a forgettable old school UD design…

301 Rick Ankiel- I guess this would be a subset of some kind.  Zero on the insert count though, unless they are trying to pass off the subsets as such.  If they are a bit harder to get, that would mean shortprint, not insert, so WTF Upper Deck?  There better be a 4 insert pack out there somewhere…

I mentioned in the shoutouts from my most recent post, these cards are FUGLY.  What an incredibly boring design.  At least Upper Deck X’s design fit it’s theme.  This is just so… blah.  As for the backs, they only have career stats and a little blurb, because of a second, different picture taking up half the back.  This giant picture on the back may be a dig at the 2008 Topps base set design, as this picture is nearly as large as the ones on their fronts.

That was observational comedy, my friends.  Onward to Topps Treasury!

2008-09 Topps Treasury (5 cards per pack; why isn’t Larry Bird on money?)

27 Zach Randolph- A big scoring presence that gets rebounds, but is still fairly soft nonetheless.  Still, a fair few teams are lacking the good things he brings.

60 Rip Hamilton

59 Jeff Green- My first Thunder card!  w00t!

83 Brandon Roy

120 Kosta Koufos Rookie Refractor #’ed to /2008- I assume this is a bronze.  This guy is a rookie Center for the Jazz it doth seem.  Here’s hoping for something better than Ostertagian for the ginormously tall youngin’.

The base design is simplistic, but it FITS THE THEME.  Lack of easily fingerprinted up gloss is nice too.  And the refractor version, much like what 2008 Topps Chrome baseball to the regular set, just makes it POP.

Now then, back to the recrap box.  We’ve established that the packs in it are even more garbage than usual.  Now for the contents of said packs.  I stated earlier that I got better cards from the 1989 Donruss and Topps, and 1994 Fleer Ultra, than the five packs from 2007 (6 and 12 card packs of Topps series 2, 5 card packs of Upper Deck series two and Fleer Ultra, and a 3 card pack of Bowman Chrome.

So here are the best of what I got from each.  You can judge for yourself.

Old Junk-

1989 Topps- Barry Bonds, Fred McGriff, Dwight Evans

1989 Donruss- Ken Griffey Jr. “Rated Rookie”, Lee Smith

1994 Fleer Ultra- Mike Piazza Award Winners insert, Roger Clemens, Kevin Roberson (<3) Rookie

New Junk-

2007 Topps- Joe DiMaggio “The Streak” 26 and 48, David Ortiz, Dan Haren Gold #’ed /2007, Brandon Morrow Rookie

2007 Upper Deck- Mark DeRosa?  The rest of the pack consisted of David DeJesus, Carlos Silva, Alex Rios, and Olmedo Saenz, so… there are no winners here.

2007 Fleer Ultra- Hideki Okajima Rookie

2007 Bowman Chrome- Either Chien-Ming Wang or 29 year old “Prospect” Jonathan Van Every.  Hmm… prospects are grim, methinks.

So whatcha think?

Griffey RC, Bonds, Pizza insert, Clemens, Lee Smith, the Crime Dog, and Dwight Evans

vs.

Two Joe D inserts that are cool but worthless, Okajima RC, Papi, Gold #’ed Haren, Chien-Ming Wang, and a pushing-30 prospect…

I didn’t even get any other good base cards in the 2007 packs.  They were remarkably similar to the old school packs in that regard.  A couple couple nice players, and then a whole lotta nothin’.  Only difference being there are a whole lot less cards in the new packs.

Overall, the Griffey rookie makes it worthwhile, but it still won’t make me tilt my thumb upward.  The Griffey is wonderful, but it’s the principle.  The packs in this thing were garbage enough that I actually mean it when I say “never again” to Walmart repacks, and maybe ALL repacks in general.  It’s just horrid to charge more than $6 for this CRAP.

Peace.

Shoutouts #4

This was supposed to go up before I crashed in the Wii hours of Sunday morning, but it didn’t happen.  I slept all day Sunday and went out almost immediately after I woke up, and forgot about it until now.  Hopefully I’m not responding too late for anybody’s liking, and apologies if I am.  Now hit me with them shoutouts.

A shoutout to anyone who can help… My WordPress internal clock issue still isn’t resolved, even though I’ve tried to change the timezone multiple times.  Why won’t it work?

Shoutout to TheKSwiss… While book value doesn’t concern me, if you can come up with something comparable hit-wise or something, you’ve got dibs on the ones you want.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Brad Lincoln got a dinged corner and Joaquin Arias I’m not sure if I want to trade just yet.  Everything else should still be in the condition I received them in.

Shoutout to one John Arnold, if you’ve still got your Cubbies, I’m still interested in a trade.  Is my e-mail address anywhere to be found here?  You’d think I’d know about that, but nope… ANYWAY, if it’s not there, just drop a comment with a little sampling of what you have and an approximate total number, who/what you collect, and an email address where I can contact you.  I will copy everything down and block the comment, and get in touch with you shortly thereafter.

Shoutout to Steve of White Sox Cards, who is due several White Sox cards from me, and will be the first to benefit from my junk hit streak from not so long ago.  Hopefully I will get your cards along with those going to Dinged Corners sent out by midweek.

Speaking of… SPEAKING of Dinged Corners, this shoutout to the lovely ladies that make that blog happen. (/RD Reynolds impression)  I found the bubble mailer with your address on it, so finally, mercifully, your cards will be sent very very soon.  And there are a LOT of them.

Shoutout to the person who designed 2008 Upper Deck Timeline.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  I’ve heard plenty of Upper Deck X bashing, but it at least fits the theme.  Timeline is easily the worst looking base set of 2008.  It just looks incredibly half-hearted, and that makes me a sad panda. 😦

Shoutout to Boxbusters… One day I will remember your name, but that’s not the shoutout!  I’m feeling extremely lazy, so I will drop the trade thanks and make a request (pending shipping and safe arrival of trades with Dinged Corners and White Sox Cards) to be on the Trading Buddies page.

Here is what came in the return package, btw.  Sorry again about sammiching your end of the trade in here.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter-

David Ortiz, Aramis Ramirez, Rich Hill, Felix Pie

2008 Topps Chrome-

Rich Hill

2008 Upper Deck X-

David Ortiz, Vlad Guerrero, Hanley Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr., Big Z (x2), D-Lee (x2), Kerry Wood, Aramis Ramirez, Geovany Soto (the finest facial hair in baseball :P), and KOSUKE!!!!

2008 Upper Deck Goudey

David Ortiz (lovable but vaguely menacing), Big Z, D-Lee, Aramis Ramirez

2008 Upper Deck Heroes

Ryan Theriot, Rich Hill, KOSUKE!!!!

Thanks again.

Finally a shoutout to whom it may concern.  This is an incomplete list who and what I collect: Chicago Cubs (especially Fergie Jenkins, Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, Carlos Zambrano, Geovany Soto and Kosuke Fukudome), Vlad Guerrero, Ichiro Suzuki, David Ortiz, Fred Lewis, assorted legends, vintage (pre-1980), players in throwback jerseys, and 2006 Upper Deck Special F/X.

I will try to get everything sorted out in my head and put up an official page soon.

That’s all for now.

See you, Space Cowboy…

Shoutout!

Victory By Default #2

The bootay has arrived!  If you remember, I won a contest at the end of September that was put on by Mario from Wax Heaven.  Well, not so much won, as was just quite possibly the only one who participated (I think that’s how I got that wrestling recapper job last fall too…).  Anyway, the winnings by default are here!  We’ve got 8 autographs (including one dual auto), 10 jerseys (including one Hall of Famer and one Patch), some much needed distraction, and some sensible advice.

The distraction and advice are from and in regards to my would-be romantic entanglement.  Thank you Mario, every bit of both is MUCH-appreciated.

Now then, without further ado, here is the glorious prize that nearly doubles my autograph and game used collections!

Autos First, cuz the jerseys are better.

2007 Bowman Heritage Brad Lincoln Signs
of Greatness AUTOGRAPH #SG-BL… Smile!

2007 Topps Chrome Joaquin Arias RC
AUTOGRAPH #346

2007 Topps Co-Signers Matt Albers/Chris
Iannetta DUAL AUTOGRAPH #CS-AI

2008 SPx Emilio Bonifacio RC AUTOGRAPH
#102

2008 SPx Bronson Sardinha RC AUTOGRAPH
#127

2008 SPx Rob Johnson RC AUTOGRAPH #138

2008 Topps Co-Signers Bronson Sardinha
RC AUTOGRAPH No.108

2008 Topps Co-Signers Arthur Abraham
(Boxer) Solo Sigs AUTOGRAPH… He’s got an excellent record at least.

I really have no idea if any of these guys are any good or not.  Arias shows some promise, looking at Baseball-Reference.  And I’ve heard of Bonifacio at least.

Now for the Jerseys…

2003 Donruss Studio Lance Berkman Big
League Challenge JERSEY #BLC-4… I’m seriously considering trying to track down this set.  I really liked the Pujols Pants card I recently traded to Boxbusters, and I straight up LOVED the Big League Challenge. This card is also somewhat fabled, as it features a unique blue Berkman jersey swatch that your not likely to find anywhere else.  It has also been passed between bloggers twice before in trades, and may be again if I decide not to go after the set.

2004 Leaf Certified Materials Roy
Oswalt Mirror White JERSEY no’d 058/100 #166… Mirror White is pretty… *drools*

2005 Bowman Jesus Cota Futures Game
Gear JERSEY

2005 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic DON
SUTTON Classic Materials JERSEY… Don Sutton as an Astro.  This card will go nicely with in my Hall of Fame Hits binder page, with my ’05 Donruss Champions Frank Robinson swatch of something, Donruss Americana 2 Willie Mays swatch of something, and beat up 2002 Diamond Kings Roberto Clemente Gold Parallel #’d to /100.

2007 SPx Justin Verlander Winning
Materials JERSEY #’d 015/199

2007 Topps Allen & Ginter Mark
Mulder PANTS

2007 Upper Deck MLB Artifacts Michael
Young Divisional Artifacts JERSEY

2007 Upper Deck Spectrum Khalil Greene
Spectrum Swatches #’d 154/199

2008 SPx Kenji Johjima Winning
Materials PATCH #’d 10/40… This was the reason I entered in the first place.  I loves me some patches, and this is a nice one.  I’m expecting a bounce-back year for Johjima-san (is that the right title to use there?  I’ll have to ask Yuta…).  I think he can be a top 10 or so catcher again.

2008 Upper Deck Spectrum Jacque Jones
Retrospectrum Swatches JERSEY… One for the Cubs Collection, even though he is depicted as a Twin, and is unfortunately hardly remembered and even then not thought highly of as a Cub, despite being solid both years he was with the team.

Pretty nice lot eh?  A little Astros-centric with the extras for my Cubby blue bleedin’ heart, but all of them are bonafied superstars and/or Hall of Famers, and that Mirror White is soooo shiny *@_@*, so I’m down with that.  I love the lot Mario.  Thank you so much for everything.  You’ve been a good friend to me, and I will try to return the favor in the future, just as soon as I have something to offer back.

As for this lot, I’m for sure only keeping Sutton, Kenji, Jacque, the boxer (for novelty’s sake), and maybe Berkman for my Personal Collection, so it might just be coming time for BTHE to hold it’s first ever contest *inadvertantly sponsored by Mario*.  Assuming anyone in the Sports Card Blogosphere actually regularly reads my nonsense, of course.  If nothing else, please inquire if you want/need/will die without any of the cards I’m not keeping.  We’ll see if we can’t work something out. 😉

Muse Control

I should’ve been sleeping.  It probably wouldn’t have been restful, but I need some sleep, yo!  Alas, the epically fantastic movie “The Crow” and some interesting chat woke up my Muse, which sleeps just fine thanks.  I came up with this off the top of my head right there in the chat room.  It’s a strange feeling, to actually be self-aware enough to feel yourself get into a mindset that… I would presume, is rather similar to an athlete being “In the Zone”.  Kinda trippy.

I leave you now for some much-needed sleep, with the poetic words that I said… Hope y’all like it.  Sweet dreams.

What is love? Life is crazy…

When she’s not here

I feel so alone, lost & gone

It feels all wrong

But I know it’s right

This is how it always felt

I just didn’t know it

I found something more

Something worth living for

A love worth fighting for

Stand up… stand up, wake up

Life is real, no longer a dream

My eyes can’t deceive my heart anymore

Now I know, yeah, now I know there’s more

Can’t stop it

It’s broken out of me

And I’ll never be same

Break me free

Come save me

Do you believe?

That me is dead and gone

Replaced by the me that you now see

Can you believe that I stand now

This feeling… I’m not afraid

For the first time

I’m not afraid

The smile on my face won’t go away

What’s left for me

But to fade, fade away

No way, never never gonna say…

Good day