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
Life and Baseball Cards 