Blowout, you complete me

Today a pair of very productive packages graced my mailbox:  I made a couple deals on Blowout this weekend--a small purchase and a trade--and ended up with the following:

Three 2008 UD Heroes cards

These four 2008 Topps Series II cards plus nine others.  I chose these because 1)  I didn't realize Topps produced women's sports cards, 2)  Dunn's had a remarkable comeback year, 3)  Chipper singled in his final All-Star Game, and 4)  I included Prado for Derek for the hell of it.  Lots of Braves!

In case you somehow didn't put it together from the title, that means I completed two more sets thanks to these pickups.  I'm definitely happy to have the excellent UD Heroes set completed, more so than my second set of '08 Topps II (which came mostly from an extra Series II box I picked up a while back).  But anytime I complete a set I consider it a cause for celebration.  Incidentally, the Topps set is available for trade if anyone can use it; otherwise I'll be working on trying to pick up another series I set to pair with it so I can trade or keep that.

Hooray for more progress towards completing sets!

Thorzul to the rescue

After I bought a bunch of blasters of 2008 UD Heroes baseball (here and here) I was left with a ton of doubles and a fairly substantial wantlist.  Then, in a seemingly unrelated development, I was checking out Thorzul's wantlists and noticed that he needed a 2010 Topps Update Vintage Legends of Nolan Ryan that I had.  I offered it up, gratis, along with a bunch of his beloved Brewers since I figured he's always good for a trade package, plus I like seeing people complete sets.

Baseball card karma (cardma?) smiled upon me today when he returned the favor with almost 50 cards I needed for my Heroes set, knocking the wantlist down from something depressing to something way more manageable:  7 8 17 77 101 109 115 118 119 120 135 138 139 188 189.  Yep, I'm now down to 15 cards, which I can probably do before long on Sportlots the next time I get the urge to finish up a pile of sets.


Here's a few highlights of what Bill sent me from this spiffy looking set:

Here we've got a great new Ripken (although I have a jersey version); a great Verlander celebrating what was at the time his only no-hitter; three Brewers, which I thought I'd note since it's kind of funny getting Milwaukee players back from Thorzul; a pair of Cardinal all-time greats; and a pair of multi-player cards, which are my favorites in the set:  Yaz/Fisk/Boggs ("A Trio of Red Sox Greats") and Jeter/Griffey/Ripken/Ichiro ("A Quartet of Outstanding Team Leaders") which might be the best quad card in the set.

And here are the duos:  Mattingly/Boggs, who were rivals for quite a while (and "A Pair of American League Batting Leaders"); Eddie Murray and Prince Fielder ("A Pair of First Base Sluggers"), a comparison that's kind of stretching it a bit considering how vastly different their styles are (also, another Brewer from Thorzul); Steve Carlton/Johan Santana ("A Pair of Strikeout Southpaws"), a combo that's not bad but a bit iffy; and finally, Bob Gibson/Jake Peavy ("A Pair of Intimidating Strikeout Artists"), one of the more egregious comparisons in my opinion, not even taking into account Peavy's performance since this card was made.  For all my complaints I still like seeing these multi-player cards, and the trios and quads are definitely my favorites.


I really appreciate the help getting work done on another set, so hats off to Thorzul for another great trade, and a big thanks too!

More retail stuff from Meijer

Please forgive me as I begin lots of my posts with "I was at Meijer getting something else and decided to grab some cards..." but, yeah, that's exactly what I did today.  Specifically, I saw one surprisingly unpurchased 2011 Bowman rack pack and four more 2008 UD Heroes blasters (again for $7.50 a pop).

The blasters treated me a bit better this time as I pulled the following:

Numbered parallels of Hamels and Webb were a nice start, then the Sheets was a nice addition, but the best was the Harang #d 039/125.  I even pulled the base Rich Hill this time!  I also snagged eight more Yankee Stadium Legacy cards, including A-Rod and Babe Ruth, which gives me a growing pile of stuff to send BA Benny's way.  All four above are up for grabs anytime, though.
I'll be creating a wantlist for this shortly, and I should have a bunch of dupes available (plus almost all of my Blacks since I'm not collecting those) so hopefully I can get some trading done on these.

The lone Bowman rack pack was more lucrative, as you'll see here:

I first flipped to the Verlander, which I was excited about (#d to 500, which is nice), and the CarGo was a nice bonus (probably headed to Hiflew with some other stuff), but what made me laugh--mainly because I was shooting for the Base Prospects version of it--was that I pulled the Chrome Bryce Harper.  I just got one of these in a great trade with Derek of Tomahawk Chopping and now I have another to do with what I please.  Right now I think my plan is to try to flip it in a deal for the Base Harper and his Bowman's Best, which I still need.  Anyway, a pack well worth my $5.

2008 UD Heroes baseball blasters (x3)

So I guess I'm back to buying blasters, but at $7.50 a pop for nine packs of this fun set, I couldn't resist.  I realize a three-year-old set puts me a little behind the times, but sometimes you just have to wait to snag a deal like this.  I was hoping to pick up some more of the Rich Hill rainbow I'm working on, plus I thought I might consider working on the base set since I like the look and concept of it.  Here's how I did:

Box:  2008 Upper Deck Heroes baseball blasters (x3)
Packs/cards:  9/5 (x3)
Price:  $7.49 each

Base cards:

Base front

Kaline base (one of many legends)

Schmidt/Banks/Robinson trio card (one of several multi-player cards)

Chipper Jones base back

Design grade:  A

I had plenty of the UD Heroes inserts as a young collector, so there's some nostalgia in it for me, but I think overall this set is executed very well.  A decently reasonable set size combined with mostly stars, legends, and a few rookies means a rare set without the scrubs nobody wants to collect.  Aesthetically the design is pleasing, as is the mix of color and black-and-white photographs.  And I have to say I kind of like the theme of picking a big moment in that player's career, then going into more detail about it on the back (not EVERY set has to go the standard stat dump route).  I should also mention that the duo, trio and quad cards are pretty cool with some nice combinations (a nice break from Strasburg/Walter Johnson or Chris Gomez/Honus Wagner (NOTE:  if you realize I made one of those up, congratulations on not working for Topps)) that play well off the mix of current stars and Hall-of-Famers.  I don't say this often, but well done, Upper Deck!

Base set completion:   81/200 (41%)
Extras:   19 doubles (19% of base cards pulled)
Collation grade:   C
Well the multi-player cards made sense so I don't THINK this was a Topps product, but the collation has me wondering.  Here's my standard caveat about this being multiple random blasters, but that's still pretty disappointing in my judgment.  I had more than one instance of "Where have I seen these same five cards before?  Oh right, a few packs ago...."  That combined with the one-per-pack Black parallels (still not as useless as Bowman Golds or the execrable Attax, though) make it pretty difficult to build this set without buying a ton of blasters. (though, I guess, why would you want to do that?)  

Inserts (35):

Black parallel:  27, including above (1:pack, 27 expected):  As usual I don't feel like listing every one that I pulled, but here's some highlights that seem like likely trade bait, a few multi-players to show those off, and a PC Grandy (hooray for the better days when he was still a Tiger).  As mentioned above, I don't think I needed one of these in every pack, especially when that meant only three or four base cards in the packs, but they look ok.

Yankee Stadium Legacy:  6, Joe Pepitone x2, Joe Gordon, Roy White, Tommy John, Don Mattingly (maybe 1:4 or 1:5?):  Ok, I'm back to wondering if this is a Topps product.  I knew about the UD YSL set, of course, and were I not part of the majority of the world that hates the Yankees, I'd be excited.  I have a feeling BA Benny will be getting these in our upcoming trade, so I'm more than happy to have pulled them for trade bait purposes at least.  

Charcoal parallel Carl Yastrzsemski #081/399 (no idea on odds):  Well now, here we go.  Thanks to my growing Rich Hill rainbow, I've started appreciating the various parallels in this set.  Pulling Yaz was a big plus, too, though I don't get the impression legends are any tougher to pull than the rest.  Still, a fun pull, but I'm happy to trade it if someone has more interest in it than I do. 

Emerald parallel Matt Holliday #386/499 (same deal on the odds):  Definitely my favorite pull of the box.  I'm no fan of green as a rule, mostly thanks to my green-smoking, white-snorting enemies up I-96 (no worries I'll offend them, it's not like they can read) but this is "emerald green" so I can make an exception, especially since it looks stunning on this card.  Though not as illustrious as Yaz, Holliday's a very good player, and I have a feeling one of my western trading partners is gonna be all over this.

Overall insert grade:  B
The one-a-pack Blacks aren't great and the YSLs do nothing for me, but the various other colored parallels are great!


Hits:  Not this time, friend-o


Value grade:  B
I'm not even halfway to a base set and I didn't pull that many useful inserts, but at $7.50 for nine packs, I really can't ding these blasters much.


Recommendation:  I don't know how likely you are to find hobby boxes of this set a couple years after this release, or what they're going for if you do, but that seems like the better way to do, although you'll still need a couple if you want to even sniff a complete set.  I wish they hadn't made it so tough to build this set, but that's collecting these days.


No wantlist yet because I need more than half and I have to weigh my options.  All above minus the Granderson are up for grabs, and I'll include the other Blacks in future trades as appropriate.