Caption contest: putting the "ball" in "football"

Super tiny print:  there is no prize.  This post is here because I'm lazy but don't post enough.  Have fun, though!

While scanning some of my Michigan football rookies I came across the card below.  I know a lot of you are amateur comedians, so have at it and leave me some funny captions in the comments!

Topps is the Shia LaBeouf of baseball cards

Or Carlos Mencia, if you like.  Basically, they suck at what they do unless what they're doing is ripping off others and disappointing their customers.

What made me jump to that conclusion this time?  Just another box break of 2014 Topps on Blowout.  A guy managed to pull this boring-ass Puig relic from a blaster,

(SO exciting, I know) and I guess I can't blame him for being a little amped since at least it wasn't one of the 50 new parallels that exist this year.  All I had to do was eyeball this hit for two seconds before I immediately thought of

2001 Pacific Private Stock's Game Gear relics.  Those of you who are younger or weren't collecting that year might not remember it, but this was one of the earlier one-relic-per-pack products back when that was something almost unheard of.  Maybe Topps is counting on people to have forgotten these.  Congratulations to them for picking one of the older designs that hasn't aged very well while honoring the legacy of the boring-ass swatch.

That crap just adds to the clown show that is 2014 Topps, which includes the aforementioned parallelarrhea, and this ridiculousness:

(Taken from this eBay auction)

Wait--did you--did you just...I mean, hang on........did you SERIOUSLY reprint a rookie card from TWO YEARS AGO?!

Them's the breaks and other stuff

Georgia Mindset is the baseball card Rain Main or something

<understatement>As mentioned occasionally on this blog</understatement>, AJ from Georgia Mindset did a group break of six boxes of 2010 Topps Chrome and two 2010 Topps Triple Threads(results aqui).  He put a lot of work into this break and things went great, so throw him a bone and check out his post and YouTube video (I'm stealing a bunch of other content from him, so I'm just linking to it here).

Anyway, I got in for the Tigers and Orioles, and to my somewhat surprise I did pretty well.  My biggest hits:

Scottie "Too Hottie" Sizemore base autograph:  after seeing him play this year I'm not so sure he's the future at second base (gimme Polanco back, plz), but this is a sweet card to have nonetheless

Brennan Boesch Blue Refractor autograph: 

Bart, your sister looks like Blossom! (and there's the requisite Simpsons reference, carry on)

as far as my break was concerned, this was the hit of the day.  I'd come pretty close to snagging a Boesch sig or two recently but held off for whatever reason, so this was a nice surprise

Other break stuff coming to me:
I don't recall seeing many, if any, Tigers and O's in the Triple Threads, but I probably got about 1-2 team sets each in Chrome (including the base rookies) and a Verlander Chicle or T206 or whatever, so some pretty nice results.

Again, big ups to AJ, whose breaks I will continue to participate in due to his sick pulls (oh what, you didn't see this bad boy from Triple Threads?).  Next up is 2010 Bowman Chrome, which I believe he'll also be tying to a couple more Triple Threads boxes.  Don't get left out in the cold this time--his prices are reasonable and his M.O. is more than fair--note that those who missed out on hits got put into a draft where they got to choose something nice, plus one lucky participant even got 24 wrappers to send back to Topps for their "No, YOU throw this crap out, Topps" promotion.  Georgia Mindset:  great box breaker, or GREATEST box breaker?

I knew I'd get to use my "Topps is dumb" tag again and again...

Dear Topps,
Thank you, thank you so much for letting people like "Jester" here make daily idiotic offers for the cards I actually value a little bit.  By all means, please don't create some sort of mechanism that allows me to tell this person, "Jester", that his offers suck donkey balls and that he can shove his junk wax Pete Rose card up his hidey hole?  In short,

FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU, Topps. FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU, Jester, whom I'm publicly shaming for your ridiculously bad offers since I can't do it on the MCG site.

Now that that's out of my system...ROUNDUP TIME (aka everything you probably already read if you use Google Reader or some equivalent):

• BA Benny opened up a pack of 2009 Topps Chrome and pulled (GASP) a Granderson!  (and some other crap, whatever).  Also featured:  2010 Topps Chrome (two Orioles FTW)
• Some guy named BA Benny, who was not at all previously mentioned just now, got a trade package from a guy whose blog's name seems to honor Curtis Granderson but hardly ever mentions him
• Dayf's in the land of 1000 Chippers (naaaaa nana na naaaaaaaa nana na naaaa nana naaaaa nana naaaaaa nana na LARRYYYYYY)
• Night Owl keeps on keeping on loving him some night cards (round 1, part 4.  FIGHT)
• Crinkly Wrappers is getting ambitious with the Chromes and the rainbows and the so many colors, children, mwa-hai
• Beardy got new stuff thanks to COMC, and as a somewhat Orioles fan, I approve of this message
• Thorzul is group-breaking 2:  Electric Boogaloo (seriously, though, I dunno how many that makes, but his breaks always seem to go well so check it out)
• "'O" No!!!  Another Orioles Blog busted a box of 2007 Masterpieces, including meh relics and a meehhhhhh autograph, but at least the base stuff looks great
• Emerald City Diamond Gems wishes Tony Gwynn well, as we all do, even those of us whose team had their way with his in 1984
• The Daily Dimwit is contestin' it, and the prizes are pretty cool (hint:  autographed rookies)
• The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame is also contestin' it, Bazooka-style, and round one began today
• I Don't Know....Third Base!  gave away one card for almost every team, so if you were involved, see how you did, and maybe send some baseball card love his way too

That's enough for now, so enjoy all that reading, get in on some breaks and contests, and pray that the Yankees get their asses handed to them by the Rays or Rangers (we're all gonna need it)

2009 Bowman Baseball Retail Rack Packs (20)

So I had a bit of spare money to blow on some packs this weekend.  That made me head down to Meijer to look for some decent deals on packs/blasters of sets I'd actually want to collect.  I almost grabbed some cheap blasters of 2008 UD Masterpieces football, but then these caught my eye.  If there had been a more random number available, like 17, I probably wouldn't have grabbed all of them, but 20 was hard to resist.  And anyway I've been interested in this set as much as anything Bowman recently.  Check out how I did:

Purchased from/price:  Meijer, $3 each (x20)
Packs/cards:  20 packs / 20 cards (generally 11 base, 4 Prospects/WBC, 3 Chrome Prospects/WBC, 2 WasteACard Gold Parallels)
Set size:  220 base cards, 90 Prospects, 20 WBC Prospects (ditto on the Chrome versions of Prospects and WBC)
Key features:  Lots of rookies/first year cards; autographs; Chrome!
Key cards:  Aroldis Chapman WBC, plus lots of other base RCs (none of which is worth a ton at the moment, but it's only been a year)

Fronts:  base, base RC, Prospect, WBC Prospect, Chrome Prospect, Chrome WBC Prospect

Backs (same order)

Set completion:

• Base:  147/220 (67%)
• Prospects:  52/90 (58%)
• WBC Prospects:  10/20 (50%) 
• Chrome Prospects:  38/90 (42%)
• Chrome WBC Prospects:  11/20 (55%) 

Extras:

• Base:  57 doubles, 13 triples 3 quadruples(!)
• Prospects:  10 doubles, 3 triples, 2 quadruples(!)
• WBC:  2 doubles, 1 triple(!)
• Chrome Prospects:  5
• Chrome WBC Prospects:  1 

3 XFractors, 2 Refractors, 1 stupid Gold...

...AND A STUPID SCOUT AUTOGRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPH!

Inserts:

• Gold Parallel that is a total waste of one or more cards: 40 total, 39 different (two of Pujols), 4 Prospects and 1 WBC (2:1, 40 expected, but certainly not wanted)
• Refractor (#d to 599):  Luis Jimenez Prospects, Jarred Bogany Prospects (1:8, 2-3 expected)
• XFractor (#d to 299):  Kyeong Kang Prospects, Jon Mark Owings Prospects, Nino Leyja Prospects (1:15, 1-2 expected)

Autographs:  Scout Autographs Pat Daugherty (1:26, 0-1 expected) WTF!?!?
Relics:  None (none expected)
Best pack:  #12 included the Aroldis Chapman WBC card (see next item) and Nino Leyja Xfractor (see above).  By Beckett value alone this pack is great (and worth $20+) but more importantly, those are two sweet cards


Best card:  (In an effort to be more positive in these reviews (other than the actual review part below), I'm getting rid of "worst pack" and replacing it with this category):

Yeah, I'm going with the Chapman WBC card.  He's hot right now and anyway, this is a great looking card


Quality control:  5/10  I ended up with a LOT of dinged cards.  As always (and this is no surprise, Topps), black cards are more prone to chipping, so maybe we shouldn't use it so much, guys?
Collation:  6/10  I'm sorry, this is WAAAAAAAY too many triples and quads, even for a random assortment of packs.  It's even harder to believe I pulled so many extras of the Chromes and WBCs since there are fewer.  I bumped this up because I beat the odds on all my inserts (three XFractors!)  and even that "autograph"
Value:  5/10  Compared to what they used to cost, these packs were at a pretty decent price (especially considering you're getting twice as many cards as you usually do for your $3).  Still, these aren't worth a lot yet since most of the guys are unproven or unknown.  I didn't pull many big-ticket cards besides the Chapman and inserts, and if I haven't mentioned it yet, that autograph is a piece of crap.  Jeez, at least get Matt Holliday's John Hancock on the thing to make it an interesting insert
Set design and player selection:  7/10  baseline of 5;  +1 for good photography, +1 for Chrome, +1 for Refractors, +1 for XFractors, +1 for generally good player selection, +1 for lots of rookies, +1 for WBC; -1 for chipping-prone black, -1 for illegible font on numbers, -1 for numbering cards with letters in front (ie BCP-11) which also makes them hard to read, -1 for only one year of stats plus career totals, -1 for 800 combinations of sets and parallels
Inserts and extras:  4/10  If not for the WBC cards, Refractors and XFractors (and the low but conceivable possibility of actual player autographs) I'd give this a 1.  God damn is that scout autograph stupid.  No offense, Pat Daugherty, but not even somebody in your family would give me a buck for your signature on a sticker

Overall score:  27/50
Ok, let's review my reaction to pulling that "autograph" from the last pack (compounded by the numerous triples and quads) internet meme and YouTube video style:

 



Yeah, that's a start anyway.  What's even more ridiculous is that Mojo had the very same thing happen to him recently!  I don't just mean he pulled one of the same autograph set, but the very same card!  Think I'm going overboard?  IT'S A GODDAM SCOUT AUTOGRAPH!  It's not a player, it's some schlub that was involved in drafting him.  Not the guy that actually drafted him of course, just a guy that watched him play and thought, "Gee, that Matt Holliday seems to be pretty good."  No offense to scouts, it's a tough job, but I bet even they wouldn't want each others' autographs.  Also, really, a sticker?  The guy couldn't be bothered to sign an actual card?  FAIL, Topps, FAIL.

Anyway, aside from the horrendously bad autograph, I'll be combining what I pulled with whatever I already had (as soon as I can figure out where I stashed those piles) and putting together wantlists, so keep an eye out for those soon.  In the meantime, don't bother picking up more than a couple of these rack packs (which I normally ordinarily enjoy), you'll be disappointed