Gettin' Blasted: 2010 Bowman (Retail hit? Not Quite)

I had better luck with this particular blaster, in terms of prospects than any loose packs at this point. However, if you'll check the box to the top left detailing how many pack it takes until a Strasburg is pulled by me, you'll notice it is zero at this point. So if that's all you're here for, don't bother. Thirteen packs and counting...

On to the cards. If you follow this blog (and if you don't, why not?), you'll know of my affinity for 2010 Bowman. One reason is the photography:

Some great shots here with Mannywood (designed especially for the Night Owl), Kurt Suzuki (who's cards always look awesome) and Vic Martinez. Martinez's cards are usually well-done, also.

I enjoy parallels. Golds are fun, but the blues are useless to me. Aybar is featured here because that is what a card of a middle infielder should look. Romero is pictured because: 1) Awesomeness and 2) The card color and the matierial which make up his left arm are the same. Gold. Vazquez was actually a 1:3-4 blaster hit, seeded 1:29 packs and numbered out of /520. Definitely available for trade.

If you know how these packs play out, you know the chromes are next. And I finally got three big ones I'd been waiting for.
Big Chad from Kennesaw State, a new hotbed for MLB talent. I WILL have a rainbow of this card by the end of 2010, most likely by the end of summer.

Part one of the future of the Cubs infield - or someone elses. Last year he was often rumored in connection with Jays trades, but Halladay is gone, so our chance to land him is probably gone, plus the signing of Adeiny Hechevarria didn't help. This is the start of my hak-Ju Lee player collection! Weeee. (I collect Korean players.)
My name is Starlin Castro and I will be a perennial all-star short stop. Oh, and the other half of the previous card's opening statement.
I was really hoping Drew Pomeranz would slip to #11 for the Jays. No luck. 6'5" lefty with college seasoning...Team USA. Awesome fact from the back: "Fanned 16 Kentucky batters on two days rest in 2009 NCAA Tournament." Seriously, NCAA baseball is amazing.

And this guy:
Not drafted, committed to Rice. Hopefully they'll turn him into the next Jeff Niemann.

Oh yeah, seeded 1:8 packs is a...
PURPLEFRACTORRRRRR I love these so much. Much better than my Mike Lombardozzi from a couple weeks ago...

Now comes the hard part. I did not know this card existed until it fell out of the second to last pack. I'll start by saying I don't card for the Bowman Expectations cards. I like the Topps 100, and tolerate the 1992 Throwbacks, but I have a good amount of disdain towards the expectations. However, I pulled this one today, and I have to thank Bowman for it:
This mixed feeling are ripe, but I love this card. Kyle Drabek was to one player Jays fans and management were demanding in return for the Good Doctor. Although he is pictured in Phillies gear (is it airbrushed? Probably not), it's still Doc. My man. The best cut-fastball in the history of the game (bring it on, Pettitte/Rivera homers). I, in no way, expect Drabek to live up to greatest-of-a-generation-or-better status. I do, however, expect Drabek, Brett Wallace and D'Arnaud to become serviceable Jays down the road. This is also my first ever Kyle Drabek card (and maybe the only one in this set?!) and is the start of my second player collection from this box.

In summary, it was a good blaster. In combinations of Lee, Castro, Jenkins, Green, Romero, Pomeranz and Drabek/Halladay, it was great for me. The Bowman will keep flooding this blog until I find some A&G to chase.

2010 NL Cy Young Chase will be a Good One

Last night, Ubaldo Jimenez and the Rockies dominated the Diamondbacks, 12-1.

“He’s one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball right now,” Gonzalez said.

Damn right, CarGo. Ubaldo has now gone 22.3 innings pitched without...can you guess? Giving up and earned run. Yeah. It's the longest streak in Colorado's franchise history. It's safe to say that this guy is a special talent. Not convinced? Check this out, then.

But Ubaldo is not the only National leaguer embarassing opposing lineups this season.

Tim Lincecum is 4-0 with a pretty 1.00 ERA.

Roy Halladay has been nails for Killadelphia, as everyone knew he would be, going 4-1 with a 1.80 ERA and an unbelievable 11:1 K:BB ratio. Yeah. Eleven to one. And oh yeah, he's not a strikeout pitcher.

So far this year we've Philip Hughes, Ricky Romero, Shaun Marcum and others take no-hitters into the eight inning. Ubaldo has a one-up on others in the NL Cy Young race (maybe the hardest award to win in the Bigs?) with his accomplishment versus the Braves recently.

So who's your pick? Tiny Tim? The Good Doctor? Or Big 0-fer Ubaldo?

Either way, it's going to be a great season to witness some of the best pitchers in baseball...history.

Check Out My Cards, eBay, and the Greatest Card Ever

I'll keep the comments short on these cards, this will mainly be a picture show. Stay tuned to see some of my new favorite cards late in this post. All of these were purchased for less than $25 cumulatively.
Second Good Doctor Halladay relic...1000x better than the shitty '08 Topps one, which is thicker than my Physical Hydrology textbook. ($1.75)
Been in love with these since I pulled my first one (Larry Wayne Jones) back in 2000. Now have 3/10, and the others should be easy to obtain. ($0.75)
Refractors never scan as good as one can hope. I actually took this and the following Dusty Lambchops cards outside to refelct to sunshine today. They came out ok. First Marcum auto. Big spender on this one. ($3.75)
Awesome. ($0.24)
This blue refractor isn't as nice as I'd hoped, but it's Dusty (favorite player), a refractor, and is going towards the 2006 Topps rainbow. Just need the red one and the base...were there XFractors in '06? ($0.75)

Quite possibly one of the greatest cards ever printed. My new favorite Dusty Lambchops. ($0.50)
Maybe you're thinking: "Booooo! Airbrushed!" or maybe "Booo....he's standing next to a Caribbean-themed Bowling Alley" or even "Booooo that auto sucks in it's tiny script and fine-pointed pen. Well, screw you, and flip it over to see (or not see in the terrible scan):
Hand numbered to /375. WIN. ($1.75)
Fun fact: Dustin McGowan in 100% torso. Look it up. Or down. ($3.00)
Another card for the 2003 Bowman rainbow. Need Refractor and XFractor. ($0.15)
You just got Rickyrolled. ($.99)

And now.

Without further adieu.

I give you...

The greatest card of all time:
Effing eh, man. Effing eh. ($1.25)

Cards found on the side of the road...

...well not really. Today I got three packages, er..down the road. The one which I will showcase tonight is a solid package from Duane at Democratic Roadkill. I want to thank you, Duane, quickly, before I get to the loot. Duane came to me saying he had a good amount of cards from my '07 Fleer Ultra want list, and some '06 Fleer Traditions. Without giving him a rundown of a return package, he sent these awesome cards my way. Don't worry Duance, I'll cook something good up for you, though it may take a while.

First up, one of the greatest players of all time from one of the greatest sets of all time:
What a great card. He sent a bunch of these, all Jays save for the Junior Griffey, including the flowing golden locks of a one Kelly Gruber:
Awesome. Gruber is letting everyone in Major League Baseball know right then and there, who finished first in 1992. And will again in 1993. And 2014.
Currently the oldest Jays card in my collection. Boomer's 6'5"/218 frame dominates his panel. He might be average by today's standards.

I juxtaposed these on purpose. Why? A couple reasons. One, The pose is very similar. I'm assuming Topps did not do this on purpose, because they hate the Blue Jays, but also because these cards are 200 apart in the set.

The real reason they are juxtaposed for me is that this way, we can symbolize the passing of the torch. My favorite Blue Jays traded away for some baby birdies, the ringing in of the new ace and my favorite player, as well as my #1 Personal Collection player. Dusty, it's time to be a man.

Now for some more '08 Allen & Ginter's (I need to get a want list up for these) of Mr. Joe Baseball himself:
Love the state cards, pissed that my state is represented by a complete shithead.
'08 Ultimate Collection Joe Baseball. Didn't think much of these from randoms I have seen on eBay, but these are pretty solid for high-end (limited to /350) base cards.
As I mentioned above, got some '07 Ultras in this package. This was the one that stood out most, only because of that hat. I really dislike the Padres, but that hate is awesome. WANT.
Weee. Another Soria, for my paltry Soria collection. I haven't heard of anyone else who collects him, but someone mentioned it on their blog recently. I dig this card. Someone else sent me a Seth Smith of the same variety. I really like how UD did this set.

Well, thanks for the awesome cards, Duane. I will get a package out to you soon. I hope you'll be as pleased with it as I am with my half. Awesome.

Go check out the trader's blog, Democratic Roadkill.

2009 Topps T-206 Blaster

A little story. As you read this post, you will eventually notice a *** in the Good Doctor's segment. This is where I copied and pasted the entire html script from where I realized I was accidentally posting this on another blog, A Pack to be Named Later.

To celebrate my jackassery: Brand New!



I. Love. This. Set.

Why?

Simple design. Unique backgrounds (examples: Ichiro and McCutchen (the good one)). Rookies, and lots of them. Legends, and few of them (only 13 I believe). Minis. The best minis in the business (well, baseball anyways, 08-09 UD Champs Hocker were pretty fantastic.) Short prints done right.

About the only thing I don't like about this set is that the price hasn't come down on blasters yet. This one was $20. But really, I haven't even come close to having a bad pack of this product yet, over 9 months into it's life.

Anyways, on to the box. I bought and ripped on Saturday out searching for a desk for when I move in August. So of course, I bought cards instead. I am young, and I will continue to not spend money correctly. Deal with it.

On to the highlights:

I didn't get any "hits" of the relic or auto variety, but this does not concern me. I have already lifted a sweet Josh Outman auto way back in one of my first ever posts, you can glance at it here. The relics aren't worth much anyways, as I snagged a Tejada pantaloon relic off eBay for a cool quarter dollar.

Best-looking Card of the box:
Maybe I'm partial to the Pasty White Hope. Who apparently has to "earn his spot on the roster" this season. Which means, of course, he will have to hit better than...Jose Bautista and Joey Gathwright?! Dear Cito, thanks for the early 90's. Now kindly screw off.
There were*** a fair amount of Jays in this box. Three of 'em! That's GREAT for a Topps product. Topps hates Canada.

What would a Topps T206 post be without some....Dial 9-1-1 Shorty Fire Burning on the Dance Flooooooor...Whoaaaa (Short Prints):

Two bad one is a radical dork and the other is a raging, yet entertaining douche bag. Apparently, "douchebag" is incorrect. It's two words. Learn something every day.

Rookies!
And good ones, too. Zimmerman, sadly is going to be out all year with TJ surgery. McCutchen, however, will be knocking NL Central pitchers senseless. Not like there's any good ones, anyways. Ok. Maybe Carpenter and Wainwright.

Bronzies!

Awesome. Wish they would have done a better job on the Romero, but whatevs. I pulled two Coghlans, This and a base. Terrible photo. Almost as bad as the Kinsler others seem to like, I don't care for it much. I plan on collecting everything but the bronze cards from this set. So if you want some...

And of course, the Mini Page!

These were not all pulled from this box. The Soria came in a trade, and is ultra-rad, Blanks and Konerko came in a two-pack, or a diet fat pack. The Ubaldo, however, did come from this box. It was also the hardest to come by in the box, as it's a Polar Bear.

In conclusion, I love this set. I want to put it all together, but I'll need some help. I probably cannot afford to keep snagging $20 blasters and $75 hobby boxes, so please, trade me your extras. I'll take minis of any variety.

Snappy sign-off line!

Cards from Fans of Red Teams

That's right. Fans of the blasted Red Sox and the "who knows how they'll be this year" Reds. Seriously, how the Reds will fair one year to the next is always a mystery to me.

Anyways, let's start with some goodies from fanofReds over at Nachos Grande. Sadly, no nachos were included. I flipped him a Gallardo relic for a near-impossible task of putting together the '09 A&G relic set, along with some Larkins, and he was kind enough to send these my way.

First up is a V-Dub spectrum jersey:
Nice, healthy card. Spectrums do not scan well, but they're a treat to look at. Also the jersey cards seem pretty common, I am currently sitting on a Brandon Webb who will probably go visit someone's pseudo-card shop in Arizona in the future.

Chris sent some Jays to boot:
Greatest Blue Jay of All Time, Roy Halladay with painted-on eyes...
Gruber!
And something else...
...this makes me happy. Apparently I wasn't the only one who spent $.99 of 16 of these suckers back in '00. (This card is 10 years old...yikes.)

Thanks for the cards Chris, they're good ones.

Next up, Adam at Thoughts and Sox. I contacted him a week or so back (this package got here quiiiick), and proposed Jays-for-Sox. Unfortunately, he had sent all but a few Jays to another blogger. Aww shucks, but I collect Rockies too! Well, add another blogger to the list that cannot wait to drop his Rockies off on another. Adam sent a 100-count box over here to NY, filled with mostly Rox, but a few, very quality Jays mixed in.

First: some Baby Jays:
These are beauties. You can probably pull my fingerprint from the Aaron Cibia if you feel like incriminating me. Hopefully the Jays won't give up on these guys.
'08 SPx Halladay die-cut. Are these all die-cuts or is this a parallel? Either was, I cannot believe it scanned so well. Adam also sent a Todd Helton. Fellow bloggers have been exceptionally generous in sending me Heltons. Adam sent 15. Wow.
Adam - when you were putting this package together did you know this would be my favorite? Probably not, but Dusty Lambchops is my favorite Jay now that Shawn Green, Carlos Delgado, Orland Hudson and Brandon League are gone. I am actually thinking of starting a Dustin McGowan collecting blog, as other have for Carl Crawford, Brian Roberts, and other players.

Here's the bad news for Adam, though. I haven't even started putting the package together yet! I apologize deeply for this, but things have been a bit hectic lately, and I'm out of packages. I'll put the cards together tonight, so hopefully you can expect them by the end of next week. Once again, sorry for the delay.

On to an eBay score...

This is the best deal I have ever received on eBay. Two autographs, a Tejada pants relic, and an Ichiro SSP from '09 Topps 206.
I'm leading myself to believe that the seller had no idea that he was sitting on an Ichiro short print. This is one of my favourite cards ever, at least in my Ichiro collection. What a great card.

Also, for $.25, Miguel Tejada's pants!:
I picked this up since shipping was cheap past the first card. For two autos, Miggy's pants and the SP, the order cost $4.75 or something. STEAL.

Ultimate Wish List Card #3

I haven't posted in days, so here's Ultimate Wish List Card #3:

Gettin Milestoned

It took me about an hour (half of the second period, the 2nd intermission, and the first 5:03 of the third period of Maple Leafs @ Devils game), but I have recorded, collated and scanned the THREE trade packages I received today. The first, and girthy-est of the packages came form Dinged Corners. Now, I don't precisely remember what I did to earn this package, some sort of contest I think, but nonetheless, there it was, and here I am smiling about it.

Inside was a total of (I think) five loaded team bags, and in this case, aptly named team bags. I know when I throw team bags into a trade, it usually involves about forty cards of mixed players and teams with absolutely no pattern, unless there's a relic, and in that case I make sure it's sandwiched warmly between commons and, if necessary, a bip blanket...

On to the cards.

DC sent me loads of Blue Jays and Rockies, included a load of Moments and Milestones. Hence the post title.

Text, from here on, will only involve the cards. No more mindless scientist chatter.
Dave Stieb Diamond Kings. Very cool. I believe I used to own this, but if I did, it is nowhere to be found. This is probably my favorite DK set, aside from that one year that the cards had a canvas/UD Masterpieces feel to them.
Shaun Marcums: Always welcomed here at the Paper Chase. Or A Paper Chase. I don't even know, I don't like the title, and hey, it might even change eventually.
First CarGo card. I'm not an '09 Topps homer like so many others out there. It's a good set, but hey, I loved 2008 and everyone seems to hate them.
DC really kicked my Halladay collection in the ass, and with some good ones, too. This is a Bowman Heritage from 2007. It's shinier than the side of a rainbow trout (I didn't know there would be fish jokes...) and I dig it. Is this a parallel? I don't know anything about 07 Bowman Heritage, and the three she sent me like this, were all rainbow-trout foil board. (That's going to be my new thing. Rainbow Trout cards...)
Rarely do I have trades without Tulos. However, the next two I will post have no Tulos, but that's just fine. This is a nice one. There was a healthy amount of these M&M cards, which 've never purchased, but seem like the biggest pain in the ass to collect. Ever. But I was sent two which were #'ed/25, which are now tied with my Mauer Jersey card for for lowest numbered cards.

That's all I'll post for this package. Much thanks to Dinged Corners. If you've never check them out, please do so. They were one of the first card blogs I discovered, and have been a constant source of cardawesomeness these past two months (really...I've only been here since December...)