A "Braun"y Blaster

My mother-in-law came through again, this time with a belated St. Paddy's day blaster. She said she picked out the 2011 Heritage blaster because it was green. I said a silent thank you to whichever Topps exec picked out green for the blaster and proceeded to rip some packs. I beat the odds just a bit on this one. As I'm sure you know, these blasters have 8 packs. The SPs fall 1:3 packs and I got three. You'll notice a distinct East Coast, A.L. East bias with these three. Two Blue Jays and one Red Sox...Sock...whatever. The Baseball and News Flashbacks fall 1:12. I got one of each and I still can't make blogger take my horizontal images the way I scanned them.

I'm beginning to think the Harmon Killebrew Baseball FlashBacks is a DP because I've pulled three of them in the limited number of packs I've opened. I like the Jackie Robinson News FlashBacks card. It has the same "30 cent gas" cartoon as the back of the Mona Lisa card I showed a couple of days ago.

I noticed one odd card in the blaster. It's not one of those tinted cards. It's a "Rookie Star" card. Most of them are yellow.

This Brian Bogusevic one has a white star. Anyone know what that's all about? I'm guessing it's some type of variation or SP, but I don't know anything more than that.

Now for the "Braun"y portion of this blaster. I'm sure this box should have been sold somewhere in the Milwaukee region, but it made it's way to Texas and into my hands. I got one of the Chrome parallels which fall at a rate of 1:13 packs. It's Ryan Braun and it's numbered 1842/1962. It's not damaged like the pic appears, it's all light trickery. I'm still scannerless and using the Iphone sometimes plays tricks on the images. Last, but not least, I hit upon a 1:58 pack Clubhouse Collection Relic of...you guessed it, Ryan Braun.

I love how the back says "The relic on this card is not from any specific game, event or season." I'm thinking it's from an old couch that was removed from the clubhouse of the Brewers AA affiliate in Huntsville. Of course, I can't prove that anymore that Topps can prove it's not.

Opening Day Dish

A couple of Opening Day notes.

I hope the Tigers beat the Yankees today. I hope the Yankees go 0-162. It could happen.

I’m not real happy about Faux Opening Day. Only 12 teams out of 30 are playing? That’s not Opening Day! Every single team should be playing on Opening Day. Today or tomorrow, I don’t care. They should all be hitting the diamond for MLB to call it opening day.

No, I’m not just saying that because my team, THE DEFENDING AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPION TEXAS RANGERS, isn’t playing.

I’m playing fantasy baseball. Again. Every year I tell myself, no, not this year. I don’t want to do it. Then I do it. Fantasy baseball coerces you into rooting for players and teams you don’t like. We may tell ourselves that isn’t true, but it is and you know it you fantasy playin’ fool.

The Rangers win the West by 2 games this year over the Angels. Don’t ask me about the other divisions. I haven’t thought that far ahead and just like the other day, I’m at the tail end of a 16 hour double shift.

Verlander just struck out Gardner…yay!

I got an email from Topps last night. My MCG cards were shipped yesterday so I’ve got that to look forward to. I’ll Iphone them up on the blog when I get them.

Happy Baseball to All!

PS: Jeter is batting .000!

Fun on the Back

In earlier phases of my collecting life, I completely ignored the backs of cards. One of the things I learned to appreciate when I discovered my first card blog was the very thing I used to ignore. While looking at the back of my 2011 Heritage cards, I noticed a few that caught my eye.

First up is NF-3, Mona Lisa.

One thing jumps off the card at me: the price of gas in 1962 was 30 cents a gallon. 30 cents!! I know all about inflation and supply and demand, but I also know my gas has gone UP more 60 cents a gallon in the last couple of months. Weren’t we all supposed to be getting around in flying cars by now anyway?

I don't know what's up with Blogger. It keeps turning these images sideways even though they are saved in the horizontal position. Another cartoon that caught my eye was this nice play at the plate on the back of Juan Pierre’s card.

I had no idea Pierre stole home twice last year. I’m sure I saw the highlights on ESPN at some point last year, but the info didn’t stick in my brain.

I’m not familiar with vintage 1962 Topps cards at all and only have a few in my collection. Someone with more knowledge of that set will have to tell me if what I noticed next is a carry-over to the 2011 version.

That’s right. Aroldis Chapman and Brett Anderson have the same cartoon on the back of their cards. Obviously the write up is different, but the art is the same. I think these were the only two repeats I had, although I didn’t match up every single card. Did Topps re-cycle cartoons on the vintage ’62 set as well? For that matter, are the cartoons on the back of these cards the same ones used in 1962?

I’m probably showing my ignorance with that question, but I’m 7 hours into a 16 hour shift, so I’ll have to ask for a little leniency.

Opening Day? We've already played two!

I was looking back at some of the posts I put up last year about this time and ran across this post. That is one of my top five posts, at least in my book.

It seems like so long ago when my now 10 year old didn’t care about baseball. His first Little League season was rough as the team only managed one win. However, he came away from the fall season having found his position: catcher. Shocking right? Well, I’m a bit biased towards catchers and was happy to see him settling in behind the plate. He earned the game ball in his very first game as catcher and it wasn’t for his hitting.

Here we are, just two days before MLB Opening Day, and his team has already played two games. The surprising thing is they’ve already doubled their win total from last year and he’s having a great time. The team has outscored the other two teams 21-4. Overall, he’s 1-2 with 2 walks, 2 steals (the Little League variety of course) and 1 run scored. He also tagged out a runner trying to steal home! It was a SWEET play at the plate!

I’m looking forward to the rest of his season with high hopes. Oh yea, and I’m looking forward to that other local team. You know, the defending A.L. Champs…

Late to the Rodeo

I never really understood what that meant as a kid, but my dad said it a lot. Now that I'm a grown up (in age only), I know it means you are a little behind the times.

That certainly applies to my 2011 Heritage post. I bought a blaster, a couple of racks packs and two or three loose packs. I'd like to get one of those Target blister packs I've seen around the 'sphere, but I don't get by Target too often.

I like the cards more than I thought I would. The design isn't my favorite, but the more I see it, the more it grows on me. I love the feel of the cards. At this point, anything that's not glossy and slick feeling is great. I think these will be great for anybody who likes to do the TTM thing.

Now that we've established that I like the cards, let's get to a few of the ones I pulled. We'll start with the two chrome cards.

Lucas May Chrome...numbered out of 1962 of course.

Will Venable Chrome...

I'm not overwhelmed by these two players, although I do like the Chrome cards. I won't be going for any Chrome cards except the Texas Rangers ones.

Obviously, with the limited number of packs I've opened, I haven't seen all the cards, but next to the hideous and unmentionable (and certainly not "postable") Brian Wilson card, this is the weirdest.

It may also qualify as the ugliest. I'm not sure if Aaron is trying to look like a zombie, but that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the card. I only got a couple of Rangers cards, but this was my favorite.

I'll be carrying this one to the games this year to see if I can get it signed by both players. Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus bring such a kid-like spirit of fun to the team. I really like watching them play. Hopefully, this year, they'll be on the field more often than the DL.

That's pretty much it. No hits, no weird color tinted backgrounds, nothing. I want to say I don't want to put the whole set together. The 75 SPs make it tough, but who knows. Maybe I can finish it by the time they do a Heritage set for 1970 (please make them stop before then!).

I don't know about you...

I know I'd get fired for saying this to my boss. My job is getting better all the time. I'm working on a big project at the moment. It's good for me because it makes me a more valuable employee. Or will when it's finished.

The only problem is it is hampering my blogging time. I know tough &*%$# right? I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. It's a good problem to have.

Hopefully all will be back to normal on the blogging front soon. Until then, enjoy a little Dilbert.

He may be a Dimwit, but he's no dummy

The Daily Dimwit is holding a Gypsy Queen break and still has about a baker's dozen teams left.

Go get ya some.