Word Up, Chromie

I purchased a pack of 2006 Topps Chrome off of eBay recently for 11 cents. Until I opened this, I had never actually owned any Chrome cards, unless one of the cards from my Ozzie Smith collection is extra-shiny without me realizing it. At $3.00 per pack of 4 cards as I typically have heard, I never was inclined to buy a pack even just for fun. Call me a quantity-over-quality guy, if you will, but I still think packs should be about $1 each. The only reason I've bought any Topps Heritage or Turkey Red packs at Target is because the cards just look super-awesome, and at least you get a few more than 4 cards in a pack.


Nevertheless, the price was right with this one. After shipping, I paid a total of $1.10, which is well within my reasonable limit of an impulse buy that probably won't net me any Cardinals (4 out of 30 isn't great odds.) Either there seems to be an absurd amount of Ichiro cards produced these days, or there is some NW regional bias going on, because I always seem to get his cards. At least I don't get tons of Brad Lidge cards. Seeing him in a new uniform these days makes me hate him a little less, but I still get a little giddy during every Pujols vs. Lidge confrontation and will still do so for the duration of their respective playing careers.


Card number three was a Paul Maholm "X-Fractor" which the standard official MLB Rookie Card logo. I honestly wouldn't have any idea what kind of "fractor" it was if it didn't tell me on the back. All I know is that it looks weirder than the other three cards. Maholm is starting to look like a pretty solid pitcher in his third full season in the league and I recently added him to a couple of my fantasy teams. Of course, he has that "Pirates pitcher" thing going against him, so for his sake hopefully he'll get traded soon before his arm falls off.


Finally, we have Dustin McGowan, someone who I know nothing about. I included an image of him primarily because I was able to get a better picture of his card than any of the other three. (If you've read this far, you've probably noticed that I don't own a scanner, which is pretty amusing considering my line of work.)

Pack Breakdown:
260 - Ichiro Gold Glove Award
243 - Brad Lidge
X-Fractor (1:6) 320 - Paul Maholm
229 - Dustin McGowan

No Cardinals were harmed or included in the breaking of this pack.