Oh Happy Day!

Last weekend, my quest for 2009 Topps Heritage went completely unfulfilled. It's not that I tried all that much, really. I failed to make it to either day of the monthly card show in the Portland area and I only tried one retail outlet. My excuse, of course, is that I had a classic winter cold (it's still winter here, believe me) that I couldn't shake and it sapped me of all my energy and largely turned me into an ineffective mass of a snot factory and not much else.

So to rid that image from your head right off the bat, here's some baseball cards! Brand new baseball cards, in fact. Straight out of Texas. Because I had to go all the way to Texas to get new Heritage cards. I might be stretching the truth, a little. My wonderful girlfriend actually mailed these two packs to me for a reason that is much more significant than an arbitrary sports card release date. She's in Austin for the time being and was talking to me on the phone through my ill-fated quest last Sunday and... well... felt sorry for me. She was kind enough to sneak this into my box of presents for our anniversary (March 12th.) So let's take a look at these two Target retail packs.

Man, even the wrapper is awesome. Both Erin and I used to count yellow as our favorite color in our younger days. Mine is blue now, however.

Pack 1:

179 - Daniel Murphy (Here's my first 2009 Topps Heritage card.)

100 - Jair Jurrjens (I love the backs. I love the batboy cartoon.)
114 - Alexi Casilla

286 - Francisco Rodriguez (Well, I thought Topps had toned down the photoshopping stuff this year, but it turns out they were saving it for Heritage.)

BF5 - Luis Aparicio Baseball Flashbacks (Love this insert. But the weird black triangle design makes it look like something in the lower right corner is missing. I blame Topps... 49 years ago!)
417 - Martin Prado
259 - Kosuke Fukudome (Okay, I don't quite love everything anymore.)

325 - Brad Ziegler (Hmm, the Youth Outfield America? Is that what the original cards said? This is the original Topps Gold Rookie All-Star Team Trophy thing.)
- David Wright Thing That Set Off the Security Alarm at Target

Pack 2:
241 - Corey Hart (I can't stand looking at this guy.)

270 - Chien-Ming Wang (Yankees almost always look good on retro card sets. Sorry, Yankees haters. It's true.)
313 - Brandon Morrow

400 - Magglio Ordonez

473 - Austin Kearns (Of course, I'm not wild about the fact that there are 75 short-printed cards, not counting this silly intentional variation cards. But I do like that they not only made the SPs sequential - every card from 426 through 500 - but that they also did something to the cards to make them stick out. The darker "cardboard" colored card stock stands out in any pack. Not bad. I think it's a nod to something that was done in the original 1960 if I'm not mistaken.)
364 - Felix Hernandez
71 - Darin Erstad (I'm shocked that Erstad got more than 300 ABs last year.)

183 - Pittsburgh Pirates (Wow, I love the zany design of the team cards so much that I think I need to make it my personal mission to someday obtain an original 1960 Topps Cardinals team card.)