Blue Light Special

I recently read somewhere that K-Mart had put the majority of their 2008 sports card inventory on sale. Despite the fact that the closest one of these establishments is at least 45 minutes away, I found myself making the most of a period of extreme boredom on a Saturday evening and in the card aisle of a "Big K". Goudey and Stadium Club blasters remained at full price, but nearly everything else from 2008 was marked down. I didn't see any Timeline boxes or I probably would have gone for it because of the sweeping variety of short printed cards. There were tons of Upper Deck base boxes in various configurations but I already own every Cardinals base card so I couldn't find a valid excuse for buying one. I ended up settling on a box of SP Authentic, something I would never touch at full price. The boxes have an incredibly boring design that kind of remind me of a cross between recent Score football and Topps Total. There are seven five-card packs plus one "bonus pack" of five Rookie Exclusive insert cards. Let's see how this played out.

Bonus Pack:

RE-RD: Robinzon Diaz
RE-ET - Eider Torres

RE-MH - Micah Hoffpauir (The Rookie Exclusives designs are similar to the base set as you'll see later.)
RE-RI - Rich Thompson

RE-HI - Hernan Iribarren (The backs of these cards are pretty useless. No stats and a write-up so spaced out that it reminds me of my senior year in high school when I tried to stretch two paragraph essays into three-page papers because I enjoyed sleeping and other forms of inactivity a lot more than school.)

Pack 1:
21 - Manny Ramirez

33 - Ian Kinsler (Kinsler is killin' it this year. Killin' it!)
15 - Greg Maddux
27 - Chase Utley

4 - Ichiro Suzuki (The backs of these cards are pretty standard from what you expect from Upper Deck products.)

MM-37 - Jake Peavy / Russell Martin Marquee Matchups (I'm only supposed to get five cards in a pack, so this was a surprise. This insert card looks really nice. I definitely need to get my hands on the Cardinals entries in this insert set.)

Pack 2:

96 - Troy Tulowitzki
2801 - Don Larsen Yankee Stadium Legacy (I forgot about these.)
20 - Miguel Tejada
28 - Jimmy Rollins (The Cardinals just got... rolled... in a two-game series at the hands of the Phillies that concluded last night. I hate two-game serieses. Serieses? Serieses.)
40 - Carlos Lee

Pack 3:
99 - Alfonso Soriano
42 - Hunter Pence (Ugh, this whole box is riddled with Cubs and Astros players.)

35 - Victor Martinez
19 - Aramis Ramirez

AA-42 - Adam Dunn Authentic Achievements (Here's another insert set example. These cards actually show a little background.)

Pack 4:
11 - Phil Hughes (Hughes is back in the Yankee rotation now. This should be interesting.)
47 - Carlos Pena

24 - Prince Fielder
91 - Jonathan Papelbon
50 - Carlos Zambrano (Zambrano landed on the DL recently, so the Cards might miss him in their next series in a couple of weeks.)

Pack 5:
7 - Magglio Ordonez

43 - John Lackey
16 - Delmon Young
63- Johnny Damon

MM-28 - Cole Hamels / David Wright Marquee Matchups (Another good looking card.)

Pack 6:
41 - Lance Berkman (And the Astros keep piling up...)
2776 - Hank Bauer Yankee Stadium Legacy
31 - Brian McCann

60 - Pedro Martinez (Pedro is one of quite a few in limbo, definitely "not retired" players this season. Jim Edmonds has been spotted at quite a few Cardinals home games this season, incidentally.)
73 - Jim Thome

Pack 7:
17 - Carlos Beltran

68 - Joe Mauer (Mauer is off the DL. Now my fantasy drafting gaffe can be overlooked!)
74 - Paul Konerko
32 - Russell "Russ" "J" Martin

AA-45 - Vladimir Guerrero Authentic Achievements

All in all, I'd say this wasn't bad considering the price. They're fairly nice cards even though they're not what I'm typically into. I just wish I could have picked up at least one Cardinal. These are all going into the for-trade pile.