My Topps Series 2 Story

Like the last kid on the block to get a Nintendo, I finally managed to track down some Series 2 Topps packs on Saturday. The unfortunate thing is that I had to go to Wal-Mart to get them. The card show I went to recently had hobby boxes, but I just wanted some packs. I'm not trying to collect the set or anything, but I do like this year's Topps for the most part and I want to get all of the Cardinals and the Turkey Red inserts. Plus, it's nice to get new cards to look at and eventually send off to people in trades/packages. I bought 4 loose packs, a jumbo pack and a cereal box. I'll post the jumbo and cereal box at a later time and for now will talk about the $1.99 packs.

Pack 1:

659 - Torii Hunter (This is actually fairly normal for a Torii Hunter photo, but it's still a bit on the goofy side.)

345 - Stephen Drew (Drew isn't really building on his success from last season which is not helping my fantasy team so much.)

581 - David Purcey

638 - Eugenio Velez

584 - Ron Washington (If Upper Deck Series 2 is the Backup Catcher's set, then Topps Series 2 is the Managers set. Actually, I really like this photo.)

LGCB-TS - Tris Speaker Career Best Legends (These aren't bad looking inserts, but they seem to be kind of redundant since there's already Legends of the Game inserts.)

LLP-19 - Christy Mathewson Legends of the Game Wal-Mart Platinum (The Wal-Mart exclusive LOTG cards look great in Series 2. In Series 1 I couldn't really tell the difference from the non-store-exclusive LOTG cards aside from the photos being different.)

TTT37 - Justin Upton Topps Town

553 - Jeff Karstens

428 - Jamie Moyer

547 - Jack Cust

602 - Carlos Gomez (Alright, not bad so far...)

Pack 2:

572 - Michael Bourn

508 - Kenji Johjima (This is one of those "who is the real subject of this photo?" situations.)

437 - Austin Kearns

389 - Garrett Olson (I have no idea who this is and I hear about the Mariners quite a bit, living in their local market.)

LG-TGL (I don't even like Glavine and it still ticks me off the way Glavine's career ended with Atlanta.)

TTT27 - David Ortiz Topps Town

482 - Jason Jaramillo (RC) (The Pirates need to ditch red as a secondary color, permanently. Not a good look.)

551 - Tim Redding

620 - Ryan Zimmerman (Hey, come on, Nationals. We need a third basemen and your team has no future. Let's get this done!)

346 - Mike Cameron

654 - Brian Schneider

608 - Cristian Guzman (Another Nat in this pack, just to spite me.)

Pack 3:

379 - Howie Kendrick (Argh, Howie Kendrick! The one thing you've done throughout your entire career, no matter how injured you are or how limited your playing time is, you've hit the baseball! And now that I finally caved in and drafted you, you've completely forgotten how to do that. Now you're a Bee. A Salt Lake Bee! How do you like that?)

332 - Chone Figgins (Figgy for Erin. At least Figgy knows what's up.)

412 - Taylor Teagarden

445 - Joe Nathan

614 - David Murphy (Nice shot of David Murphy after he finished rounding the bases after a HR. At least, I'm assuming he hit a HR. Did Josh Hamilton leave him hangin'? Is Hamilton pulling his hand back because Murphy just flied out and he's congratulating him in jest?)

511 - Chad Qualls

568 - Greg Reynolds Gold 1560 / 2009 (I'll have to find a hardcore Rockies fan to pawn this off on.)

TTT38 - Kosuke Fukudome Topps Town Gold (Anyone want this?)

383 - Everth Cabrera (RC) (This Padres rookie was apparently a Rule V draft pick, which explains why he never played for Portland.)

521 - Dana Eveland

493 - John Lannan

436 - ??? Some Cubs Guy ??? (Wait, where did his name go? Is this an ERROR card?)

Pack 4:

353 - Derek Jeter (Topps takes the "let's hold some stars back for Series 2" route. Upper Deck seems to just print extra Jeter cards for fun.)

527 - Jason Isringhausen (Sadly, I just saw Izzy throw what was possibly the last pitch of his career the other day. Now he's getting Tommy John surgery and he knew right away that something was seriously wrong as soon as he let the pitch go. For some reason he's still pictured as a Cardinal here. I think he skipped spring training and had a late start to his season with the Rays, which might explain why Topps didn't have a current photo.)

629 - Lyle Overbay

616 - Koji Uehara (RC)

342 - Gerald Laird

LG-AP - Albert Pujols Legends of the Game (Pujols is the closest thing to an active Legend of the Game that I can think of.)

TR76 - Jay Bruce Turkey Red (I'm collecting these. Just a reminder...)

TTT32 - David Wright Topps Town

499 - Edwin Moreno (RC)

467 - Chris Volstad

374 - Kevin Kouzmanoff

348 - Tony Pena (Arrrgh! It's looking a lot less like intended "variation" and more like cheap printing defect and lousy quality control. They still manage to get foil on the Topps logos, but none at the bottom of the card. You can see some indentations where the name, team and position should be, so it seems like maybe they attempted to "foil" these cards but the machine was out of "foil". I have no idea how any of that works, so I should probably not attempt to guess.)