Another Blaster... or "Bonus Box"

Blogger is telling me that I've now used 15% of my image storage. Has anyone ever filled this thing up?

Anyway, I bought three blasters for a bargain price from eBay awhile back. I posted about the first one last week. The main thing I was going for was that I wanted the 2003 box because I'm actually collecting the set but felt like I had a decent opportunity to save on shipping and pick up some extras to make the entire thing worthwhile. 2004 Topps is not the most interesting set to me by any stretch, but I know there's a chance at some Cardinals cards that I don't already own, whereas I have almost every Cardinals Topps base card from 2005 through 2008. (See my wantlist on the sidebar for exceptions.)

The same basic deal applies to this box as the last: 6 cards per pack, 10 packs in total plus 1 "bonus pack" which really just brings you to 11. I've often wondered when and how the term "blaster" came to be.

Pack 1:

179 - Mike Stanton

136 - Carlos Zambrano

152 - Mike Lieberthal

357 - Bret Boone Sporting News All-Stars (I don't understand why they felt the need to put the Sporting News logo on these when it's also already on the "magazine cover".)

172 - Juan Encarnacion

279 - Jimy Williams

- Topps of the Class insert (Yeah, they had these back then.)

Pack 2:

163 - Geronimo Gil (Gil wins the prize for first guy I've never heard of. He actually was the Orioles starting catcher in 2002 but only hit .232 with a .633 OPS. Yikes.)

157 - Miguel Cairo (First Cardinal of the box, so I can't complain here.)

20 - Derek Jeter (Yeah, yeah, I know... why did I post a picture of Jeter? I just find it to be kind of a strange looking card of his. The little foil outline representation of his picture in the lower left corner looks kinda silly because he's not really doing anything.)

85 - Jon Garland (Garland just signed with the Padres, which makes it, what... 3 NL West teams in less than 5 months?)

287 - Ken Macha

259 - Joe Mays

Pack 3:

98 - Jorge Posada

49 - Frank Thomas

169 - Mike Remlinger

344 - Albert Pujols / Todd Helton / Juan Pierre NL Hits Leaders (Pierre is in the same group as Pujols and Helton?)

272 - Dusty Baker

222 - Randy Wolf

- Some unnumbered checklist

Pack 4:

79 - Jerry Hairston Jr.

248 - Gary Bennett (Former Cards backup catcher in his pre-Cards days with the Padres.)

40 - Albert Pujols (I probably already have this card, but back-to-back Pujols packs is something I will certainly not complain about.)

292 - Bob Melvin

258 - Runelvys Hernandez

63 - Pedro Astacio

Pack 5:

200 - Nomar Garciaparra (I wonder if Nomar's career is done.)

57 - Michael Tucker

105 - Willis Roberts

340 - Carlos Delgado / Alex Rodriguez / Bret Boone AL RBI Leaders (Which one of these names is not like the others?)

278 - Jack McKeon

54 - Shane Halter

- Topps of the Class thing

Pack 6:

100 - Alex Rodriguez

23 - Jay Payton (Is this the first time Payton ever caught a ball?)

89 - Tim Spooneybarger

205 - Ray Durham (This is no play at the plate, but I know some of you out there appreciate a good photo of a turn.)

178 - Rocky Biddle

32 - Brad Radke

- MLB Sportsclix ad

Pack 7:

221 - Mike Mussina

223 - Kris Benson

227 - Francisco Cordero

350 - 2003 NLDS Postseason Highlights (I know I'm not too into posting Cubs cards around here, but I couldn't pass this one up. Nice puns.)

238 - Raul Ibanez

323 - Tydus Meadows

- another unnumbered checklist

Pack 8:

102 - Dave Berg (I'm not sure who this is, either.)

44 - Steve Finley

96 - Alex Cintron

WS-LB - Lou Brock World Series Highlights (I never thought that the shiny rainbowy technology worked well on "vintage" style cards, but I like this one anyway. There's nothing that detracts a lot from the best part of the card, which is the photo. I can't always say that about some of the cards that are out these days.)

198 - Byung-Hyun Kim

328 - Ryan Madson / Elizardo Ramirez Future Stars

Pack 9:

46 - Jay Gibbons

11 - Kevin Millwood

134 - Alex Cora (Crazy photo!)

332 - Sammy Sosa Season Highlights

312 - Khalid Ballouli

283 - Ron Gardenhire

- Topps of the Class

Pack 10:

199 - Brandon Inge

261 - Dustan Mohr (Here's another guy to join the "never heard of" club)

18 - Corey Patterson

130 - Kazuhisa Ishii

17 - Kevin Millar

159 - Toby Hall

Bonus Pack time...

137 - Brett Tomko (Not a great pitcher, but I believe I needed this one.)

ASR-EM - Edgar Martinez All-Star Stitches (Edgar! I haven't pulled a relic card in quite awhile, so this was a welcome surprise. I guess I should stop making fun of the bonus pack concept for awhile anyway. I'm not so sure about the design of this, though. It's a little busy and of course you get a tiny visible jersey piece.)

184 - Brian Lawrence

319 - Omar Falcon (I don't think this is a real person. That can't be a real name.)

- MLB Sportsclix ad

These are all going into the box for potential trades, minus the Cardinals of course.