Kids Dig the Bowman

The Topps monopoly forces me to pretend from time to time that there's an alternative to their usual brand of products. It's times like these that I look forward to buying Bowman cards just to get my hands on something "different". I know full well that these are Topps cards with a different logo on the front, but I still like to have my pretend time, okay? And in recent years, they have done a good job with adding a few extras to the otherwise stale product. This year continues that run, with a not entirely offensive card design.

Like many other Topps products, Bowman is available as a rack pack containing three separate sealed packs with a bonus three-card pack. This set's bonus cards appear to be purple parallels of their prospect cards.

I've never heard of any of these purple guys, but Bowman is a brand that will often cause whatever the opposite of name recognition is. I must have looked at Todd Kibby's card ten times before I realized his last name wasn't "Kirby".

A little searching reveals that Wisler was drafted out of high school in 2011 and has, as of this month, already moved up to the AA level. He could be one of those prospects that I've been hearing so much about.

Within the three packs, there's the usual configuration of a couple of chrome cards, a couple of prospect cards, a gold parallel and occasionally something inserted at a less than 1:1 ratio. One such thing that is new this year is these Cream of the Crop Mini Refractors. 5 players from each team were selected, making this insertfest larger than the actual prospect set itself.

I dislike the Reds, but I am starting to believe my "most hated" member of the team has drifted from the Brandon Phillips/Johnny Cueto territory mined by that brawl several years ago to the broadcast booth. Thom Brennaman has always irritated me to some extent, but I can no longer listen to him (or his father) on the air without getting a bit angry.

I'm going to Seattle in part to see the Mariners play in a few weeks and I'm hoping to see Felix on the mound. The Mariners offense is still in disarray and now the pitching isn't nearly as good as it was, so Felix must feel like he's trying to get out of one of those horrible pits in the Atari 2600 adaptation of E.T. when he's on the mound sometimes.

With 33 cards in the package, I just hoping to come out of it with one Cardinal card, and Seth Maness made that happen. Maness has struggled a bit since joining the bullpen recently. As a starter in the minor league ranks, he pretty much never walked anyone, ever.

Mark Reynolds is starting to look like a legitimate ballplayer again and less like a cartoon villain, eager to swing three times at any given pitch.

Is this guy really the ace of the Cubs right now? This is what passes for "ace" material these days?

Back for 2013 are the Silver Ice parallels that all of the kids love these days. I hear the kids are having Silver Ice parties every weekend, where they gaze upon their shiny cardboard for hours on end. I mean, that's what they do, do they?

This also fell out of one of the packs. I don't know what it does, but unless it's giving me the chance to instantly win a free card for some reason, I don't want any part of it.