2003 Topps Series 1 is Live!

The word is starting to trickle down, and it seems everyone is excited. You may have seen this stuff pop up on eBay already, but I believe I have once again scooped the "blogosphere" by posting the very first blaster of 2003 Topps of the new year. There are ten six-card packs and one "bonus pack" which is in a special compartment all by itself, yet looks exactly the same as all of the other packs. Enjoy!

Pack 1:

27 - Andres Galarraga (I still hold ill will towards the Big Cat for that one terrible season he had with St. Louis, which he then followed up by hitting .370 with the newbie Rockies.)

207 - Mike DeJean

31 - Brian Giles

364 - Derek Lowe All-Stars (One thing that bothers me slightly about this set is that the subset cards are in a slightly different shade of blue than the regular cards. The regular card shade of blue is what attracted me to collecting this set in the first place.)

90 - Alfonso Soriano

24 - Odalis Perez

- Home Team Advantage Ad

Pack 2:

138 - Jason Jennings (Jennings won 16 games in 2002 and was a Rookie Cup guy.)

107 - Travis Driskill (Is it driss-kill or dry-skill?)

48 - Aaron Boone (Look at me! I can sign stuff with a glove on my head! By the way, if these are not "TTM" autographs, then does that mean they are "IP"? "IRL"?)

71 - Jim Thome

151 - Al Leiter

200 - Albert Pujols (Nice!)

Pack 3:

282 - Art Howe

223 - Fernando Vina (The only man who had more finely groomed facial hair in baseball in 2002 besides Albert Pujols was Fernando Vina.)

101 - Steve Cox

359 - Eric Chavez All-Stars (Chavez is wearing '80s retro A's gear, but for some reason I didn't scan the card.)

219 - Kevin Millwood

70 - Austin Kearns (Another Rookie Cup guy. What happened to him?)

1/3 - Checklist

Pack 4:

288 - Tony LaRussa (A lot of people are taking their shots at this guy lately, and some of it is probably deserved. He's still a heck of a manager, though, and that's his job.)

77 - Miguel Tejada

127 - Jason Isringhausen (Lots of Cardinals in this box... no complaints here.)

OG30 - John Smoltz Own The Game (This card has magical powers as you can see.)

92 - Jeffrey Hammonds (Hammonds was supposed to be the second coming of somebody... at some point...)

238 - Denny Hocking

Pack 5:

30 - Jason Giambi

39 - Sidney Ponson

83 - Orlando Palmeiro

340 - Alex Rodriguez / Magglio Ordonez / Miguel Tejada AL RBI League Leaders

110 - Shawn Green

251 - Craig Biggio

Pack 6:

285 - Bruce Bochy

244 - Jeff Cirillo

22 - Dave Mlicki

56 - Eric Young

210 - Roy Oswalt

133 - Corey Patterson (Move along... nothing to see here.)

Pack 7:

85 - Kenny Rogers (Rogers was actually a reliever for his first four full major league seasons, which is something I didn't know. He even closed for a spell.)

14 - David Segui

365 - Barry Zito All-Stars

338 - Alfonso Soriano / Alex Rodriguez / Derek Jeter AL Runs League Leaders (Yeah... a bunch of guys on one card.)

87 - Mo Vaughn

176 - Sean Casey

Pack 8:

280 - John Halama

123 - Andy Benes

49 - Jason Simontacchi (More Cardinals! Back-to-back, even!)

RB-KG - Ken Griffey Jr. Record Breakers (This has to be the best pack of the box.)

28 - Edgardo Alfonzo

112 - Jacque Jones

Pack 9:

284 - Lloyd McClendon (I never thought much of McClendon as a player, and then he got into some physical altercation with the Cardinals during batting practice years ago while coaching. Nice.)

124 - Tino Martinez

335 - Jason Giambi Season Highlights

120 - Bernie Williams

256 - Omar Daal

2/3 - Checklist

Pack 10:

286 - Dusty Baker (Speaking of obnoxious managers, here's Dusty. A lot of these manager cards seemed to be posed for some reason.)

12 - Dennis Cook

51 - Jose Jimenez

32 - Deivi Cruz

50 - Sammy Sosa (I wonder if Topps will issue buybacks of cards like Sosa, with scarlet letter branding that pays "tribute" to admitted steroid use.)

146 - Darren Dreifort

Bonus Pack:

283 - Larry Bowa

45 - Carlos Baerga (There's a name from the past. Apparently he spent a couple years away from baseball before coming back with Boston in 2002.)

113 - Tomokazu Ohka

55 - Brian Jordan (A former Card who was fun to watch at times.)

20 - Todd Helton

246 - Jose Valentin

Well, there you have it. I'll have my wantlist posted fairly soon. Please make sure you hyperlink this on your blog so that my hits skyrocket and I become extra-famous.

A Treasure Trove of Troll Heritage (or, Troll Trade #5)

Any trade with The Collective Troll is bound to be a huge one, but this latest package took the cake as far as volume goes. I received an entire 400 ct (I'm guessing on the size - it's been a long time since I've bought and sold these) box of 2007 Heritage cards which dwarfed the meager stack of cards from the set that I had accumulated previously. As much as I love Heritage, there are plenty of things to dislike about this set, so I can see why it's not nearly as popular as some of the other years. There were a few Cardinals cards that I had not even obtained for my team collection, so these will head to the Cardinals binders as I seek out more copies. I thought I'd show these here and spare you all from the dozens of other cards from the set.

Albert and Maggs look like cardboard cutouts here. These two may have participated in the 2006 World Series, but neither were the main difference makers for their respective teams.

I think Izzy's card here is an example of one of the biggest complaints with this set - the extreme close-up head shot with awkward facial expression. Well, you can only successfully pay tribute to a set by being as good or as bad as the original.

Weaver was a significant portion of the Cardinals staff heading down the stretch and on into the playoff run, but it's weird to see him named as a Verlander rival. Again, they look like cardboard cut-outs in front of a vintage stadium background.

Of course, most of the cards in the box were not Cardinals. I was lucky enough to receive three short printed cards, including Boone Logan. This might be even a bigger deterrent to potential set collectors. No, I'm not talking about Logan's photo, which is just begging for a caption contest. I'm talking about the SPs. Not only do you have your usual array of short printed cards, but the sheer number of variations which just add to the SP total is very dizzying.

A few extra Cardinals were sprinkled in, which is always a nice touch. I received a couple of 1971 Topps cards, including Jose Cardenal. I wonder what other ballplayers had the same or similar last names as their team's nickname. If Chris Ray ever played for Tampa Bay, it would be one thing, but I'd be shocked if there was a George National out there.

What Roped Me Back In

One of the things that's struck a chord with me as I continue to read others' thoughts about sports cards on the internet is that how many people have a similar story to their collecting habits. Most people, like myself, seem to have collected at some point in their younger days before giving it up for whatever reason. Somehow, we got roped back into somewhat peculiar habit of collecting small photos of professional athletes.

I believe the first packs that I saw since my high school days were given to me by my girlfriend sometime in 2005. What really grabbed me, however, is something that looks very similar to the pack that I'll show you in this post. You see, back in 1991, Topps put out their 40th anniversary flagship set with a serious new commitment to quality photography and all that. They also inserted at some secret ratio some "vintage" baseball cards from their first 39 years. At the time, I was gullible enough to believe that - according to people down at the card shop - Topps randomly inserted one of every baseball card that they ever made. Even if this were true, in failing to account for the unfathomably high production numbers and low odds of ever pulling something like this, I somehow believed that if I opened enough 1991 Topps packs that I could eventually pull a pristine condition card from the '50s. I wasn't expecting Mickey Mantle or anything, but I think I assumed that Topps had some sort of vault of uncirculated cards from all years that they could pull out on a whim.

So we now know none of this was true, but imagine my adult delight at seeing that 3 vintage cards were inserted into every rack pack of 2006 Topps. This was dangerous. This is what caused me to start spending actual money on baseball cards again. Since these have long disappeared from the shelves, here's a pack of this stuff that I actually got in a repack thing not too long ago.

Opening from left-to-right (right-to-left if you flip it over to pull out the cards...)

81 - Kyle Farnsworth

78 - Nick Punto

BB663 - Barry Bonds Home Run History 663 (I'd like to meet someone who collects these. Actually, no, I probably wouldn't. But if there are any Bonds collectors out there, I have plenty of stuff for you.)

6 - Nolan Ryan Record Breakers (1988 Topps) (Well, it is only an '88 Topps card, but no card of Nolan Ryan is a bad card. You could certainly do worse.)

163 - Flash Gordon (Here's the confusing Tom Gordon card where they took the time and effort to photoshop Gordon into a Phillies uniform - check out that Nike swoosh that's practically falling off of his shoe - but failed to change the team name from Yankees to Phillies. At least, I think that's what happened.)

154 - Ryan Church (The 2006 set itself isn't bad, but I wasn't inspired enough to bother to collect it, either. The only Topps base set in the past decade I am interested in collecting is 2003.)

137 - Victor Zambrano

Section 2, coming right up...

270 - Chicago White Sox (It was nice to see team cards included as Topps had gotten away from that when I stopped collecting.)

284 - New York Yankees

1 - Mickey Mantle Home Run History 1 (If I am following everything correctly, this was the only card from this monotonous insert set put in series 1 packs. Doesn't that make this card about 100 times more common than the others? They were still inserted at the same rates as series 2 and Updates & Highlights, which had 100 different cards to choose from. Also, again, I want to find someone who collects these.)

464 - Jeff Jones (1984 Topps) (Can't complain too much about this one, printing defect and all. I like 1984 Topps.)

103 - Junior Spivey (Probably one of the most disappointing free agent signings the Cardinals made this decade.)

129 - Joe McEwing

130 - Richie Sexson (I wonder what Sexson is up to these days.)

3 of 3 - Checklist

And now, the finale...

263 - Albert Pujols MVP (It's also very easy to convince me to buy something if Albert Pujols is showing on the front.)

242 - Felix Hernandez

132 - Russ Adams

9 - Alex Rodriguez Topps 2K All-Stars (Some of this insert set was available only through buying the MLB 2k6 video game, which I owned. I got three of those cards and they all had some sort of indentation on them from the plastic packaging. Others were inserted into 2006 Topps packs. On the back there is a video game representation of the player, which is kind of amusing.)

174 - Todd Burns (1989 Topps)

131 - Rod Barajas

300 - Ryan Garko

- Topps of the Class filler card

Does anyone else have a similar story to share?

Airbrushed Fridays: 1988 Topps Traded #93T

I have to admit to being a bit distracted this week. I'm gearing up for, hopefully, the biggest "mail day" in Cards on Cards history. That is, a day where I am planning on getting rid of at least 1000 cards, which will be out the door by Monday afternoon. And who knows... that number could certainly swell before the weekend is out. I also had a rather exhausting work week that will conclude with me basically working a half-day tomorrow and taking in some Blazers basketball either at the Rose Garden itself or somewhere where I feel comfortable yelling at some people who can't hear me. I'm also preparing the contest prizes to go out, which I hope to augment a bit with a trip to either the monthly card show or at least some sort of card shop this weekend. I'm plugging along with the blog, and before I get to watching my Thursday night time-shifted comedy television programs, it's time to present this week's victim.

Ernie Riles was a promising infielder who played for the Milwaukee Brewers before being dealt to San Francisco for Jeffrey "One Flap Down" Leonard in the middle of the 1988 season. He had a promising rookie season, finishing third in AL Rookie of the Year voting but was beset with injuries for much of his career.

Why did Topps airbrush Ernie's photo? Better question, perhaps - why did Topps spell Ernie's name with an extra 'a'? Seriously, folks, this bothered me even when I was a kid. At various points throughout the '80s, all of the card companies spelled Ernie's given name (Ernest) with an unnecessary 'a' at times as well as a shortened version of "Earnie". Occasionally, you'll see a misspelling of someone's name on a baseball card early in their career, but it's not something that you see carried over from year to year usually. But let's see... back to the airbrushing. This is an '80s traded set and Ernie was traded mid-season, so what else should we expect?

What's wrong with this picture, anyway? Nevermind the fact that the Giants logo on his cap looks cartoonish. The jersey looks nothing like anything any team would wear, like it's the result of some sort of experiment with charcoal and sidewalk chalk. That's not the worst of it, however. Not leaving well enough alone, the Topps "artist" even went so far as to airbrush Ernie's neck and some of his face! It looks like he has some sort of awful skin condition that you might see on an X-Files episode.

"New to Me" Heritage and Turkey Red

NBC used to do some sort of promos for summer reruns that went something like "if it's new to you, it's not a rerun." Something like that, anyway. While their attitude might have been a little suspect (assuming that someone has not seen your show means it probably isn't very good) I think their selling point could easily apply to other things in life. Other things like... oh... I don't know... baseball cards?

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Cardboard Junkie's own dayf, who really needs no introduction, had some extra Topps vintage tribute cards (or is that tribute vintage?) and he found the right place to send them to. I have this rather insane idea of eventually putting together all Topps Heritage sets as well as the Turkey Red sets, and I got some extras from sets that came out before I was really aware and interested. Meanwhile, I have yet to complete a single set since I started this blog a year and a half ago.

I actually managed to pick up a healthy stack of 2006 Topps Heritage on the cheap at a card show this past fall, so I am in better shape with this set than the rest that I'm going to talk about here. There are some really nice looking cards in this set as some of them completely avoid the vintageification process and just concentrate on picture quality. One of the cards I received was a short-printed Pat Burrell card, which is highly appreciated.

Heading back to the start of the Heritage line, here's Izzy on the familiar 1952 design. My scanner decided to further accentuate the pinkness in Izzy's cheeks for some reason.

From a younger, fresh faced Jason Isringhausen to a cagey vet named Eric Davis. Eric the Red eventually became Eric the Redbird. For awhile in the La Russa era, it seemed like a lot of well-known '80s/'90s players made a stop in St. Louis before they headed off into the sunset. Ron Gant, Gary Gaetti, Dennis Eckersley, Will Clark, Larry Walker... all Cardinals near or at the end.

Moving onto 2002/1953, here's Larry Walker himself. With these cards, it looks like they started with player photos and sort of drew over them to make them look less photographic.

This design is far from my favorite design, although I'm not really certain why.

The backs look great, however. Without giving it too much thought, I might even be inclined to say that these are the best looking Topps card backs of all-time.

Did anyone know that Benito Santiago was still around in 2004? I certainly didn't. Santiago looks old enough to be a coach at this point.

I really think card companies should attempt to capture players in vintage uniforms on retro-style sets as often as possible. This Eric Chavez cards looks nice, even if the corresponding uniform may not have been used in the era that this design came from (1956?)

Now, it's onto Turkey Red. There was a nice, juicy stack of the 2005/2006 set (the numbering sequence that began with 2005 continued with the 2006 set and the design is exactly the same, so the lines are fairly blurry when it comes to which set is which) which included a handful of rookie logo rookie cards.

My only complaint with the 2007 set, which I am far closer to completing than anything else mentioned in this post, is that it was missing the colored parallels that were present in the first two retro sets. If there's ever a return to a full proper Turkey Red set (and I'm not saying there should be necessarily) then I hope that they bring back the red, black, white, etc. colored parallels.

Dayf was also kind enough to include a smattering of Cardinal goodies. I needed this Edmonds card for the player/team collection. In fact, I don't think I have any other 2004 Donruss Team Heroes cards now besides this one.

This is a Matt Morris Cracker Jack mini, which in true Cards on Cards fashion actually has a slightly larger than standard photo.

I would love to see a return of a Topps Archives or Fan Favorites type set in 2010. I think there's some sort of restriction on an all-retired player set now, though. I'm not sure if this carried over into Topps's new contract or not, but I would much rather buy something like this if it was released again than I would that Natinal Chiclets set.

Bazooka! Gadzooks! This card is more Cracker Jack than Bazooka, because it was definitely the surprise inside. I really like the newer Bazooka stuff and I do not have nearly enough bat cards to my liking, so this is great.

Thanks again to dayf. I hope to put another package to send again soon. But what do you get for the Junkie that has it all?

Box o' Bazooka

Welcome back! Today, I have for you the latest installment of "Remember the Mid-'90s" because I surely can't remember those days myself. The other box of cards that I received for my birthday awhile back was even more intriguing to me and that's because I had no idea that this set existed. When I was growing up, cheap little chunks of Bazooka gum were as American as frozen pizzas and glitter, and I do recall at least one early '90s baseball cards set put out by Topps using the Bazooka name. I am also aware of the mid-'00s Bazooka sets, which have seemed very fun to me for the most part.

If you'd like to look at an example of one the packs in the box, check out my post here at APTBNL. I'll present the rest of the box in "recap" fashion as I did before with the 1995 Stadium Club box.

The breakdown: This box contained 36 packs of 5 cards each, along with a piece of gum (each piece has a 1993 copyright on it, so I'm sure it's good) and some sort of game piece. There are no advertised inserts, parallels or extra riff-raff on either the box or the pack wrappers themselves, but as you'll see in a minute, this is misleading. 180 cards from a set that only contains 132 would ordinarily make one think that they could at least come close to completing the set, but no one made this sort of thing easy back in the day.

The Cardinals: I only managed to get 2 Cardinals in this box (no doubles.) I did not go down the list to see how many actual Cardinals are in this set, but I'm going to say that I got screwed here and just go with it.

However, this card is a much needed addition to my Ozzie Smith collection and makes the whole box for me. Anytime I get a new Ozzie card is considered a major win in my book.

The "hits": Well, well, well. Would you look at that? I pulled a total of 6 cards containing gold foil player names and a reddish background. Beckett is not very helpful about this insert set, only mentioning that you get 5 of these as a bonus when purchasing a factory set. I'll just assume that my box was normal and that these show up at a 1:6 pack ratio.

The cards use the same player photos as the base cards. Once again, according to Beckett there are 22 cards in the insert set. I guess you can't call it a parallel set if they don't make cards for everyone in the base set - and the numbering sequence is different.

Greg Maddux sort of turned into a right-handed Jamie Moyer in the waning moments of his career, but during this day and age he was very dominant.

David Cone was never consistent enough to become a superstar, but he had some impressive highlights in his career.

Canseco is starting to remind of some super annoying guy you'd unfortunately meet at a bar or a bus stop or somewhere public where awkwardness could ensue. I don't recall him ever playing for the Red Sox, but he became a bit of a traveling circus after leaving Oakland.

I have so many Barry Larkin cards that I don't really know what to do with them all. I've been doing my best to pass them along to Nachos Grande, but I'm afraid if I turn my back that they'll start multiplying.

The base cards: Here's a smattering of players that all would have fit into my "star" binders back in my collecting youth.

I liked Tony Gwynn as a ballplayer. I could really do without him as an announcer.

Attention, all you outraged anti-steroids people: Send me your McGwire cards. I'll take them off your hands. Don't send me the Oakland ones, though. I don't care that much. But if you want to sell low on McGwire... or just toss his stuff away... don't forget this Cardinals fan here. I'm not making this as statement that McGwire is awesome. I just want your unwanted stuff... for free, preferably.

No one in my time has worn the pinstripes better than Don Mattingly.

Here's a rare look at gold glove outfielder Larry Walker playing 1st base.

This was part of Rickey Henderson's 3rd (?) tour with Oakland... I think.

Cal Ripken.

Griffey is running on fumes these days, but he had such a nice swing...

Finally, here's some fun. If you clicked over at the pack I posted on A Pack To Be Named Later, you saw a comic pulled out from the gum wrapper. Here are a few more comics. I suppose I should dispose of the rest of the 15+ year old gum safely somehow.

Oh man... jokes!

Bazooka Joe... fantasies? This seems kind of creepy. The Johnny Depp reference definitely dates this a bit. I wonder who would be considered for Depp's position these days... perhaps one of those annoying vampire kids?