Building My Own 2011 Lineage Blaster

Remember how Bullwinkle cartoons would sometimes have an alternate title after the main one? This one would be "Or, how a Ph.D. student in Applied Mathematics can still be bad at math".

A while back, I found some Lineage rack packs discounted to $2.98 from $4.98. At this particular Wal-mart, I always seem to find pack-searchers, including one who started talking tough when I gave him a look and his guilt kicked in. I'm not looking to get into a physical fight over baseball cards, so I left rather quickly. I share that story because I'm going to use that stressful memory to excuse my mental lapse.

$20 blasters have 56 cards plus a mini relic, so at 14 cards per $3 rack pack, I figured I was getting a sweet deal. I'd buy 5 packs for a total of $15, and most likely that missing relic wasn't worth the $5 to me, when what I really wanted was the base cards to complete the set. I'd still have exactly 56 cards, but no relic.

Of course, if you're following the logic, the relic-free blaster cost me $12, not $15. 4 x 14 = 56. Somewhere along the way when I was counting the packs and cards in my mind, I added one. So I wound up with 70 cards, an even better deal than I first thought.

Enough of my tale spinning, let's see what came in those 5 packs.

2011 Topps Lineage
#6 Carlos Beltran x3!
#142 Dan Haren
 #178 Albert Pujols
 #189 Jaime Garcia

Well that's not such a great start. I like Carlos Beltran, but I don't think I need 3 of him. Haren, Pujols, and Garcia were good additions though.

2011 Topps Lineage
Diamond Anniversary #35 Hanley Ramirez
Platinum Diamond #69 Jayson Werth
Platinum Diamond #116 Pedro Alvarez
Checklists #3
Venezuelan #TV11 Clayton Kershaw
Topps Rookies #TR18 J.P. Arencibia

Here we have the regular-sized inserts. I'm having trouble figuring out what to call the sparkly versus shiny cards, but I think I got it right. Those look like solid blue borders in my scan but they're really more chrome-like. I'm a fan of checklists, so I scanned that, as well as the back of the Venezuelan Kershaw, since that's the only way you can tell it's not the base card. Finally there was a Rookies insert, of J.P. Arencibia.

2011 Lineage 1975 Mini #3 Jimmie Foxx

Finally, we have a mini in lieu of a mini relic. Try as I might, I couldn't get this one to size appropriately to look mini compared to the cards above. I'm glad Jimmie Foxx is pictured as a member of the Athletics here, since they're one of my favorite teams not from St. Louis.

That's all for my blaster-assembling adventure. If any inserts look good, or you're one of the few out there looking to complete the Lineage set, let me know and we can probably work out a trade.