A Jumbo From the Pack Stash

Today I have a Jumbo Pack of 2008 Upper Deck. That's 36 cards, including two Rookie Debut cards visible through the clear wrapper on the back of the pack.

2008 Upper Deck
#54 Francisco Cordero
#93 Livan Hernandez
#131 Felix Hernandez
#132 Jeff Weaver
#154 Billy Wagner
#270 Magglio Ordonez

Jeff Weaver played half a season for the Cardinals in 2006, won a World Series, then promptly priced himself out of St. Louis's range. I'll admit when he left I was wondering if we'd regret it, but he regressed a bit and in the end I think it was in the Cardinals best interest not to pay him as much as he got in Seattle.

2008 Upper Deck
#318 Kevin Hart
#341 Bronson Sardinha
#363 Grady Sizemore
#390 Jake Peavy

A few weeks ago, someone called no-grass cards like Peavy's "Tattooine cards" after the desert planet. Now that's all I can think of when I find one.

#14 Chad Qualls
#36 Gregg Zaun
#37 Aaron Hill
#112 Barry Zito
#114 Brad Hennessey
#115 Jack Taschner
#151 John Maine
#152 Tom Glavine
#153 Orlando Hernandez

Check out that Gigantes jersey on Brad Hennessey. I'm glad when the photographers show up on special uniform days. The three Mets cards show different jerseys, too, and clearly the two Blue Jays cards do as well.

2008 Upper Deck
#191 Jamie Moyer
#193 Kyle Lohse
#209 Ryan Doumit
#231 Bronson Arroyo
#232 Matt Belisle
#248 Kazuo Matsui
#269 Gary Sheffield
#287 Jim Thome

Here I've got two former Cardinals playing for the Phillies, Kyle Lohse and Jamie Moyer.

2008 Upper Deck
#271 Matt Garza
#327 Jonathan Meloan
#359 B.J. Upton
#377 Magglio Ordonez
#386 Frank Thomas
Rookie Debut #7 Ryan Hanigan
Rookie Debut #23 Dave Davidson
Yankee Stadium Legacy #YSL3088 Moose Skowron

Since the Rookie Debut cards are what's immediately visible outside the pack, I'd wager that's the reason this particular pack made it to the repack factory. Ryan Hanigan and Dave Davidson weren't exactly the hottest prospects in a set with Ian Kennedy, Joey Votto, and Clay Buchholz. That Yankee Stadium Legacy set is kind of cool, but I don't think I'll be tracking down the other 6000+ cards for it. It'd be pretty awesome to have something like this for Busch Stadium, but I definitely understand the New-York-centricity of the card collecting world.

This Break is so 2007, Part V

When CaptKirk42 of the aptly named CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog opened up a break of 5 boxes of 2007 baseball cards, I jumped right in to claim the Cardinals and my 2 random teams. It was slow to fill so each slot wound up with 3 random teams, which also caused me to pick up the Dodgers as well in hopes of a Nomar Garciaparra card or two. In all I got the Athletics, Braves, Cardinals, [Devil] Rays, Dodgers,  Mariners,  Royals, and Twins.
[ I | II | III | IV ]


I might be a sucker, I might be behind the times, I might just dig in my heels when people disagree with me, but so help me, I like both Heritage and Turkey Red.

2007 Heritage
#27 Dan Haren
#41 Anthony Reyes SP
#65 Chris Narveson
#106 Scott Rolen
#199 Ronnie Belliard
#287 Chris Carpenter
#337 Jason Isringhausen
#476 Albert Pujols
#492 Brad Penny SP

I landed 2 SPs among the Cardinals, although one was Brad Penny, who pitched 9 games and hit one Grand Slam for us in 2010.

2007 Heritage
#216 2006 Cardinals
#289 Justin Verlander/Jeff Weaver

World Series winners usually get some bonus cards in the following year's set, such as this Verlander/Weaver card.

2007 Heritage
#103 Carl Crawford SP
#339 Jarrod Washburn SP
#357 Eric Stults SP
#419 Scott Kazmir SP

Here are the other SPs I received. I like having all of the SPs in the highest numbers like 2011-2013 Heritage, because then I feel like 1-425 can be seen as the base set. Also, I know when I flip through the cards by number which ones are SPs. To track these down, I had to go to some shady user-generated content sites, so hopefully they're correct.

2007 Heritage
Flashbacks #FB7 Eddie Yost
New Age Performers #NP11 Chipper Jones

These inserts don't seem to fit the set as well as other years of Heritage. But a Chipper's always a good thing.

2007 Heritage - A-Rod Road to 500 #71

Finally, my randomly assigned Seattle pays off again. This set was inserted across Topps products, so it'd be a bear to put together through pack buying.

That's it for the break. It was a lot of fun going through my giant box of cards, covering 5 different products and 8 teams. And, of course, I now own 5 more partial team sets of the Cardinals, so my wantlist has only increased.

This Break is so 2007, Part I

When CaptKirk42 of the aptly named CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog opened up a break of 5 boxes of 2007 baseball cards, I jumped right in to claim the Cardinals and my 2 random teams. It was slow to fill so each slot wound up with 3 random teams, which also caused me to pick up the Dodgers as well, in hopes of a Nomar Garciaparra card or two. In all I got the Athletics, Braves, Cardinals, [Devil] Rays, Dodgers,  Mariners,  Royals, and Twins.

First up, we have the 2007 Bowman cards, confusing subsets, insert sets, and all.

2007 Bowman - Prospects
#BP46 Trey Hearne
#BP68 Jarrett Hoffpauir

I don't think we're going to see either of these guys back in MLB, though Hoffpauir actually played for the big club in 2009, enough that I remembered his name.

2007 Bowman
#56 Dan Haren
#59 Jim Edmonds
#124 Chris Carpenter
#138 John Smoltz
#163 David Eckstein
#175 Albert Pujols
#183 Jeff Weaver
Gold #27 Brian McCann
Gold #105 Eric Chavez

As usual, here are all the base cards of anyone who ever wore the birds on the bat. McCann and Chavez didn't, but I only had 7 for this scan, so why not add some Gold, right?

2007 Bowman - A-Rod Road To 500
#130, 139, 151, 156

This was one of the best parts about landing the Mariners; a whole insert set of one player. As for a fun Cardinals connection, 3 of the 4 pitchers mentioned played for the Cardinals. There was Chris Carpenter, Jeff Suppan, and Arthur Rhodes. Not bad for a career AL player.

2007 Bowman Chrome - Propects
#46 Trey Hearne

Trey Hearne again. Cards like this are what make Bowman a little disappointing when it's a few years old. It's Chrome, and it's my team, but I've never heard of the guy.

2007 Bowman - Blue Parallel
#56 Dan Haren #024/500

It's an eBay 1/1! #024 and he's wearing #24! I'm rich!

2007 Bowman - Prospects Blue
#BP133 Jarrod Saltalamacchia #188/500

Finally, this was the big hit from Bowman, a Jarrod Saltalamacchia autograph. I kind of feel bad for the guy for having to sign such a long name 500 times for this card, although it looks like he's got a bit of a shortened version going here. Salty has been a player I've liked for some time, maybe because of his unique last name, maybe because he's a catcher like I sometimes tried to be. Either way, with many less impressive autograph subjects in the checklist, this is great pull.

2010 Upper Deck Value Pack

When taking another look through Target's $1.59 pack box, where I found my last 3 2006 Topps packs, I found a 2010 Upper Deck. Since I won some 2010 UD not once but twice from Number 5 Type Collection, I decided I'd go ahead and pick up the pack. Here's what I found.

2010 Upper Deck #282 Jeff Weaver

I mostly remember Weaver for kicking a batted ball while pitching in the World Series, because the following Sunday I pulled almost the same move (on accident) while pitching in slow pitch softball.

2010 Upper Deck - Season Biography #SB-96 Tim Lincecum

2010 Upper Deck - Supreme Green #S-11 Mark Buehrle

Buehrle grew up in the St. Louis area, and long talked about finishing up with the Cardinals, but that seems unlikely after he signed his contract with Miami this year. My dad actually worked with his uncle for awhile, and so I'd get to hear about his progress through the minors, even in the days before obsessive team bloggers and 3 or 4 ESPNs to cover every detail.

And here are all the base cards contained in the pack.
34 Matt Garza
97 Jed Lowrie
126 Carlos Quentin
144 Laynce Nix
146 Joey Votto
167 Kerry Wood
232 Wesley Wright
282 Jeff Weaver
358 Rajai Davis
393 Ramon Vazquez
408 Tony Gwynn (Jr.)
410 Edgar Gonzalez
454 Felix Hernandez
479 Gabe Gross
537 Ross Detwiler
594 San Francisco Checklist

18 cards for $1.59 wasn't bad, even if almost every pitcher is shot like Weaver above, to obscure the logos. Although, I'm surprised Upper Deck got away with as much as they did being unlicensed in 2010, like the SOX and SF logos on Buehrle's and Lincecum's hats.