2011 Topps Series 2 Baseball Retail (Wal-Mart)

Only a few more packs to go. Join me as I continue to rattle them off, will you?

Not to be confused with the black background parllels, these are the looseys that contain special exclusive to Wal-Mart diamond inserts. Exciting!

#575 - Rod Barajas - Not a bad way to start off the pack. Not in terms of the player, mind you, but just in image. Kershaw's dopey look is just bonus.

#372 - Jarrod Saltalamacchia - Designer's gold standard for the "will the whole name fit within this space?" problem.

#409 - Vin Mazzaro - Refresher course on the card backs. Still get the job done.

#394 - Austin Jackson - How's this kid doing? Not so hot right? Or is that just Heyward?

#503 - Nathan Adcock - Another Royals pitcher. It must be my lucky day... I think this picture was taken on some golf course.

#375 - Matt Kemp - Two Royals and Two Dodgers within the first half. At least the Dodgers have visually stimulating photos.

#BDW23 - Mike Stanton - Blue Diamond - Yay! We found one! Wal-Mart has the blue diamonds like this one, Target has red (stay tuned), and Toys R Us has purple diamonds, although I'm not sure if those continued in series 2.

#KC-65 - Bob Gibson - Kimball Champions - Pretty much everyone in the world is in love with the Kimball minis. I am not pretty much everyone. I know this is leaning towards sacrilige, but I don't care for minis. These have a great design and all, but it's not for me.

#60YOT-103 - Frank Thomas - 60 Years of Topps - This, however, is. I still need the original back version of this card if anyone out there may be holding onto it. I'll give this card my normal write-up sometime later on my blog. Maybe on a 2011 card recap post or something.

#650 - Josh Hamilton - People don't like this card. I'm not people. I don't care that you can't see his face. It's a nice action shot of a nice little highlight reel catch. That's all I need. It beats a standard swinging the bat card.

#570 - Matt Cain - Depth of field gets me every time. I love this kind of crap.

#557 - Wes Helms - Tell me Wes Helms doesn't look like Popeye. Tell me he also doesn't look grotesque and disfigured in the arm areas.

Not too bad of a pack. I could do without 3 inserts in a 12 card pack. That seems like overkill to me. However, having 1 of them turn out to be a player I collect eases some of that "pain." Only a couple more packs and you can all go back to new hotness.