2014 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Series 2

Much like my recent return to trying to keep up with WWE story lines, I've also made an attempt to pick up a couple packs of each new Garbage Pail Kids release that appears at my local Target. My pack had some interesting subjects including parodies I wasn't expecting to find, i.e. The Walking Dead, Dr. Doom, and Ghost Rider. Here's what I pulled: 

#83b Chiseled Chad

#82b Cracked Mack

#93a Rick Grimey

#84b Foggy Augie

#92a Bomb Ed

#121a Cuckoo Kevin

#91a Door Knox

#106a Eyecicle Ira [Green Border]

#126a Trey Cycle

Garbage Pail Kids Battles #2 Flo Sing vs. God of Warren

1993 Upper Deck Baseball Series 2

Upper Deck with series 2 featuring rookies, prospects, players in new teams during middle of 93 season. 15 cards in a pack but careful on opening. The UV coating made the cards stick together. On to cards.

510 - Rondell White - a rookie at time he played all the way to 2007.

477 - Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry - remember they were suppose do big things for Dodgers?

449 - Derek Jeter - the holy grail of that year as this is one of his rookie cards of that year. Stay with Yankees in his entire Hall of Fame career before retiring after end of last season.

594 - Kevin Maas - came in the league then cooled down

547- Tim Wallach - after years with Montreal Expos he became a Dodger in a trade. He still with Dodgers organization either as minor league manager or coach

537 - Dave Hansen

533 - Walt Weiss - in his only season with Marlins who were expansion team at the time. Signed with Rockies the following year to 97. Wound up back with Rockies as current manager.

701 - Steve Bedrosian - after spending 92 season away from baseball he returned spending three seasons with team he started out with the Braves. Things came full circle for him.

 661 - Chris Hammond

A12 - Ivan Rodriguez - fifth anniversary insert card that falls in 1:9 packs. This reprint of Pudge from their final update set from 1991.

771 - Junior Felix - signing autographs for the fans

 783 - Mike Hampton - his rookie card in Mariners uniform. He would get traded to Astros where he became All-Star. Who did Mariners get? Eric Anthony. Mariners got burned.

678 - Charlie Leibrandt

709 - Dave Eiland

731 - Jay Howell - after spending most his career in west coast he goes east at member of Braves.

2009 Upper Deck Series 1 & 2 Combo Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone's doing well.  Got a quick post for tonight from the scan folder.  It's a 2009 Upper Deck Series 1 & 2 Combo Pack!

Catcher Matt Wieters (whom I think still doesn't have a contract with Topps) is the cover boy for a pack that advertises the possibility of getting a Stephen Strasburg card.  The ad is a sticker, so obviously the vendor had to come back and slap that sticker on each pack.  The thing is, Strasburg does not appear in the 1006 card set at all...his cards were released in 2010 card sets.  Therefore, I call shenanigans.

Anyway, we've seen the cards before, so here's the list of what I got and some highlights and card backs:

Top Pack:

#167 – Alex Gordon

#125 – Armando Galarraga

#194 – Russell Martin

#293 – Pedro Feliz

#321 – Scott Hairston

#304 – Ian Snell

#433 – Team Leaders:  Mets

#483 – Brandon Webb (Checklist)

#GN30 – Johan Santana

#U38 – Anthony Swarzak (RC)

#673 – Joakim Soria

#697 – Reggie Willits

#570 – Kosuke Fukudome

#677 – John Buck

#533 – Oscar Salazar

#936 – Willie Harris

#943 – Rick Porcello (RC)

#995 – Gerald Laird (Checklist)

Bottom Pack:

#188 – Gary Matthews

#152 – Roy Oswalt

#117 – Ubaldo Jiminez

#208 – Blake DeWitt

#259 – Ivan Rodriguez

#367 – Troy Percival

#419 – Luis Valbuena (RC)

#GN44 – Russell Martin

#U10 – Pedro Martinez (back)

#1305 – Tony Gwynn (Upper Deck 20^th Anniversary)

#520 – Martin Prado

#692 – Vladimir Guerrero

#877 – Brendan Ryan

#763 – David Wright

#814 – Chase Utley

#632 – Yorvit Torrealba

#820 – Tom Gorzelanny

#753 – Oliver Perez

And for the record, no, I didn't get the pack because of the Strasburg sticker.  Common, it's 3 bucks for 36 cards!

Anyway, that's the pack.  More later.  Have a fun week, and thanks for reading!

1997 Pacific

The time was 1997. Independence Day (the movie, not the holiday) was still relatively fresh in people's minds. Other, even worse disaster movies would follow. The Cardigans (the band, not the article of clothing) were big. Blur's "Song 2" (the "Woo-Hoo!" song) was brand spanking new. We were still a decade away from "Seven Nation Army" becoming a full-on sports theme. This pack is from that time. The cards and the wrapper are both very flimsy and very ugly.

350 - Henry Rodriguez - There have been a number of major leaguers named Henry Rodriguez over the years. This one had the longest career to date and even made an All-Star appearance.

123 - Mike Matheny - Matheny is the current Cardinals manager. So that's something.

278 - Jason Bates

190 - Edgar Martinez - The problem with these old glossy packs is that the cards start to stick together and you start to see bits of things on other things.

417 - Todd Stottlemyre - Stottlemyre got the worst of it. I hope I didn't need this card for my Cardinals collection. (I probably did.)

51 - Ray Durham - Here's what the backs look like. They are bilingual (nice!) but rather cheesy.

143 - Greg Myers

 85 - Raul Casanova - All the ladies love him.

 
425 - Joey Hamilton - This set doesn't feature the greatest photography, but this is a good one.

174 - Ariel Prieto - The 5th overall selection of the 1995 draft and this is the first I've heard of him. Wow.

90 - Jose Lima - Lima Time!

119 - John Jaha - Jaha was born in my hometown (Portland) and was a slugger, so I remember being very curious about him back in the '90s.

2015 Topps Series 1 Blaster Commemorative Relic Card Pack

The whole reason to buy a retail blaster. The manurelics are nice and have a nice weight to them, other than there is no one in the checklist I want to chase.

I ended up pulling an Eric Hosmer card.  Not too shabby, probably would be a little nicer had they pulled out game 7 last year, but Hosmer had a great year and was incredibly instrumental in the Royals run to the World Series.

2015 Topps Spring Fever Promo Pack

Well Topps definitely didn't break the bank on pack printing.  These packs were given away as a promotion for buying Topps products. The packs were suppose to be available from Feb. 12, 2015, to about Feb 17th, but I know that I can still find packs from last years promotion and the year before that.  It's odd that Topps doesn't have any printing on the pack at all to denote what's inside. There are a nice selection of possible autographs available, but those are few and far between.  The design is pretty similar to the last couple years.  I do like that they have different backgrounds for the cactus league and the grapefruit league.  You get 5 cards per pack, 50 base cards in the set and there are 30 autos. Here are the 5 I got...