2018 Panini Prizm Football Red, White & Blue Bonus Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone had a happy and productive Leap Day!  APTBNL has been around for the last 3 Leap Days and we are 3 for 3 for posting on this day!

I mentioned at the beginning of the month that I'd get to the Bonus Pack eventually.  Well, today's the (Leap) day:

Ah, the big yellow Wal-Mart Clearance sticker.  I decided a while back to get my football cards this way going forward (unless there's a Target sale).  I'm a passive football collector so there's no need to pay full price for packs, especially the chromey-kind.

The Bonus Pack comes in a plain white wrapper.  Here's what I got:

#250 - Leighton Vander Esch (RC)

Not a bad pull in getting a kinda-known rookie.  Here's the back:

The backs are as expected.  Even the "barbershop pole" parallels have boring backs.

#144 - Marquette King

Marquette punted for 6 years with Oakland and Denver.  This year he took his talents to the XFL's St. Louis Battlehawks.

#24 -  Chris Carson

Did today make you curious as to which pro-athletes were born on Leap Day?  Hope this helps!

Anyway, that's the pack, short and sweet.  Thanks for reading on this extra day!

2020 Topps Series 1 Retail

Greetings...

Hope everyone is doing well.  Now that all the bloggers have gone through their Series 1 purchases on their blogs, I might as well get my pack up here.  Target once again has the 3 packs of Series 1 that includes a green parallel.

It boiled down to either this one or Fergie (no, not that Fergie).  I can live with this.

The 3 pack costs $9, up a dollar from last year. Topps wised up and made the 3 pack the same price as 3 single packs.  For those who remember what happened last year, Topps made sure the back contained the odds for this year.

Same number of cards as the single pack.  This is the generic wrapper.  Target packs advertise Vlad Jr inserts while Wal-Mart boast Rhys Hoskins inserts.  Here's the best of the 3 packs:

#292 - Gavin Lux (RC)
#81 - Ryan Yarbrough

I've got no issues with the design.  I wonder why the border is either on the right or left side. I assume it's based on the picture.  It's unfortunate they still have to go with the blurry crowd pictures...is it done purposely to make the Stadium Club cards stand out more?

#42 - Lewis Brinson
#242 - Alex Young (RC)

I have a Brinson auto somewhere...that "hot rookie" hasn't panned out.

#320 - Austin Hedges
#15 - Manny Being Manny (Checklist)

I still would rather checklists show season highlights...or hey, how about combo Managers?  And "Manny Being Manny" should have shown Machado celebrating with Manny Margot (I'm not up on my Padres so for all I know he's the third guy).

#261 - Daniel Mengden
#152 - Zack Wheeler

All baseball cards of Daniel Mengden have to show off his 'stache.

#322 - Dario Agrazal (RC)
#197 - Raisel Iglesias

Of course, the main issue with Series 1 is that the Texas Rangers has just one base card in the set.  I have yet to see the card on the blogs.  I also cannot find a reason why this was the case...anyone know?

#14 - Anthony Rendon
#TRC-9 - Trey Mancini (Turkey Red Chrome)

Moving to the inserts...the Turkey Red Chrome comes 1 in 10 packs.

#110 - Jesus Luzardo (RC) (Short Print)  1:38
#TR-48 - Brian Anderson (Turkey Red)

Nice short print of a possible "hot rookie".  Short prints come 1 in 38 packs.  The Turkey Red comes in every pack.

#119 - Kyle Schwarber
#204 - Hector Neris

Hector wants you to know the card backs are below...or he didn't want his picture taken:

Card backs are fine.  Some bloggers mentioned all the gray on the back.  I'm more concerned whether or not full stats are legible.

Anyway, that's the pack.  I've got a rack pack somewhere which I'll post eventually, unless someone beats me to it.  Enjoy the rest of the week, and thanks for reading!

P.S.  I'm looking into creating a free Yahoo fantasy baseball league...me and a friend of mine are fantasy baseball nomads, so we've been latching onto open leagues for many years now.  My eldest has expressed an interest in playing, so I'm checking to see if any bloggers would be interested in playing along.  If you are, please leave a modified version of your e-mail in the comments.  I'm looking for 7 players.  If you get an e-mail from me before the season starts, then I got 10 players and I'm moving forward.  If you don't get an e-mail from me, then I failed and I'll be looking for three openings in one of the open leagues.  Thanks!

1991 Pro Set NASCAR

Was to post this pack day after Daytona 500, but postponed it after nasty crash from Ryan Newman. Great news he walked out of the hospital few days later. Pro Set jumped in NASCAR trading card market joining Maxx and Trakks. Cover of the pack featuring cars sponsor by tobacco and alcohol of Rick Mast (#1 Skoal) and Rusty Wallace (#2 Miller).

When it comes to Pro Set you get their instant win game. No points to use for Gazette they offer. Grand Prize is a trip to NASCAR All-Star race.

41 - Bud Moore - the late legendary car owner ran the team til 2000. Passed away in 2017.

73 - Lake Speed - one time winner have driven with most decorated car sponsors late in twilight of his career. I remember Cartoon Network and Spam car he drove for Melling Racing. He's also great with fans autograph requests.

4 - RickMast/#1 Skoal Bandit - have 4 poles but no wins in his career. There were times I wish he could have gotten one but end up finishing 2nd several times.

39 - Hut Stricklin/#12 Raybestos - driving for Bobby Allison who was his father-in-law. Another driver I wish got at least a win in NASCAR.

99 - Mark Martin - before Valvoline then later on Viagra he drove Jack Roush Folgers sponsor car. One of best drivers to never win a championship. I was surprise he likes to drive in public to rap music playing back in early 2000.

104 - Ted Musgrave/#55 Jasper Engines - Ted Musgrave started out driving for DK Ulrich. Later on drove for Jack Roush #16 car taking five poles but no wins. Would find success in NASCAR Truck becoming series champion in 2005.

116 - Eddie Bierschwale - runs funeral parlor in San Antonio

L32 - Hoss Ellington - legends insert card set. Driver turned car owner got five victories with Donnie Allison winning four of them while driving for him.

83 - Jimmy Spencer - Mr. Excitement got two career victories both on restrictor plate race in 94.

134 - Alan Kulwicki/The Army car - from 1991 Daytona 500 race. Persian Gulf War was going on during the time and all the military branches got put on cars as salute to the troops for the race.. The late Kulwicki enter the 91 season without a sponsor and got Army sponsor for the race.

20 - Ricky Rudd/5 Tide - Rudd drove for Ray Everham before leaving the team and striking out his own in 1993. He closed his shop and went driving Robert Yates. Another good NASCAR driver that never won the championship.

Now I feel like logging on YouTube to watch past races.

2019-20 Panini NBA Stickers

New basketball cards have been nearly impossible to find at the retail level these days as every shady character on the planet has been buying it up and flipping it for double or more. I had to settle for some stickers (and 1 card!) I found at a Target positioned near the Blu-ray movies for some reason.

304 - J.J. Barea - It's the usual Panini album sticker look here. This season appears to have some sort of filmstrip format, which is very current and relevant in today's NBA right now.

361 - LeBron James - When you have sticker albums, you're going to have shiny foil like LeBron here.

383 - Taylor Jenkins - This year's sticker album has a place for head coaches, which usually are few and far between in basketball sets.

40 - Giannis Antetokounmpo - All-Star Giannis, playing for Team Giannis. Of course!

91 - Tyler Herro - I can't imagine the current rookie card craze has extended to stickers, but you never know.

56 - Jaylen Brown (Card) - Each pack actually comes with a full sized card this year, exclusive to this set. The design is similar to the stickers.

This is what the back of the card looks like, in case you were curious.

MJ Holding Company Meijer Exclusive Hanger Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Did you all enjoy the NBA All-Star festivities this past weekend?  The 3 Point Contest rarely disappoints, and the Dunk Contest was quite fun, even though Aaron Gordon was robbed.  Count me as one of the doubters for the new All-Star Game format, but it worked...but I don't know if it worked because Kobe or if it worked because legit.

Anyway, why is Ol' Jafronius putting up a baseball repack days after the NBA All-Star Game?  All will be revealed...

When I was doing my Black Friday shopping runs, I came across these new repacks at the kinda-local Meijer.  Meijer is basically a slightly larger Super Wal-Mart.  Most have gas stations attached, and stores can be found in the midwest, mostly Michigan, with stores in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Kentucky.  I skipped on them back then because I didn't know what to expect from those repacks, and dropping $5.50 for what is essentially a rack pack (they adopted the old Toys R Us rack pack pricing model) wasn't appealing.

During some down-time at the new job, I was able to find a YouTube video that showed some contents.  Definitely mixed results, but it was enough for me to go back recently to get a pack.

2019 Topps Opening Day #55 - Yusei Kikuchi (RC) (Purple Parallel)

Here's a closer look at the repack cover boy.  Most of the repacks has a purple parallel on the front, which I believe Meijer took on after Toys R Us folded (the ones that didn't have a purple parallel had a Beckett card on the front).  I wasn't able to pull Yusei from an Opening Day pack, so getting the parallel will have to do.

All the other cards in the repack are backwards, so you see the backs of all the other cards.  Here's what I got:

2016-17 Panini Donruss NBA
#53 - Rodney Hood
#18 - DeAndre Bembry (Rookie Kings)

So........yeah.

Rookie Kings is an insert set, and I don't believe I have Rodney Hood yet, but still, not expecting ballers in a baseball repack.  Moving on...

2016-17 Panini Donruss NBA
#171 - Pascal Siakam (RC) (Green & Yellow Holo Laser Parallel ?)
#26 - Chris Paul (All Stars)

2016-17 Panini Hoops NBA
#77 - Aaron Gordon

Uh......................

Well, I checked eBay and the only Siakam Green/Yellow parallel (whatever they're called) on the site is listed for $32.  The Chris Paul is another insert, and as I mentioned before, Gordon got robbed.

2007 Topps
#437 - Paul Lo Duca
#482 - Jose Contreras

Phew, back to baseball cards in a baseball repack.  These cards are 13 years old?

2007 Topps
#619 - Bud Black
#519 - Alex Rios

Sorry for the blurry picture.  The cards do look like they've been handled well, though.

2007 Topps
#304 - Kenny Rogers (Gold Glove Award)
#219 - Chris Gomez
#33 - Ervin Santana

1988 Topps UK Minis

#26 - Kirk Gibson
#86 - Mike Witt
#84 - Tim Wallach

Still recovering from the basketball card cameos, here's a threesome from the old Topps American Baseball UK set.  These cards popped up in every pack the YouTuber opened so expect some of these if you try one of these out.

2017 Topps
#655 - Garrett Richards
#660 - Jeanmar Gomez
#540 - Billy Hamilton

Back to recent sets with these cards from 2017.

2017 Topps
#447 - Scott Kazmir

2017 Topps Heritage
#339 - Alex Gordon
#78 - Pedro Baez

2016 Topps
#513 - Caleb Joseph
#506 - Stephen Vogt
#487 - Martin Prado

I'll have to see if I have that Vogt...the only card image that comes to my mind for him is the 2015 All-Star card with him holding the little girl.

2016 Topps
#611 - Darin Ruf
#491 - Rich Hill
#380 - Michael Blazek

2016 Topps
#MLBD2-37 - Joey Votto (MLB Debut)
#65-1989 - Ken Griffey Jr (Celebrating 65 Years)

We've reached the insert portion of the repack. I still can't find odds for the MLB Debut inserts.  I'm also not sure of the card number for the Griffey, but it's still a nice card to pick up.

2016 Topps
#RS-9 - Alex Rodriguez (Record Setters)
#HH-15 - Greg Maddux (Hallowed Highlights)

Again, I can't find the pack odds for the Record Setters insert, but the Hallowed Highlights were found 1 in every 8 packs. 

2016 Topps
#BB2-1969 - Johnny Bench (Berger's Best)
#429 - Kenta Maeda (RC)
#524 - Justin Nicolino (Future Stars)

The Berger's Best was a 1 in 4 pack insert.  Nice find in the Maeda RC...Justin Nicolino last pitched in the majors in 2017, so Topps was a little too quick with handing out those Future Star designations.

Anyway, that's the repack.  If you watched the YouTube video, you can see that this product is a real hit or miss.  For me, I got the repack for the Kikuchi and the inserts I pulled were alright.  Was it worth $5?  It would be real odd if the difference maker for a baseball repack is a NBA rookie card parallel.

Thanks for reading!