Ballers FIFA World Cup

 

This caught my eye during a trip to Target. I decide to purchase the blind ball pull to check it out. After peeling the wrapper.....

 .....I got another wrap to peel off. Zuru takes anti-tampering seriously. After peeling another wrapping.....

 .....I have to open this white plastic globe. After opening it consists of.....

 ....two black wrappers, a checklist, and absorbent silicate pack. Rip those black wrappers....

.....I got a figure, board, soccer ball, and a card. Put it together it looks like this.

I got Alisson Becker from Team Brazil. I might superglue the hands and the figure to the board as it gets loose to easily. Here is the checklist. There are 42 figures to collect.

 

2025 Panini Absolute Football Value Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  In true Ol' Jafronius fashion, I started this post right around the Super Bowl, hence the football pack.  But as usual, life got in the way.  That, and an odd increase in Target hours have taken away my free time.  Anyway, life getting the way isn't new to any of you all; I shall try my best to be better posting, just don't expect it:

Feeling an urge to rip something (remember this was over a month ago), I decided to try one of these out.  Target had a bunch of it so why not; 7 bucks for 20 cards:

#88 - Brandon Aiyuk

#30 - DJ Moore

Bears fans will not forget his catch against Green Bay late last year.  Bummer he got traded to the Bills, but hopefully he'll have a successful run with Josh Allen.

#72 - Rome Odunze

#14 - Marvin Harrison Jr.

With DJ gone, Odunze will need to step up.  He did pretty well last year.  

#39 - Josh Jacobs

#81 - Jonathan Taylor

There's 200 cards in the set, the first 100 are veterans and the second 100 are rookies.

#23 - Brian Robinson Jr.

#66 - Bucky Irving

I checked older posts, and it's a pretty standard Absolute design.  Overall, the design is OK, it's what you expect from Panini.

Bucky is one of the 3 exclusive Blue Parallels.

#7 - Tank Bigsby

#113 - Chimere Dike (RC)

Here are the other 2.  Notice the extra shiny on the rookie card.  

Dike had an OK rookie year, with 4 TDs while playing all 17 games for the Titans.

#18 - Bijan Robinson (Hog Heaven)

#1 - Abdul Carter (Rookie Wave)

Insert time!  Each of those insert sets contain 20 cards, and yes they're shiny too.

#132 Jalen Milroe (RC)

#190 Trey Amos (RC)

A couple more rookies for you.  Trey played 10 games for Arizona, while Jalen essentially rode the bench (but I assume he'll get a ring).

#58 - DeVonta Smith

#99 - Joe Mixon

It's been a while since APTBNL posted an Absolute Football pack; the last one was back in 2020!

#41 - Tua Tagovailoa

#67 - Brian Thomas Jr.

Tua signed with Atlanta after being let go by Miami; the Dolphins owes him over $55 million!

#8 - Sam Darnold

#49 - Christian McCaffrey

We end the pack with the Super Bowl QB and the consistently great (when healthy) CMC.

Here are some backs because March Madness:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Not bad for $7; I don't buy a lot of them so as long as I get some good players I'm OK with it.

Enjoy those College Basketball tournaments, RIP Chuck Norris, and thanks for reading!

2025 Uno Elite Core Edition NFL Booster Pack

Target had these on blowout so I picked up a couple boxes for $2.69 each. I'll save the other box and packs for later on my new blog Batting Out Of Order.

Each box has four booster packs with ten cards in a pack.

The ten cards include two cards from each Uno color: Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, and two foil cards.

The player will have four cards with the same photo but in the four different colors.

There are 192 cards in each color set.

I pulled green foil and yellow foil parallels.

All told, there are nine different foil parallels, each with 192 cards.

I'll let you do the math.

2025 Topps Update Series Rack Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well and got to enjoy the holiday season.  The time between Halloween and New Years seems to go by like that.  I don't know about you all, but I get a little bummed out when all the Christmas decorations start coming down.

The Update series was released in mid-November, and I think it took till after Thanksgiving for packs to start showing up on retail shelves.  The eldest got a pack for each of us, the usual 7 bucks for 36 cards.  Here's what he got:

#US240 - Randy Rodríguez

#US247 - Tyler Owens (RC)

#US1 - Kristian Campbell (RC)

#US172 - Daylen Lile (RC)

Not surprisingly, 3 of the first 4 cards are rookies.

Lile's wearing Washington's 2025 City Connect uniform, which feature D.C.'s street grid on the jersey as well as a 3D interlocking D.C. logo on the jersey’s chest, referring to the 1956 Washington Senators logo.

#US113 - Drake Baldwin ((RC - Rookie Debut)

#US105 - Marcelo Mayer (RC)

#US199 - Roki Sasaki ((RC - Rookie Debut)

#US314 - Matthew Lugo (RC)

4 more rookies.  Everyone's not a fan of the Rookie Debut cards.  Make them an insert set put more players in the release.

#US300 - Rafael Devers

#US320 - Austin Kitchen (RC)

#US195 - Isaac Paredes

#US139 - Jon Berti

I'd rather have more journeymen like Berti in the set than those Rookie Debuts; there's 40 of them in the set!

#US161 - Armando Alvarez (RC)

#US50 - Cody Bellinger

#US68 - Matt Mervis

#US291 - Mickey Gasper (RC)

"Mash" Mervis has yet to do so, hitting only 10 homers (and a .165 BA) with the Cubs and Marlins.  He signed with Washington for the 2026 season.

#US82 - Max Kepler

#US29 - Luis Matos

#US130 - Ben Williamson (RC)

#US256 - Dalton Rushing ((RC - Rookie Debut)

Matos is wearing the Giants' 2025 City Connect uniform, based on graphics inspired by the 1960's  "Flower Child" era.  OK then.

#US242 - Charlie Morton

#US86 - Aaron Judge Season Highlights (Checklist)

I enjoy a good season highlight, but this seems more like an excuse to get another Judge card in the set.  The highlight seems a little too team-specific.

#US350 - Paxton Schultz (RC)

#US116 - Aroldis Chapman

The Update set ends (and also started) with a Rookie.  There are 153 Rookies in the set.  That seems to be a lot.

#US121 - Ryan Johnson (RC)

#U90-18 - Tomoyuki Sugano (RC)

I think both of these are Rainbow Foils.  The 1990's from Series 1 and 2 were not all foiled up, so the decision to make the Update Series all foily was a curious one indeed.

#SMLB-73 - Andrew McCutchen (Stars of MLB)

#SMLB-77 - Shohei Ohtani (Stars of MLB)

There are 25 cards in the Stars of MLB insert set, and you get 2 of them in each rack pack.

#US56 - Dominic Canzone

#US146 - Kade Strowd (RC)

#US264 - Kumar Rocker (RC - Rookie Debut)

#US38 - Dalton Rushing (RC)

It's a Dalton Rushing hot pack!

#US269 Shohei Ohtani / Roki Sasaki (Veteran Combos)

#US14 - Denzel Clarke (RC)

The Veteran Combo cards (there's 15 of them total) can also follow the Rookie Debuts out the door.  In MLB terms, Roki isn't a veteran, right?  He doesn't get the RC logo because Ohtani?

#US345 - Matt Shaw (RC - Rookie Debut)

#US282 - Coby Mayo (RC - Rookie Debut)

And we end with 2 more Rookie Debuts. Since the Cubs signed Alex Bregman over the offseason, it appears Matt will take on a Utility role with the team.

Here are some backs because Ohtani:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Not much to say other than enjoy the Super Bowl, and thanks for reading!