2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Hobby

First off, I don't think this set is as good as Allen & Ginter. I say this after opening one pack and watching a bunch of boxes being opened on line. Both the relics and the autographs seem to be of a much lower quality and the mini cards might as well have the A & G logo on the back.

At the hobby price point, these cards average $1.00 per. I enjoy the Bucky Dent mini and apparently the silver bordered card is a one-per-box hit but these particular base cards I could do without.

#105 Evelyn Ng


#13 Bill Skowron


#100 Chase Utley Mini Silver Parallel


#118 Bucky Dent Mini

#81 Wayne Gretzky

2000 Upper Deck Pros & Prospects

I can't remember exactly where I got this pack, but I think it was at a card show and I believe it cost me a dollar. I think it was stuck between a pack of early '90s Score football and a WNBA pack.

59 - Kerry Wood (Wood is the reason why pitchers' careers are scary, often fleeting things. If I was a Giants fan or, more particularly, a Tim Lincecum fan, I would be Scared. To. Death.)

33 - Juan Gonzalez

45 - Jeff Bagwell (Why does every pack I have purchased from the years 1991 to 2005 seem to have Jeff Bagwell in it?)

19 - John Olerud (Yes, John Olerud wore a batting helmet in the field. I bet you'd make fun of him if you saw him. Well, did you ever skip the minor leagues entirely, flirt with a .400 batting average and pull an OPS of 1.072? Did you? That's what I thought.)

70 - Jeff Kent

- Don Drysdale sweepstakes thing

2007 Topps '52 Rookies

This was one of the first products I randomly bought packs of when I came back to this hobby in late 2007. I had just been paying attention to baseball when the playoffs rolled around and so most of the players I pulled were unknown to me. But this is still a set that I really enjoy and I wish that they would continue with it.

#151 Matthew Brown


#206 Drew Anderson


#19 Nathan Haynes


#39 Dennis Sarfate


52S-BPB Brian Buscher Autograph

Jumpin' Jehosephat! An auto! And I pulled this out of a repackage!


#17 Ben Francisco

2005 Topps Total Football

The 2009 NFL season officially starts tonight. Weren't expecting that, were you? I'm not a football collector anymore, as I have multiple storage boxes of early '90s Pro Set and repressed buyer's remorse to show for it. However, I did unearth a pack of football cards purchased in a fit of big box store fury several years back. Where can you buy Topps Total these days? I would love to buy a few Topps Total baseball packs at least.

20 - Mike Vanderjagt / Hunter Smith (The coveted kicker/punter combo card.)

51 - Steven Jackson (Jackson was a big time back at Oregon State, the in-state rival of my Oregon Ducks.)

104 - Troy Polamalu (Polamalu also has a local connection, as he went to high school in a small Oregon town. He's one of the Madden coverboys this season and you can see him in action with the defending chumps on NBC tonight.)

99 - Bracy Walker / Roderick Babers (I have no idea who these guys are, but then again I probably couldn't name more than one or two current Lions anyway.)

89 - Eric Moulds

497 - Craphonso Thorpe (Craphonso! Nothing else needs to be said.)

453 - Marlin Jackson (This is another example of how ridiculous rookie NFL cards look. Players without pads just look like guys that just strolled into a shop in the mall and bought some of their favorite team's gear.)

35 - Tracy White / Ivan Kacyvenski / Solomon Bates (Seahawks.)

52 - Ryan Sims / John Browning (Lots of Chiefs in this pack. Like the Lions, I can't say that I could rattle off many active KC players.)

60 - Dante Hall Silver (Dante Hall was all the rage a few years back, kinda like Devin Hester.)

Watch football tonight... or don't. I don't care. Go Ducks!

2009 Upper Deck X Baseball

Lately I've been busy packing for college, finishing up work and saying goodbye to family and cursing in my room due to a terrible season opener for the Oregon Ducks. There has not been a lot of time for cards as of late, but the other day I picked up a pack of 2009 Upperdeck X baseball cards from Target.

By far the nicest card I got in the pack was a Hanley Ramirex Xponential 3. The die-cut card in the pack was of Roy Halladay, who is just a ho-hum player to me. I know he is a great pitcher and I like the guy; he stays out of trouble and puts up big numbers, but I have just never gotten into collecting him.

My other commons were of Jason Giambi, Edinson Volquez, BJ Upton and Travis Hafner. I like BJ Upton, so that was a pleasant pull. I'd say this pack was great, considering that I got an insert of one of the best young players in the game Hanley Ramirez and that I got a BJ Upton card its a pretty decent six card pack.

2006 Fleer Ultra

As another frequent player on the repack scene, 2006 Fleer Ultra doesn't stand out much in the Ultra line of products, but getting one of these packs definitely beats a resealed 1989 Topps pack with the Gary Sheffield rookie card swapped out for an unsuspecting John Shelby.

79 - Raul Ibanez (Clearly, my scanner hates these cards. In case you can't tell, this is Raul Ibanez the baseball player, and not a sports-related advertisement for crummy guitars. And yes, I realize that Raul's last name involves a tilde, but I am too lazy to look up the proper alt-key sequence to make that happen. I hope I have not offended anyone.)

23 - Shea Hillenbrand (This pack is a sinking ship! The writing is on the wall!)

177 - Randy Johnson (Randy should have renamed himself Randy Johnson-Johnson, much like the annoying and delusional Courtney Taylor-Taylor did to attempt to expedite his process to achieve moderate fame.)

MCK7 - Alfonso Soriano Midsummer Classic Kings

113 - Trevor Hoffman Gold Medallion (Instead of using gold foil, they decided to blur out the background on these cards and use the icky gold "color" as a background instead. I really dislike gold used as a color rather than a metal. Hoffman's good, though I just wish he hadn't moved to the NL Central.)

1994 CARDZ Maverick: The Movie

I haven't done one of these odd ball movie packs in a while and so my I present Maverick: The Movie trading cards:

It was the summer of 1994 and there was one movie on the lips of kids across the country: MAVERICK! Teenagers everywhere had been clamoring for a remake of this late 50's early 60's western comedy and now our wishes had come true. In fact, if there are two words that would nicely sum up the summer of '94 it would not be Forrest Gump, it would be Comedy Western!
Historians have even pointed to Maverick: The Movie as a source of hope in the world for millions of teenagers still recovering from Kurt Cobain's suicide a few months earlier.

Now, just to note as I make fun of a movie that I actually went to see in the theaters and enjoyed quite a bit, that the screenplay was written by William Goldman. That's a name that might not ring a bell for you but he is the two time Oscar winning screen writer of Butch Cassidy and All the President's Men. What could have been.

#46

Ten years later this man would direct The Passion of the Christ.


#59


#36


#42


#32


#22


#27


#17

2007 Fleer Ultra Football Retail Target Exclusive

Even more clearance football:

#148 L.J. Smith


#112 Richard Seymour


#FTG-AR Feel The Game Aaron Rodgers

I love the look of this one...plus it helps that it is Packer. It's sort of gray take-off on the 1987 Fleer baseball set.


#290 Eric Weddle Ultra Rookies


#6 Jerious Norwood


Overall, I've always enjoyed the Fleer sets no matter what year they're from. I can't really think of one I don't like. Upper Deck, please bring it back.