2003 NFL Showdown Sports Card Game

Browsing Walmart can be lots of fun especially when in the card aisle.  One that is close to me always has a bargain bin of sports cards and a few days ago it looks like they hauled out a bunch of stuff that got lost behind the back shelf in the deepest part of the warehouse.  This particular trading card game is called NFL Showdown 2003 produced by the Wizards of the Coast.  It has a legit NFL Players Association license and the NFL Coaches Association endorses it.  How could I go wrong with the $1.98 price tag....after Alabama's $0.19 take I walked out the store with a $2.17 gold mine...I hope.  I wouldn't have bought it normally, but included in this starter box are two 11-card booster packs.....and a quick look on APTBNL showed that this beauty has yet to be showcased here.  Not that I need any further build up, as this sells itself, but let's dive into one of the booster packs.

Here is the box....if I have time, I might give the electronic game a go.  There are standard starter cards included, but I'll only be showing the cards from one of the packs.

Here is the pack I will be opening...a little mangled after 14 years.  Even the barcode looks old.

Pack Position #1: Sam Madison of the Dolphins..a Pro Bowler and Super Bowl winner and his house was featured on MTV cribs.  On a serious note, he donated his kidney to his 11-year old daughter last year.  Pretty awesome!

Pack Position #2: Brandon Spoon of the Buffalo Bills....a perfect person to cuddle on the cold Buffalo nights.  His career was pretty short...one year.

Pack Position #3: Orpheus Roye...a Super Bowl winner .... the Browns need this guy back with his 350 card-game points.

Pack Position #4: Ray Brown from San Fran....Ray was playing until he was 43..beast mode!

Pack Position #5:  Hall of Famer Larry Allen.  This guy could bench press motorcycles I am sure.  A great athlete!

Pack Position #6: Kwamie Lassiter - He spent some time in Kansas before going pro...our paths could have crossed at some point.

Pack Position #7: Michael McCrary...he retired not too long after this card was made.

The last 4 cards are non-player cards consisting of plays and formations.  There was also a advertisement for the NFL Showdown Championships in Hawaii...I guess this game was pretty serious back in the day....anyone have any experience with playing this game?

2016-17 BBM Fast Break (1st Half)

Basketball is like chocolate ice cream.  I liked it as a kid, but there are so many other options out there, I'd be okay if never watched (or ate) it again.  Sure.  I'll complete my annual March Madness tournament bracket and check ESPN to see how my picks fared.  But that's about the extent of my basketball fandom these days.

However basketball cards are a completely different story.  Although I don't pursue them as much as I did six or seven years ago, I'll still add a card or two whenever the opportunity for me to add some cool cards to my collection arises.

Back in March, SumoMenkoMan generously donated a bunch of packs to my unopened Japanese wax pack collection.  Here's one of the packs he sent:

What you're looking at is a pack of 2016-17 BBM Fast Break (1st Half) trading cards, which features basketball players from Japan's professional basketball league: B League.  I honestly don't know much about the league, teams, or rules... except for the fact that Yuta Tabuse (the first Japanese national to play in an official NBA game) plays in the League and has a card in the set.

Let's see if I was lucky enough to pull him:

First Card:  #21 Diante Garrett

Garrett played two seasons in the NBA and was a D-League all-star a few years ago.

Second Card:  #9 Takehiko Shimura

Shimura led the Sendai 89ers in steals and played in all 62 games for them this past season.

Third Card:  #45 Robert Dozier

Dozier was the last player drafted in the 2009 NBA Draft, but it doesn't look like he played in any regular season games for them.  He was the second leading scorer this past season for San-En NeoPhoenix.

Fourth Card:  #41 Yu Okada

Okada is a shooting guard for Toyama Grouses who averaged 7.5 points per game.

Fifth Card:  #30 Takuya Kawamura

Kawamura was the Yokohama B-Corsairs' assists leader this past season.  In 2009, he attempted to play in the NBA Summer League, but I wasn't able to find any stats for him.

Unfortunately, I didn't pull a Yuta.  However I was able to learn about five other guys playing in Japan's B-League.

The overall card design is solid... especially the card backs... although it seems like they're missing player statistics.  What about you?  Do you collect basketball cards?  Would you purchase packs of this product?

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not into basketball anymore.  But I was very excited to rip into this pack and add these cards to my Japanese trading cards binder.  Thanks Ryan!

Happy Monday and sayonara!

1978 Topps Battlestar Galactica

Here is a pack of 1978 Topps Battlestar Galactica cards! I remember watching the show like it was yesterday, and these cards helped bring those memories flooding back. The cards feature images from the show and/or publicity shots. The "Battlestar Galactica" insignia appears overlayed at the bottom center. Below that, a caption in blue ink followed by copyright info in black. The card number appears in the lower right corner.

Man, I remember playing with the Cylon spaceships as a kid. You could pull the wings "open" in order to shoot the red plastic missiles. Later versions locked the missiles so that they would "release" but not actually shoot. Kids had been choking on them... I had a Cylon that had a moving eye. I can't remember if it was an led or just a fake thing with a stick in the back of his head that you moved. I need to Google that. I also had the Viper fighter ship and most of the action figures!*

The backs of the cards feature either "TV Facts" about the show or puzzle pieces:

*I found an article that discusses much of what I am referring to. Man, so many memories!
http://thehappeningbook.net/post/69033482515/december-4-1978-today-i-am-going-to-play-with-my

2017 Topps Stickers

You know the drill. For a buck, you can grab a pack of Topps album stickers containing the latest and greatest baseball players, plus some mascots and so forth. After reviving the concept and producing a nice sticker-card for a few years, Topps went and did things on the cheap by reverting back to the Panini style floppy thin album stickers in 2015. This year's product feels flimsier than ever. At the very least, these things are very difficult to pick up off of a scanner without smashing them in half. I don't know if they've ever fessed up to it, but these are likely produced by (or at least in the same production facility) as their competitor Panini, as their "STICKERS PRINTED IN ITALY" disclosure suggests.

124 - Jose Quintana - With the White Sox in Full Rebuild Mode, people will be on Quintana Watch all summer, or at least until the trade deadline passes.

273 - Aaron Nola - I have yet to see a Phillies game this season, but I'm sure that time is approaching.

226 - Joe Panik - This is as good of a time as any to drop a link about Doki Doki Panic.

55 - Mariner Moose - He's bug-eyed because of all of the caffeine in Seattle, you see.

275 - Andrew McCutchen - Early returns on McCutchen's steep decline being a one year anomaly: not good.

25 - Stephen Vogt - He was a guy I fantasy drafted because I'd heard of him and needed a catcher. Catchers are a fantasy necessary evil. Probably shouldn't have drafted him.

144 / 162 - Kansas City Royals / St. Louis Cardinals - I could stick these on my Trapper Keeper.

278 - John Jaso - White guy with dreads. He probably owns several pairs of rollerblades, I imagine.

1978 Topps Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I picked up a variety of 70's packs recently, and this was one of them: 1978 Topps Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There are 66 cards in the set with 11 stickers. Interestingly, Richard Dreyfuss, the main actor in the movie, is missing from the set.

The fronts feature stills from the movie, are generally cut off-center, and shout "Hey, I was made in the 70's, man!" pretty loudly. The cards have red borders that surround the image and the car number. The card numbers are on the front because the backs feature something different, which you will see in a minute. The fronts also have a caption and copyright information:

As promised, here are the backs. Some feature "Movie Facts" and other have puzzle pieces. Some of the pieces are just black background with a border. That should be fun for the kids, right? Haha!

I remember seeing the movie in the theater as a kid and I'm sure I spent more than a few quarters buying packs of these. I do wish they had the mashed potato tower, though.

2016 Topps Star Wars Rogue One Series 1

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  As most of you know, May 4th is considered to be Star Wars Day.  One would think the APTBNL writers would be having lighsaber duels in the spacious APTBNL offices to see who gets to post a Star Wars pack on this day, but in reality, this day appears to be no more special than other days.

There was no post last year, and while our resident Jedi posted in 2015 and 2014, you had to go back to 2011 to get a Star Wars post, and that was made on May 5th.  No Star Wars posts were made in 2010 or 2009.

So, unless the Jedi uses the Force to move this post to some time in June 2050, I shall pick up the slack and give you a pack of 2016 Topps Star Wars Rogue One Series 1!

Series 2 recently started appearing on shelves, to coincide with the DVD/Blu-Ray release.  If they followed the playbook for their The Force Awakens release, then Series 1 will be light on details, leaving those duties for Series 2.  How light?  Keep reading.  Here's what I got:

#66 - A Meeting Of Krennic And Erso
#53 - Confrontation With The Assault Tank

You get a half border (otherwise how can you tell if you got a parallel) along the bottom, with the card title in foil.  You also get a logo at the bottom right corner, Imperial in this case.

#48 - Rushing To Respond
#23 - The Death Trooper And Destruction

As you can see, nice images, and no plot points given away (SPOILER ALERT:  There are stormtroopers in the movie!).

#87 - The Alliance Confers Before Battle (Green Parallel)
#HR-13 - L-1 Droid (Heroes Of The Rebel Alliance)

The green parallel comes 1 in every 2 packs.  Notice the Rebel Alliance logo now appears in place of the Imperial logo since this is a Rebel-centric card.  The Heroes insert appears 1 in every 2 packs as well.

Here are the backs.  Remember what I said about light on details?  I have a bad feeling about this:

Yep, there's nothing on the back.  This could have very well been a sticker set.  6 cards for 2 bucks, folks.

Anyway, that's the pack.  This release is really for the collector who must have all the Star Wars (i.e. me 20ish years ago).  Topps should make these Series 1 sets a buck, like Opening Day.  I'm sure Series 2 will be much more enjoyable (and if there's a Chrome, watch out).

Thanks for reading, and May the Fourth be with you!

1990 Topps Traded Baseball

Here, we have a pack of 1990 Topps Baseball Traded. The pack is actually the paper/wax kind! And, that green wrapper is very bright, just begging to be bought! How could I resist?

The cards themselves are pure 90 Topps: The colored borders, the pseudo-gradient fills, the very inconsistent player images... I mean, compare the Noboa picture with the Reardon. Heck, compare ANY of the others to that Reardon. My main gripe is not with any of that, though. I wish the Traded versions actually said which teams they came from and when (you know, like they did in various other Traded sets/subsets). For the sake of the public, I went and did a little research.

Olson was traded from the Twins to the Braves. Noboa hadn't been traded from the Expos to anyone. In 1990, he was still an Expos player. Why is he in the Traded set? No idea.

Hamilton was a Brewer before and then became a... Brewer in 1990. What? Harkey? Same deal, but with the Cubs. John Russell moved from the Braves to the Rangers. Whew! An actual traded player. I was starting to get worried there.

Don Slaught came to the Pirates from the Yankees. Jeff Reardon had been a Twins player and was moved to Boston. I guess the Twins were getting rid of several players in 89-90. We pulled two trades coming from Minnesota.

No idea why players who didn't actually move anywhere are featured in this set, but there ya go!

2017 Topps Baseball Stickers (Value pack)

While shopping at the red and white circle store (read, Target), I picked up a few things from the card aisle. This was one of them. I considered buying a standard pack of stickers and thought, "Nah! Let's go for the VALUE PACK!"

The VP offers 45 stickers inside. The stickers are VERY flimsy and feel as though they were made in the 60's or 70's. They feature a white border with a large player image. The team logo sits in the lower right corner. In the lower left corner, we find the position and player's name. Some of the stickers are team logos and come two to a backing. Included in the pack are duplicates of some of the stickers. Frankly, I find that reassuring somehow. It's a throwback to when I was a kid and would pull doubles from packs with a whole lot fewer cards/stickers than 45.