1987 Topps Baseball Cello Pack

Greetings!

I hope everyone is ready to have a great weekend.  I'm sure my sister will, as she's off to celebrate her birthday today.  Anyway, Hot Stove season is well underway, and with that in mind, it's time to put up here one of the top "I can't believe this ain't here already?!?!?!?" packs...1987 Topps baseball!

Years ago, the Wifey bought me one of those Fairfield 30-pack clear cases for $15.  This thing came from that case.  But so did this cello pack!  Here's the unwrapped cello:

If you are wondering why I sat on this pack for so long, I have enlarged the Special Offer above.  Yep, 25 years ago today, the All Stars & Hot Prospects offer expired.  Wonder if anyone in Topps is marking this occasion.  Or if anyone out there was able to claim the offer.  Anyway, enough rambling...here's the pack:

#529 – Alvaro Espinoza

#310 – Frank Viola

#305 – John Franco

#32 – Tim Leary

 
The set consisted of 792 cards.  The big rookie cards were Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson, and Barry Larkin.  The Mark McGwire card was also highly sought after for some reason.

#404 – Doug Sisk

#582 – Bruce Berenyi

#129 – Rick Cerone

#196 – Randy O’Neal

 
Some collectors are think highly of the wood borders, and some do not.  I am one of the former, as this set is my intro to card collecting.  To me, wood borders just seemed to work on a baseball card.  The fonts also worked for me. 

#269 – Cliff Speck

#506 – Orioles Leaders

#596 – Steve Sax (All-Star)

#636 – Darren Daulton

  

#546 – Mike Morgan

#377 – John Henry Johnson

No # - 25+ year old gum

#11 of 22 – Fernando Valenzuela (1986 All-Star Commemorative Set)

Just had to scan the gum before I tossed it.  Couldn't risk having one of the kids come across it.  

I enjoyed the glossy All-Star inserts.  Perhaps Topps can bring it back and not have a third of the Update

set consist of All-Star cards.

#500 – Don Mattingly

#189 – Joe Hesketh

#246 – Jim Dwyer

#152 – Toby Harrah

  

#598 – Ozzie Smith (All-Star)

#672 – Chili Davis

#576 – Frank Pastore

#231 – Giants Leaders

 
Sorry, Frank's card seems to scream out, "I'm really a member of the grounds crew!"

#654 – Checklist (Cards 529-660)

#728 – Tippy Martinez

#161 – Steve Ontiveros

#497 – Dale Mohorcic

#235 – Alvin Davis

#163 – Kevin Gross

#258 – Steve Yeager

#95 – Oddibe McDowell

#307 – Lee Guetterman

And there's the rest of the cards.  This was a pretty Mariner and Twin-heavy pack.  Too bad there weren't many stars on those teams at the time.  Here's some sample card backs for you: 

I didn't realize that I got an extra card in the pack, assuming the All-Star card was part of the promised 31 cards.  Bonus for me!

Anyway, that's the pack. I was glad to contribute a pack from this set to the site and cross this one off the list.  Now the naysayers will have to say, "Yeah, it's a good site, but you don't have any '89 Upper Deck here."  I'll leave that to someone else.

Have a great weekend...thanks for reading!

2012 Panini Cooperstown

Welcome to Panini's latest baseball effort.

It's an all-legends affair called "Cooperstown." Everyone featured in the set has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

That means you won't see any cards of Tim Raines, Lee Smith, Dale Murphy, Gil Hodges or any of those other guys that people are always shouting about getting shut out of the Hall. They've been shut out of this card set, too.

This set is 170 cards of nothing but Hall of Famers, as Panini has been able to find a loophole in the MLB licensing mandate that limits to a certain percentage the retired players in every released product. The loophole? Don't get a license! Print all the Hall of Famers you want!

Of course, there are drawbacks to this plan, as you'll see.

Each pack contains five cards, plus a sweepstakes card in which you could win a trip to Cooperstown. The last 20 cards in the set are short-printed and there are several inserts.

Let's have a look at the cards:

#39 - Mike Schmidt. This is what you can expect. Classic black-and-white photography on a classy, old-style design. Panini avoids showing MLB logos by cropping the top part of the helmet out of the photo. Depending on who you ask, this is no big deal or a deal-breaker. To me, it's a deal-breaker.

There's your average card back. Most of the photos on the back are different from the front. But using mustache-less photos of Mike Schmidt should be outlawed.

#96 - Phil Rizzuto. In case you're afraid that this set will be littered with Yankees, I was pleasantly surprised with the five packs I opened. Just 3 Yankees.

#113 - Joe DiMaggio. Unfortunately, two were in this pack.

#133 - Arky Vaughan. That Arky is such a daydreamer. He'll never amount to anything.

#42 - Dennis Eckersley. We've seen plenty of photos of Eck with a cap on, right? Let's crop that right out of there.

Win a trip to Cooperstown! But no peeking at my access code!

And there you are. No short-prints or inserts in this pack unfortunately.

But I am featuring the four other packs I bought on my blog later tonight, so tune in for that if you like long-winded crankiness.

All I'll say here is that this is a fun little set. And it's been a long time coming for people who remember about 10 years ago when there were Hall of Famers on cards everywhere. The execution is not quite there for me with this set. But as usual your mileage may vary.

2007 Tristar Prospects Plus

I took a flyer on this pack at last weekend's card show, not having any idea what the set looked like but knowing that it only would cost me $1. As it turns out, I've already seen some cards from this metallic fingerprint magnet of a set.

79 - Taylor Grote - Grote appears to have topped out at single-A, as he did not play professionally in 2012. He has a career minor league OPS of .620, and he's not a pitcher.

65 - James Simmons - Simmons is going places. He moved up to AAA last year and was mostly successful for the Sacramento River Cats in 9 relief appearances.

32 - Devin Mesoraco - Mesoraco got some quality time behind the plate for the Reds last year, but has yet to make much of an impact at the plate.

39 - Duke Welker - Welker seems like he may be in line for a job in Pittsburgh as he was successful after moving up to AAA last year as a reliever.

95 - Bubba Bell - The injury prone slugger had one great minor league season, but that was the same year this set was released. After topping out at AAA in 2011, he spent 2012 in indie league ball like the hipster he is.

75 - David Kopp - Kopp was ineffective in two stints with AAA Memphis as part of the Cardinals system. The Cards gave up on him and he was signed to a minor league deal by the Tigers, where he spent 2012 in AA.

2012 WWE Heritage Rack Pack

Being a big baseball fan (but not into basketball, football, or much hockey) means that I have a big void between the months of October and April. This void ends up getting filled by pro wrestling.



I thought I'd try out some of this year's WWE Heritage. The retail product comes in blaster boxes (one relic/box but no shot at autos) and rack packs, with a shot at relics and autos. Here is a rack pack.



Here are a few legends...Windham was an NWA Champion, Muraco an ECW Champion (Before it was "Extreme"), and Hacksaw won the first ever Royal Rumble.



Here are a couple of today's stars...albeit today's over-the-hill stars. We have Tensai (best known as Albert, soon to be known as unemployed) and R-Truth (also known as K-Kwik and Ron Killings).



Here is Kevin Nash in a "Superstars Speak" insert. These cards aren't poorly centered... I am just terrible at scanning.



Four more legends! Kamala wrestled the Undertaker in the first televised casket match. Volkoff and Animal are both former Tag-Team champs and WWE Hall of Famers. The British Bulldog (Davey Boy Smith) was one of the greatest wrestlers ever to lace up the boots and not win "the big one".



Pictured here are the finishing maneuvers of the original "Rock" (Don Muraco) and the most famous "Rock" (Dwayne Johnson).



Pictured here is the legendary Kane, son-of-a-legend Cody Rhodes, and my lovely wife Beth Phoenix.



Finally, Andre the Giant wrestling Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

This is a cool set! I hope to break a hobby box at some point.

1992 Ultimate Trading Card Company World League of American Football

Wow - shocked there is not some character limit in the subject line. Snagged this pack from the famous Target $1.59 box. The WLAF, for those unfamiliar, was sort of a training ground for NFL players. Like the minors, but in exotic locations. It was also an attempt by the NFL to broaden it's fan base locally. Not sure if the league helped with that, or just the spread of technology. However, Ultimate did put out a card set for the league, so let's give it a gander.

Pretty straight forward foil pack. Note the chance at one MILLION dollars. So when I crack this baby open and get that million, I am the hell out of here. Let me just say now that I hate you all, and you can jump in a river for all I care. I especially want to call out Night Owl, Plaschke, Fuji and Heartbreaking Cards for their sheer suckitude. Million dollars baby - EAT IT! Here's the cards before I head out on my jet setting lifestyle, losers. And cuz I am a kind soul to you paupers, I scanned the front and back and put them together. It's the least a millionaire can do.

I can't say I ever remembered games from the WLAF. The cards have a real "Classic" look to them. Surprising, right? Nice team name on the side, and data about the player on the back.

 He's labeled a punter. And he's kicking a field goal. Non-millionaire peasant!

Like we don't know how the game is played. Also interesting they use a regular NFL star instead one of the minimum wage minor leaguers. Here's the back of that card.

I guess this set was more geared to the new foreign fans that were to be massing to the sport.

Interesting the horizontal card still has the front like a regular card. Lazy people - I am buying out the company and firing the whole group!

Team cards. Nice view of the helmet. And team facts on the back. No player checklist though. I wonder if it's on another card.

Besides the Kelly, who are all these guys? I bet I find one or two of them vacuuming my pool next year. Ok - time for the simple formalities.

One million dollars. Don't save my contact information cuz all y'all will be blocked. No money for you moochers!

Kelly or LT autograph cards. Only LOSERS win those. Here we go.....

Wait, wait, wait.....WHAT? I have to collect ALL the letters? This isn't some instant win scratch off. Just like some two bit league and some two bit card company to pull some shenanigans like this.



Ummm.....so guys. Yeah....uh....I was just being funny up there with the loser and moocher comments. And in my part of the country, "suckitude" is a term of endearment. Guys, where you going? Guys, no wait....come back. I was just goofing. Oh come on, please. I'll buy pizza.

2007 Ace Straight Sets

I recently placed an order over at Dave and Adam's Cardworld and received a box of 2007 Ace Straight Sets for free.  Now, I'm not going to sit here and profess my love for tennis.  I own a racket and  have played three or four times in the past decade, but that's about the extent of my fandom.

So why did I pick this product?  Well... it's pretty simple actually.  I wanted a shot at pulling this:

You don't have to be a tennis fan to know Maria Sharapova and the fact that she's smoking hot.  Unfortunately, I didn't pull a card of her (hence the COMC image)... but here's a look at what I pulled out of my first pack:

#33 Robby Ginepri

Mr. Ginepri is currently ranked #283 on the ATP World Tour.  According to Wikipedia, he participated on Spike TV's Pros vs. Joes with Rik Smits, Rob Dibble, and Andre Rison.

#AC5  Rafael Nadal

Outside of my guaranteed memorabilia card, this was the only other insert in the box and one of the few names I recognized in the product.  Nadal is currently the 4th ranked male in the world.

#1 Ai Sugiyama

Believe it or not, this was one of my favorite cards in the box because it's actually going into my Japanese athlete binder.  Sugiyama retired in 2009 and had a very successful doubles career.

#44 Aljoscha Thron

I've never heard of this guy and can't seem to find much about his tennis career.  However, I did discover that 28% of the people who took this poll, think he's better looking than some guy named Sergey Demekhine.

If you are a tennis fan and would like to see a summary of my box break, click here.  If not, chances are you didn't read this post anyway.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!