2002 Upper Deck Vintage

Before Upper Deck was scamming and counterfeiting their way towards losing most of their major sports licenses, the Brand That Griffey Built was aping another company famously beloved set. Fortunately, you could do a lot worse than paying tribute to the 1971 Topps design.

82 - Dee Brown - Not the guy who Reebok Pumped his way to dunk contest fame, nor the similarly named pro hoopster of more recent years. This guy played for the Royals. Ho hum.

118 - Alfonso Soriano - It's been a long time since Soriano was a Yankees infielder, hasn't it?

151 - Jose Hernandez

10 - Jason Giambi - It's been a long time since Giambi... oh wait, that was just a few years ago.

74 - Dante Bichette - This serves as a final tribute to Bichette of sorts, as he did not play after 2001. I didn't know he ever played with Boston.

 
38 - Bartolo Colon - Colon has been extremely good since he grew that robot arm out of GMOs and plutonium.

1 - Darin Erstad

188 - Ricardo Rodriguez / Carlos Garcia 2001 Vintage Rookies - Ricardo Rodriguez made it to the bigs with Cleveland in 2002, while there have been entirely too many Carlos Garcias in professional baseball. I think he might be this guy.

69 - Mark Teixeira / Carlos Pena 2001 Vintage Rookies - Two fairly big name players who have definitely had better years than 2013.

19 - Carlos Delgado - Here's what the backs of the cards look like. Upper Deck kinda sorta found a way to make this design their own.

2008 Upper Deck MLS

I have a hard time allowing myself to use the phrase "MLS Soccer", because if the acronym gets played out, it's like saying "Major League Soccer Soccer", even though that's basically what the league website address is (www.mlssoccer.com). It feels weird to me, like when somebody says "safe haven" (isn't every haven, by definition, safe?), or when they say they're going to the ATM machine (OK! See you at the machine machine!).

Apparently, any place where Julianne Hough exists, is by definition, safe.

I am a San Jose Earthquakes season ticket holder, and have been since the year of this pack of cards. For more personal details about my relationship with the Quakes, you can check out my so-far-rarely-updated-blog here. For now, on to the cards.

10 cards to a pack, plus mythical promises of autographs and memorabilia cards of players who maybe one out of ten thousand people will recognize (unless the name ends in Beckham, or maybe Donovan). 

Without further ado:

#63 Ante Jazic - LA Herbalifes

#48 Bobby Boswell - Houston Amigo Energies

 Once again, a very typical, professionally designed set from Upper Deck that looks absolutely indistinguishable from any set recently before it, or after it, no matter what the sport.  Upper Deck's design aesthetic, to me, is a lot like a male model. Looks nice, well put together, but you can't remember a single remarkable thing about it seconds after you've seen it.

OK. So maybe this one sticks in the mind a little longer...

#5 Calen Carr - Chicago Best Buys

#110 Atiba Harris - Comex USA

 The MLS also is unique among its "big five" pro sports in North America in that corporate jersey sponsorships are prominent, and even expected.  Of course, in a league like the MLS, the jersey sponsors run the full range of business concerns, from janky multilevel-marketing lowlifes (Herbalife, Xango, and even the Earthquakes had (gasp!) Amway for a couple of years) to real companies that do or make real things XBOX 360 (Microsoft), Volkswagen, Quaker, Corona, Barbasol, Amigo Energy).

#96 Danny Dichio - Toronto BMO

#SD-2 Super Draft Insert Roger Espinoza - Kansas City Wizards

Good draft for what is now Sporting KC.  Espinoza made 113 appearances for them through 2012, and currently plays for Wigan Athletic in the EPL.

#114 Franco Neill - DC Volkswagens

#198 Matias Mantilla - Xango Salt Lake

#169 Mauricio Castro - New England Revolution

#63 Chris Klein - LA Herbalifes

Figures that out of this pack, I pretty much get ten ho-hums, two of the hated LA Herbalifes Galaxy players, and one of the team-transplanted (formerly Quakes) Houston Dynamo players.

Brought to you by the friendly people in the Upper Deck Legal Department

Interesting note on the back of the pack. Although I haven't realized it in the past five years, but Upper Deck has their legally required "No Purchase Necessary" chance entries automated and online. Of course, you'll only be notified if you successfully win your sweepstakes chance at an insert card.

However, it is a lot easier than following Topps' hokey-pokey snail mail rules for your random chance at an insert (although I suspect the hit rate from Topps is probably better). In any case it's probably worth going to the Upper Deck site to register, and then every couple months or so, submit your sweepstakes chances for every set and hope for Magic Mail a few months later.

2012-13 Panini Brilliance Basketball Rack Pack

I search packs. There, I admitted it. There were a bunch of shiny new Panini basketball packs on the rack and I could clearly see that one of them had a LaMarcus Aldridge card showing on the back. I picked that pack. Feel free to shun me now.

Here's a bunch of shiny cards that I paid $6.99 for because a player on my favorite team was guaranteed to be in the pack.

215 - James Worthy - Right now we can tell that this is going to be a set that doesn't always scan that well. And yes, it picks up fingerprints quite well. As is the usual deal with NBA sets, there is a mix of retired players and active ones.

257 - Jimmy Butler - In lieu of a photo on the back, we get a massive team logo to go with the usual minimal stats in the Panini design. You can't see by the scan, but the raised type on the front of the card forms an indentation on the reverse.

299 - Marcus Morris - Nice '90s throwback jersey.

242 - Reggie Jackson - This guy doesn't have his own candy bar yet.

51 - Elton Brand

11 - Courtney Lee

53 - Shawn Marion - "The Matrix" isn't dodging many bullets these days.

95 - Earl Clark - Clark was part of the trade that brought us the single season Dwight Howard in LA experiment.

183 - Tiago Splitter - A friend of mine texted me something about Splitter the other day that got auto-corrected to "Splinter", which was great because I got to bust out a Ninja Turtles joke.

126 - Larry Sanders - Not the fictional talk show host.

168 - LaMarcus Aldridge - Here's the card I already spoiled for you. Depending on who you listen to, it sounds like Aldridge is itchy to get out of Portland if they don't start winning soon. Can't say I blame him.

244 - DeQuan Jones

286 - Will Barton - Barton is a raw rookie. It was nice to get a second Blazers card in this pack that I paid nearly 7 dollars for.

229 - Shaquille O'Neal - Cartoonish basketball player/rapper/"entertainer"/sugary cheap iced tea mogul. Oops, I forgot to put "rapper" in quotes.

272 - Chandler Parsons

25 - Joe Johnson - The Nets are always going to look like the villains in their new Brooklyn duds, but maybe that's what they were going for.

67 - Andrew Bogut

 9 - Avery Bradley

84 - Blake Griffin Above and Beyond - This is apparently a parallel. The only difference I can spot is the "Above and Beyond" type that bumps down the rest of the text so slightly that it causes the player's name to have lines going through it. Weird.

155 - Jrue Holiday - New Orleans pulled off a steal when they agreed to a trade that netted them Holiday, who was an All-Star this past season.

197 - Emeka Okafor

140 - Amar'e Stoudemire - What, you don't have a superfluous apostrophe in your name? I guess you'll never be a baller.

2001 Topps American Pie

Greetings!

Hope everyone is having a great 4th of July weekend!  I had meant to scan this in real quick and post this on America's 237th birthday, but when the neighbors invite you to hang out, you need to do the neighborly thing and socialize.  Here's a fitting pack for this weekend's festivities...a pack of 2001 Topps American Pie!

This was apparently a one-off set consisting of 150 base cards of stars from the 1960's and 1970's.  The pack says "Baby Boomers Baseball Edition", but I see nothing that says there were other "Editions" out there (if someone else posts a different pack, I'll amend the post label).  Here's a link to the checklist and inserts.

I will admit that I paid the full 3 bucks at the local Target when the set was released (the infamous $1.49 / $1.59 sticker wasn't on the back).  Why?  Well, the pack was opened at the bottom.  Is it pack searching when you can clearly see what's in the package?  Here's what I got:

#36 - George Foster
#17 - Curt Flood

Not a lot to say about the card design.  Then again, the flagship is just green, so maybe Topps was going for the minimalist angle for it's 50th anniversary.  Here are the backs:

You've got a different picture on the back, with lifetime stats listed, but by decade.  It's an interesting idea for this type of set, but the cards I got didn't do it proper justice; Foster barely played in the '60s and Flood limped into the '70s.

So why did I willingly purchase an opened pack of a set I had no intention on completing?  Because I could see that the other card was thick, and this ain't Upper Deck or Panini:

#BBTC-22 - Rico Carty (Timeless Classics Relics)

I didn't have many hits in my collection at the time, so yeah, that's why I got it.  Notice the scuff mark next to the "e" in "Pie".  The glossy part of the card is torn off there, going all the way to the border.  I don't know if it came that way, or if a pack searcher got to this pack and damaged the card in the process of trying to open it, thus abandoning the pack.  I'm assuming the latter, because of how the pack is torn open at the bottom.  Here's the back of the card:

Wow, cards back then included .260 hitters in their batting leaders cards.

Anyway, that's the pack.  Now get back to your weekend activities.  Happy birthday America!  Thanks for reading!

1987 Sportflics

Today's ripping is of a pack of 1987 Sportflics. This was recorded way back in September of 2012.