Part of a Target repack box from a few years ago, I'm guessing. This set was really good about showing guys standing around with bats.
Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
120 Jason Phillips
293 Wilson Betemit
172 Yunel Escobar
126 Chad Gaudin
30 Kevin Frandsen
71 A.J. Pierzynski
GN447 Ian Kinsler Generation Now 23/27 Doubles
157 Andy LaRoche
314 Craig Monroe
255 Dmitri Young AS
234 Francisco Rodriguez AS
219 Alex Rodriguez AS

As I've already finished this set, all cards are available for trade.

First pack of the new year, a Target cheapie that had been lying around for some time.
Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
89 Neal Cotts
269 Tim Hudson
76 Jon Lester
217 Tyler Walker
360 Rickie Weeks
422 Geoff Blum
345 Nomar Garciaparra
CRTG38 Cal Ripken, Jr. / Tony Gwynn Heading to the Hall
Seven base cards.
Three guys with the same team in 2012: Hudson, Lester, Weeks
One playing with a different team in 2012: Blum
Three no longer in MLB: Cotts, Walker, Garciaparra

The long, arduous journey comes to a close today with the only pack worthy of the closing ceremonies: 2007 Upper Deck Series 2.
After all, for a blog whose purpose is to open and showcase packs of trading cards, it is certainly fitting that the final pack would be one that serves no other purpose other than to be opened for others to see. Which brings up the philosophical question: Does this blog exist because of this pack, or does this pack exist because of this blog?

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
747 Emil Brown

571 Danys Baez
921 Barry Zito

799 Kevin Mench

654 Joe Borowski

Isn't it great to see the Toxic Avenger signing autographs for the kids?

This is a product I have opened very little of since I bought a complete set of Series 2 at a card show shortly after it came out. I don't know what prompted me to do so. Perhaps it was a side effect of being in the middle of building the '07 Heritage set, my first experience with chasing down a buttload of short prints, and didn't need any other set-building distractions. Or maybe the price was just right. In any case, I probably already have every card in this pack, but let's tear in anyway.

Top to Bottom:
567 Chris Stweart (RC)
520 Adam Dunn

546 Orlando Cabrera
MMS29 Mickey Mantle Story

412 Gerald Laird
384 Alex Gonzalez

Yep, got 'em all, including the Mickey Mantle Story card. I finished that insert a long time ago. Not sure why. It's not like I snuggle up near the fireplace on a cold January evening reading the backs of those cards like a novel.

One pack to go and Repack Resurrection is over!

This is the pack I was least excited to find in the repack thingy. I liked this set enough to collect the whole thing along with all of the inserts, so unless something amazing emerges, there is literally nothing new I can get from this pack.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
217 Andre Ethier
146 Alex Rios
6 Adrian Gonzalez
31 Chad Tracy
25 Chipper Jones
136 Chris Capuano

What a miserable pack of junk.

2007 Fleer... its last year as a baseball brand. You tend to find a lot of '07 Ultra in repack boxes and as discounted loosies, but regular Fleer not so much. How will this pack turn out?

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
307 Marcus Giles

223 Carlos Guillen
181 Juan Rivera
141 Justin Morneau
218 Joel Zumaya Mini Die-Cut

358 Fred Lewis (RC)
336 Alexi Casilla (RC)
RS-FL Francisco Liriano Rookie Sensations

7 Ryan Zimmerman
YR-AP Albert Pujols Year in Review

This pack gets an A-. The only thing holding it back was no Brewers. Plus, you have to leave a little wiggle room at the top of the grading scale for possible relic cards or autographs. I'd say that two inserts and a parallel make this a very nice pack, with Pujols to boot. And the Liriano insert makes this even better than it would have been a couple of weeks ago. Both of these inserts highlight Fleer's dominance over Topps when it came to inserts in 2007:
Rookie Sensations> Generation Next
Year in Review> Any one of the endless Mantle mirrors

Sometimes it's fun to transpose the initial consonant sounds of two word, like in a name. I am told that my wife's relatives make a habit of this, especially when masking light profanity, such as doing something for "gits and shiggles." Let's try it out as we open this pack of 2007 Fleer Ultra Baseball.

20 Schurt Cilling

68 Wontrelle Dillis

172 Jenji Kohima (surprisingly close to Weeds creator Jenji Kohan's name)

124 Donny Jhamon

136 Rimmy Jollins Gold Foil

Alright, that last one turned my stomach a little bit, sounding more like someone who starred alongside a Jamie Gillis or a Harry Reems than a National League MVP.

But wasn't that fun?

Can you go wrong with two-year old gum? It's even still in the wrapper. Surely gum has a longer shelf life than a couple years, right? The gum lost some of its flexibility, as it bent one direction, but when I tried to straighten it back out, I broke it. It certainly has that powdery sugar coating on it. The small piece I broke off and popped in my mouth crumbled as I tried to chew it. It's a lot like eating a Razzle - with about the same flavor. What didn't disintegrate in my mouth actually formed a small bit of chewable gum with very little flavor. I spit it out. Well, I suppose I could get some cards for my good grades. If only I had a participating location near me. Better yet, if I had ANY location near me...


Adam Lind (Blue Jays), Adrian Beltre (Mariners), Bernie Brewer (umm, I'll let you guess which team)


Drew Anderson (Brewers), Chad Billingsley (Dodgers), and Checklist card. Wow, the whole set, including inserts, fits on one card. That is some seriously small font sizing we got there, Tex.

A lot of the packs I've been breaking this month and showing on here came from a 16-pack re-pack box that was put together by "Beckett Associates." I have to say, this is one of the worst re-packs I've had. Several packs did not even have the number of cards PER PACK in them. I don't subscribe to the whole 'mojo' thing, so if I get game-used or not has no bearing on my pack-opening experience. Having said that, at least one serial/auto/game-used would have been a nice touch.

The other thing I noticed is that in several "series One" packs, there were actually cards labeled "Series Two." This, to me, can only mean some sort of re-pack shenanigans going on. I don't care if the boxes these cards came from were 'searched' but I have a real problem with PACKS that have obviously been opened, searched and repacked then resealed to appear factory-new. That's flat fraud in my book. Of course, until I get "Bipped" there is no way to 'prove' it's happening to the District Attorney. So, instead, I'll just post what I found.


Jeff Cirillo (Twins - not to be confused with Chris Pirillo), Kei Igawa (Yankees - one for Dinged Corners!), Kenny Lofton (Rangers - before his brief appearance with the Tribe later)


Jay Payton (A's-to-Orioles Trading Places) and an Opening Day White Sox vs Indians at US Cellular. Hey, It's technically a Tribe card, right?


Work Hard, get cards. Anyone have kids that have actually cashed in on this little program? I should have. And, finally, Sean Casey (Tigers). He had a brief stint with the Indians, but even I have to admit he seems most out of place when not donning a Reds uniform.

Lance Berkman (Astros), Miguel Tejada (Orioles), and Jason Bay (Pirates) lead off this pack. That's a pretty good mix in a five-pack of cards!


Bobby Abreu (Yankees) and Faces of the Game Adrian Beltre (Mariners) finish out this pack.

Well, I have to say that this was not a bad pack at all. I don't think I've seen the "Faces" cards before. The back features the player in three additional poses and gives some info as to why he is a face in the crowd.

Just think about this before you read on. Someone out there could very well have paid 2ドル.99 for this pack. A dollar per card automatically prices me out of any pack you could throw in front of me, unless there was some sort of guarantee that it would be chock full of shiny Cardinals that I lacked. Since that's not happening, how did I end up with this pack? It was on the front of a repack box, of course. I can honestly never keep any of the Bowman designs straight because I just barely have any of the stuff, so I couldn't really picture this set in my mind when I bought the box. I just went for it. So you could easily make fun of me for spending 11ドル or however much it was for a repack box comprised mostly of junk, but at least I didn't pay 1ドル a card, right?

Right?

211 - Jerry Owens (RC) (Owens is a light-hitting outfielder who had a grand total of 16 ABs with the White Sox last season after playing in 93 games his rookie year.)

BC124 - Brandon Hynick Prospects (Hynick is a right-handed starting pitcher who was the #8 prospect in the Rockies system according to Baseball America in 2008. He pitched in AA last year.)

65 - Manny Ramirez (And then there's this guy.)

Well, at least they're shiny.

Here's a late night quickie of something we pretty much all love on this site. '07 Allen & Ginter. I have the whole set so basically I bought the pack just for the mini card and the joy of opening a pack of A&G. Let's see what resides within.

104 Jeff Kent
328 Jason Jennings
308 Mark Zupan SP
129 Craig Monroe A&G mini
185 Troy Glaus
260 Andruw Jones

Not bad. I got an interesting short print of the Murderball guy and a bunch of minor stars. Well, Andruw's stock is pretty low right now, and I haven't kept up with Jennings since he left Colorado, but it's not terrible. I think I have the Monroe mini already, but not the A&G version. Like it really matters.

I ended up with a pack of this Future Stars stuff in a repack box (I swear I will stop buying those one of these days) that I got recently. I don't remember anything about this set or even seeing it in the stores, but it was probably there. It's just generic looking and useless enough for someone like me to completely miss it. There's 4 cards in the pack and it most likely retailed for 2ドル.99, which means I wouldn't have touched the stuff anyway at full price. Sets like these are the reason the powers that be have put a limit on how many products the card companies can release each year. Let's see if I got a "Dice-K" autographed card or one of "2007's Hottest Rookies."

24 - Felix Hernandez (I suppose King Felix qualifies as a future star, though it's going to be hard for anyone to be a star playing in Seattle. Someone must have cast an RPG-style curse over that entire town and its sports teams.)

21 - Jon Garland (In what sense is a player with 7 years of ML experience and 82 career victories a future star? The card design isn't the worst thing I've ever seen, though it has some cheesy looking Tron effects.)

25 - Travis Hafner (I'm pretty sure Hafner was already a star at this point. Unfortunately, being in this set seems to have cursed him.)

76 - Zach Duke (In the future, the Pirates will be a team full of stars. In fact, they will enslave the rest of the league. Ryan Doumit will be the Demon Lord and Zach Duke will be the Supreme Master.)

Don't I even get a rookie card?