Stopped by Target yesterday (on company time....sssssh!) and picked up a blaster of these. I had been to my local shop last weekend and had seen some of the base cards to this set in a monster box I was digging through. So I figured I'd try a blaster to see how much I liked them.

It's a nice looking set, but they repeated the "rookies in retro designs" concept from UD Timeline baseball. Blaster contained seven packs of six cards and a clear cello pack of six Legends (also in foil retro designs). Got my Bo Jackson for my player collection at least. The base cards are all horizontally oriented photos with the name, position and team info at 90° across one end (or the top depending on your point of view). In about half the packs, the first card had a bashed or layered corner.

For your enjoyment, the packaging and the best pack....

The box panel:


and the uncrumpled wrapper:

The base cards:

#92 Anquan Boldin - will he or won't he be traded?

#42 Derrick Johnson - not Brooks (formerly of Tampa) or Thomas (passed away 2000)

#64 Brian Urlacher - Kinda overrated, at least when I've seen him.

#77 Roddy White (back of card) - Teamed with Matt Ryan, did pretty well for the Falcons (and my fantasy team).

The Rookies:

#109 Jake Long (left) and #116 Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (right). Long is Howie's son, and Dom wins the Jarrod Saltalamacchia Nameplate Stitcher's Wristcramp award (NFL version). These cards are the "New SP design". Gold foil didn't scan so well.

Inserts and Legends appear in the 1993, '94, '95, and '96 SP designs.

Jury's still out on building this set. Even that will probably be only the base cards, since I'm a contrarian and don't care about rookies that much. But the horizontal design almost commits you to storing these in the eight pocket sheets (that they'll fall out of), but since the other info is at a right angle, it makes them a little awkward to really view as a whole. Maybe I'll browse EvilBay for a cheap base lot....

I liked the SP Rookie Edition baseball set from last year so I decided to try a retail pack of the new football version. It's kind of like an upscale Timelines, with a base set and retro rookies. It's a little more pricey though at three bucks a throw. Blasters have a free pack of "Legends" cards in them and now i'm intrigued by this set...


56 Plaxico Burress
21 Braylon Edwards
8 Laurence Maroney
82 Drew Brees
105 Colt Brennan retro rookie
185 Kevin Smith retro rookie


He's a zombie, 'cause the Bulldogs KILLED him in the bowl game last year. Great pic from Upper Deck on that one. I guess it's a retro card but I've never seen the design before so I don't know what one it is. I got a laugh out of the Plaxico card with the big Falcons logo in the background. THE CURSE OF THE FALCONS STRIKES AGAIN. I really like the base design. It reminds me of a horizontal take on '94 Upper Deck. The '93? SP design is also cool, they textured the foil for the football release which looks kinda neat. Kevin Smith is not kinda neat. I've pulled more Kevin Smith rookies than I've watched Kevin Smith movies. And I have not bought that much football this year and I've watched a LOT of Kevin Smith movies. I saw a hobby pack and it had 4 base and 4 rookies (and probably a hell of a lot better auto odds) for 5ドル so if you like it, hobby is probably a better deal on this.

Ok, enough contest stuff, it's time for a pack. I was looking for a box of '94 Leaf for my box rip, but I found this pack instead. I was laser focused on Allen & Ginter when this came out last year so I never picked up a pack. Upper Deck goes Retro by using designs from their mid 90's SP sets for Rookie card parallels. When your company is not old enough to buy alcohol, you have to take Retro where you can get it. The Rookie part is seen on the wrapper featuring Delmon Young, Dice-K and Tulo. Half the pack is supposed to be rookies (on average!) so let's see if any good ones come out of this pack.

94 Michael Young
68 Joel Zumaya
69 Jeremy Bonderman
95 Mark Teixiera

The horizontally oriented base cards manage to be novel yet boring. The single color backgrounds and little SP logos everywhere do have a Retro 90's feel to them though. (this is not a good thing) I got the Tigers pitchers vs. Rangers batters pack. Tex gives the Rangers a big win over Guitar Hero. On to the rookies.

168 Gustavo Molina '95 SP
118 Sean Henn
265 Daisuke Matsuzaka '96 SP
127 Miguel Montero

Now we've got all catchers and pitchers. Molina is not even with the White Sox anymore and is in the Mets' farm system. Montero is a backup for the DBacks and is on the DL. Sean Henn is also on the DL and will likely be a reliever for the Yankees this year unless the rotation blows up. I think everyone is familiar with Dice-K. As far as the design goes, the base cards take the basic theme of the veteran cards, flip it vertical and add a second foil photo on the right side. They are a little busy for my tastes and the gold lettering on silver foil isn't the easiest to read. It goes without saying the entire subset is completely unscannable as you can see. The '95 Retro cards look bad. It has boring old silver foil instead of the holographic red and blue from the original set. Basically they took the best thing from that set's design and threw it out the window. The '96 cards look good though. Very close to the original, which was one of the better looking sets of the '90s in my opinion. I can't tell which of these (if any) are short prints. I think maybe the '93 and '94 cards might be the tough ones though if Beckett's pricing can be trusted. Dice-K pretty much saved this pack for me even with Tex.

Back in the late '80s I was a way bigger basketball fan than a baseball fan. I played more basketball, watched more basketball, went to more Hawks games than Braves games and collected tons of basketball cards. Then the Braves went nuts and 'Nique got traded and basketball sort of went to hell in Atlanta. This year the tables have turned, for the first time in forever the Hawks are the lone saving grace in a town full of imploding franchises. This is how crazy things have gotten: Billy Knight had a good draft. Scary! As a result I'm building a basketball set for the first time in a decade and I'm more susceptible to buying stuff like this pack on impulse. I wasn't planning on buying any Upper Deck basketball this year, but I really had no choice in the matter as you soon will see.


Top pack:
52 Shareef Abdur-Rahim
85 Tony Allen
68 LaMarcus Aldridge
63 Randy Foye
46 Luke Walton
11 Tracy McGrady
120 Shannon Brown
152 Gerald Wallace
109 Jose Calderon
157 Antoine Walker
105 Kyle Korver
148 Raymond Felton
121 Drew Gooden
118 Tyrus Thomas
203 Julian Wright Star Rookie
SH-DC Daequan Cook Star Rookie Santa Hat

The cards look pretty good. They are similar to the baseball set except the silver border is only on one side. The name is stamped in foil, but there is at least a colored band behind it to make it a little more readable. The photos are all good, every one except for the rookies is an action shot so you get a lot of goofy looking faces in these cards. The best card out of the first pack is T-Mac driving on Joe Johnson. There's also a sweet looking rookie card of Julian Wright in the classic Kansas uni. This pack is labeled as the Rookie Edition, so why only one rookie you say? Well the bonus insert is a variation card of the Star Rookies set:

Rookies wearing Santa Hats! Daequan Cook looks thrilled to be wearing that stylish faux fur chapeau. This is rookie hazing at its finest. I still haven't gotten to the only reason I bought this pack though.

Pack 2:
73 Martell Webster
39 Cuttino Mobley
38 Corey Maggette
64 Troy Hudson
616 Mike Miller
2 Devean George
99 Channing Frye
33 Stephen Jackson
119 Ben Wallace
160 Travis Diener
180 Mike Bibby
174 Chris Paul
136 Jamaal Tinsley
195 Michael Redd
168 Brendan Haywood
SH-AH Al Horford Star Rookie Santa Hat

Al Horford Santa Hat card! This is one of my favorite cards out of any set this year. A Hawk draft pick that was actually a smart move wearing the brand new uniform and a little touch of Christmas cheer. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over.

I'm just in a rack packy mood right now. This 'Rookie Edition' Fat Pack is basically the same as the regular series 1 fat packs except they have the same inserts with rookies instead of stars on them, 20 added rookie cards and a lovely purple wrapper. This pack had Phil Hughes on the back for one of the inserts, and he was the only rookie I'd really heard of in among the packs in the store. My hatred of Upper Deck has lessened since Goudey came out, so I thought why not give it a chance.

Top pack:
232 Wes Littleton
49 Beltran Perez RC
25 Dennis Sarfate RC
372 Francisco Cordero
184 Jay Payton
120 Nate Robertson
454 Jeff Weaver
319 Hanley Ramirez
210 Carl Crawford
55 Corey Patterson
307 Yorvit Torrealba
182 Nick Swisher
279 Michael Barrett
435 Steve Finley
123 Mitch Maier RC
SR35 Phil Hughes Star Rookie

So far the rookies in Rookie Edition suck... Sarfate is the only player to even see the majors this year, pitching eight and a third innings in relief for the Astros in a September call up. The Hughes is nice though, and there's some good young stars like Hanley and Crawford in the pack.

Bottom pack:
332 Craig Biggio
1 Doug Slaten RC
131 Todd Wellemeyer
330 Taylor Tankersley
266 Ryan Langerhans
310 Brad Hawpe
387 Ryan Howard
251 Johnny Estrada
118 Joel Zumaya
371 Derrick Turnbow
246 Justin Speier
87 Jon Garland
243 Gustavo Chacin
498 Matt Cain Checklist
504 Alex Gordon RC
SR11 Chris Stewart Star Rookie

Ok this is more like it. Doug Slaten's good enough to be on the Diamondbacks playoff roster and Alex Gordon is Alex Gordon. Nice broken bat there Alex. Ryan Howard showing off his Home Run Derby championship trophy is cool, even though that jersey is hideous. I'm not sure what is going on in Craig Biggio's card. It doesn't look like he much knows either. Not bad at all I must say, and 32 cards for five bucks is a whole lot better than eight cards for three.