I wanted to buy a pack of something new at the card shop last week, and it was this or BowChro. Let's see if I made the right choice.

139 Steve Carlton
29 Clay Buchholz
162 Stan Musial
105 Jose Reyes #64/299
182 Ichiro & Kosuke Fukudome
130 Rich Harden
159 Chris Duncan
5 Randy Johnson

I think the right choice would have been to look through the 5ドル relic box. The big hit of the pack was a Jose Reyes card that looks exactly the same as all the others except for a teeny little serial number. Numbered parallels should look at least a little different from the base cards. How hard would that thing be to fake? Lefty and Musial are nice though, but not worth five bucks. I've had questions recently on why I would bother buying worthless retail packs. Well, look at this pack right here. 8 cards for five bucks and I got a disappointing parallel. For four bucks I could have bought two retail packs and gotten more cards including two black parallels that at least look different than the rest. Would I get a numbered parallel or a relic or an auto in a retail pack? Probably not, but who cares? The numbered parallels are worthless unless it's of a player you like, relics are a dime a dozen nowadays and it's really a crapshoot to pull an auto out of a random pack of any hobby product even if they are guaranteed in every box. So why not buy a hobby box then? Listen folks, all wax is for suckers. Even (especially) hobby boxes with hits in every box. For the price of any Hobby box, you can take that money and go through the case at your local card shop and get a handful of autos, relics or rookies and the best part is you are choosing the cards you want and not just getting the luck of the draw.

ALL WAX IS A GAMBLE, HOBBY WAX ESPECIALLY SO.

My hobby is collecting cards, not gambling. So why retail packs then if wax is so sucky? Because ripping wax is funand building sets is fun and retail wax while not having the bells and whistles generally gets you more cards for the money. It's much cheaper and there's a hell of a lot less pressure to get something good. Drop a hundred bucks or more on a hobby box or tin looking for that hit and you better pull something good out of that thing. A Clint Sammons autograph or a Randy Winn patch ain't gonna cut it. Drop ten, twenty bucks on a blaster for a set you like, you got a nice low-pressure rip where you like the cards first, and any crazy insert is just a bonus. Yeah, pulling some pricey auto or patch is always fun, but I've seen gamblers drop thousands of dollars that they really couldn't afford on cases of high end stuff looking for that elusive hit they can flip for a profit and quite frankly they didn't look like they had much fun at all. I drop a Jackson on a blaster of some set I like and I get a couple of hours of ripping, sorting, collating, scanning, writing and posting about the worthless things. And really, when it comes down to it cards nowadays are worthless, even the high end hits. Don't believe me? Check a Beckett from 1998 and compare the hot list prices to the ones in a Beckett from 2008. If you can find them in there of course. Now imagine what those big hits from this year's hot hobby wax will be worth in 2018.

I don't care about that, because this is how I spend my entertainment dollar, this is what I like to do for fun, and if I can't flip the cards on eBay for a huge profit, who cares? I go to the movies for entertainment too and I don't worry about how much the used tickets are selling for on eBay. I have fun going to restaurants and I don't fret about barfing up my meal and trying to sell it for a profit because I got a mojo truffle in my dinner. I rip old wax and retail wax because I have fun doing it. Buying hobby wax in search of that huge hit just isn't my thing.

I bought a blaster of the Baseball version of this product and succumbed to temptation and got a pack of the football. I guess it's worth opening a pack of football cards today.

258 Rulon Gardner
The first card in a pack of football cards... one of the very few packs I've bought all year... is a wrestler. A very good wrestler, but a wrestler. Put a Giants helmet on him and he sort of looks like a white Michael Strahan I suppose.

253 Tom Morello
One of the very few football packs I've bought all year and I get a wrestler and a communist. I always feel a little strange about outright cussing on this blog so I'll say it in pig latin.


Are there any football cards in this football pack? That's one way of not collecting football cards...

157 Joe Flacco
Ah, a real football player. From Delaware. Joe Flacco would have looked great in a Falcons uniform while Glenn Dorsey busted some heads on the defensive line. Arthur Blank chose to sell t-shirts instead, which is why I've mostly abandoned the NFL for college football. The Dawgs kicked Central Michigan's ass yesterday!

190 Sam Baker
68 Marshawn Lynch
23 Chad Johnson
1ドル.49 off a blaster box at Target

The rest of the cards look pretty much the same as the Flacco. So you think I should buy a blaster? The coupon expires at the end of the month so I have to hurry. While you're thinking about it, here's some communist music for ya to enjoy.

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/fkuOAY-S6OY&hl=en&fs=1]

Let me start this pack post off by saying that this will be a rare occasion. I decided to spring for a pack of 2005 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes, which consists of a pack of 8 cards contained within a sealed tin. For fear of setting the bar too high, I will go ahead with this post. Don't get me wrong, enjoy a premium card as much as the next guy, but I can't quite bring myself to buy packs just to get them. The main reason I bought this has to do with my personal player collection. I'm currently working on putting together as much of the Robin Yount Heroes collection as possible. They look good in pages, they sometimes come in green, and they feature Robin wearing a pair of Dwayne Wayne (from the Cosby spinoff, "A Different World, not the NBA All Star) flip-up shades. At this point, I'm pretty close to putting together anything that comes numbered to 10 or higher, with a couple of 1/1's to boot.

This pack is so special, in fact, that I might need some help to work my way through it., so I recruited a few helpers.

Sorry to mix hobbies, but Batman and Green Lantern, two of my favorite DC superheroes, will assist in this pack bust.

On second thought, these two, despite the fact that they, too, are "Heroes," are a little two-dimensional for this task.





That's more like it. Rookie year Robin Yount bobblehead will lend a helping hand. Is there Babe Ruth memorabilia available in this set? Neither of us are sure, but I ain't lucky enough to get it.

Let's tear in.





After tearing off the hologram-enhanced plastic wrapper, the lid is removed. Robin doesn't quite seem to be himself. In fact, it looks like he's crying a little. What's wrong, Robin?





Oh, I see. It's your old pal Paul. And he's in a...GASP...Twins uniform. Is that the way he appears to you in your dreams? Of course not. Five hits in a World Series game or not, Upper Deck certainly did Molitor and his Milwaukee fans a measure of disrespect by putting him in a Minnesota shirt. That makes me cry a little bit, too, if that makes you feel better. Let's move past this, old friend. You can hold my hand if you'd like. Oh, your hands don't move from your hips. Let's just see who's next.





Jim Palmer, and a DiMaggio short print. Not too shabby. We shall press on.





Mmmmm, this may be the gem of the box, a blue Ryne Sandberg, numbered to 10. Not a Sandberg collector, so this will probably find its way to eBay. How do you feel about this card, Robin?





That's what I figured. We could have done a lot worse than that for our sequentially-numbered card. Who's next?





My, my...Steve Carlton game-used jersey. Looks like a Phillies jersey, but he's in a Giants shirt on the card. What's up with that? It's like requesting an issue of Green Lantern and getting a Guy Gardner issue instead of the classic Hal Jordan. (Sorry, last time I'll mix addictions here.) Plus the Brooks Robinson header card looks pretty sweet. Lots of orange.





Well, thanks for joining me Robin. These are the last two cards in the pack. On the right we have a great looking Stan Musial card. On the left, Wade Boggs, pictured the way he always wanted his fans to think of him...in Yankee pinstripes? Sure, I realize that these cards depict personal milestones, none bigger than a World Series triumph. But shouldn't there be a footnote to the card caption, something like "as an afterthought" underneath "Wins Title With Yankees"? The guy's a Red Sock through and through. Where's the Devil Rays card? What do you think, Robin?





Oh, I guess you're tuckered out after all that action. Glad you found a suitable bed. But it's a little nippy out...aren't you going to be cold? Especially that exposed spring in your neck?





Good move, Mr. Yount. I'll rest easier knowing you found a blanket. Enjoy your slumber, sweet Robin. I'll leave the hall light on in case you have to go to the bathroom. Good night.

For more card commentary and Robin Yount appearances, check out my blog, Thorzul Will Rule.