Random Cards from Random Repacks

A long while back, the spring to be exact, I opened a whole bunch of 100-card repacks from the local Walgreens. I had every intent to share the findings in posts of their own, but now it's three months later and pictures of these cards have been haunting me ever since. So, instead of doing individual posts, here's some of the best from four random repacks.

Here's a 1983 O-Pee-Chee of Phil Niekro. I never really had an appreciation for O-Pee-Chee until I started reading card blogs. Now, whenever I get an OPC card, it instantly goes into the collection.

Paul Konerko is well know for being the first baseman for the White Sox for what seemed like forever but did you know he had a very brief stint with the Reds in 1998? Yep, the Dodgers sent him and Dennys Reyes to the Reds for Jeff Shaw on Independence Day 1998 and he appeared in 26 games as an outfielder and a corner utility man. After the season, the Reds sent him to the White Sox for Mike Cameron and the rest is history. I love cards like this that recognize a player having a brief stint with a team, especially ones that no one barely remembers them being with.

Oh, also, did I mention this is the Gold Medallion Edition of Fleer Ultra? That's pretty cool. 

Yay! 1981 Donruss! I always liked the design on these cards with the colored frame around the photo and the yellow team name on the lower right. The photos are also something else I enjoy on them. I definitely think between them and the debut issue of Fleer the same year, Donruss is the better overall product.

Here's a nice Warren Spahn card that was a cover card on one of the repacks. Also, bonus points on this for it showing him as a member of the Milwaukee Braves.

This isn't weird at all. I always think this is a Rockies card because the mascot takes up more of the card than the featured player but it's an Astros card of Brad Ausmus. You wouldn't know it though just by looking at it.

I'll take an Andrew Benintendi 2017 Topps card out of a repack, yes please! While this is just the regular version and not a variation, it really doesn't matter to me. While Benintendi isn't someone I've put on my player collection list, I don't mind adding a card of his here and there.

Some glossy Topps cards from the 80s. I love that Willie McCovey card with him in the old school Giants uniform and the fact that it says "captain" as his position.

Cards of Hall of Famers, mostly junk wax but the real standout here is the 1999 Topps Wade Boggs, the final year of Boggs' career. His sunset card would come the next season in the 2000 Topps set

It seems like every repack nowadays has a plethora of 2012 Topps, which is a set I really enjoy. I've mentioned previously, packs of 2012 Topps were the first packs I bought when I got back into collecting. The first two, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez are interesting as the Thome card is a sunset card (meaning his final card issued during his career) and Ramirez is a zero-year card (meaning a card issued of a player featuring him on a team with which he never played). Darvish and Cespedes were two of the bigger rookie names that season and both came out of the same pack. Finally, the the Ichiro card has a fantastic picture on it. 

Finally, a pretty trippy card of Javy Lopez, known primarily for being the Braves catcher during the dominant run of the 90s. I'd had no clue he played with the Orioles but looks like he played out the last few seasons of his career there. I don't think I've ever seen a Donruss Zenith card before but in person it's pretty neat.

In regards to repacks, I think I might be done with them for the short term, unless I decided to go for the 50-card, 4-pack variety at Target. I will say that I really enjoyed throwing the best cards from multiple repacks together instead of reviewing the repacks one by one and talking about filler cards.

Retail Repack Adventures #10: Return to Walgreens

I told myself that I wasn't going to buy anymore of these. 

After the last two packs being less than stellar plus loaded with duplicates, I had sworn off of these for an undetermined length of time. However, thanks to a heads up from AJ over at The Lost Collector, the card blogging world was notified of a sale on these for $3.99 each. Never have I wanted to go to Walgreens so bad. When I stopped by there were three of these on the rack, I grabbed two, mainly because the cover card on the other pack did nothing for me. Curiously, they were the regular price. I asked someone who appeared to be managerial about it. Turns out there was an error and the price was wrong but was promised the right price would show at checkout. It did and I brought the packs home ready to tear into them.

Here's the cover card, a 2002 Fleer Focus Jersey Edition Alex Rodriguez. I've never understood the point of calling cards "jersey edition" or the like if they don't actually have a piece of a jersey in them. Regardless, this will go with my 2000-2009 cards for now. I'm not sure I like the way my cards are sorted though, but that's another story for another day.

As with any repack, it's rife with 2012 Topps. These are the best of the lot. A few things to check out here, first there's James Shields in a Rays uniform, a team I'd forgotten he played for. Second, look at the celebration on the Neftali Feliz card. I'm not sure what game it's from but it's definitely a keeper.

There were a ton of 1988 Score cards, nearly 20 to be exact. Again, these are the best of the batch. My favorite here is the Steve Bedrosian, simply because of the way everything just seems to fit perfectly. Plus, it's a night card so that works in its favor too.

1989 Topps ... yay. Interesting little side note, how strange was it that the Twins had a player in the late 80s named Greg Gagne and the AWA, which was based out of Minneapolis, had a wrestler during the same time named Greg Gagne. I wonder if they ever got confused for each other?

As with any repack, it was loaded with junk wax and commons. These four are the best of the junk wax pile that was in the middle of the pack. I'm still baffled as to why Lee Smith isn't in the Hall of Fame. He ranks third all time in saves (478), was a 7-time All-Star, holds a career ERA of 3.03 and appeared in over 1000 games in 18 seasons. Perhaps the fact he was a career reliever might be a strike against him but then again, so was Bruce Sutter and he's in. So why not Lee Smith?

Ah yes, minor league cards. For the longest time, I didn't think twice about these and either added them to my trade box or my discard box (for donations and misc stuff). For some unknown reason, these just spoke to me and I think I'll have to start adding them to my binders. For a fun exercise, I though I would explore the careers of three of the four pictured, the exception being Jon Woodworth because he's listed as a trainer.

Ken Greer - Spent 10 seasons in the minors with various teams. He did make it to the majors though. He only appeared in 9 games combined over the 1993 (Yankees) and 1995 (Giants) seasons. On this particular card, he's featured with the Ft. Lauderdale Yankees, which was the High A affiliate for the Yankees in 1990. During this particular season, he was 4-9 with a 6.45 ERA in 38 games.

Keith Schmidt - Played 6 seasons in the minors from 1989-1994, never advancing above single A ball. Here he's pictured with the Bluefield Orioles, the Rookie League affiliate of Baltimore. That particular season he had a .278/.356/.462 slash line in 55 games.

Larry Walker - No, not that Larry Walker, the other one. I didn't know there was more than two. This particular Larry Walker got into 79 games with the Greensboro Hornets of the South Atlantic League in 1990 hitting .230 with one homer and 15 RBIs. Two years later, he was out of the game, only playing six games at any level above high A.

Two more cards to show off here. First this Sportflics Eric Davis card. I think this might be the first Reds Sportflics card in my collection. I was pretty thrilled when this came out.

Dave LaPoint isn't normally someone I would think about showing cards of, mainly because I'm not familiar with him but this isn't any ordinary 1988 Donruss card. It's from the 1988 Donruss Baseball's Best set. I'm not sure what the distribution method of this set was but I really dig the orange borders. 

The back is nice too as it presents the career stats in an easy to read format with a lighter color and a different orientation that the regular 1988 Donruss cards. 

Had this repack not been on sale, I wouldn't have purchased it as I prefer the 4-pack, 50-card repacks found at Target. However, this wasn't a complete waste as I got a few fun cards and some trade fodder.

Retail Repack Adventures #7

Seven is usually a lucky number and also represents many, many things in society and in life ... there's 7-Eleven, the seven days of the week, James Bond is agent 007,  and there was a really awesome old PC game called The 7th Guest that was out when I was a kid. A lot of people consider 7 to be their lucky number, so since this is the seventh repack I've opened from the local Walgreens, let's hope this brings a bit of luck.

Our cover card, a card from the Jackie Robinson story retail insert set. I don't remember which store this was an exclusive to but I think it may have been Walmart as Target had a similar Babe Ruth set. It's entirely possible though that I could have that reversed. This particular card commemorates his Hall of Fame induction in 1962, thus becoming the first black player elected to the Hall of Fame. This wasn't the most enticing cover card and I probably should have seen this as an omen that it wouldn't be a great repack.

Upon first glance when I was sifting through the cards in box, I though this was just any old 2006 Topps base card of A-Rod. However, upon a closer examination, it turns out this was from National Baseball Card day in 2006. I was happy to participate in it this past summer and I hope Topps brings it back for another go around this summer. I like the fact this is just a simple posed shot at what looks like the Yankees spring training facility. It's definitely a card that you don't come across every day. 

It looks like 2016 cards are already showing up in these things. Houston had a down year this past season after their surprising playoff run in 2015. With the additions of Carlos Beltran, Josh Reddick, Norichika Aoki, Charlie Morton, and Brian McCann among others this offseason that were added to the young core that features Correa, George Springer, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman and the Astros appear to be a very interesting team on paper going into 2017.

No repack will be complete without scads of base cards from recent years. Every one of these that I've opened recently has produced at least a page and a half of 2014 Topps cards and another handful or at least a page full of 2012 Topps. My favorite card of this group has to be the Dan Straily card from the 2014 cards. Straily was pretty much the ace of the Reds rotation last year with 14-8 record and recording just shy of 200 innings. Pretty impressive for a guy that was a waiver claim days before the season started and began the year as the long man in the bullpen and has since been traded to Miami for three prospects.

On the surface, the top card may look like it has nothing in common with the bottom two cards. However, look a bit closer. The top card is from the 2000 Topps Opening Day set with the bottom two from the 2004 Upper Deck First Pitch set. Both sets celebrate Opening Day is appears so they do have something in common after all, aside from the obvious fact that they are all really cool horizontal cards.

I'll wrap up this rather uninspiring repack with some card from the 80s and the 2000s. The Sosa card is my second card of him as an Oriole as I picked up a relic card of his at the card shop last spring from the discount bin. Speaking of the Orioles, although I'm sure the Eddie Murray card is a duplicate, I really dig the way the orange uniform top meshes with the wood grain border of '87 Topps.

All in all, this was a pretty dull repack. Between this and the last Walgreens repack that I opened that was marred with duplicates and a severely damaged Dan Plesac card, I think I'm done with these for a while, at least the ones from Walgreens. Not to worry though, I've found more retail repacks to continue on with that I can hopefully hit the bullseye on (that's a hint as to where they're from). 

Retail Repack Adventures #6: Quality Control Fail

Happy New Year everyone!

I had planned on getting a post up right after Christmas but the combination of getting back to work and not having much free time caused my holiday hiatus to be a bit longer than anticipated. However, things are finally starting to settle down and I'll have more time to write. With it being a new year, I figure what better way to start things off with than with another lovely repack from the local Walgreens.

Dont panic! It's just the cover card of one Joe Panik from the 2015 Topps Update All-Star Access set. When I first got one of these in one of those holiday boxes from Target, I was confused. They weren't the normal All-Star cards I was used to seeing in Update. Come to find out, they were a retail only insert set. Even though I'm just a few cards shy of completing the All-Star cards from 2015 (I really need to check on that), I'm not planning on going after these.

A repack wouldn't be complete without a giant lot of 2014 Topps. I only opened 3-4 packs of it at the time so I'm definitely making up for it now. The Luis Valbuena card is pretty awesome with the throwback Cubs jersey.

Some nice cards from the 2000s which have since been added to my binder. Does anyone else remember Impact? I didn't until the Jim Thome card revealed itself. 

More recent Topps cards, this time from 2012. I like that set, no matter what anyone else says. It's the set that got me back into collecting.

Anytime I can pull some 86 Topps cards from a repack, it's a good day. One day I might decide to put together that set but I have some other projects I want to work on first. 

1989 Topps was well represented with cards not only from the main set, but also from the Traded set. I've always sort of liked the design of these cards as it felt kind of fun but it also stands out because it followed a very bland 1988 design. Also, I had no idea that Buddy Bell had played for the Astros.

This is interesting. It's a 1994 card of Alma Ziegler from the Ted Williams card company. Ziegler was one of the top stars of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the 40s and 50s. She played for the Milwaukee/Grand Rapids Chicks from 1944-54, won the 1950 Player of the Year award, was a four time all-star, and was the official team captain. This is a pretty cool card that will have a nice home in my 90s binder.

Getting oddballs out of repacks is always neat. I'm always a fan of these Post cereal cards from the 90s as I had a pretty extensive collection of them back in the day. I don't think I had this Bonds one though. I've never been a fan of Bonds in all honesty but an oddball card of him as a Pirate is one that I'll hang on to.

Here's where things get a little screwy. First there were two of these Tom Brunansky cards ....

... then two of these Alejandro De Aza cards ...

... then two of these Todd Hundley cards ...

... and then this! What happened here I wonder and how did this get past quality control? Also, how did this, what was once a Dan Plesac card, get so horribly damaged?

Puzzling right? 

Anyway, that lays to rest this Walgreens repack. I've got one more of these left that I picked up and hopefully it doesn't have the egregious issues this one had.

Retail Repack Adventures #5

I was at the local Walgreens a while back grabbing some odds and ends and decided to take a gander at the toy aisle. As usual, they had a few repacks hanging from the shelf. The temptation was too strong so I grabbed one and just had to bring it home. Since it's been a while since I've done one of these, spring to be exact, I figured with the Christmas season upon us, now would be a good time to see what the cardboard gods gift me in this retail repack.

Our cover card, a nice 2015 Topps Heritage Rookie Performers insert of Javier Baez. I'll gladly take that to start off with. Sorry Cubs fans, I'm keeping this one.

These repacks certainly do like 2012 Topps. Interestingly there were two Thomas Field cards (he's the Rockie card in the bottom right) in the middle of the package right on top of each other. 

Some 90s stars. 1995 Leaf is a pretty foil-y and unreadable set. Don't get me wrong, I like the design, especially the diamond in the upper left with a profile shot, but do we really need all that foil? It makes the names completely unreadable.

Hey, this is pretty cool. A 1991 Topps Rookies Larry Walker card. Even though my Expos collection is now primarily focused on pre-1987 cards, this will make for a nice addition. This was the last year that Topps produced the Rookies subset.

Here's a card that goes into a new collection, that being throwback uniforms. I've always like cards featuring players in old school uniforms, no matter the sport, so I'll be on the lookout for these when perusing dime and quarter boxes.

Hey look, a very green parallel card of Erasmo Ramirez, whose name is nearly erased from all the green in this card.

Repacks are all about randomness, so what could be more random than three mid-90s catching prospects, only one of which I've heard of. For some fun, let's review the careers (with the help of Baseball Reference) of the three catchers who share this card.

First up, Kevin Brown who played in a handful of games over the 1996 and 1997 seasons with the Rangers before being dealt to Toronto. With the Blue Jays in 1998, he saw action in 52 games and hit .264 with two homers and 15 RBIs. After that season, he never appeared in more that 17 games in any one season and bounced around from the Blue Jays to the Brewers and two final games with the Red Sox in 2002.

Next, there's Ben Davis who spent 7 years in the bigs, mostly with the Padres. His most prolific season was 2001 playing in 138 games with a .227 average, 11 HRs, and 57 RBIs. Most of his career though was spent as a serviceable back-up catcher with the Padres, White Sox, and finishing up with the Mariners in 2004.

Finally, the most notable of the batch and that's Bobby Estalella, who played 9 years in the majors most notably with the Phillies and the Giants, but also spent time with the Yankees, Rockies, Diamondbacks, and Blue Jays. Like his counterparts on this card, he was a mostly a backup catcher but landed a starting role with the Giants in 2000 hitting .234 with 14 home runs and 53 RBIs in 106 games.

I love the 80s ... especially 80s cardboard. Plus, who can go wrong with Thad Bosley in the White Sox softball uniforms, an early Donruss card of Larry Bowa, and an old-school Indians card. The rest of these are just icing on the cake.

Along with the 2012 Topps I mentioned earlier, there was a handful of 2014 Topps as well. These were the best of the batch. I always get 2013 and 2014 confused as the designs look nearly identical. Side note, I really dig the uniform on the Rafael Soriano card.

Lastly, there was a pack of Triple Play that was probably acquired for a song. I was tempted to not even open in and throw it in some random trade package but my curiosity got the best of me and I figured I could give the cards to my three year old son. Then I found this ...

I guess this would be classified as a hit? I'm not sure but I know I've never seen anyone pull a card like this from a Triple Play pack. Then again, not many people are opening packs of Triple Play these days. They're mostly thrown on the scrap heap with packs of 1990 Donruss and any other unwanted junk wax cards. I'll give this card to my son, I think he'll enjoy it.

This wasn't the best repack ever but it was still fun to open regardless. I've got the itch now so I might have to grab another one of these next time I make a run to Walgreens.