2009 Bowman Rack Pack Break

Stopped by Wally World today on the way home from work (to pick up some coffee, I swear), and felt that overwhelming urge to rip some packs. Nothing really looked too good, but I HAD to get something. I ended up leaving with a rack pack of the much maligned 2009 Bowman.

I know this year's Bowman release has been ripped to shreds so far by the collective collecting community (alliteration), but regardless I had to pick up a pack and see for myself. The main draw of the rack pack is that it promised 3 chrome cards, too bad they are all of dudes I've never heard of, and probably never will hear from again.



This is the base card design for this year's set. I am not a fan, and these are my least favorite of all the cards in this pack. We all know black bordered cards show every imperfection possible, and that's not even the half of it. This design is lame, and boring. Simple can be done right, as evidenced by the prospect cards that are yet to come, but this is just dullsville.

There were 11 base cards in this pack.
Lance Berkman 143
Raul Ibanez 63
Yorvit Gallardo 106
Ryan Howard 14
Daniel Murphy 66
Alexi Casilla 122
Jay Bruce 53
Shane Victorino 159
Felix Hernandez 50
Torii Hunter 30
Aaron Cook 116



Next up are the gold base card parallels. This was the only one in the pack, #135 Chris Young. Still not the best looking card, but the gold instead of the black does help a little.



This is prospect base card design, and is what I was hinting at earlier with a simple design being just fine, if done right. I'm not sure what it is, but other than the black border, I like this design quite a lot. It's plain yes, but not hideous, and I really dig the electric blue border.

There were 3 of these in this pack:
Michael Swinson BP72
Stolmy Pimentel BP6
Zach Moore BP85



There was also 1 gold parallel prospect card, #BP4 Julio Teheran. Once again, the gold helps.



This was the lone WBC card in the pack, and as you can see, the design is very similar to the regular prospect cards, without the semi-transparent white rectangle where the fake auto is found. Not sure why Topps did this, but they did. This is card #BW16, Cheng-Min Peng.



Finally, we have the Chrome Prospect cards. My scanner for some reason hates chrome cards, but loves refractors, so this card doesn't look near as nice in the scan, as it does in person. This is by far my favorite design in this years Bowman release, and it makes me wonder what the other cards would look like sans the terrible black border.

There were 3 chrome cards in this pack:
Michael Pineda BCP17
Patrick Ryan BCP50
Jeremy Farrell BCP28

So yeah, I think overall this is a pretty unspectacular release. Unlike years past, I have never heard of any of these "prospects" and probably will not be buying any more of this product. I do like the design of the prospect cards, especially the Chrome ones that feature a white border, but the checklist must be lacking cause with the exception of a few players that I have seen card of on other blogs, almost all these dudes seem to be unknowns. I'm not a prospector by any means, and probably wouldn't know them anyway, but usually I at least see a few recognizable names. The base set is also pretty ugly, but do people really buy Bowman for the base set anyway?

If you see anything you like, it is most definitely for trade.

2009 Goudey Pack Break 2

Here is the second retail pack out of the searched Target box:




Nick Swisher has an idea! That's his epiphany face. He's thinking "something isn't right here, why am I still in this uniform!" Nick, you make a good point.



Here's one of those 4-in-1 thingamajigs, this one featuring players from both New York teams. Look at Jeter's face!


Looks like he's trying to push out a turd! Don't give yourself an aneurysm dude!




Saved the best card for last, and to me, the best card is always an Oriole.

2009 Goudey Pack Break

Yesterday, I swung by the local Target, to pick up some TP (for my bunghole), and was forced to walk right past the card display to get there. Not buying retail is something I have been trying to do, since generally I never pull anything good, and am not a set collector (with the exception of A&G). For some reason I was unable to restrain myself, and picked up 2 packs of '09 Goudey. The box I pulled them from looked to have been opened fairly recently, and as per usual at Target, there were only a couple packs missing from the box. My Target has about 15-20 opened retail boxes at any given time, and each one of them is always missing just a pack or 2. Hmm... wonder why? I've never actually seen a pack searcher, and to me they're almost mythical creatures, but just like Sasquatch and Fairies, I know they exist because I've never, ever, ever gotten an auto or relic out of a retail loose pack. I imagine they look something like this, and if I ever catch one, I'll be sure to snap a fuzzy photo that can be analyzed to death like the Zapruder film.

Anyway, enough psycho-babble. Here is pack one:



Look at that face, LeBlanc indeed!






Both of the much maligned Yankee pitching prospects in this pack.



3 Yankees in one pack? This might just inspire a "why I hate Goudey" post...




That's all for pack one. Stay tuned for pack 2 coming up later today.

In unrelated news, as you may or may not know, Mr. Beardy is currently unemployed, since being laid off in January. While typing up this post, my phone rang, and I was offered a job somewhere that I interviewed last month! This means that I should be able to purchase more hobby boxes to bust for your viewing pleasure, and it also means that the government can stop paying my rent!