2010 Topps Series One Hobby Box Breaks (4 boxes)

My brother and his family gave me a check for my birthday and Christmas with the caveat that the money must be spent on something fun.  Twist my arm why don't ya!?  So I bought four 2010 Topps hobby boxes.

I'll just show some of my favorite cards, inserts, and the hits.

 

I have to lead with this card for two reasons.  First, Bumgarner has pitched two seasons in the minors and accumulated some of the best stats in the history of minor league baseball (1.65 era, 27-5, 273 innings pitched).  And he was just a teenager.  I hope the Giants have him in the rotation all season.  I'm very curious to see what becomes of Bumgarner.  Having Lincecum around will no doubt help him learn even faster.  

The second reason I chose this as the first 2010 card to appear on my blog is that this picture of Bumgarner could fit into almost any era.  It could be 1958, 1968, or 1978.   Also, he looks closer to age 35 than age 19 in this shot.  Add to all this a very suspicious looking microphone and we have card perfection.

What a great photo!  Little Ichiro winning a game with a home run, presumably.

Fielder hit a walk-off home run against the Giants.  He jumped on home plate and pretended to "explode".  The force of the "bomb" knocked his teammates down.  This has the feel of football showboating (a bad thing).  It is also a reason purists could point at Fielder and say they dislike him.  The Giants certainly were not happy with the Brewers' behavior.

My feeling is although I generally hate showboating, I found this to be so alarming, original, and shocking, that I laughed like mad.  As they said on MLB Network that night, it was a clever and hysterical thing....once.  Two times or more and this funny moment becomes a terrible trend.  They never did it again.  They knew.  And from it we have one of the best cards ever.

This was the day Henderson eclipsed Ty Cobb in career stolen bases.  When he passed Brock, Rickey proclaimed himself the greatest player of all time (or that's how everyone took it).  Nolan Ryan threw a no hitter that day, stealing much of Rickey's thunder.  Rickey gave us a thousand goofy quotes.

Like others, I really enjoy the Tales of the Game inserts.  They picked out some unusual moments.  You get about six a box.

Wow.  I had no idea.  Pretty amazing.

Boggs ate chicken before every game.

The Legendary Lineage insert set design doesn't really do much for me.  It manages to be both plain and busy at the same time.  

Although the lineage info on the back of the Robinson/Guerrero card is lame (apparently both hit home runs and that scares pitchers), for the most part the ties prove interesting.  For example, on the Cobb/Granderson card, the back notes Granderson's 23 triples in 2007 were the most since Cobb's 24 in 1917.

Nine per box.  

 

The Franchise History cards really capture the romance of stadiums.

Doesn't Honus Wagner look five feet wide here?

Hmmm...I guess I didn't scan a single of the Peak Performance cards.  The mix ranges from today's stars like Sizemore and Utley, to legends of the past (even Dizzy Dean).  You get nine PP per box. 

The backs of these have some pretty cool information too.  I think Topps really put a lot of care and heart into what they wrote about this year.  I am impressed.  Also, the back of the Mize card uses the word penultimate, which is one of my favorite words.  Win.

Turkey Reds never leave me.  Never.  I pulled nine per box.  

When I was a kid (35) you used to be able to buy entire boxes of Turkey Reds.  Every card in the pack was a Turkey Red!  The Salad Days (2007).

You get about six History of the Game cards per box.  Who is that giant guy on the top left?  This is two pictures combined, I assume.  The Ruth shot is sublime.  The catcher and the giant man aren't needed.

 

The Athletics had first pick in the first MLB Draft in 1965.  "Hmmmm, we'll take...let's see...Johnny Benc---wait.  No, no.  We'll take Rick Monday."  

 

The Cards Your Mom Threw Out insert set is super.  I like reproductions of old cards.  The only problem I have is I hate the name of the insert.  It works fine for this Yaz and other old card remakes, but the set also includes newer cards such as Longoria from 2009 Topps.   Topps is either saying "Our cards are so worthless moms throw these out a year after their kids buy them," or they are saying moms are really dumb.

The original backs like this Yaz come about one per box.  The standard back cards come nine per box.  

These are the other three original backs I pulled.  Ripken and Murray!  Pretty lucky for an Orioles' fan.

Some of my favorites of the standard backs.

 

What a card!  The gold works perfectly with the Giants' colors (these are serially numbered to 2010).

The Giants sure have a handful of exciting players.  All very young too.

 

Six gold cards per box.  Click images for a larger look.

Black serially numbered to 59.  Utley!

Not bad.

Better.

Better still.

Ah ha!  The big hit.  S/N to 99.  A sweet card for sure.

I am a bit disappointed that four boxes yielded no autos, but that is my only complaint.

I think 2010 Topps is one of their best sets in years.  I love the base design and there's some excellent photography along with interesting inserts (and lots of them).  The packs are a lot of fun to open considering the cost ($45-50).  I'm also kind of excited to redeem my 24 'Million Dollar Card Giveaway' cards.  It adds another layer of intrigue.

Mr. Topps Company, I approve.  Brother and family, thanks!

2005 Donruss Champions Hobby Box Break

Blowout Cards from Black Friday arrived on a sunny Monday.

2005 Donruss Champions Hobby Box

24 packs, 8 cards per pack

Look for (8) Game-Used or Autograph Cards and (16) Parallels per box on average
Cost: $49.95

I have never opened one of these boxes before so I was very excited.

(Click images to enlarge)

The nice thing about this set is that it's a 450 card base that's all about baseball.  You won't pull a picture of the Eiffel Tower or a cow standing upright on two legs.  There's no goofy fluff that I am aware of.  Just baseball.

The base design seems limiting.  A small picture combined with a repetitive look makes the cards visually enjoyable in only small doses.  There isn't much room for creativity from card to card.  The card background looks vaguely like flags from various countries.  A shot of the stadiums they play in would have been more pleasing.  Or even just green grass and blue sky.  I don't know that my opinion on the design is in the majority, however.

I was happy to learn that there are a lot of retired players.   Players like Early Wynn, Enos Slaughter, Tony Perez and Al Oliver, along with the usual bigger retired stars.

The design sits better with me when a retired player is shown.  There can't be a tangible reason.

There are also several different photos of numerous players.

Four Hendersons!  Henderson was the most I pulled of any one player.  I also landed three different Gwynn cards.  This multi-card idea of the same player is perfect for well-traveled players.

The total cards you will receive comes to 192.  65 of those cards were stars (a handful of doubles).  Another 15 or so were retired non-stars.

That 65 stars does not include the hits, which come fast and furious.  My box had 15 total hits (7 serial numbered cards, 7 game used cards, 1 auto).  At that pace, combined with nice player selection, any shortfall the design may have is steamrolled over.

 

 

 

Impressions Red Inserts: Toby Hall (#214/250), Austin Kearns (#018/250), Toby Hall (#069/250), Ben Hendrickson (#117/250) 

Ouch.  That's a collection of fail, as inserts go.  At least I can say "My Two Toby's" whenever I want to now.

Impressions Green Insert:  Charles Johnson (#17/25)

Impressions Blue Inserts:  Sean Casey (#096/100), Luis Matos (#099/100)

A bit better.  Lower serial numbers, better players.  No stars here either though.  I definitely had bad luck with the serial numbered players.

But Sean Casey is on the MLB Network.  He is a funny dude so I've become a fan.  Luis Matos is an Oriole so that always makes me smile.  Plus it's serial number 099 out of 100.  That means right after this they made one more and then the Warehouse Supervisor punched a big red button and thousands of machines came to a grinding halt.  Bells and whistles no doubt.  What is the saying?  You can't stop progress unless there's a big red button to push?

Backing up, pack one of the box started with this:

If Roberto Alomar is not an overwhelming first ballot Hall of Famer they need to close the doors on that place.  In my opinion he is the best all around second baseman in the history of baseball.

Roberto has two things going against him:

1.  He spat in the face of an umpire. 

2.  His decline was rapid and extreme.  He had 2389 hits at just age 33.  Coming off a .336 batting average in 2001, he would collect only another 335 hits between age 34-36 and would never hit above .263 during those final sad seasons.

What Roberto has going for him is staggering history:

12 straight all-star teams

10 gold gloves

5 times finished in the top six in MVP voting

8 times with 30 or more stolen base

9 seasons with a .300 or better batting average

Lifetime: .300 ba, 2724 hits, 210 home runs, 474 stolen bases

His 'Hall of Fame Monitor' score is 194.  On this scale if your score is 100 it means a good possibility of induction, and 130 is a virtual cinch.  He obliterates that scale. 

His 'Hall of Fame Standard' score is 57.  On this scale the average Hall of Famer rates a 50.  The higher the better.

I do believe Alomar will be a first ballot inductee but I am not convinced all the voters feel the same way.  He is quite possibly the most under appreciated superstar of the last 30 years.

Most of  his cards are nearly worthless.  Unfortunately the combination of being under appreciated in conjunction with his arrival in baseball during massive overproduction of cards, means his values may never rise much.

He is also a victim of the steroid era diluting his numbers.  Not because he is suspected of steroids, but because the steroid users redefined offensive greatness.

His rapid decline did come right around when steroid testing was implemented.  But it also came at about the time a natural player would drop off considerably.  The arc of his career is in line with a natural career.  Some things we will never know for certain.

The voters may be hungry to hang blame on an entire generation of players and in 2010 Alomar may get sucked into the vortex.  It will be interesting.  I hope it is not heartbreaking.

His rare cards may be a good investment right now.  Or not.

After the Alomar hit my hopes were high.  But then I was machine gunned with bad hit after bad hit.

Doesn't it seem like a million years ago when Hee-Seop Choi was considered a strong prospect?  He's only 30.  In 2009 he played for the Kia Tigers in South Korea.  He helped the Tigers win the league.  He's still hitting home runs (33) and still walking (103).

I had been randomly picking packs from the box.  At about the halfway mark my only hit that was actually a star player was the Alomer jersey from the first pack.  I had received about half the serial numbered cards by that point.  Combined with the above game used, I was beginning to conclude the set had too many junk hits.

But this turned out to be a heck of a comeback box.

In back to back packs I pulled:

Alright!  A player connected to the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Can't go wrong with Mr. Hodges.  The print run on this is 1200 although it's not serial numbered.  Not a low count but I don't care.

Wade Boggs! (1500 print run, no s/n.)  Chicken before every game.  Another wonderful player who doesn't get the attention he earned.  Boggs had a swing you could recognize from a mile away. 

Cobb used to say he could hit home runs if he wanted to.  In fact, as the story goes, he told a reporter he was going to show Ruth that a great hitter can hit home runs at will.  He supposedly stated he would swing for the fences for the next two games. Cobb went on to hit five home runs in those two games, no small feat for a man who hit just 112 home runs in the other 3033 games of his career.

They say Ichiro could hit for power if he wanted to as well, citing his batting practice home run shows. 

Boggs was another one of those "he could hit home runs if he wanted to" guys.  But as all of them say, it would take them out of their game.  I've always been suspicious of the whole claim that they chose not to hit for power.  

Boggs did in fact hit 24 home runs in a season that he "tried" to hit them out.  He also hit .363 that year so it didn't seem to negatively impact his game at all.  However that was in 1987 and we know that everyone hit home runs that year.  Boggs's power dipped back to its usual level in 1988 (5 home runs).

I am a big admirer of Boggs, home run debate aside.

Now we're cooking!

Three nice hits in a row.  (500 made, no serial number.)

Then with four packs left the success of the box was sealed:

 

Roberto's auto serial numbered 2/9.  Wow!

Yes of course I knew I pulled this when I was listing all his stats under his game used jersey card.  Look, I'm trying to raise his value through propaganda.  No, honestly I am a huge fan and am so happy and stunned to pull this card.  The bottom right corner has a small ding but I don't care.  I'm thrilled.  This is the lowest numbered print run of any auto in my collection.

After having some below average luck with a few different hobby boxes, the last two have been so exciting.  This is precisely why I'd rather stay in all night playing with cards than go to a movie.  I'm so addicted and I love it.

Below is the checklist for the base set.  I've also pictured the stated odds for the inserts.  Click 'em to read 'em.

Thanks for checking in and good luck to you all with your fun box breaks!