Hobby Shop Mystery Pack

My principal works at a hobby shop on the weekends. We went to the shop last weekend and picked up a few Cardinals, a pack of Bowman, and a mystery pack. The mystery pack is a brown lunch bag containing twenty cards and random relics or autographs.

This pack had a bunch of cards but no Cardinals and these two hits.

2005 Turkey Red Mark Mulder Jersey Card


2000 Diamond Authentics Jesse Ibarra Autograph. Here’s his claim to fame.

Topps 2009 Throwback Blaster

Local Target had at least a dozen of these so I picked one up to see what the fuss is about. The most obvious difference, without ever opening a pack, is the pack thickness. These are noticeably thicker than their Wal-Mart counterparts. I’d even put these 8 card packs head to head with the 10 card hobby packs and even the 12 card retail packs in terms of thickness.

Lucky enough to pull a few Cardinals. Loshe & Wellemeyer will need to  give us enough depth in the rotation and to just eat up innings…. especially if Carp goes down again. Motte is a fireballer supreme who has been lights out this spring; enough to pass Chris Perez as our closer in waiting and send him back to Memphis.

Here’s the back of the Pujols card in all its throwback cardboard glory.

Instead of the links back to Mantle, we get the six pitchers Albert has feasted on the most. Apologies to NightOwl, but as soon as I saw that in the corner, I knew Perez’s days with the Dodgers had to put him on the list and sure enough he’s number one. From the looks of it, he looks to be feeling OK:

Looks like Topps decided to make him feel better and listed his lowest career OPS against…

And finally, a few inserts… The Turkey Reds and Williams patch are all available as trade bait, as are all the non-Cardinal throwback base cards.

Thoughts on Topps 2009

Trying the blog by email on my phone...

- Junior waving goodbye in a White Sox uni is wrong
- Yadier Molina will not be #660 this year
- Glad to see Turkey Red back. The two we have picture modern stadiums
in the background.
- Are we losing a card or gaining a checklist?
- They couldn't find a better shot of Pujols for the MVP card? Really?
- Photography overall is much nicer this year.
- The player cards will give Isaac even more reasons to like Topps
Town. Look for gold parallels in addition to regular TT cards.