When Never Again Becomes Just Once More

Aloha, everybody, 

You may recall I was bit by the repack bug within seconds after dropping off the goods for Operation Cardboard Rain. 

I couldn't resist the lure of a hit in every four boxes (I've had some luck with that before), so I took a shot. Here's how I did...

This box came with an unopened pack of 1991 Upper Deck. I haven't opened one of these since the early 90's, so I felt nostalgic as I tore the foil pack open. I once again had the feeling of hope for the only real insert from the Nolan Ryan series. I tore open many a pack trying to complete that set. 

I hadn't written a post for Nacho Grande's Blogger Bat Around on difficult sets to complete because I don't consider myself a set collector. I figured I had nothing along those lines to write about. However, chasing those Upper Deck insert sets back in the day (Ryan, Aaron, Williams) are about as close to that chase as I ever came. 

I didn't pull a Ryan or a Ken Griffey Jr., but I did catch a Dodger...

A cheater...

And one of my favorite pulls overall from the box...

Speaking of pulls from the box, here are the only other cards worthy of note...

Game faced Stewart, who I have no doubt still wears the same face when he's negotiating deals for his players as an agent...

A Rookie Card...

A former Dodger hero turned jinxed manager...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Another Dodger...

A card featuring Ron Cey's doppelganger...

Yet another Dodger. 

Mariano's posture might suggest he's pulling back from a bunt attempt, but this was his usual batting stance, which explains his  "all defense, no offense" career...

I'm glad to catch a few Dodgers after my last repack was chock full of Astros. 

This card was a a surprise...

Speaking of surprises, a nice catch of Cy Young. He's on a dopey game card, but I'll take it...

Team USA is all the rage these days, so why not...

So I had a one in four chance of pulling a hit from my repack. I've had modest luck before. Would my lucky streak continue? 

Ta-Dah!  Young Solarte is still in the hunt to make it all the way up to the show, so there's some nice potential here. 

It's not a Cy Young auto, but it'll do. 

Aloha!

Part 3 - The Final Repack!

Aloha, everybody,

Here comes the last of the sweet little cardboard that came out of some Dollar Tree repacks that landed atop my laptop.  Let's begin with an oddity...

It was odd enough that I got a dealer's handful of these "Peter Gammons Inside the Numbers" inserts, but the real oddness came from Jose O-fer-man actually being considered a good enough player to be featured in the set. 

How about some genuine battle scarred, well loved cardboard...

That's another odd thing about these repack cards. A lot of them seem to be straight from somebody's collection. Topps aint the only guys with pre-owned cards.

Here's some old time Mariners pitchfork goodness...
 

And a pretty nice shot of Jason Kendall...
 

I always enjoy cards of Neon Deion...

Tatooine made an appearance...
 

A cheesy and forgettable card design cannot take away from this magnificent photo. Barfield and a shirt sleeve, sunny day dominate the card...

A little more well-loved cardboard featuring a well-loved California Angel...
 

  
Finally, you know it's a good haul when you pull Doc Gooden, repack or no repack.

Next time: A PWE Jenga 

Aloha!

Mailday, Michael Jordan and a Request

Aloha, everybody, 

Good news for Al Kawamoto, the winner of my 100,000 views contest, and a few other folks.  That good news looks like this...

Yesterday I hit the post office and sent out the first prize (I hope you dig it, Al), and I also sent packages to the second and third prize winners, as well as to Jim from GCRL, who was the last place winner. 

I also sent out a few packages and PWE's because...why not? So check yer mailboxes, because a Happy Cards in the Mail Day package may be coming to you. 

All of that said, unfortunately, I couldn't send one package out, because I realized I didn't have an address...

This lonely fistful of cards is waiting for you. Just grab my email from my profile page here and shoot your addy out to me, and I'll get those cards out to you. 

Speaking of cards, I recently had some luck with one of those repack boxes of cards...

 While standing in line at the local Rite Aid, I spied one lone box sitting on the rack. So I took a chance to see if I still had some repack mojo. I didn't score a hit, but I did pull two little cardboard joys...

 This Mantle is a very handsome card in hand. It's shiny, but not too, and it contains Mantle's career stats on the rear, with league leader stats in red. Very cool. 

The other card is from a player that I've secretly always wanted on a card, but never came across, so it was another small thrill to pull this guy from the box...

I guess I still had a bit of repack mojo in the tank. 

Aloha! 

When There's No Topps Heritage In Stock, You Buy This...

Aloha, everybody,

Last week I saw 2016 Heritage popping up around the blogosphere, so I popped over to Target to get my share of the new cardboard. 

While my local store is usually right on time with stocking the latest product, there was no Heritage to be found, so I was left with a choice - buy more 2016 Topps, or take a chance on something like this...

They had me at 1:4 boxes contain a hit. That sure is better odds than I'm getting with the smoke set from Topps. Besides, the worst that would happen is I'll find one Dodger and I'll gain 99 more cards to replenish all of your trade stacks. With a repack we all win! It was settled. 

The card box also included one pack...

1992 Score. The back of the pack says the big pull from this one will be a Todd Van Poppel rookie insert. Somebody wondered the other day if anybody remembers when Van Poppel was big in the hobby. Here's a pack from those days. I went right into ripping this one. How did I do? 

The Van Poppel still eludes me. On to the rest of the repack, which might still contain a hit!

I got one World Series hero. Fleer took what could have been a simple, but decent enough card, and blew it with that Rocky and Bullwinkle curtain. I suppose it was also too much trouble to add Frank Viola's name.
 

I got some scrubs. Ol' Donny looks pretty much surprised that he actually hit the ball. 
 

I caught this very attractive purple shiny one. Is that Mount Fuji in the background? 

 I did catch a player that I collect - and on a DK that I didn't yet have! 

  More scrubs. 

And a past Cubbie...

Is that a portrait of Dunston on his sweatband? Did all of the Cubs have their portraits on their arms? 

I even pulled a Dodgers scrub...

Here's Landreaux in a familiar pose - checking how high his pop up is headed. 

Did I mention yet this repack was obviously meant to be shipped to the bay area? It was FULL of Giants.

 Lincecum is on the downside of his career now. It seems the Padres are taking a hard look at him. Part of me is hoping the Dodgers will lock him up cheaply - just to keep him out of the rotations of our division rivals, and he may have some gas left in the tank. 

I saw him pitch up at Toy Car Stadium in Frisco back in 2013. It was one of the best pitching performances I've seen in person. He struck out 18 Cubs that afternoon. The happy ending was the Giants offense couldn't score and the Giants still lost the game.

I got a nice minor leaguer card. 

And not one, but two of the same checklist...

How about this Braun card...
 

I could swear my grandmother had a portrait on her wall of Jesus with the exact, same eyes. 

I pulled another Ramon Martinez card (again, new for me)...

And you can never go wrong with Michael Jack Schmidt...
 

 These All-Star cards seem to always be found in these repacks, but thats ok, because it's Schmiddy. 

 Oh...did we beat the odds and pull a hit?  

You bet we did - but it's a hit with a grain of salt. 

It seems the kid has a lot of potential, but he's struggled in showing concrete results. The Blue Jays are moving him from a starting pitcher to the bullpen, so we'll see what happens with that. 

On the bright side for Cardona, he's young, so there's time for everything to work out.

The bright side for us is I pulled 2 new Ramon Martinez cards for me and 98 for all of you. 

Aloha!