Second Box Of Finest

A few weeks ago I posted the first of 2 boxes of 2009 Finest I have. Here is the results of the second.


Finest Base:
CC Sabathia
Cliff Lee

The 2 Cy Young Winners for the Tribe. Current Yankee CC Sabathia and future Yankee Cliff Lee. It's a shame that we can't keep these guys due to cost, but that's not exactly a ground breaking opinion. It is what it is I guess.

I like that CC is hitting. The guy hits (and weighs) a ton. A lot of people really thought he would end up in the NL just so he could hit too. That would have made me happy.



Refractors:
JD Drew
Ryan Howard
Chris Lambert
Lance Berkman

Once again these refractors have strange little lines going through the border. The scan doesn't pick them up. I have no idea what to make of them.





Blue Refractors:
Johnny Damon 228/399
Troy Glaus 243/399
Andrew Carpenter 177/399
Eric Chavez 340/399

Not a very strong crop of blue refractors, although I think Eric Chavez will catch fire any day now. No seriously, I think a disgruntled A's fan might sneak up behind him and light him on fire. Either that or Billy Beane will do it.

Hey, it's not like they are paying him $12 mil a year or anything for his -28 OPS+ this year. Really, this guy has a negative OPS+ so far in 2009. I didn't know that was possible.

Green Refractors:
Albert Pujols Green Refractor 62/99

Nice. Always good to see Pujols. Probably the best pull you can get nowadays.


Gold Refractors:
Lance Berkman Gold Refractor 24/50

Not having a great first half, but not terrible either. This guy is really good. All this means is he's probably going to have a monster second half. Buy low fantasy leaguers. Thank me later.


Rookie Redemption #10

Think this one will be Strasburg? Can they put him in this product and call him a rookie? I don't see why not. They seem to throw the "rookie card" logo around with reckless abandon in every other product.


Will Venable Patch 161/170

Will Venable. Love this guy. Fantastic prospect. Says here that he plays for San Diego. I've been a huge fan ever since I first heard about him when I pulled this card.


Conor Gillaspie Patch 098/107

Conor Gillaspie is a guy I've heard of. The more of these auto patch cards I pull, the less I know what the hell I'm supposed to do with them. They're still cool looking.

Not as good as my first box, but still not too shabby. Some cool refractors in there with the Pujols and Berkman. Not enough Indians, but there never is.

Grady is 1 and 0

Feel free to move along. This post is about my kid and stuff.

I'm that guy. You know the one. The idiot who takes his infant son to the ballgame and disturbs everyone sitting around him. Judge me if you want, it was awesome. Seriously good times.

About a week ago, Sunday, 5-31 to be exact, Grady attended his first Tribe game. Against the Yankees no less. My friend Brad and his wife, who Katie and I get about 10 tickets a season with, also have a new member of their family. Riley is about 10 months. Grady is about 8.

We had tickets for that game, but never got around to getting a babysitter. I guess we figured that it's never too early for the kids to start rooting for the Tribe and hating the Yankees. Maybe Gloria James should have taken Lebron to a game when he was just a little guy.*

*I'll give Lebron a pass for his Yankee fandom. I figure since he is...you know...the greatest basketball player on the planet, he can root for whatever freakin' baseball team he wants and I'll still want him on my team. I have no idea why this is an issue.

So we packed up the kids and headed on out to the Jake (or Prog, I guess). It was Carl Povano vs Phil Hughes. Unfortunately, Grady's namesake (Grady Sizemore for those of you who have never read this blog before) was put on the DL that day and didn't play.

Pavano was dealing and the Tribe took a 3-0 lead after 3. They tacked on another in the 5th. In the 6th, the Yankees closed to 4-2. And, they tied it in the 8th. It was a good game.

In the 9th, Eric Wedge must have decided that it makes little sense to save Kerry Wood for save situations when we rarely seem to be in them. I was very happy to see him. They Yankees weren't as Wood pitched a scoreless ninth. Peralta singled in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth off of David Robertson who tried in vain to clean up Phil Cokes mess.

Tribe 5 Yankees 4

Grady Kramer: 1-0

To tell the truth, we didn't know what to expect. I hoped we'd last more than 3 innings. Figured we'd have to leave around the 5th or 6th. I was wrong. Both kids were great. No crying or anything. They lasted the whole game. Everyone around us loved them. (What do you expect? People love babies.)

I screwed up and didn't take many pictures. I did get a few so here they are.


Here is my wife Katie (who wouldn't let me name him Dayf) and the kid.


Here is Katie (doing her Earl Hickey impression), Grady, Lisa and Riley. I need to get Riley one of those pink "Grady's ladies" shirts. If you think that there are not constant jokes about the future of little Grady and Riley to my friend Brad, you don't know me very well.


Here I am with the Kid before we realized that it was cold as hell and we needed to get him something warmer to were. You know, the way good parents do.


Here's the happy family.


This is Grady in the 8th inning right after Mark Teixiera tied the score.


Here are the good guys celebrating after Peralta's game winning hit.


And, here is Grady after the game, exalting in the glory of the win. Looking an awful lot like his dad; fat, dumb, and possibly slightly drunk. Don't worry, the girls drove. (And I wasn't really drunk anyway). Can you believe that not too long ago this kid weighed 3 lbs?


Going to the game I was getting all of these mental images in my head about how I was going to make Sportcenter. I could see it happening. Mark Derosa would foul off a ball. Id be holding Grady in my left arm. Seeing that I had time I'd slowly put my beer in the cup holder and stand up. Shielding the kid, I'd slightly turn my back to make sure he was safe. With my right hand I'd make a sure, barehanded grab of the ball. The crowd goes wild for me. Seeing the spectacular play, the TV people come and do an interview with me. Word gets back to the dugout that the guy who made the amazing play has named his kid after Grady Sizemore. We get invited to the clubhouse after the game. Grady, instantly recognized as the good luck charm is made into this season's mascot. We are given season tickets and a free limo to every game. Inspired, the Tribe goes on a tear, easily overtaking the anemic AL Central and win the division going away. The season ends with a World Series win against LA. We are flown to LA for the series clinching game and, ever the good sport, Night Owl takes us all out to a fancy restaurant after the game: the In-N-Out on Radford.

It almost happened. Maybe next time.

I Will Now Blow Beardy's Mind

Beardy has remarked to me on more than one occasion that he cannot understand how I have unopened wax ready to bust. He probably shares the majority opinion in that unopened wax doesn't usually last very long among collectors.

Well, here is a picture of my unopened wax boxes:



There are probably around 45-50 boxes to open. A few have some packs opened. The only one in this picture that is empty is the Turkey Red box in the top left corner. That is the box from the Turk Off. I usually would just throw it away but I got a call from Cooperstown so instead I'm sending it to the Museum.

Most is junk wax, or as Rob (VOTC) sometimes calls it, kindling. But it's still fun to open. Some of you out there have gotten some of the stuff pictured here, but the vast majority remains sealed.

There is some good stuff too. Some Chrome, Masterpieces. Turkey Red, Finest Threads...not too shabby.

I keep it because I refuse to get behind in my organization and filing. So, if I have cards to be filed I will not open new cards.

Don't judge me...that's the way I like to do it.

In fact, I'm all caught up right now. That box of 2009 Finest looks pretty good....

Bad Wax Break: 1999 Bowman's Best

Here is a pack od 1999 Bowmans Best from the Bad Wax Group Breaks. I love these. You just get a pack or two of some random box for a few bucks and see what you get. Check them out. Just make sure that there is enough room for me.


#112 Ben Davis




















#146 Preston Wilson




















#98 Tony Gwynn Best Performers




















#97 Ben Grieve Best Performers




















#96 Kerry Wood Best Performers




















#166 Bobby Seay




















Not too bad. It won't be the best pack, but with a Gwynn it sure won't be the worst either. And, I even got an Indian...even if he is wearing a Cubs Jersey.

I really like these. Very Shiny.

Turkey Red Prospectus

I've spent valuable time that I just don't have breaking down the Turk Off in an effort to bore everybody to tears. What follows is the result of that resounding success. Here are the Turk Off stats.

Sure, I won the Turk Off. But did I really win? Or did I just get lucky with some timely ripping? Let's be honest, if I'm Turking Off against anyone but Beardy I lose because their favorite player isn't Markakis. So who's box was really better? Let's see if we can find out.

Quick scoring adjustment: I screwed up. In pack #1 I didn't count Chase Wright against myself. He's a Yankee. That's -1 point. It does not affect the outcome. Sorry about that.

Base Set: 186 Cards (or 185, depending on how you look at it. I will explain)

Beardy: 155/186 = 83.3%
doubles: 19

MS: 139/186 = 74.7%
doubles: 35

total: 158/186 = 84.9%
doubles: 87
triples: 46
quadruples: 3

conclusions: Beardy pulled a much higher percentage of the total set. If you are a set collector then his is the box to bust. In fact my box would have only yielded an extra 3 base cards toward the set. There is very little value in busting more than one box of this if you are interested only in the base set.

One thing that is interesting is that I pulled 1 more card than Beardy. This is because one of my packs with the Relic had 8 cards instead of 7. I didn't realize this at the time. Normal packs have 8 cards but relic packs only have 7. This took a little over 28 hours for me to figure out. It was driving me absolutely bonkers. I was ready to stick my finger in a socket to restart my brain. You have no idea how frustrating it is to have the numbers off by 1 and not know why. (And to know that it doesn't matter, not even a little bit, to anyone but yourself.) But you Just. Can't. Let. It. Go.

Missing:

Beardy: 31 cards - all of them SPs

MS: 47 cards - 16 regular base cards 31 SPs

Total: 27 missing - all of them SPs

Conclusions: Beardy pulled every card possible that wasn't an SP. Here is another thing that hung me up for a while. At first I thought that there was 1 regular card that we both missed...#112 Ramon Hernandez. But, I thought I remembered seeing on Beardys break. Sure enough, Beardy has Ramon Hernandez listed as #67. #67 is actually Chase Wright (Yankee Puke). I concluded that Beardy mistakenly wrote the wrong number on his post and in fact does have every regular card.

The other card that caused me trouble was #56 Chase Utley. This is not listed as a short print. It is an Ad Back. However, unlike every other Ad Back card, this does not have an analogous regular base card. This card ONLY exists as an Ad Back. You cannot pull the #56 Chase Utley Card without it being an Ad Back. Strange. I have no idea why Topps did this. What it accomplished is throwing me for a loop for a significant amount of time that could be used NOT giving my wife MORE grounds for divorce than she already has.

Obviously Beardy's box has the edge in this aspect.

SPs:

Beardy: 5/35 - Kurt Suzuki, Carlos Lee, Chase Utley, Dallas Braden, Todd Helton

MS: 5/35 - Mickey Mantle, Kurt Suzuki, Carlos Zambrano, Mark Buehrle, Eric Byrnes

Total 9/35 - Only double is Kurt Suzuki which, as Beardy pointed out, is a great looking card

If you are busting boxes to get to the SPs then it would be beneficial to bust more than one. I don't know how many boxes it would take for the law of diminishing returns to kick in, but I know it's more than 2.

I have to call this one a tie. I just don't know how to judge who go the better of the SPs. My first inclination would be to give it to myself because of the Mantle. But, Utley, Helton, and maybe even Lee are all better than anything else I got. So I'm calling it a draw.

Ad Backs:

Beardy: Miguel Cabrera

MS: Johan Santana

Conclusions: The only conclusion I have here is that we got screwed on Ad Backs. The players we pulled are both good so I'm calling it a draw.

I'm not going to complain too much, though, because if they took out Ad Backs and put in Silks and Black Refractors then we definitely came out ahead.

Yankees:

Beardy: 18 cards

MS: 25 cards

Conclusions: This includes all Yankees...Mantle, Jeter, and A-Rod too. Unless you are Drew, Sooz, or any of the other nameless rabble of brainwashed fans, Beardy has a decided edge in this category. It's not even close. I knew I was pulling a lot of Yankees.

Mantles:

Beardy: 6

MS: 7

Conclusions: This is closer than I thought. I thought I was going to kill Beardy in this category but it's rather close.

The question becomes whether it's better to get more Mantles...or is it better to get less? I refuse to let a baseball card company ruin the thrill of pulling one of the greatest players of all time. If you would be pumped to pull a vintage Mantle then this should be no different. So I get the edge due to having more cards and one of them being the SP, which unlike Beardy, I think looks rather nice.

Major Stars:

Beardy: 20

MS: 20

Conclusions: Dead even, just like the Turk Off. This is probably the reason it came down to the wire. Nobody pulled more cards of the stars. I know that we need to put more thought into the list next time, but it is what it is.

Negative player pulls:

Beardy: 5

MS: 5

Conclusions: This is the list of 5 players that were negative points for no reason whatsoever. We both pulled them all once. Even Steven (or Stephen I suppose).

Home Teams:

Beardy: 5 Orioles 2 Indians

MS: 2 Orioles 2 Indians

Conclusions: Another category that Beardy has a decided edge in. Actually 5 Orioles is probably a pretty good haul.

Silks:

Beardy: Cole Hamels

MS: Josh Beckett

Conclusions: The odds that I found are that these are 1:85 to pull so we both did very well. To tell the truth, I would call it a tie in any other situation. But, I had to go and put up that pole and Hamels got the slight edge with 5 votes to 3 and another 3 votes calling it a tie. Of course those 5 Hamels votes were probably Beardy at home, at work, at his parents, at his neighbors, and at the strip club...but I can't prove it. Another advantage Beardy.

I'm still pumped as hell that I pulled that silk, though.

President Cards:

Beardy: James Polk and George Washington

MS: Benjamin Harrison and Abe Lincoln

Conclusions: Another draw. I tried to think of a reason to give this to myself but I just can't. We both got an all star and a solid #7 hitter. As even as it could be.

ARod Road to 500:

Beardy: #325

MS: #321

Conclusions: I'm giving myself the win here because 321 is divisible by 3 and 325 is not. Also Beardy made a huge stink about this. Actually, he was just trying to get as many points as he could...just like any good Turker Offer would. Commish Dayf wasn't having it and soon sanity was restored. Nobody wins with these cards. But, I need SOMETHING about my box to be better.

Chrome:

Beardy: 6 - Jeff Kent, Fransisco Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Mark Teahen, Johan Santana, Andy Pettite

MS: 6 - Jeff Kent, Chipper Jones, Johan Santana, Carlos Beltran, JD Drew, Alex Rios

Conclusions: It comes down to Rodriguez, Teahen, and Pettite vs Jones, Drew, and Rios. It's a tough call but I'm giving it to myself. Drew and Petitte are about a wash. I personally like Rios over Teahen, and Chipper over Fransisco Rod is a no-brainer. Close, But my box is better here.

Chrome Refractor:

Beardy: 3 Vlad Guerrero, Yovanni Gallardo, Roger Clemens

MS: 3 Jason Schmidt, David Ortiz, David Eckstein

Conclusions: Man this is close. If anyone can come up with a reason that one is better I'm all ears. Until then this is a push.

Chrome Black Refractor:

Beardy: Hideki Okajima

MS: Nick Markakis

Conclusions: MS in a landslide here. Not even close. This card is the sole reason that I won the Turk Off.

Cabinet:

Beardy: Michael Young

MS: Johan Santana

Conclusions: I win this little battle. Santana smears Young. The only problem is now I have this Ginormous card that I have no idea what to do with. Of course, I have that problem with Santana. Beardy has the same problem but with Michael Young, so I still win.


Overall Thoughts:

Beardy's box was better. Hands down. Our pulls were very similar, but it wasn't even close as far as base set and doubles. Plus, I had to put up with a significant amount of Yankees over what Beardy dealt with.

There you go. There's the numbers.

If anyone has bothered to read or at least skim this whole damn thing please leave a comment so I know that I didn't spend 197 hours of my life compiling this only to have nobody read it. If you don't think it would take very long, look at the posts and try to think of how you would go about figuring out who had doubles of what and how many base cards were pulled yada yada yada. Then think about how many little compiling mistakes you would make and have to go back to figure out why the numbers don't work and are off by 1 or 2.

I have no idea why I did this.

RIP David Carradine

I just ran across this sad story. Apparently, Kung Fu's David Carradine hanged himself in Bangkok.

I never was a big Kung Fu fan but I loved him in Kill Bill. He was perfect for that part. How he went is sad. It just seems like it would have been more appropriate if he had succumbed to the Five Pionted Palm Exploding Heart Technique.

Good night Sweet Kung Fu Prince.

I'm Still Here!

Basking in the glow of my Turk Off come from behind upset victory.

Not that anyone cares but my interweb connection on my home computer took a giant #2 sometime monday afternoon and I have been sans internet since then. I am at work now, where it is a pain to post and I can't add any scans or pictures. I have no idea when this crisis will be resolved as I am an idiot. I will probably have to call the Geek Squad...seriously.

I've been pretty busy at work so even my usual stupid comments have taken a nosedive.

I just wanted anyone who is concerned to know.

Alright, back to work.