My Blaster Fantasy Team

This is my first blaster of 2010 and the first 2010 Heritage I have opened.  By the way, every single card from this break is available for trade.   Here is my rip.

Lastings has to be pissed about the picture Topps used for his card.

PACK 1

Omir Santos

Aubrey Huff

Brad Bergesen
Lastings Milledge
Ichiro
Fausto Carmona
Chris Carpenter
Ryan Howard NL MVP SP

I bought this blaster to play a game but not a dice one.

Pack 2

Clayton Kershaw

Adam Everett

Billy Butler

Bobby Cox MGR

Matt Holliday

Vladimir Guerreo DICE GAME

Dutsy Baker MGR

Josh Thole

Leyland looks about 100 years old on this card.  If he really was 100 he probably wouldn't make it through the season, that is why I picked him to loose the least amount of games. 

Pack 3

Jose Guillen
Justin Upton
Gary Sheffield
23 Amendment is Ratified
justin Morneau
Felix Hernandez
Fernando Martinez
Jim Leyland

What a crappy name to have (almost as bad as Lastings).  But that is one kick ass Topps Rookie Trophy.

Pack 4

John maine
BJ Upton
Micah Owings
Brandon Phillips
Carlos Gonzalez
Delmon Young
Tori Hunter
Elvis Andrus

I pull the priemer fantasy pitcher and it is an SP.  Normally I would be happy but in this case....

Pack 5

Ricky Nolasco
Michael Saunders
Trevor Cahill
Yadier Molina
A's Team
Ozzie's Aces
Jhoulys Chacin
Tim Lincecun AS SP

I chose this card to represent the pack becasue of the sunglasses.  I wonder if anybody wore sunglasses in the original 61 set.

Pack 6

Adam wainwright
JA Happ
Brad Hawpe
Ronny Cedeno
Alex Gordon
Core Four Pettite/Posadsa/Jeter/Rivera
Checklist
Akinori Iwamura

 

I thought about using Grienke here on my team using the half rule.  Say he has an ERA of 2.20.  Half of that would be 1.1 and work pretty good for my team.  But not nearly as good as half of the 0 ERA that Whitey puts up.  But I figured that dayf would throw that out so I am not using them. 

Pack 7

Cole hamels
Melvin Mora
Pirates Team
T&N Ford Grienke
Jimmy Rollins
Vladimir Guerrero
jason bay
Zach Duke

This was a horrible blaser.  I only got one Red Sox card.  Not only did I only get one Red Sox but it was a double.  The guy at the ballcard store already gave this one to me last week. 

What was Topps thinking Boston Speed Party.  Pedroia isn't exactly a league leader in steals.  Hey did anyone know that Jacoby isn't the fastest guy on the Red Sox team?  The fastest guy is a pitcher, no joke.  From what I have read Clay Buchholz is crazy fast and beats jacoby in a foot race. 

Pack 8

Felipe Lopez
Derek Holland
Jose Lopez
Adam Lind
Boston Speed Party Pedroi/Ellusbury
Max Scherzer CHROME REFRACTOR
marke buehrle
Derek Lowe

So there is my break.  Right after I busted it I thought "Crap I didn't get a catcher."  When in fact I got 3 of them.  Problem is none of them jumped out at me.  In reality though 3rd is where I am screwed.  Anyway I'll start with the core players on "My Team".

Core Players

Catcher: Yadier Milona - Again not the best of caatchers as far as fantasy goes.

Catcher 2: Omir Santos - UUUGGGG

First: Justin Morneau - Not as good as Pujoles, Texeria, or Cabrerra but a solid firstbaseman.

Second: Brandon Phillips - A highly ranked middle infielder is always nice to get on your fantasy team.

Shortstop: Jimmy Rollins - I picked him on 2 of my "real" fantasy teams, so I am happy with this.

Third: Melvin Mora - This is where I got screwed.  Of the thirdbaseman I pulled Mora is the only on in the majors.

Outfield: Matt Holiday - Matt is goingto have an awesome season batting back to back with Pujoles.

Outfield: Ichiro - Or Cheeto as hs is known by the Giants.  (you would know if you watched Baseball Tonight tonight)

Outfield: Justin Upton - My favorite of the Uptons.  Why?  He gave my son a ball while at a game.  He didn't just throw it to him either.  He picked him out of the crowd told everyone else to get back and gave it to him.  Then ruffled my boys hair and went to finish pregame.

The Pitchers

No closers to speak of in my box so I'm sticking to starters.

Chris Carpenter - Cy Young contender every year if he can stay healthy

Mark Buehrle - Southsiders Opening Day Pitcher.

JA Happ - His name makes me smile. Reminds me of happy.

Adam Wainwright - even bigger ballpark this year so he should be even better than last year.

Felix Hernandez - The King...

Clayton Kershaw - Please oh please no sophmore slump.

Cole Hamels - I need 2008 Cole not 2009 Cole.  We'll find out whoch one shows up to the ballbark real soon. 

I think the pitching staff looks alright that is why I went with the Howard SP instead of the Lincecum.  Well that and Tim has he arm mechanics of a Yugo and it is only a matter of time...

The Extras

Corner Infielder:  Billy Butler - Hopefully he has as good a year thi year as last.

Middle Infielder:  He ain't nothing but a hound dog but he is all I had to pick.

Outfielder: Adam Lind - Was last year a fluke?  I hope not (except for when he plays Boston).

Utility; Ryan Howard - using my Insert/SP rule on Howard.  (sucks I had to choose between him and Lincecum)

Scanned the inserts just for the heck of it.  Max is a Refractor and Topps screwed me out of a good baseball card with that amendment card.

I'm pretty happy with this team.  I haven't looked to see what everyone elses team looks like but I feel like mine is solid.  We'll see just how solid  over the next few months.

I need some 2001 set help

Did you stop collecting for a time and now wish that you had been collecting when a certain product came out?  When I first heard that there was a Red Sox only set put out by Fleer in 2001 I wished that I was collecting then.  I mentioned that a few weeks ago and like magic I had a trade offer.  Section 36 offered up almost every single on of them for some other Red Sox. 

This set is so awesome.  Just look at page #1 Yaz and Wiliams

Page 2 is loaded with HOFers also. 

Page 3 brings the greats also.  Can page 4 keep the streak alive?

Yep still going strong.

Dam the train just fell off the track.  Yes there are HOFers on there, 3 to be exact, but I am missing a card.

Ahhh another one missing!!

 

Back on track with the complete page.

To lazy to look it up but is Zimmer in the hall?  He is a baseball lifer an if he is not there the veterans will put him in eventually.  Alright here is the rest of the set no more comments till later.

Here starts the inserts.   I almost have a compete set of them too.

Well not a complete set of all of them.  This is the only Splended Splinter inster card I have.

Now here is where I need your help.  I am short 2 base cards out of 100 and 11 inserts out of 20. 

2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th Anniversary

38 Johnny Pesky
53 Dick Radatz

2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th Anniversary Yankey's Heroes
1
4
8
9
11
12
14
15
17
18
20

Please oh please if someone has these e-mail me.  I would love to knock this thing out. 

Thank You so much Section 36.  I would still be at 4 cards if it were not for you.

Sign or not to sign

Rumor is the Sox are working on resigning Beckett. They are not only working on it they are supposed to be close to terms.  That means a bunch of years with 1 2 3 of Lester Beckett and Lackey.  I can handle that.

The regular and mini Beckett came via Matt of Heartbreaking Cards.

Thanks Matt

Play at the Plate sends cards

One big ass card from Play at the Plate one little post from me.

 

I put it next to the Vaughn to show how big it is and because that is my favorite Stidio set they ever made.

A week late but my take on Nomar retiring a Red Sox

I have read a ton of article on Nomar's retirement. There are quite a few schools of thought on it.

Some people are happy because he was the face of the franchise for a decade. They are happy to see him come home gracefully and hope to see the number 5 in right field some day. Then there are the guys that hate that he retired as a Red Sox. These are the people that remember only when Nomar left the team and blame him for all those missed rings. These guys like to mention Jeter diving into the stands while Nomar sat on the bench. The last group of people thinks his one day contract was an act put on by ESPN to help announce his new job.

Now which way do you think I remember Nomar, the franchise face or the guy pouting in the dugout?

Drum roll please…

Neither.

I always saw Nomar as a really good player, nothing more. Emphasis on good but not great. Yeah I know he won two batting titles but that doesn’t make him great in my book. Heck, Mueller won one also this decade and he wasn’t a great player. I also don’t remember him as the quitter in the dugout. Throughout the season every player takes some days off and it isn’t his fault Jeter made a great play that day. I remember him for something else altogether.

I remember him as the famous husband of Mia Hamm.  Shocked? I know some may be. If you ask who the better athlete was it was defiantly Mia. Is that baseball blasphemy? Maybe but I was a soccer player as a kid not a baseball player. I was always a little kid and almost blind on top of that. I was just physically better equipped to play soccer.


Oh yeah and then there is the fact for most of Nomar’s Boston career I was a single and in my 20s. Whose poster do you think was on my wall Nomar or Mia?

By the way, the first two cards came via trade from Rickey Henderson Collectables.  The other three came from Gordon the Red Sox Collector.  I would write up full trade posts but I am sick of witing them ad I'm sure you all are equally sick of reading them.  That being said I have about 6 of them in que because I have done a ton of trading lately and I really think I need to highlight trades.

Card Bloggers Unite Fantasy League Draft Order thnks to Dinged Corners

This took way longer then I would have liked but we'll make it work.  To set the draft order of the league I asked everyone to give their birthday.  Since it wouldn't be fair to jst start with January I secretly sent Dingd Corners a request.  The request was "please pick a number between 1 and 365."  They sent back a very puzzled 57. The 57 transcribes to Feb 26.  So the draft order will be:

TasteLikeDirt

Balk Four
Cobb Halladay
Thoughts&Sox
beardy
GSNHOF
Play The Plate
Gordon
Cardboard Junkie
Paper Chase

For those participating watch the messenger on the league for rules.  Not tonight probably tomorrow.
 
And thanks to Patricia.

The Best Package of the Year - GCRL

I've sent off a ton of packages lately and sometimes after I pay the USPS bill I think is it really worth it?  I start to think that maybe it would be cheaper to just buy singles rather than make all of these long distance trades.  Well, packages like this one I received from GCRL remind me how great trading is.  I came home to a box of cards.  I don't mean a card box I mean an actual cardboard box of cards.  Here is some of the stuff I got.

First off, I need some help for you guys.  I don't know what set these first two cards are from.  Some TCMA set??  They are oversized and the backs make some kind of picture if you get them all.

A bunch of Canadian cards.  Those dang Canadians sure are stingy with their cards.  I have so few O-Pee-Chee it is pitiful.  Basicly if you want to send me something that I don't already have send some O-Pee-Chee.

I had one or two 1987 Fleer Mini cards before this but I never even realized that there were mini '87 Fleer stickers.

I always like getting a regular and a parallel card together in a trade.

These 2008 Opening Day cards are one of my guilty pleasures.  I love the guady red of this set.

A late 90s crazy shiney Crash the Game insert of Mo Vaughn.  Hey Topps and Upper Deck where are these kinds of inserts now???

You can't tell from the scan but this card is actually transparent.  Yep totally see through.  Again how come I don't get cool stuff like this in my 2010 packs?

It would be hard to have the best package of the year without having sme vintage in it.  Was Zimmer ever nicknamed the Rhino or do I just think of him that way??

Lastly a killer die cut card.  Again, where, where, where...

Thanks for all the awesome cards.  There were well over 150 cards in the box you sent that I didn't already have.