2009 Topps Heritage blaster. And the greatest card ever.

The garish yellow packs are a definite plus.

The blaster that says 'bonus' is a beeeeeg annoyance.

7 packs plus one extra pack! Also known as: 8 packs! This 7-plus-
bonus rigamarole is a pet peeve. Let me inform you right off the
bat, as it were, that this blaster had nothing good in it, from our perspective. Exceptin' for this card:

This is possibly one of the greatest baseball cards ever made. We'll
do a post about just this card alone. It is the essence of all that is
good in the world.

How goofy is this shot? We thought it said Cincy Clusters, like
maybe a candy bar.

What do these two Rookie Star/Topps Magazine cards have in
common? They came in the same pack, which is interesting. Have
you mailed us your answer yet? Tap tap tap tap tap tap. Tippity
tap. We're waiting. Ok, fine. We'll tell you what these two cards of
Perez and Cruz have in common. Wild hair and crazed expressions,
that's what.

Kerry Wood is in his Indians uniform: good. Then there is Manny
being an '08 Red Sock. What about the World Series shot? Kind of
nifty. One deeply troubling aspect of this box is that there was only
one stinkin' Met card.

And then there was Evan. Does he kind of look very "Mr. Baseball"y
here?in this shot?:

Does he often strike that pose? Selected by the youth of America?
What do yutes know?

Don't you think baseball people would stay in better shape? But Mr.
Manuel certainly seems to know how to manage a team. This was a
good box for Cliff. He's getting all kindsa Phillies from this box.

You know, when you get right down to it, Detroit has a nice
uniform. But we very, very much wish this were a Curtis
Granderson card.

In crowd shots from the sixties, one thing always stands out:
people are not dressed like slobs.
I think you can pretty much trace the fall of western civilization to
the fact that men now wear baggy shorts and flip-flops in public.

If you have to have a team card, then it should look like this one.
Sharp.

"Sparks" is one of those text-on-the-back words. Along with
"cranks," "caps," "clinches," and "knocks."

Shiiiiiiiiiinnnny! Mr. Ankiel looks quite square of jaw.

We KNOW we've seen that Zimmerman pic on the left before. On a
previous Heritage card, in fact. But that is not a good picture for a
baseball card on the right. It looks as if he's thinking, "Ack, another
baseball card photo session." Who will do worse this year, the
Nationals or the Mariners?

Oh, by the way. Did I mention that the Mets are going to win the
World Series?

Other cards in the blaster, in the order they emerged:

79 Carlos Pena

30 Grady Sizemore

22 Khalil Greene

264 Cole Hamels

366 Ervin Santana

302 Checklist (team Phillies)

99 Lastings Milledge

262 Mark Teahen

328 Jesus Flores

252 Brian Bannister

16 Chris Perez

31 Raul Ibanez

416 J.C. Romero

311 Jason Marquis

161 Jose Valverde

390 WS Game 5

491 Manny Ramirez -- continuing in dramatic fashion the trend of
cartooning the player on the back in the farthest thing from an
actual likeness that you can possibly imagine

199 David Purcey

287 Moises Alou

128 Scott Elbert

121 Angel Salome

43 Checklist (team Nationals)

221 Jim Leyland

66 Jesse Litsch

336 Paul Byrd

365 Carlos Quentin

330 Franklin Gutierrez

133 Luis Cruz

120 Fernando Perez

353 Luke Hochevar

112 Scott Lewis

289 Carlos Delgado

318 Evan Longoria

83 Derek Jeter

87 Jarrod Washburn

12 Jeremy Guthrie

53 Adam Jones

27 Nick Blackburn

183 Checklist (team Pirates)

209 Randy Wolf

415 Jayson Werth

C29 Rick Ankiel

136 Matt Tuiasosopo **excellent name**

14 Jeremy Sowers

234 Juan Pierre

466 Phillies coaches

NF7 Marshall Space Flight Center

352 Cincy Clusters Clouters

222 Charlie Manuel

254 Brandon Lyon

97 Kevin Kouzmanoff

BF2 Bill Mazeroski **greatest card ever**

266 Ricky Nolasco

203 Chris Iannetta

84 Yadier Molina

293 Joe Blanton

201 Chad Tracy

151 Checklist (team Giants)

119 Wilkin Castillo

480 Jorge Posada

146 Ramon Ramirez

C94 Ryan Zimmerman

197 Orlando Hudson

Of course if you need a card from the list, other than the Maz and
the Phillies for Cliff, just drop a line. These are pretty wonderful
cards but we don't have the completist urge.

Sweet Serendipity, thy name is Strawberry.

It's been a crazy weekend but we wanted to post and remind you,
the formidable blog people, that we exist. We begin with some
items from the mighty Motherscratcher, who sent us some packs

we had fun opening

recently--they made us very happy. We thought we were up to
snuff on Players Talking on Phones, often a subset of old
technology, but we'd never seen this here Ron Karkovice
blabbercard:

Yes, Mr. Scratcher sent cards especially related to our categories
along with those packs. This card is excellent in part because of the
endless complexities involved with Mr. K's left arm, from wrist tape
on substantial arm hair, to gloves, to styrofoam and beyond.
Whereas below we see young, freshfaced Bernie Williams scrinching
thick eyebrows around a gigantic eyepiece, hindered by neither the
sunglasses perched on his cap brim nor the little cartoon trying to
tickle him. How does that eyepiece lead to the viewer? Seems kind
of roundabout:

If this isn't old enough technology, then check out thenon-baseball
meaning of 'slide':

In addition to cards such as the above, we received this:

Yes. A Micah auto. With his signature Biblical inscription,
Phillippians 4:13, "I can do everything through him who gives
me strength." That is also what Tim Tebow wears on his cheeks

instead of eyeblack, but that's quite another post. For instance, it
would be a post if we ever had a lucid thought about football
players. Back to Micah:

It's always great when the photo on the back is different than the
photo on the front of the baseball card. And what's better than this
earnest expression?:

Also, do you remember that assortment of packs we showed you
above? We'll wait while you scroll back to remind yourself. Ok. Are
you ready? Lucy found this Darryl Strawberry card in one of the O
Pee Chee packs! A Darryl card she didn't have.

Thank you, Motherscratcher, for the wonderful fun this package
proved to be. Really great! If that wasn't enough, last week we also
received something from zman. Lucy displays it, actual size:

One of our baseball cards escaped and looked up at its
awesomeness:

The amount of time, and, eventually, dynamite that it took to
remove the item from its container was daunting.

Can you guess what was inside?

Baseball cad of the month.

It's not a typo.

So the amusing if snarky Smoking Gun ran a contest asking who is
pictured in this post-arrest photo:

And if you guessed it was this fellow (yes, he actually wore that
sweater on more than one occasion):

then you won a Wrestler DVD. New York Yankees pitcher Joba
Chamberlain pleaded guilty this past Wednesday to a Nebraska
charge of drunken driving and was given probation. After a plea
deal, prosecutors dropped the second charge of driving with an
open alcohol container. Chamberlain, who is 23, played for
Nebraska in college. He was pulled over Oct. 18 by police on the
outskirts of Lincoln. Authorities say his blood-alcohol level was
0.134 percent. The legal limit in Nebraska is 0.08 percent. He got
off easy, and let us hope (both for his own good and the safety of
other drivers) that Mr. C is wise enough to never, ever let this
happen again.