Pack of the Day 11: 2013 Bowman Baseball Retail Box Pack 1

I am working my way through a Retail box of 2013 Bowman Baseball, pack by pack, to see what I get. Since I am mostly focused on filling out the set, I bought the Retail box to save $20-25 over the Hobby box. Maybe the extra inserts in the Hobby box would make up the difference in value, but I don't think that usually works out in the collector's favor.

 

This first pack was kind of a skunk. There were only 9 cards in the pack (the front of the pack says I should get 10 cards), and every one of the cards in the pack was one I already had in my set binder. For the sake of the blog audience I will push through and talk about them anyhow.

It seems like Cruz, Braun, or A-Roid show up in every pack I open. It's a curse. Starling Marte is a good pull, and I've heard good things about Skaggs. I don't know anything about Matt Harrison. But seriously, I am tired of pulling cards of Cruz.

For my prospects I pulled a couple of Kansas City Royals, including Emilio Bonifacio's little brother, Jorge.

Two Chrome cards are promised in every pack, unless you get an insert, which I guess counts as a Chrome card usually. I don't know. Bowman is still a bit of a confusing product. So I got these guys again.

I've never seen a pack without a Gold parallel in it, so I'm guessing you get one per pack. This one is pretty nice as it features an Astro who may even qualify as a semistar in some good bright colors. He's even got orange sunglasses on. Unfortunately, this card was also a double for me.