Pack of the Day 59: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 24

Here's the last pack of this box of cards. It doesn't really go out with a bang. It is kind of nice to get some A's and Astros in a pack, although I don't know if team collecting is really going to be my thing. I think Topps probably could have found a more flattering photo of Coco Crisp, one that doesn't make him look like E.T.

I don't even know what to say about the rest of these cards. They don't really do anything for me. This box wasn't very exciting and in the end I probably could have saved a lot of money by just buying the set from a case breaker on eBay, which is what I did after collating all the cards I'd purchased and figuring it would take another box or two of cards just to finish the set. Someone has to bust the packs, but in most cases it seems cheaper to buy sets and Player Collection cards as singles after someone else has already gambled on big hits in the packs.

Pack of the Day 57: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 23

After this pack I am down to one final post for this box of cards. Here in the base card section we have Neil Walker nicely book-ended by Anthony Rizzo and David Freese in opposing post-swing stances.

The other base cards are Ben Zobrist and Doug Fister.

Every time I glance at the Cory Vaughn card I think for a second that it is one of those Hometown parallels with the flag backgrounds. It is very upsetting to be flipping through binder pages or a stack of cards and see a card that appears to be out of place. Finding out that it is not, in fact, a parallel doesn't do anything to assuage that initial feeling that things are not in their proper places.

I think I pulled the base Frazier card a couple of packs ago. Now I have the Gold parallel version. Unless I sent it away in a trade package or something. I can't remember that kind of stuff.

Here is another one of those mini-Refractors, this time featuring the Orioles' Top 5 prospects. Kevin Gausman gets the plum spot on the front of the card. I'm not sure if he's pitching or eyeballing the Value Menu at McDonalds. He looks hungry.

Pack of the Day 56: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 22

We are getting down to the end of this box of cards. It has padded my post count quite a bit, but I am running out of things to say about it. I watched a break of multiple products the other day, and the Bowman portion turned out a Black parallel of Josh Johnson. So someone's $46 break spot got them at least $0.50 in Blue Jays cards. I don't remember if anyone got any Niese cards in the break.

Carlos Gonzalez looks like he is getting ready to take a power dump. I hope he doesn't blow out an O-ring. Rickie Weeks seems to me to have the worst-fitting uniform in baseball. After doing some Googling, it would appear that it is mostly just a couple of pictures in which he looks to be wearing a circus tent. His uniform fits okay in the rest. He is one of those players who will go on a hot streak, I will add him to my fantasy roster, he'll go 0 - for - 27, I'll drop him, and he'll get three hits in the next game. His stats the last couple of years have been pretty bad all around, but his stats for my fantasy teams are even worse than that.

More prospects. I wish I could remember who posted it, but I read a blog post the other day about Ugly Pitching Face. William Oliver has got him some Ugly Ugly Pitching Face.

Chris Sale isn't doing so well in the Ugly Pitching Face department, either. He looks like a mix between Skeletor and the Wolfman.

Trevor Rosenthal graces the front of this pack's insert, a mini Refractor that probably lists the Cardinals' top 5 prospects on the back. I don't know for sure. I haven't seen this card for a couple of months.

Pack of the Day 55: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 21

I don't have much to say about this batch of cards. The Burnett is a decent card, although it is lacking a bit in the bright colors department. The Morneau card is a pretty decent action shot as well.

We only get one posed card in this group of prospects, with Witherspoon probably not imagining that he has just flied out to end a comeback rally. I honestly haven't heard of any of these guys, at least not in any way that stuck with me.

A couple of Cardinals parallels round out the list. Lohse has had a couple of good years recently. I think I had him on my fantasy teams for at least parts of 2012 and 2013. The Gold parallel for this pack is Yadier Molina.

Pack of the Day 54: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 20

This pack is pretty pitcher-heavy, with 7 of the 10 cards featuring ball-chuckers. Miller and Wainwright are pretty good pulls. Beachy is a bit meh, and Pujols is pretty good even though I don't actually have much of an opinion on him. I don't think I've ever had him on a Fantasy Baseball team, which is probably why I am so neutral on him.

Among the prospects we have an intensity vs. fun battle, with Freeman and Montgomery taking their work very seriously and Salazar and Villanueva just having a good time. We tend to describe similar appearances differently depending on how the team is doing in the standings. If the team is doing well, serious dudes would be considered cerebral or in the zone, while those same guys would be called out for trying too hard or pressing if the team happened to lose a couple of games in a row.

The same dichotomy exists when players appear to be having fun. If the team is losing we accuse them of not playing hard enough or caring as much as they should, but if the team is doing well we say that the game is coming easy to them or that good chemistry is allowing them to play loose and easy. I would imagine that the way we talk about our sports teams probably has a lot more to do with us than it does with them. There is probably quite a bit of that in the Richard Sherman interview debate, too, but I don't know if I want to get into that right at the moment.

This pack came with a couple of parallels. One is a State and Hometown (I forget what this insert is called, so I call it whatever I want from post to post) parallel of Barry Zito and the Gold parallel features Roy Halladay.

Pack of the Day 53: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 19

I am entering the last quarter of the box now, so just under a week and I should have this series wrapped up, and only a few months overdue. Dan Haren probably has the best posed shot in this group, looking appropriately intimidating. He also manages to double up the logos on the front of the card, displaying his shoulder patch almost straight on to the camera.

Salvador Perez gets a nice shot here wearing his gear. Hamilton tries to display his patch a la Haren, but his is all tipped over and it ruins the effect. 

Prospects.

That Encinas dude looks like Keanu Reeves to me. David Wright is the Gold parallel, and I only just noticed that he is wearing a 'Los Mets' jersey.

We get a little bit of color in this pack, with a Blue Prospect Chrome Refractor of Michael Snyder, numbered # 160 / 250. I like getting shiny colorful parallels, but mostly they wind up collecting dust in a box somewhere with all the base cards and random inserts.

Pack of the Day 52: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 18

This is a pretty decent pack, I suppose. It's nice to get an Iwakuma card from a pack. Alcides Escobar is one of those guys who spends time on my Fantasy Baseball rosters. Motte has a beard and gets a nice little celebration shot.

Miguel Montero gets a nice shot wearing all of his gear, and Giancarlo Stanton is the guy I ran out of things to say on.

The prospects from this pack feature another bunch of guys I don't know, although Lenny Linsky has got a pretty good baseball name. Based on name alone, he projects to go pretty far in his career. Since there is just one Chrome card, this is another insert pack. The Gold parallel is Ryan Zimmerman, whose Gold card in Topps Archives I probably bought at least once because I thought I needed it when the card I really needed was Jordan Zimmerman. 

I think this Alen Hanson card was a basic Refractor. He's one of those guys who I kind of have a mini-collection of because 1) I seem to pull his cards fairly often and 2) I like the black and yellow that the Pirates wear. I don't know a thing about the guy, but I set his cards aside when I pull them.

Pack of the Day 51: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 17

This was a pretty decent pack. Ryan Howard and Stephen Strasburg are the veterans in the pack.

Three guys with the RC shield fill out the base cards. Interesting that all five base cards feature the red border accents.

More prospects I've never heard of. Getting only one Bowman Chrome prospect means this pack gets an insert card.

The obligatory Gold parallel is Jason Heyward.

The insert card is a Bowman Top 100 card of a Houston Astros prospect, Carlos Correa, who comes in at number 28 on the list. Also pictured is a little scanner evidence of my Basset Hound. He's the only person in my home with white hair.

Pack of the Day 50: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 16

Here is pack 16 from my box of 2013 Bowman. After a couple of relatively weak packs we have a pack that is similarly weak, but features some players that I at least have some feelings about. I really should do something special for my 50th Pack of the Day post, but instead you get this rehash of a pack I opened several months ago.

If there were a card outside of R.A. Dickey and Josh Reddick from this set that I would collect a rainbow of from 2013 Bowman, it would probably be this Fernando Rodney card. I don't know much about his personality, but I kind of like his crooked hat. He also either really helps or really hurts a Fantasy Baseball team, depending on which Rodney shows up at the plate. If everyone started wearing their hats crooked like him, I would probably start to hate it, but I think I would still give him a free pass because it was his quirk first.

One person who would probably start a fight with him over his hat to protect the integrity of the game is Brian McCann. I am not a McCann fan, but he gets a pretty decent picture on his card in this set.

We get a little Astros love among the prospects in this pack, which is always a good thing in my book.

This pack contained a Hometown parallel of Bruce Rondon and a Gold parallel of Brandon Phillips.

Pack of the Day 49: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 15

Here is pack 15 from my retail box of 2013 Bowman Baseball. I don't even know what to say about it. I just have to finish posting these so that I can move on with my life.

I don't have strong enough feelings about anyone in the base cards or prospect cards to add any commentary. This pack is kind of a dud, like games your team plays when nothing is on the line anymore and they are just finishing out the season.

Dayan Viciedo gets a Hometown parallel in this pack. I kind of like these inserts, although not enough to pursue a set of them or anything. The Gold parallel in the pack is Aaron Hill.

Pack of the Day 48: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 14

It has been almost three months since the last post detailing this box break. There is no real reason for me to continue the series except that I hate to leave it unfinished. I can't remember most of these cards, and I think I recall just buying a base set online anyway after considering how much more wax I might have to break to complete the set.

Here are the four base cards. I have absolutely nothing to say about these. Santana's uniform does a nice job of breaking up all the red in this scan. Cloyd has a big hat.

Here are the two prospect cards and the two prospect Chrome cards. There is a lot more variety here when it comes to card and uniform colors. I especially like the yellow and black on the Pirates prospect.

The Gold parallel for this pack is a decent pull, Billy Butler of the Royals. This card really saves the pack, as there wasn't a lot going on here. This would have been a disappointing $3 spent at Target.

Pack of the Day 38: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 13: Double Vision

Pack 13 of the box gave us four base cards, but only three are shown here for now. Ian Desmond was pretty good in relief of Everth Cabrera on my fantasy baseball team this year, giving me 100 solid games. My team log tells me he went 106/382 for a .277 batting average with 53 runs, 11 home runs, 52 RBIs, and 15 stolen bases while on my team. A nice balanced contribution from a spot that's hard to get stats in, especially if you want a little bit of power to go with your stolen bases.

That Patrick Leonard card looks oddly familiar, but I don't know why. It's not one that I've pulled from this box previously, and there isn't anything about it that really stands out to me.



Giant batting helmets are still in style here, as Alcantara is sporting one. His doesn't look as huge as some we've seen in this set, but it still looks a bit oversized.

Next up is our mandatory Gold parallel card, which features the Marlins' star player, Giancarlo Stanton. If I recall correctly, there were plenty of trade rumors surrounding him, but the Marlins will probably keep him on board and try to build something around him.

And there is our fourth base card, right next to his twin brother, a blue parallel card of Trevor Bauer numbered # 094 / 500. I like getting colored parallels, even though most of them don't really have a spot in my collection. I guess I could just start filling a binder with them, but that would get chaotic pretty quickly and drive me nuts. Anyway, this guy is highly touted, although the numbers say he struggled a bit in his stint with the Indians this year. I don't know how true that is, as I don't really follow the Indians.