Pack of the Day 110: 2014 Topps Chrome Blaster Box

I picked up a blaster of 2014 Topps Chrome at some point in the last couple of months. I don't remember buying it, but it must have been the most appealing thing in the discount box at the time, because I doubt this is something I would have elected to purchase at full price.

The bonus item in this blaster is a pack of 4 blaster-exclusive Purple Refractors. That Yasiel Puig up there would have been a pretty good pull in 2014. This year hasn't been as kind to him. I haven't been tracking his card prices, but I would imagine they've dropped off significantly.

I got a couple of Refractors from the box, as well as an X-Fractor. Jon Singleton is a PC guy, but I think I already had this Refractor of him. Brandon Moss played for Cleveland and St. Louis this year and is in the playoffs, so I guess that's the good part about getting traded from the A's and the Indians. I respect Napoli's beard game, but I don't really like all those East Coast teams. I also got that Justin Verlander Chrome Connections Die-Cut insert that is designed to make the stack of cards it resides in very unstable and impossible to pick up.

More playoff guys, except that Marte's team made a quick exit and Donaldson wears a bluer uniform now. Kershaw just can't catch a break and Donaldson's Blue Jays are on the verge of elimination after being pretty much the postseason favorites going into this thing.

I've probably already posted that R.A. Dickey card several times, but I will probably post it again any time I pull it from a pack. The rest of these guys were included because they are also horizontal cards and I needed three more for the scan.

This was the big pull of the box, a Blue Refractor of Jurickson Profar, whose name sounds kind of like an investment firm or pharmaceuticals company. Maybe he needs the services of a pharmaceuticals company, as he has missed all of the last two seasons because of a shoulder injury. This one is numbered # 188 / 199, which is an aesthetically-pleasing number by all accounts.

Seeking Redemption 13: My 2015 Topps Babe Ruth Call Your Shot "Prize"

At some point in the past few months I won a Tier C autograph from the Babe Ruth Call Your Shot Game that serves as Topps' promotion for 2015 Topps Baseball. The 'Call Your Shot' part of the game consists of determining which of the three blocks you will scratch off on the game card. I have chosen to use the Autograph code on all of my contest cards. When you enter a winning code, you get a notification that you have won a prize along with a list of player names and a link to the longer list for that tier. There are three lists; labeled A, B, and C. A-listers are all the big names and hot prospects, B-listers are the every day guys, and C list is whatever is left over. There is not a specific set of cards made for this promotion. Instead, Topps seems to just send out whatever they have on-hand in the redemption center. I've seen Bowman stuff, base Topps stuff, and premium brands like Five Star and Museum Collection sent to people as prizes.

The main sticking point with this promotion is that you have to pay $4.95 in shipping to claim your prize. I contemplated just not claiming my C-list prize, but curiosity got the best of me and a couple of weeks ago I went ahead and paid up. A while later I got an envelope in the mail that looked like it had been run over 5 or 6 times by a truck. Inside was my 'prize:'

I won a Jeff Kobernus base autograph from 2014 Topps Chrome. Jeff Kobernus is currently in the San Francisco Giants system, having made it into 28 games with the Nationals during his career. He's already 27 years old, and is unlikely to ever make much of an impact at all in the major leagues. I estimate that $4.95 was 2-3 times more than I should have paid for this card. I still have a B-list autograph on the way, so maybe that one will turn out better for me than this one did.

2014 Topps Chrome R.A. Dickey Red Refractor

I am pretty tired and I don't have it in me to do a bigger post, so today you get a filler card that's been in my post queue for so long that I don't remember anything about it. It was probably on eBay for cheap enough that I picked it up, because I didn't make any kind of real effort at a Topps rainbow for 2014, although I have been grabbing up Jon Singleton cards from 2014 Topps High Tek, which makes the previous statement kind of a lie. Dickey's card looked pretty good with that red jersey and probably would have made a good rainbow to build, but after trying to do too many rainbows in 2013 I couldn't put myself through that again for 2014.

Anyway, this Topps Chrome Red Refractor is a pretty nice card and is limited to 25 total copies, with this example being numbered # 18 / 25. The quote on the back is probably taken directly from his book, which is titled Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball. I started reading the book a long time ago, but life got in the way and I never finished it. Maybe when I get done with school I will be able to catch up on all the leisure reading I haven't been able to do for the past few years. I've been saving an awful lot of things in life for that mythical day when I am done with school.

What eBay Hath Wrought 111: 2014 Topps Chrome R.A. Dickey Sepia Refractor

I haven't put any effort into seeking out a rainbow from this year's Chrome releases, and I don't know that I will. I attempted a lot of rainbows in 2013 and while it was fun, I don't think I can afford to chase a rainbow every year. But when a nice parallel of one of my favorite players pops up on the cheap I'll throw a bid in on it. This is the Sepia Refractor of R.A. Dickey from 2014 Topps Chrome.

My copy is # 28 / 75. In the last week or so I've been able to catch a few innings of Dickey's games on MLB.tv. He's had a pretty good stretch lately, although he wasn't able to come away with the win in last night's game against the Yankees. He had a better night than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did, though, getting blasted by the Atlanta Falcons. My fantasy football team came away from that game with a little bit of a deficit to overcome, but there is still plenty of ball left to play for Week 3.

Of course, fantasy football isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. The different domestic violence situations playing out with many players in the league have taken up the bulk of the sports radio airtime here locally, and I would imagine that is the case throughout the country.

I don't understand those who are able to simultaneously decry the actions of Ray Rice against his wife as unconscionable, but pass off Adrian Peterson's treatment of his son(s) as acceptable discipline of a child. Why is it okay to beat your 4-year old kid to the point that he has multiple open wounds and deep welts across much of his body, but not okay to hit your fiancee in the face? Is it because little kids aren't old enough to be real people yet? Would Ray Rice's actions be more acceptable if he had just explained that he was disciplining his fiancee for misbehavior in the same way he was disciplined as a child?

I know that quite a few of my work acquaintances think that Adrian Peterson's actions didn't go that far over the line and often reference the beatings they received as children as evidence that beating your loved ones is an effective way to produce model citizens. I think these people are living in denial and have to support him in order to rationalize their own shortcomings and inability to take responsibility for their choices and maintain self-control in stressful parenting situations. I don't know exactly where the line is between discipline and child abuse, but I am pretty sure Adrian Peterson crossed it at least once, and from the leaked text messages and his own admission it sounds like crossing the line was his default parenting style.

This might not be a great forum for my views on social issues, but since it has been a huge talking point in the world of sports over the last few weeks I felt like weighing in. Parenting is something that I deal with every day because I have three sons (ages 3, 3, and 5) and they can be extremely frustrating at times. My wife and I spend a lot of time individually and as a team trying to figure out how to bring them up in an environment of love and trust without letting them run the household. We do okay most of the time, but there are plenty of times when I feel like I could do better. It helps to be able to tag team out from time to time when one of us hits the limit of our tolerance for their shenanigans and whining.

Pack of the Day 76: Two 2014 Topps Chrome Value Packs

It seems like all the cool folks are busting open a little bit of Topps Chrome, so I thought I'd post the highlights from a couple of value packs (3 Retail Packs + 3 Orange Refractors) I opened. I chose a few of my favorite base cards, including an Athletic, an Astro, and a couple of Pirates. While I was working on the scans for this post I happened to be watching a game on MLB.tv and saw Grilli nail down a Hold for the Angels against the A's. It's nice when there is some sort of connection between the players on the TV and the players on the cards you're shuffling around.

These were the four other base cards I chose to scan. I've opened three Value Packs so far this year, and I have three copies of the Mike Moustakas card, two Jose Altuves, and two Hanley Ramirez base cards. That's kind of frustrating.

Here are all 6 of the Orange Refractors from the packs. That horizontal Josmil Pinto card really ruined the numbers for me to get even scans, so I just threw him in there sideways. I am thinking about collecting the Madison Bumgarner rainbow this year because of the Ugly Pitching Face he is showing off on that card. In my family we would call that look The Beav. Grumpy Pujols is grumpy. Maybe he saw this headline:

I got a couple of decent X-Fractors, with Andrew McCutchen and Anibal Sanchez. They scan pretty well, which is a bonus in the world of card blogging. It's better to have a card that looks awesome in scans than it is to have a card that looks awesome in-hand and looks like a dog turd after being run through the scanner.

I also got a base Refractor, a Dodger with a ridiculous name. I see that many R's and E's and my brain just shuts down. If I lean way back and look at this picture sideways, his last name looks like APPLEBANANA, which I think is a fine name. From now on, he will be known to me as Erisbel Applebanana.

The final card in this post is a serially-numbered one, a Sepia Refractor of Kyle Seager. He has been pretty good this year, coming in as the 6th-ranked third baseman in fantasy. But I don't think he really moves the needle as far as collectors are concerned. His card has a pretty decent photo, though, and from what I've heard it is hard to pull colored Refractors this year compared to other years.

It is numbered # 42 / 75. That's about it for this bunch of Topps Chrome. I probably won't be buying a lot of this stuff in packs this year. I am getting a little burnt out on baseball lately, probably because most of the guys who make up my key player collections aren't doing so well this season and thus aren't getting a lot of play in the new products. I did order a base set of 2014 Chrome from a guy on eBay, so I will at least have the set for my collection. I will probably miss busting all the packs, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of 'value' in Chrome this year unless you happen to hit something big from Jose Abreu or something. A lot of the low-numbered colored Refractors got skipped this year for some reason.