Packs That Just Showed Up #7

Forty-three posts in 2024?

Unacceptable.

That was the lowest annual total since this blog began.  Things are going to change in 2025, and that change starts today.

This is the final pack that just showed up, and it's from the set with the earliest release date of all the packs.  Fleer released its 2007 Ultra set that July.  That's over 17 years ago, a few months after I started my card blog.  It's a small pack, only five cards, so let's try this.  I'll do a little digging and try my best to find out what each player is currently up to.  Should be interesting.

#226 Travis Buck

Assistant coach of the Loyola Marymount baseball team.  Look him up, he still has the mile-wide smile, but I'm a bit disappointed by the Key West barfly-looking haircut.

#152 Adam Wainwright

Came back for a 19th season in 2024, finishing the year with a 6-32 record, but won all five decisions against the Milwaukee Brewers.  In those games he held the Crew to a .072 batting average without giving up a single run.

Just kidding, he's a Fox Sports commentator now. 

#184 Ian Kinsler

Special Assistant to Rangers GM Chris Young.

#91 Francisco Rodriguez

Not a lot of information available, but it appears that he was named manager of Venezuela's U-15 National Baseball Team early in 2024.

#43 Bronson Arroyo

Wikipedia says that Arroyo was on season 12 of "The Masked Singer" in 2024, and that fellow pitcher Barry Zito was his "Mask Ambassador."  I don't know exactly what this means, but I assume it's what you do after baseball if you don't want to sell cars or insurance and you're not as smart as Chris Young.

So, who ya got for the best post-baseball gig from this group of five?

Packs That Just Showed Up #6

My archive of posts tells me that the last time I wrote about one of these packs it was July.  If you want to refamiliarize yourself with the origin of this series, here's the link.

This time around we have another pack of 2019 Topps Series 1 Baseball.  Will cards from the correct set be inside?  Will there actually be 16 cards, as the wrapper promises?  It's always an iffy proposition with these.

#231 Joc Pederson, #51 Michael Brantley, #304 Michael Lorenzen

Let's see, Pederson just signed a deal with the Rangers, Brantley retired last January, and Lorenzen reportedly might hit and pitch for the White Sox, though nothing is official yet.

#59 Zack Godley, #179 Jackie Bradley, Jr., #335 Ervin Santana

All landscape format cards.  Odd.

#99 Aroldis Chapman 150 Years of Baseball Parallel

Is it snowing in this picture?

#SSB-100 Kyle Tucker Stars of the Game

#RA-9 Ronald Anuca, Jr. Ronald Acuna, Jr. Highlights

I don't know what else to call this insert set.  Redundancy required.

#202 Sweet Life Checklist, #347 Kirby Yates, #189 Khris Davis, #130 Blake Snell

#39 Richard Urena, #10 Clayton Kershaw, #38 Kolby Allard

Of these last six player cards, only Snell and Kershaw are officially attached to a 2025 MLB roster.  They'll both be on the Dodgers because the Dodgers get to have whoever they want on their team until the end of time.

 

That was a pretty decent pack, especially because it was free.

Pre-Opened Packs #9: McDonald's NBA Fantasy Packs

These things are friggin' awesome, as you may have seen in a previous post.  I am psyched about my chances to get some big stars in this pack.

LA10 James Worthy

Giving a teammate the Harrison Ford Point after what I presume to be a great assist is a good look on a basketball card.

P3 Kevin McHale

With NBA cards, you get armpit hair.  It's an unavoidable dichotomy.

P2 Reggie Lewis

I still remember being a Sports Illustrated subscriber and getting the Lewis memorial cover issue in the mail.  Sad story, being cut down so young.  He could have been a major star in the league.

Those were some pretty dang good cards.  It's fun how these take you back to one of the best eras of the league.  They bring back memories of 8th grade dances, cool sneakers, and balling on a garage-mounted hoop until you couldn't see the ball anymore. 

Pre-Opened Packs #8: 1991 Marvel Universe Series II

 

Lots of comic cards in the pre-opened packs, not really my cup of tea, but we must chug along.

39 Ghost Rider

129 Daredevil’s Billy Club

Probably not the strongest entry in the weapons subset.

24 Union Jack
No interest in this guy.
1990 Marvel #128 Journey Into Mystery #83
This card is from a different set, common this this series of posts.  First appearance of Thor is nice.  The back of the card gives the 1990 Overstreet NM price: $750.  A CGC that earned a mere 3.5 sold for over $11,000 last week.  To have a time machine...

 

81 Kang
3 Thing
There we go!

99 Captain America vs Baron Zemo
42 Rogue
153 X-Men
78 Nebula
Back of the card says she is the granddaughter of Thanos.  Looking up the character I can see that, yeah, my kids did have a Happy Meal toy of her, looking nothing like this, though.

132 Punisher’s Arsenal
Not enough room on the card means they’re doing it right.

1990 Marvel #155 Spider-man Presents: Punisher
The two sharing a moment of levity on the back of this one.

114 Avengers vs Ultron
147 Rage

That’s 14 cards in a 12-card pack, can’t argue with that.

Pre-Opened Packs #7: 1994 SkyBox Master Series DC Comics Edition

We've got Lobo on the front of the pack doing a "neener-neener" face and sticking out his tongue, which has A LOT of drool hanging off of it.  Does this portend interesting contents inside?

87 Black Canary

Fun character, but can't really carry a title on her own.  Great in Birds of Prey and when dishing it out at Oliver Queen.

75 Argus

No idea.  Apparently a villain who terrorizes Keystone City with his power to tune in to the full electromagnetic spectrum.  Lame.

60 Dr. Fate

Hmmmm, when I had the Super Powers Dr. Fate action figure when I was a kid, I don't remember him being quite so... shapely?  The iteration of the character shown here is from the period when Inza Nelson wore the helmet of Nabu the Wise.  This is already one of the top five costumes in DC Comics history without the sexxxay butt and calves.

17 Andromeda

Part of the Legionnaires team, I guess.  Never read an issue.

6 Lex Luthor II 

The explanation on the back of this card is just confusing, something about brain swapping and death faking.  They should have devoted some copy to account for the blatant rip-off of Charles Xavier.  

Bald?  Check.

Futuristic wheelchair?  Check.

Blanket on legs?  Check.

C&D letter on its way.

39 Raven

Another one I never heard of.  You can read the back yourself, it's a convoluted mess.  I can't in good conscience show the front of this card.  Raven's body looks like one of those roasts you might see tied up with string at a butcher shop and her costume is a cross between Cenobite swimwear and the getup Sean Connery wore in Zardoz.  I'll leave it to your imagination.

Got some interesting characters here, most of them unfamiliar to me, but I really like the variety of art styles presented.  I'd be interested in seeing more cards in the set, especially the 1:18 foils and the 1:36 Spectra-etch cards.

Pre-Opened Packs #6: 1992-93 Upper Deck Basketball

This pack was freakin’ thick.  The previous owner appears to have snuck a few extra cards.  You might call it tampering, but I’m looking the other way.  Basketball cards are famously ripe for appearances by teammates, or, more likely, opposing players.  I’ll make note of any worthwhile cameos here.

P16 Otis Thorpe McDonald’s
Here’s one of the apparent extras, not that I’m complaining. 
Rick Fox cameo.

184 Thurl Bailey

189 Brian Shaw

Michael Jordan cameo, and what looks to be a Scottie Pippen cameo.  This would be enough to sustain me through the darkest of times if I had a picture of me dunking with Jordan wincing in the lane and Pippen swatting and getting nothing but air.  Just glorious.

175 Marcus Liberty
Cameos by Mark Jackson, Patrick Ewing, and Cadillac Anderson.

167 George McCloud
252 Dee Brown
297 Chris Mullin
266 Harvey Grant
201 Brad Lohaus

26 Charles Barkley
Larry Bird cameo.

78 Eric Murdock
55 Johnny Dawkins 76ers Checklist

AW4 Detlef Schrempf Hologram

20 Todd Day
P8 Mark Price McDonald’s
P25 Alvin Robertson McDonald’s
Cameos by Danny Schayes and Milwaukee legend Fred Roberts.

Okay, so by my count that’s 14 of the 15 cards listed on the pack, plus the contents of one McDonald’s pack.  I’ll allow it.

Pre-Opened Packs #5: 1993 Upper Deck McDonald's NBA Fantasy Packs

Can you even imagine the reaction of the nation's men-children if a promotion like this were to take place today?  Special packs of basketball cards available at McDonald's?  There wouldn't be a franchise left standing.  They'd be reduced to rubble under the sweaty weight of thousands of desperate collectors converging en masse to every location.  Packs would be going for $500 a pop on eBay.  It would make last month's Pokemon Happy Meal frenzy look dignified by comparison.

 Three cards per pack, let's see who we get.

LA4 James Edwards

Edwards was great, but looked old his whole career.  On this card he actually is old, nearing forty.

P47 Walt Williams

P48 Todd Day

Half of the Bucks' "Mayday" draft of 1992 that went over like a ton of bricks.  We got Day with the 8th pick, then Lee Mayberry with the 23rd, both from Arkansas.  Probably not a good idea to do that.  To be fair, the dropoff in talent after the top three (Shaq, Zo, Laettner) was pretty steep.

My favorite thing about these cards is the arch-shaped hologram on the backs.  It warms my heart to think that someone put enough effort into this set to include a detail such as this.  I could see myself chasing down a complete set one day.

Pre-Opened Packs #4: 1993 SkyBox Marvel Universe Series IV

 Cards like these have a tendency to just show up.  I can't remember ever buying any packs, but I have a fair amount of comic cards from the '90s floating around the edges of my collection.  Let's see what we have here.

Frame #117 Peter Parker

Okay, right off the bat we have a card that doesn't belong here.  This has a 1994 copyright date and a Cookie Crisp logo on the back, letting us know that this came from a box of cereal.  Kind of automatically makes it the best card in the pack already.

132 Wild Thing

Here's what the proper card looks like in this set.  My Marvel knowledge isn't that great, especially when you get into the mutant stuff and anything that starts with "X."  She appears to never skip leg day.

149 Wolverine vs Sabretooth, 168 Daredevil vs Typhoid Mary

The first card here is great, two heavy hitters going at each other.  The Daredevil card is a significant letdown after that.  Issues where he's up against Typhoid Mary are typically in the quarter bins at any used comic shop.  I love Daredevil, but he has better adversaries.

57 Carnage, 42 Nightcrawler

The whole Spidey/Venom/Carnage thing I never got into.  Still have no idea.  And as for Nightcrawler: BAMF?

43 Havok, Nick Fury Promo Card

Again, if you have X's all over your costume, I ignore you.  Sorry.  

The promo card is advertising the then-forthcoming Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. monthly series that had a run of only four issues.  Whoops!

Frame #224 The Shocker

Another one from CAAAAAA-OOOOOOOOOOOHHH-KIE CRISP.

165 Spider-man vs Juggernaut

This house has gained a few Juggernaut fans over the past couple of weeks.  The boys have been playing a lot of Lego Marvel Superheroes, and Juggernaut became a favorite soon after his character was unlocked.

I'd have to say this is the actual best card in the pack, but opinions may differ.