2009 Topps Updates and Highlights

So since we are all waiting on the World Series rain delay I figured I would entertain you with my pack breaks. I went to Target and picked up 6 packs the first trip. 6 packs and zero Pujols. Second trip, 4 packs and the first one I opened had a Pujols. Third trip with Sooz, I saw one random pack and felt bad for it, so I decided to give it a good warm home- Jeter was hiding in there, too.

They look like the regular Topps, most packs had a Turkey Red insert (or I am just lucky). I couldn't care less about these cards but I needed something cheap to scratch the itch.

Here is what came out of them:








I picked up a blaster of 2009 SP Authentic today which I may break during the game. Anyone get anything cool from U&H or SP? Sweet Spot? I didn't tell my brother yet, but I picked out his birthday present for me- baseball cards! (OK, he probably already figured on that.)

Marie's thoughts on the World Series

So we all know it's the Yankees playing the Phillies, and while I enjoy watching the Phillies play I hope the Yankees destroy them. I wouldn't consider myself a Phillies fan by any means, but as a result of Sooz covering them I have paid attention more over the years to the team.

I am not going to come out and say the Yankees are going to win. Do I want them to? Duh, of course. But you have to look at it logically and see that the Phillies have a good starting rotation (if Hamels is on), and they have more than 3 guys who can start a game whereas the Yankees have 3 solid starters (2 if AJ sucks), and then you are left pondering what the hell is going to happen. Both teams have a strong bullpen, Yankees have the better closer and no one on Earth can argue that.

Hitting between these two teams is insane. I can not even imagine the number of homeruns that will fly in this World Series.

I really think this series has the potential to go all 7 games, and I do believe all the games will be close and exciting to watch. Any Phillies or Yankees fan that thinks their team is going to steamroll the other is not very bright. I am looking forward to going to the game Wednesday, it will be my first World Series game. Poor Sooz will be in the press box silently cheering for the Yankees and I will be in the stands hoping her head doesn't explode, and that she doesn't rip the desk out of the wall. I am trying to get her to get me in as her assistant but I don't think it will work out.

What does everyone think of this match up? And if you are going to point out payroll, I am deleting your comment. Teams can pay whatever money they want for players but it means absolutely nothing if the player does not perform.

It's easy to hate Yankees fans

So, I've been told, but I think I am kind of lovable. :)

Living in southern New Jersey and spending a lot of time in Philadelphia over the past week or so has told me a lot about Yankees and Phillies fans. I am not naive to what Yankee fans are and why people do not like them.

Yankee fans are confident with many going into the cocky category.

However, Philadelphia fans are not any different. What's worse is that Philadelphia fans actually cannot comprehend the meaning of anything beyond the boundaries of their own teams.

Here are a few examples of what I've heard in the past two days. We're not even going to go with the week because I don't plan on spending three weeks typing.

1. 'Andy Pettitte doesn't scare me."
- Pettitte isn't the dominating lefty he was several years ago. He doesn't have Roger Clemens on his side like he did previously with the Yankees or while in Houston. However, Pettitte is one of the top postseason pitchers and when he's on, well ... Game 5 1996 World Series. Look it up.

He's given up six home runs to lefties this year, compared to 14 from righties. That's good news for Jayson Werth, but not Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez.

I'm not saying Philadelphia fans need to quaver, but at least show a little respect.

2. "Jimmy Rollins is better than Derek Jeter."
- I didn't smack the guy when he said this, although I really wanted to. Phillies need to stop pointing to Rollins' MVP season. It was two years ago and since then, Rollins is hitting .276 with a .302 OBP. Again, the Phillies lead off guy has a .302 OBP. He didn't even break .300 this year in OBP.

Defensively, Rollins gets the edge. But there is no way you can come out and say that Rollins is better than Jeter. Rollins won't even be the second-best short stop if the Yankees and Phillies meet in the World Series. Jeter isn't even the best short stop. In case anyone needs numbers, Jeter hit .334 (higher than Rollins' OBP) with a .406 OBP. At 35, he added 30 steals this year.

3. "I would take Ryan Howard over Pujols on my team."
- And, there it is. I couldn't even have a real conversation after that was said. Yes, Howard is very good. Great power numbers and in the postseason, he has been terrific.

But, let's get real. It's Albert Freakin' Pujols. He's the best baseball player in the game. You take a player like Pujols over anyone at anytime because players like him do not come along often.
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I'm done with the rant. So, yes, while Yankees fans are easy to hate, at least they're are knowledgeable and can have a real baseball conversation.

Join our live chat tonight

Tonight, the Card Bandits are back (That's Marie and Sooz).


We haven't been around lately, but it's not as though we haven't been busy. The playoffs tend to drive us a little crazy.

If you have been following my tweets (ACPressSusan_L) you'll have seen that I've been working pretty hard the last couple of weeks covering the Phillies and, boy, was I ever wrong my Phillies prediction.

However, the playoffs aren't over and the fun is just getting started.

Come join us in a live chat with the ALCS tonight starting around 7:45 p.m. Let's talk baseball cards and baseball. All the fun stuff that we love about each other.

Anyone wanna do a live box break?

One of my favorite pics

Photo courtesy of the NY Daily News.

I haven't picked up any packs lately, but have been to many hours of cold baseball. Right now I am sweating like I am on the mound pitching for the Yankees. I will throw up some game pics from games 1 and 2 a little later. I have accomplished nothing in the past 4 days, no blogs, no homework, not a damn thing. Be back later.

NLCS Tonight!

The days are boring when baseball isn't on television. This time between series isn't good for anyone (you can ask TB (the boyfriend).

However, now is not the time to lament over staring at each other on the couch and him wondering why I have nothing else to do.

Here are my (Sooz) picks for the series.

I have an interest in both these series. In the Yankees-Angels series, I'm a Yankees fan, so I want to see the team I have enjoyed over the course of my life win. In the NLCS, if the Phillies make it to the World Series, I will be covering the entire thing, home and away. Right now, I have only been covering the Phillies playoff home games for work.

Which means I would love for a Phillies-Yankees World Series because I'm selfish and it would be fun for me.

But now we put my bias aside and look at the series from a logical perspective (at least my logic).

Predictions:
ALCS: Yankees in 6.
I feel the Yankees have too difficult of a time against the Angels, but in the end they will pull it out. It should be a great series, but I really think the Yankees are just too good from the starting pitching to the great lineup and a stellar back end of the bullpen.

NLCS: Dodgers in 6.
This series could go down to seven games and part of me thinks that it might. These are two evenly matched teams. Solid starters, who could be inconsistent on any given day. Hitters who seem to always get the big hit when it counts. But the difference is in the bullpens. Brad Lidge and Ryan Madson just haven't done it for Philadelphia. If you look at the stats, you'll see the Dodgers have 26 blown saves, but 13 of them were by guys you'll will never see in the ninth inning (one isn't even on the roster). George Sherrill and Jonathan Broxton are the difference.

What are you predictions?

ALCS Yankees v. Angels

Friday is the start of the ALCS for the Yankees and Angels, and the next four days of weather in New York are supposed to feel like December- around 40 degrees rain and possibility of (!)snow(!). Yikes. I have more under armor than I am willing to admit from socks to a headsock in case of extreme cold. I have no problem looking like an abominable bum in Yankee apparel if it means warmth and baseball.

The arctic weather is sure to play a factor in these games from the possibility of delayed start times, ice cold players and more importantly pitchers, as well as the game scores. In case you didn't know the ball likes to fly out of Yankee Stadium and I am sure the weather will wreck havoc on the ball either going out or keeping the ball in the park.

I'm not one of those Yankees fans that think this is a lock to win, and as a matter of fact I think this is going to be a great series and has the possibility of going 7 games. The Angels are a tough team, and are always a tough team for the Yankees to beat in the post season. I am hopeful with the Yankees line-up being able to score enough runs to beat the Angels, but it may come down to pitching and if any of these games are called for weather the Yankees may need a fourth starter. That fourth starter could be Chad Gaudin (yikes) or Joba Chamberlain (yikes). This will definitely be interesting to see this unfold, that is if my eyes don't freeze shut in the next few days.

As far as picking up new cards, I dabbled with a few packs here and there of Ticket to Stardom out of boredom and nothing else being available. Nothing exciting really. I do have a card from eBay that I plan to blog about a little bit later on.

Kouzmanoff in the Hall of Fame

At least his glove will be. San Diego Padres Kevin Kouzmanoff broke the single-season record for NL third baseman when he set a .990 fieling percentage.

Kouz had just three errors this year in 309 chances.

The Hall of Fame people asked Kouz to send over one his game-used gloves from the season. They aren't getting the one he used in the final game of the year. That's his to keep.

Looks like I will be making a trip to the Hall of Fame sometime soon. Hopefully, it will be on display when I get there.

Along with the Yankees championship for 2009. (Hey, a girl can dream, right?)

It's been a couple of years

The Yankees haven't been to the ALCS since 2004. Sadly, I still remember how that season ended.

Two things happened the night of Game 7 of that series. 1. The Yankees improbably lost the series against the Red Sox. 2. I interviewed for the job I currently have.

So, even with the bad comes good.

However, after five years the Yankees are back in the ALCS. This season, they will face the Californi ... err ... Anahe.... I mean ... some team with a rally monkey.

The series starts on Friday and I think Marie and I should do a prop bet with I Heart Halos how politicians do it. I'll send you a case of Chiquita bananas for a box of moon rocks or something like that.

Anyone got any ideas?

Obviously, it should be baseball card related and the winner should get something they want.

I don't know if I got any cool Angels cards, but I am sure we can come up with something. Of course, he also has to agree to the bet.

Sunday Question: How much....

...Does Papelbon suck?

Click here for a slideshow.

The holy grail was delivered this week

You are going to think I am crazy and that's fine. Normally, I probably wouldn't make a big deal out of this kind of card but there is such a ridiculous story that goes with it.

I have been trying to get this card for around 2 years give or take. I won this card before on eBay but I never received it because the man selling it gave it to his wife, who put it on the boat to mail it and the boat got lost, his wife was "Tubby", and so on and so on. The story made no sense then, it makes no sense now. I waited for weeks to get the card, he lived on mainland United States, and had zero reasons to be sending me a card on a "boat", be it a mailing boat, a sail boat, or a Fischer Price toy boat.

So at that point I was frustrated and annoyed, mostly because the card was so cheap at the time but I ended up getting my money back for that blunder. I have been waiting and waiting, and trying to get this card at a decent price and it never happened until now. It was a decent price considering his stats for the season. I plan on laying low until the winter rolls around and no one cares about baseball but me to search for any other missing pieces.

Without further babbling on my part, I give you my holy grail missing piece:

My 2005 Bowman Sterling GU Jersey Autograph. I feel a sense of accomplishment now that I finally have this card after years of waiting, and one very, very odd reason as to why I don't have it. Welcome Adam, you have been a long time coming.

Would it be too much to ask to try and get the refractor of this card? Ha.

What a game!

All I have to say is, WOW! Sooz and myself, along with my brother and his friend had seats 15 rows behind homeplate last night for Game 2 of the ALDS, Yankees v. Twins. The seats were insane, most of the people were either bored or had no idea what was going on next to us, but we had fun and the Yankees came out victorious.

I know we had good seats for 2 reasons, the first being we were 15 rows from the field, and the second being we were only 2 rows behind Justin Tuck of the New York Giants.


And if we needed a 3rd reason, Donald Trump was about 8 rows in front of us in the moat seats. You can't miss that rug on his head.

The game was great. A-Rod showed up and proved he can play in the post-season, and I guess it's better late than never. It also could be because he missed a month and maybe thinks it's still September (just ask Flash). A-Rod tied the game with a blast, which I don't have a picture of because I was too busy going bananas (B A N A N A S). Then Teixeira came up in the bottom of the 11th and smashed a line drive that hit the top of the wall for a game winning homerun. I am not going to get into the umpires sucking because I don't care anymore.

Ronan Tynan singing God Bless America.
I took some pictures and I figured some of you guys might like to see a different view. We stayed long enough to see the pie and I got a few pics of that, too. The whole stadium stayed for the pie and most of the people were singing 'New York, New York' very loudly. The first picture was blurry because AJ was running out and I was screaming and couldn't stay still.






The view from the platform of the 4 train, right in between the old (left) and new stadium (right).


Looking forward to Sunday's game and the Yankees crushing Pavano. Until then, I will enjoy watching the Dodgers and Cardinals. (Go Dodgers, and go Albert!)

I love this time of year

Well, it is my favorite time of year and I am super excited to be heading to game 1 of the 2009 ALDS in a little while. I have tickets for all Yankees home games and I am hoping they play almost every one of them. It's about 65 degrees here and super windy which is much better than the last time the Yankees were in the playoffs in 2007 when we were all outside in shorts and tank tops playing football on the parking deck. Playoffs should be cold, I should be wearing Under Armor and a wool hat.

I will be tweeting the occasional pictures when my phone has service, and I will take my camera with me because I was told I had to by a certain someone who will remain nameless (Flash). I hate bringing a camera with me but it's too much work to upload pictures from my phone and I am lazy. Sooz will be tweeting this afternoon from the Phillies game so entertain her if you are on twitter.

I will be in my seats in the bleachers tonight, and for Friday's game I got a nice seating upgrade to behind homeplate on the field level. Sooz and I will be going to Friday's game with my brother and a friend of his. So if we appear to be MIA, well Sooz is covering the Phillies this week and I will be at the Yankees games and pretending to study for a test I have tomorrow....

I actually tried to find pictures from previous playoff games to post in here but I think they are all on actual film, and on my old laptop. Perhaps if I plugged in my external hard drive they are on there...

In case you were wondering, I'm going with Phillies, Yankees, Dodgers, and Sox/Angels I don't care.

2009 Fantasy Baseball Results

Rank		Team	Points	Pts Change	Waiver	Moves
1.		The Dude	8864	86	6	119
2.		Grand Cards	8851	50	7	21
3.		Purple Donkey	8726	27	10	78
4.		Victorious Secret	8265	82	2	90
5.		Carolina Xfractors	8217	42	8	51
6.		The Franchise	7696	32	12	35
7.		Legion of Boom	7312	66	5	26
8.		Cards on Cards	7218	29	4	23
9.		gcrl	7127	36	11	24
10.		Boneyard Braves	6338	20	3	9
11.		WESTCOAST PIMP	6308	37	9	35
12.		Gabe's Babe	6068	39	1	14

Congratulations to our first place finisher, The Dude who won the league this season. The Dude a.k.a. psad21 had to work for this one by making 119 total moves throughout the season to get his team to the top. He worked and paid attention all season, as did our second place finisher Dan from Grand Cards. Dan finished the season only making 21 moves and drafting a very solid team that carried him all 162 games. I wish I had done the same. ( I'm not saying they were the only ones paying attention, I just wasn't that good at it this season.) The league was back and forth all season and there were many roster moves and lead changes this season. Overall, I think everyone had a good time with it.

As usual for me I ended up drafting half a good team, forgot to set my line-up half the time, and donated $20. I'm used to it, but I have fun during the season. OK, see you all next year.

Ohhh... right prize money.... I guess you guys want your boxes of cards. LOL, I kid! I believe the last vote taken was for $175 for First Place and $65 for second. Let me know what boxes you guys want in an e-mail and we can take care of getting those sent to you this week. Just remember me when you are looking at those cool Pujols or Cano inserts.... =)

Next season I plan on running the league again, however there will only be weekly rosters to set and a limited number of add/drops per week. I feel like that will level the playing field for the people who couldn't keep up, or were not able to set a daily line-up.

The countdown to spring training will begin after the last World Series game =)

Sunday Question: Twins or Tigers?

It's the final day of the regular season for baseball and there is just one question left for baseball fans: Who would you rather see in the postseason, Twins or Tigers?

I vote for Twins, simply because the Yankees own them.

2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom

Overall opinion of this set: not great but would buy more.

Why would I buy more? Honestly the only reason is because for $2.99 you get 8 cards, or for the $4.99 rack pack you get 14 cards. I like getting a regular old pack of cards and getting more than 3 or 4 cards. Do I like the design? Not particularly but I like thumbing through a stack of cards. I know everyone has ripped this set to shreds but really other than Topps Series 1 & 2, there isn't much out right now that gives you 8 cards per pack. In total I opened 4 retail packs and 2 rack packs, all for research purposes to show the readers what is inside (at least that is what I'm telling myself now).

There is nothing great looking about these cards, nor are they all that exciting but cards are cards. I just like opening stuff.

I was highly optimistic about pulling a Pujols insert, and it was an epic failure as always. Here is what I did get:

These are the "die-cut" (if you can even call them that)

Just some regular cards to make this blog colorful.

I know Lonestarr pulled a sweet Pujols card with a ticket stub from a rack pack, but I don't have that kind of luck. He has dangled it in front of me, and I am trying to workout trade details with him but so far looks promising. What cracks me up are the people that are willing to pay big bucks for any of these ticket cards. It makes me laugh because the ticket stub has nothing to do with the player, it isn't like they held the ticket, signed it, sweat on it, wiped their ass with it or anything having anything to do with it. (For the record, I would NOT want a card that a player wiped their ass with.)

Anyone have any Pujols inserts from this set, please let me know.

P.S. Let's go Dodgers!

Sticker Autos and a comment someone made

So this week we posted some disgusting eBay auctions and there were plenty of comments. Now I will let you all know that the Pujols card I put up sold for almost $6,000. The thought of me ever spending that on a card is non-existent, I don't even find spending that to own one appealing. The card at that price really has no appeal to me. I love you Albert, just not that much.

One of the comments that was made (not sure by who, and I am too lazy to go back and look but feel free to take the credit you deserve) was something like, 'I wonder how that person will feel in 20 years when the sticker auto is peeling off'. I must admit, the thought of that one day happening with any of these cards that I own never even dawned on me.

Now I sit here mentally listing all the sticker autos I own and wondering if years from now, all the glue will be old and dried up, and fall off. (Sounds like what happens to most people, so why should stickers be different. *gong*) This really makes you wonder what might happen years from now. We have all seen some epic Sweet Spot ball card failures, so who is to say the stickers won't end up as crumbly shiny things that once held a pristine signature.

I was super happy when I found a Lind on card auto from the 2008 Masterpieces, and I one day want to get my hands on the Turkey Red (I believe 2006) Robinson Cano on card auto. I have my Mariano Rivera Turkey Red on card auto that I pulled from a hobby box I bought, and I still will say that was the best pull ever (the Jeter dual GU auto doesn't count since it's not mine, but that was fun to open).

Has anyone else ever thought about this? I gotta tell you, this may make me think a little differently before submitting a best offer or bidding on anymore sticker autos. I say this now, but I can't say it won't happen because there aren't many other choices out there.

P.S. I wish I had hung onto the Matt Antonelli card. Oh well.