Song of the Week - Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

This is from a 2012 CD my daughter brought home from the library called Night Visions by Imagine Dragons. According to Wikipedia the album reached #1 on the alternative rock chart. I don't listen to the radio so I'd never heard of them before.

I was looking for a video for another song by them called "It's Time". This post-apocalyptic vision was up for a Music Video of the Year award. I decided not to go with it and instead go with this one which also seems post-apocalyptic. It features wild-eyed men betting on caged death matches between mutant teddy bears. I swear it does.

Fairfield Authentic Memorabilia repack

When there's nothing new at the big box store (I got this about a week before 2013 Topps was released), these are always a treat. The three packs almost always have something I want.  The memorabilia card is a total crap shoot, sometimes it's crap, sometimes it's not. When I open something like this, I'm looking for Players I Collect and any additions to my reference set.

2009 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection #108 Randy Johnson/Carlos Delgado

Well, OK, a dual jersey serial numbered card. Well worth the price of the total package ($9.98). This is the sort of high-end set I don't buy when it's new. For one thing the packs are expensive. For another, the big box stores don't carry this stuff, and as I've lamented before, there are no hobby shops near where I live.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline #151 B. J. Upton

This is a set I like, but mainly the subsets featuring old and rather obscure Upper Deck designs, as this one does.

2009 Upper Deck Gold #564 Milton Bradley

Not one of my favorite sets and I didn't get anyone I wanted in this 16-card Series 2 pack, but then there was this. An Upper Deck Gold parallel, serial numbered to 99. These gold parallel cards were a tough pull and I didn't have one. Between this and the Ballpark Collection card I'm well satisfied with this repack.

2009 Upper Deck Star Quest Gold Rare #39 Evan Longoria

I don't care much for these Star Quest cards but the Gold Rare cards were relatively hard to get. There were actually two of these in the pack, the other was Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies, but I'd already had 4 of them as the result of past Summer Clearance trades. Longoria isn't really a Player I Collect but he's one of a handful of players who are on the bubble and I usually keep their cards.

2010 Topps Opening Day #45 Carl Crawford

I didn't really need any more of this product but I like the photo. Crawford is safe at second while the fielder is raptured away.

2010 Topps Opening Day Superstar Celebrations #3 Yankees

This was a pleasant surprise at the bottom of the pack. I had all the insert cards from this set except for this and the autograph.

2013 Topps Base and Parallel - First Look

I picked up a blaster, a rack pack and a rack box at Walmart last week. So far, the Targets around here don't seem to have the product yet.

The 2013 Topps design is perhaps the best of the century. The design is simple yet elegant. It works well with both vertically and horizontally oriented cards. The photo selection is strong. The backs are also nice. The implementation of the the front design onto the back of the card is works well. I like the integration of the card number into the baseball diamond motif from the front. The backs are also easy to read. In past years some of the color combinations have made the backs inscrutable. In particular, in 2012, the team name color and the background color it was on made it real hard to read. This year only the yellow teams (like the Pirates) are a bit difficult, since it's yellow on white.  And for the first time in years, the front does not have silver foil text on a black background. Here's a sample of what I pulled.

#11 Yu Darvish

I also like the placement of the team logo on a fine grid in the card highlight color.

#12 A. J. Pierzynski

There is maybe a bit too much white space on the horizontal cards but much better than the 2012's stretching of the 'surf board' all the way across the card.

#33 Cliff Lee

I pulled 4 Phillies cards. Here's hoping Cliff Lee has some better luck this year.

#83 Darin Ruf

Ruf only played in 12 games in the majors last year but he tore up the minor leagues breaking Ryan Howard's single season home run record. He put on quite a show last September for the Phillie Phans. 

#179 Detroit Tigers

 There are not a lot of subset cards. There are cards from various playoff games...

#194 Cabrera, Hamilton, Encarnacion

 ...and League Leader cards. That's it.

#266 Albert Pujols Checklist

The checklist cards feature a player on the front.

#330 Ryan Raburn

 My favorite card in Series 1. This card features more wide open mouths and cleavage on any single card I can think of. And would not surprise me at all to learn that the card is Photoshopped.

Topps Emerald Foil #181 Jeff Keppinger

This is the third year in a row Topps has used this technology in their flagship product. This year, they made them green. I pulled two of these.

Gold #303 Alex Rodriguez Checklist

 Serial numbered gold cards are back. This is the only one I pulled.

Topps Blue Walmart #5 Carlos Gonzalez

I always like Walmart's blue bordered parallels. Every blue parallel I pulled from the blaster box (20 in all) were horizontally oriented cards. That seems pretty improbable so I suspect that Walmart packed some boxes that way deliberately. But why?  

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends

Last year I did a post on the 2011 Panini Americana set. I had only bought a few packs, really just to see what they looked like. I sort of liked them but wondered why anyone would buy a box of the stuff. Well, that was last year. This year, I actually bought a box. The set has been renamed Panini Americana Heroes & Legends. The set seems to be a bit re-purposed as well. Last year the cards mainly featured celebrities, some of whom I didn't even know. This year the set is a combination of American Presidents, American women soccer players, American Olympic athletes, astronauts,  and Tuskegee airmen.  Here's a sample.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends #35 John F. Kennedy

All the cards feature black and white photography. The 125-card set has all the presidents, in chronological order, numbered the same as their presidency. I don't know if they have a second card for presidents who served more than 1 term.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends #69 Cari Lloyd

The rest of the cards aren't in blocks of similar cards. I don't have a checklist but my sense, based on what I got in the box is that there are roughly the same number of women soccer players, astronauts and Olympians and a lot fewer airmen. The backs of all the cards are the same whereas the bottom border changes depending on the subset.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends #79 Mark Spitz

 All of the women soccer players and Olympians are action shots.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends #97 Robert Crippen

  All of the astronauts that I got are retired but sill alive. And almost all of them are astronauts from relatively early in the program, which means they are pretty old today. Crippen, for example, is 75 years old. The youngest astronaut I got was born in 1952.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends Roscoe Brown

  I only pulled three of these. All feature the airman in flight gear.

There are a number of insert cards, including relic and autographs.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends USA Women's Soccer #4 Amy Rodriguez/Jill Loyden

 I got one of this 22-card insert set. I don't know anything about insert ratios.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends Olympics #25 Rowdy Gaines

There are 30 of these, split evenly between summer and winter sports.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends Relics #45 Alan Bean

The box didn't guarantee a relic card so I was happy to pull this. An astronaut relic would have been my second choice after a President relic. The photo in the front is the same as the Bean card in the base set. There are 45 of these numbered the same as the base set. The card doesn't have anything to say about where this piece of cloth came from, just that it "is guaranteed by Panini". There are also relic and autograph versions of the other insert cards.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends Military Elite #8 Roscoe Draper

The inserts are all based on the subsets in the base set. Draper is a Tuskegee airman. Don't know anything else about him. I was able to find Wikipedia articles on everyone in the box except Draper and one of the women soccer players.

2012 Panini Americana Heroes & Legends Astronaut #12 Hoot Gibson

Perhaps the only baseball connection in the whole set, Mr. Gibson was born in Cooperstown, NY.

Song of the Week - Money by The Drums

I got this song as a podcast from KEXP in 2011. Whenever it comes up on iTunes I always stop what I'm doing an listen to it. Don't know anything about the band except for what I read on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says "The Drums are noted for their pre-newwave-tinged nostalgic pop, Pierce's dancing, stage motions, and angelic blonde facade, and the band's pre-flower power image." Sounds about right.

This is from their second album, Portamento released in 2011.

Random Cards From My Collection #36

Card #26038
1991 Score #793 Sandy Alomar, Jr.

In 1991, Score had 5 cards featuring Sandy, after his rookie year of 1990.

Card #2775
1980 Topps #655 Tug McGraw

The Tugger saved 20 games for the 1980 World Series Champion Phillies.

Card #2422
2003 Stadium Club Born in the USA Relics Jim Thome

In 2003, Jim lead the American League in home runs, with 47 and strike outs, with 182.

Card #21331
1995 Score Platinum Team Set #515 Billy Hatcher

These Platinum parallel cards were only available as team sets through a mail-in offer. They came in a plastic box with a certificate of authenticity. They are pretty available on eBay these days.

Card #9304
1988 Score #656 Steve Bedrosian

The random spin has brought up yet another Score set. This card is from their inaugural year.

Card #10210
2008 Upper Deck #780 Derek Jeter

Card #11871
1995 Topps #510 Scott Elarton

 Scott was the Astro's #1 draft pick in 1994. His best year was 2000, when he went 17-7 for the Astros. He was never that good again.

Card #6204
2005 Topps Grudge Match #1 Jorge Posada/Pedro Martinez

Should baseball cards be commemorating on-field fights?

Card #15866
1988 Score Young Superstars I #23

Cards from this set were inserted into 1988 Score rack packs and were also available in a 40-card box.

Card #8974
1993 Fleer All-Stars #9 Darren Daulton