Thursday, February 5, 2009

Finally got my hands on some '09 Topps

Well, if I had just waited two days I could have gotten some '09 Topps without all the excitement of my previous trip to Wal Mart.

I've been reading on various blogs that people are finding '09 Upper Deck at Wal Mart. Since I was off today and needed to run some errands (ie. get gas and take out the trash) I figured I'd go see if I could pick up some new UD.

Turns out the local Wal Mart didn't have UD, but they did have Topps. Woohoo, that's what I was really after, so I bought five packs. I'll open these a pack at a time and post some scans.

Also in the mail when I got home was another surprise, but that's a post for later this afternoon.

2009 Topps pack 1
124 Reed Johnson
241 David Newhan
75 Rich Harden
147 NL RBI Leaders
157 Classic Combos (Webb/Harden)


TTT15 Alfonso Soriano - I actually like these cards. They're not as much of a waste of space as most advertisement inserts.
10 Dan Uggla
6 Francisco Cervelli
75 Trey Hillman
3 Andy Marte
182 Daniel Murphy


49 Kazuo Matsui - So far this is the best picture. His face says it all: "Oh god, my bat just hit an old lady in the teeth."

First impression: Pretty good. In terms of design, these are infinitely better than '08's. The photography is vastly superior. I've still got mixed feelings about '09 UD, so we'll have to wait until I get my hands on a few packs of that, but I think '09 base Topps is going to be my set for the year (maybe Heritage as well, we'll see when it comes).

They didn't over use foil on the front. The design reminds me a bit of a combination of the 1987 and 1994 Topps sets.

The back of the cards are actually interesting and easy to read. I like the little trivia facts above the player's name. The "6 Degrees of Mantle" reminds me of the Oracle of Baseball at Baseball Reference.

Thus far I can't really many any decision. We'll see how I feel after a few more packs.

3 comments:

MMayes said...

My Kaz Matsui caption:

"No, Remember, I don't slide because of the anal fissures"

(He unfortunately missed time in 2008 Spring Training....)

David Wishinsky said...

Thats an injury you don't want to tweak. He had surgery for it too!

http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080314&content_id=2427161&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou

Ben said...

Now that you both mention it, I kinda remember hearing something about that. Doesn't really sound... plesant.