Showing posts with label 2013 Opening Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013 Opening Day. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

2013 Opening Day Jim Johnson

True to his word, Matt from over at Once a Cub offered me his Opening Day extras from the debacle that was Blaster Wars. I turned him down though as I plan to buy a complete set in the near future and figured he would be able to trade them off for other stuff. With that said, I did take him up on his offer to let me scan a few for the purposes of this blog.

 
The Orioles have yet to play so in honor of their Opening Day today, here is Jim Johnson's card from this year's set.

I don't really follow American League baseball so it could just be me,  but the Orioles kind of came out of nowhere last year. And a big part of that was closer Jim Johnson. His 51 Saves, was three more than the next the closest guy, division rival the Rays' Fernado Rodney and nine more than the nearest National League leaders, the Cardinals' Jason Matte and the Braves Craig Kimbrel.
 
That was enough to garner him a few Cy Young votes in an otherwise tight race between starters Justin Verlander and winner David Price. He also pitched a perfect inning in his All-Star Game debut against a dominant National League team that pounded other American League pitchers for an 8-0 victory.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em...

I won't make a habit of posting on the weekends but I thought I'd share my most recent pack buying/busting experience.

I was talking cards with Matt from over at Once a Cub at work on Friday and we decided to go check for some Opening Day on our lunch break. Normally, I am a pretty frugal collector and don't buy blasters. I like to open the occasional pack but would much rather pay for just cards I want.

We are both interested in completing the set, and at half the price of any other blaster, we each picked up two figuring we could swap our dupes. Well, that was the plan on the way to Wal-Mart. We ran out of time on our lunch break and didn't get a chance to open anything up.

A little more banter at work led to Matt automatically claiming any Cubs I pulled and me claiming his Nats. I upped the ante a little further and asked if he wanted to play pack wars, winner gets the whole blaster. Neither of us had done anything like this before.

We didn't have a Beckett or anything to declare a book value winner so we decided to make the pack winner measured by something concrete. Highest base card number won the pack. Most pack winners claimed the other's whole blaster box.

As you may be able to ascertain by the lack of photos in this post, I didn't win. Either box. I didn't keep track of the finals scores but I believe I lost the first box 7-4 and the second box 6-5. The second box was especially close as one pack I lost was initially a tie when we both pulled the same high card. But his next highest card was higher than mine. That box could have gone either way.

Oh well. Twenty bucks down the drain. It was kind of fun though. I probably wouldn't have done it with a regular $20 blaster. And I don't know that I'll do a winner take all again but I would be open to a pack vs. pack showdown. At least then I could have walked away with a couple of packs.

Rather than waste any more money, I'm going to head on over to eBay and just buy the complete set.

Anybody else have other ways they play pack wars?