Sunday's Afternoon Blaster - 2008 Upper Deck Timeline

Welcome once again to the Sunday Afternoon Blaster.  This past week has been a busy one for me as you have probably seen from my few posts this week.  I am mostly caught up, but I definitely did not want to miss my Sunday delight (well most Sundays its nice anyway).  Today's blaster is another Upper Deck discount blaster bringing it to 5 in a row.  This one could be good though because there is a guaranteed memorabilia card in the blaster.  There are 3 possible Rockies jerseys in this set, Scott Podsednik, Garrett Atkins, and Willy Taveras.  Wow, who made that checklist?  Either way I am going to root for a Rockie jersey along with my need for 6 of the 8 Colorado cards in this set.



Card coloration is it's availability

white = I'm keeping it

green = available for trade

red = already claimed/traded

Today's blaster is 2008 Upper Deck Timeline.  10 6 card packs, one guaranteed jersey.


On with the show.

pack one

23 Matt Kemp - Dodgers

5 Johan Santana - Mets

41 Justin Verlander - Tigers

316 Ian Kennedy - Yankees - Night Owl

109 David Murphy - Rangers

307 Brandon Boggs - Rangers - Night Owl

pack two

14 Derrek Lee - Cubs

32 Daisuke Matsuzaka - Red Sox - Spiegel

15 Jason Bay - Red Sox

96 Jeff Samardzija - Cubs

134 Vladimir Guerrero - Angels - Scott

191 James Loney - Dodgers (die cut) - Spiegel

pack three

33 B.J. Upton - Rays

6 Hanley Ramirez - Marlins - Scott

42 Joe Mauer - Twins

24 Matt Holliday - Rockies

118 Hernan Iribarren - Brewers - Night Owl

224 Manny Ramirez - Dodgers

pack four

43 Alex Gordon - Royals

16 Lance Berkman - Astros

34 Nick Markakis - Orioles - Scott

Yankee Stadium Legacy 759 - Bill Dickey

60 Luke Hochevar - Royals

179 Johnny Cueto - Reds - Night Owl

pack five

7 John Smoltz - Braves - Scott

25 Brandon Webb - Diamondbacks

22 Jake Peavy - Padres

127 Rico Washington - Cardinals - Night Owl

209 Steve Holm - Giants (die cut) - Night Owl

238 Brandon Phillips - Reds - Night Owl

pack six

40 Miguel Cabrera - Tigers

13 Alfonso Soriano - Cubs

49 Felix Hernandez - Mariners - Scott

4 Pedro Martinez - Mets

78 Clete Thomas - Tigers - Night Owl

170 Ryan Howard - Phillies

pack seven

31 Manny Ramirez - Dodgers

12 Jimmy Rollins - Phillies

48 Ichiro - Mariners - Scott

123 Max Scherzer - Diamondbacks - Night Owl

200 Micah Hoffpauir - Cubs (die cut) - Night Owl

252 Alex Gordon - Royals

pack eight

21 Tim Lincecum - Giants

39 C.C. Sabathia - Brewers

3 Carlos Beltran - Mets

29 Chien-Ming Wang - Yankees - Scott

83 Eugenio Velez - Giants - Night Owl

173 Chin-Lung Hu - Dodgers - Spiegel

pack nine

2 David Wright - Mets

TM-JD Jermaine Dye jersey - White Sox (you have to be kidding me)

105 Clay Timpner - Giants

266 Corey Hart - Brewers - Night Owl

pack ten

47 Josh Hamilton - Rangers

20 Albert Pujols - Cardinals

11 Ryan Howard - Phillies

56 Blake Dewitt - Dodgers - Spiegel

155 Carlos Zambrano - Cubs - Scott

210 Travis Hafner - Indians (die cut) - Night Owl

IMPRESSIONS
Design: B+
I like the design of this set.  The base veterans and rookies are nice looking with the team color as the secondary color (much like 2009 Icons).  The subsets from 101-385 are mostly well selected, especially the die cut SP Top Prospects design.  My only quibble with that one is why include veterans like Travis Hafner (7 year vet at the time) in a set designed for young players.

Inserts / Hits: D
This grade is an only for me grade.  The jersey card does not look bad at all, and if it was another player of equal caliber the grade would probably be a B or so.  However, my limited non-Rockies baseball jersey collection (trade bait) stands at 3 and Jermaine Dye is one of them.  So now have 4 total with 2 non-Strasburg or Zimmerman Nationals and 2 Jermaine Dyes (why couldn't it be a Dodger or Yankee or some other team I could trade away easily).

Value: B
This is yet another $11.99 blaster removed from my local Wal Mart's inventory and added to mine.  A good checklist and the guaranteed jersey in the box made it a must buy for me.  If there were more there I would probably pick up another.  I do have to bitch about the fact that 8 of the 10 packs had at least one Dodger or Giant in them (and one that didn't had a YSL card) including the awful pack 8 which had 3 of them.

Rox in the Box: 1
Continuing another streak at 3 is the lack of needed Rox in the Box.  The Matt Holliday is one of only 2 I have from this team set of 8.  I will keep plugging away and hopefully next week will bring me a new Rockie.  Or at least not 13 "other" NL West teams.

Will I Collect This Set: D
I am not collecting this set for one reason and one reason only...short prints.  The veterans (cards 1-50) are the only regular prints in this 385 card set.  The rookies (51-100) fall around 1:2 packs.  Cards 101-310 are inserted on average 2 per pack.  Cards 311-385 are the super short prints.  That equates to approximately 7 of the first 50 cards in every two packs.  Basically you will get the majority of veterans in every blaster plus a handful of the other 335 cards in this set.  This one is not for me.

Overall: B-
I liked everything about this set overall except the insanity of the printing.  If cards 1-310 were regular and the last 75 short prints, I probably would've started (and hopefully finished) this set 3 years ago.  Everything is for trade, but Spiegel gets first claim on everything (which he has done) because I owe him some cards.  Let the claiming begin.