Sunday's Afternoon Blaster - 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces

Welcome to this week's Sunday Afternoon Blaster.  This is a purchase from my local Wal Mart which I hadn't noticed prior to this week.  Either I missed it or Wally World has a stash of old blasters in the back.  We shall see in the upcoming weeks.  Last week's monstrosity of a repack blaster, well monstrosity is overstating it a bit but it wasn't good, inspired this purchase.  I got one pack of the 2007 version of this set in that box and I figured 2008 would be just as good, we shall see.  There are 3 Rockies in this set, of which I own 2.  The goals for this blaster are card #30 Matt Holliday and a cool short print or parallel that is very tradable.

Card coloration is it's availability

white = I'm keeping it

green = available for trade

red = already claimed/traded

Man, Dice-K was everywhere in 2008, wasn't he?

Today's blaster is 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces.  8 four card packs, nothing guaranteed.

On with the show.

pack one

43 Chin-Lung Hu - Dodgers

85 Chris Carpenter - Cardinals

4 Chipper Jones - Braves

46 Robin Yount - Brewers

pack two

8 Jim Palmer - Orioles

23 Jim Thome - White Sox

32 Justin Verlander - Tigers

18 Alfonso Soriano - Cubs

pack three

86 Carl Crawford - Rays

65 Jorge Posada - Yankees

YSL 782 Babe Ruth - Yankees

81 Ichiro - Mariners

67 Eric Chavez - Athletics

pack four

57 Pedro Martinez - Mets

29 Troy Tulowitzki - Rockies

39 Roy Oswalt - Astros

90 Ryan Zimmerman - Nationals

pack five

15 David Ortiz - Red Sox

1 Brandon Webb - Diamondbacks

76 Greg Maddux - Padres

48 Ryan Braun - Brewers

pack six

2 Justin Upton - Diamondbacks

102 Nolan Ryan - Astros (short print)

53 Carlos Beltran - Mets

88 Frank Thomas - Blue Jays

pack seven

79 Russell Martin - Dodgers

64 Joba Chamberlain - Yankees

YSL 1336 Joe Gordon - Yankees
25 Joe Morgan - Reds

11 Carl Yastrzemski - Red Sox

pack eight

50 Joe Mauer - Twins

22 Kosuke Fukudome - Cubs

74 Luke Hochevar - Royals

60 Whitey Ford - Yankees

IMPRESSIONS
Design: A-
They named this set well, because these are Masterpieces.  Most of the paintings aren't as good as the 2007 set, but there are only a couple that I didn't think looked that good.  The Verlander card is my favorite due to the detail of the scoreboard during his no hitter.  Fantastic.  I am on the fence on the textured front. It just doesn't feel like a card, but I can overlook it because at least it's different.

Inserts / Hits: D-
This is not the product for hit seekers, at least not the blasters.  I am not aware of any insert sets other than parallels in this set, but I don't think there are any.  I will say one thing about the (usually ignored on this site) Yankee Stadium Legacy cards in this blaster.  I was not bothered by them one bit because they did not replace a regular card.  These types of basically uncompletable sets only bother me if they impede my attempt to collect something else.

Value: B

Not bad, nothing great popped out other than the Ryan short print (which looks great in its rainbow goodness).  But there were some good cards and I feel like I go my money's worth out of this.  And when all is said and done, that's all I am looking for.

Rox in the Box: 1
Well I missed out on the Holliday to finish this set, but it's not horrible or anything.  I got 1 Rockie out of 32 cards, that's right where it should be considering there are 30 teams.  I was hoping for the Holliday, but I did not expect it.

Will I Collect This Set: F
As good as this set is, it really just isn't my style.  I have always thought card collectors fell into one of two main categories, photography lovers and stats lovers.  I am more the latter, but I am not a crazy new school sabermetrics fanatic.  But when I started collecting the numbers fascinated me more than the pictures.  This is a set ideal for the photography/art lovers though.

Overall: B
This is great set for what it is.  I would never want a flagship set to be like this with all the retired players and funky design, but for a side set this isn't bad at all.  Just like with 2008 UD Timeline, I was right on the fence for collecting this set, but the short prints decided it for me again.  Even though I am not going to pursue this set, I would buy a (discounted) blaster again just for the fun of seeing these cards in person.