Sunday's Afternoon Blaster - 2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball

Welcome back to the Sunday Afternoon Blaster.  Today's edition is the final blaster of 2009 Upper Deck Icons at my local Wal Mart.  I broke one earlier that was actualy the inspiration for this feature.  It is my 3rd different Upper Deck discount blaster in a row, but it wasn't scheduled to be.  I wrote in a post on Friday that I intended this slot to be filled by my first (and only) 2011 Topps blaster.  After I ripped all the packs and had the post completely written up (minus the pictures), either Blogger or myself (accidentally) decided that the entire body of text needed to be gone.  By that time, there was no saving it so I bought another and decided that would be last time that I tried to do SAB in advance.

So today's blaster was purchased on 02/27/11 at 12:22 PM ET (in case you are scoring at home).

Card coloration is it's availability

white = I'm keeping it

green = available for trade

red = already claimed/traded

Today's blaster is 2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball.  10 five card packs (1 guaranteed jersey card)

On with the show.

pack one
99 Vernon Wells - Blue Jays
9 B.J. Upton - Rays

43 Hanley Ramirez - Marlins

16 Carlos Quentin - White Sox

79 Michael Young - Rangers

pack two
69 Kerry Wood - Indians
45 Freddy Sanchez - Pirates

UD 20th Retro 1600 Hillary Clinton - Politics

52 Jay Bruce - Reds

25 Cliff Lee - Indians

pack three
18 CC Sabathia - Yankees

81 Nate McLouth - Pirates

80 Miguel Cabrera - Tigers Retail Red parallel

88 Russell Martin - Dodgers

61 Jon Lester - Red Sox

pack four (HIT and a HALF)

54 Jimmy Rollins - Phillies

LI-RJ Reggie Jackson Legendary Icons - Yankees jersey (it'll take a lot for me to part with this one)
                                   BABenny (now known as The Godfather) made me an offer I couldn't refuse

97 Tim Lincecum - Giants

pack five (another much smaller hit)
27 Curtis Granderson - Tigers
90 Ryan Dempster - Cubs

FF-FC Fausto Carmona Future Foundations - Indians 326/999

7 Alfonso Soriano - Cubs

92 Ryan Ludwck - Cardinals

pack six

63 Jose Reyes - Mets

1 A.J. Burnett - Yankees

UD 20th Retro 1605 Patrick Roy - Colorado Avalanche

65 Josh Hamilton - Rangers

38 Evan Longoria - Rays

pack seven

64 Josh Beckett - Red Sox

37 Ervin Santana - Angels

10 Brandon Webb - Diamondbacks
74 Manny Ramirez - Dodgers
47 Jason Varitek - Red Sox

pack eight

12 Brian McCann - Braves

73 Magglio Ordonez - Tigers

46 Ichiro - Mariners

20 Chase Utley - Phillies
83 Prince Fielder - Brewers

pack nine

71 Kosuke Fukudome - Cubs

59 Johan Santana - Mets

4 Akinori Iwamura - Rays

56 Joba Chamberlain - Yankees
15 Carlos Lee - Astros

pack ten

19 Chad Billingsley - Dodgers

82 Nick Markakis - Orioles

UD 20th Retro 1610 Teddy Roosevelt - Medal of Honor

78 Matt Kemp - Dodgers
51 Javier Vazquez - Braves

IMPRESSIONS
Design:  A-
I love the design.  It is very simple, but the colors pop so much.  The backs of the cards are very bare, without a picture and a max of 5 years of stats.  But the front makes up for it.

Inserts / Hits: A-
I got my guaranteed jersey and it was Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson.  The only things that kept this from being an A+ was it was a solid white jersey (If I have to get a Yankee jersey I want the pinstripe) and he is shown on the Yanks (Sorry Yankee fans but he is an Athletic in my mind).  The Carmona isn't horrible by any means but pales in comparison and will probably be harder to trade.
The Retail Red parallels (foilboard with red as the only color for the border) are not really that great to me although I did get a better player this time.

Value: A-
$11.98 + tax for any blaster isn't bad, but when you consider I am collecting the set and I got the Reggie it was fantastic.  I consider this to be the most successful Sunday Afternoon Blaster so far.

Rox in the Box: 0
One of the few downsides of this blaster was the lack of Rockies.  Yes I know I got Patrick Roy of the Avalanche (the rare hockey player I have ever heard of), but that doesn't count.  There are only 2 Rockies in the base set and there are only a small handful of the numbered inserts, so I wasn't really expecting any here.

Will I Collect This Set: A+
Well I already was collecting it, so yes I will.  I didn't get as many needed base cards as I was hoping 17 needed 25 dupes.  I was hoping for at least a 50-50 split.  But that gives me some more trade bait in hopes of completing this set.

Overall: A
A guaranteed jersey in every box and a beautiful base set along with a very nice checklist makes this probably my favorite Upper Deck set in a while.  The only downfall is that this was the last one at Wally World.  Oh well, there is a good selection for next week there and it will be a set not featured here before.