On a cold mid-January evening while on a one night work trip in a completely generic medium-sized town, I was nicely able to entertain myself without "screens" such as the one you're looking at right now, by simply wheeling into a Walgreen's. It seems their decision to stock Baseball Cards is sticking, always a "for now" deal with that chain, and in particular these Fairfield repack products are (almost) always on the shelf, waiting, for me.
These are such a fun way to suddenly, and completely randomly, own 50-ish old Baseball Cards. Let's take a look:
wait, did I say "old?"
In reality, repacks are often created by distributors, such as Fairfield, literally "ripping" their own un-sold retail inventory. This of course allows ... someone - the business? the employee? access to any sort of truly valuable Baseball Card that might be within, rather than actual Baseball Card collectors, which probably gives Baseball Card collectors the heebie-jeebies, at least a little.
As they say, be that as it may.... unsold Baseball Cards gotta go somewhere. As long as a repack product isn't just filled with 3-4 dozen cards all from the same set only 2-3 years old - MJ Holdings style - I will still enjoy them. Fairfield comes through for me with these.
So a nice nearly brand new (2023 Big League) Bobby Witt Jr. card was a great way to start this re-pack. I was also impressed by the Topps effort here, on an insert checklist which basically FUBAR'd the concept on the other cards from it I had previously seen. That was because these "City Slickers" inserts were -supposed- to show off the new-ish "City Connect" uniform designs. Simple enough, until lazy Topps Baseball Card miners simply copy-paste any random image onto them, including ones that completely fail to show off the special uni.
Not so with that there BWJ card, which is highly likely to be my Kansas City entry in a simple City Connect collection I have going. The repetition of the special new KC logo on the card itself was a nice extra touch. Thus, a keeper. And, we're off -
I am this-close to finishing up all things 2011 Topps. After that I have to make 'last call' decisions on 2012 Topps, the "Surfboard Set." I have already decided to not fill in the 1-200-ish empty slots on the checklist, in my collection, nor break open the Factory Set of it that I have. It's functional enough design and the photo selections are often great, but so many sets, so little shelf-space, in my life. And the foil, uggh. Craig who? Sorry, Craig, I forgot. Baseball Cards are supposed to cure that for me.
Nevertheless I haven't finished picking out 9 favorite 2012 Topps Baseball horizontal cards. If memory serves, I do have 8 of them assembled. Repack for-the-win, 2-for-2 on the random old cards nobody else wanted. :)
hey look, a Sea Turtle!
It's a beaut!
These are always fun for me to find, now in a whole other decade. Wait, what? That was TWELVE years ago? Oh dear.
Perhaps Dan Uggla might feel the same way about this entry in his Baseball Card oeuvre, which notes that the year before he had made the 1,000 Hits milestone and played in his first All-Star Game. For all that, he somewhat got "Hero Number" treatment on the 2013 Topps Baseball checklist, where he is card #126, sporting Uni #26.
However after this basically top-notch Baseball Card, I can't remember a single thing about Dan Uggla. I can just hope he is a happy AA Hitting Coach in a town near where he grew up. Such is what happens once you enter a repack and start looking at objects that mark the passage of Time, itself.
yasss!
Fairfield certainly routed this particular repack box to the right state: Michigan!
Is there a more "Baseball" card design than 1982 Donruss? That would make for an interesting contest.
I have always thought Champ Summers would have been a perfect subject for the "Fan Favorites" type cards in Archives sets. I suspect fans have fond memories of him wherever he played - how you could not root for an athlete named "Champ," after all? Alas, he passed away in 2012 at only 66 years of age, just as the concept was launching at Topps, and he doesn't have any 21st Century Baseball Cards. But here I am in the 21st Century, pulling one of his cards from a "pack." How cool is that?
Although I will always connect "The Mad Hungarian" to pleasant memories of St. Louis Cardinals Baseball in the mid-70s, I was also stoked to find this card, which is one shy of being Hrabosky's sunset card. For one I had forgotten that Atlanta hopped on the Powder Blue train, too. A simple Baseball color scheme so effective that Donruss used it in this card design, too. This pair of 1982 Donruss cards is starting to pull me in...
One thing I always liked about 1980s Donruss card backs (including this one) is that they often discuss the player's contract, a key piece of baseball information, for fans. But something strictly off-limits to discuss on Topps card backs.
Meanwhile although the fantastic sideburns and handlebar mustache had here disappeared into just, a beard, as if Al was here with us in the 2020s, this card finally unlocked the obvious realization: I need to start up an Al Hrabosky Player Collection. That's gonna be fun. Good job, repack.
Another great feature of repacks is they are today basically the only place you are suddenly going to see a Manager card, outside of deliberately ripping certain older boxes. Although I am sure I have perhaps multiple copies of this card, as I have large piles of the poorly printed 1989 Topps set that I have never culled down, I was still happy to see this card again, 36 years later. Because I like Manager cards. It's time, Topps, it's time.
yeah buddy
Did I mention that I like Manager cards? I'm still in a permanent push-pull space with 1990 Topps, with it's intriguing design but then essentially random use of colors, here with a classic base of red, white, and blue, but then - purple, multiple purples, fuschia? Violet? What -is- that up there in the corner?
Some (weird) people would probably have the same complaint about 1975 Topps I guess. Oh well. I would be happy to pull a Don Zimmer Baseball Card - out of every box of Baseball Cards.
One thing I like about repacks is that they don't make me reach for baseball-reference.com to figure out just who some Rookie is.
Hey, wait.
The Pirates, a team I follow a little on radio when I can, just came through Detroit this week - & I can't recall hearing Travis Swaggerty's name called, on either broadcast. And as usual I was disappointed that Bob Walk is only on their radio crew in the spring. Nevertheless I can recall hearing his name on the radio back in a March of ... how many years back?
Here Baseball Cards let me down, and I had to reach for baseball-reference.com, again. Travis Swaggerty made a career total 9 Plate Appearances for the Pirates, in the year 2022. How that earned him a spot on the somewhat limited 200 (more?) card checklist in 2023 Big League, well, we all know why that is. Rookie Card cards!
Even in the "kids" set, we get pointless Rookie Card cards. I seriously doubt any kid in western Pennsylvania in the summer of 2023 was excited to pull this particular Baseball Card, as of course no adult was either. Even in repacks, sigh.
As I was saying, Fairfield got this little box of joy delivered to the right place. I always like seeing the actual Tiger appear on a Tigers Baseball Card. I might have to re-think my usual quick dismissal of 1989 Donruss I guess. Might prolly make for a fun team set to assemble. These repacks can sure make a collector question their assumptions, at times.
wot?
Yup, that happened. An occasional hazard of repacks. At least the Fairfield repacker person picked the right team to dup for a change.
I'm trying to find a defect in either of those scans - only total authenticity, here - but I can't. Are these Gem Mint PSA 10s worth one million dollars? Of course not. They have been ripped from a wax pack, held in someone's "collection" for a couple three decades, then placed loose / unwrapped in another cardboard box (horrors!), and run through all the things that happen to a cardboard box in the retail trade. And here they still look, excellent. I truly pity people who can't enjoy Baseball Cards that have been handled like this, with surefire "defects" only detectable via jeweler's loupes.
This is one of my favorite directions for repacks to wander towards - the early 00s. By this point the non-Topps manufacturers were far less likely to appear in front of me on a shelf in a small town, and an "LCS" wasn't a place I could visit routinely, either.
So I never saw the various non-Topps sets that clearly borrowed their design from various Topps sets. I don't feel a pressing need to fully collect a set like this, but I certainly enjoy the new-old being on display. As I often type, you can't go wrong with a red, white, & blue Baseball Card.
Now here's a nice discovery - the simple, pure class of 93 Upper Deck. A set for which I never opened a pack. I think I will try and keep an eye out on the retro shelf at my LCS, which holds random "junk wax" appearances that never seem to sync up with my Baseball Card memories. Just today I could have ripped some 1992 Leaf, I think it was, for cheap. Here's hoping that concept will "stick" in my overly full Baseball Card mind.
This card will help. Just today I found a random Bowman card of a never-Major-Leaguer with the most picture perfect Pitcher Face - it will pair well with this one. The stranger the expression, the more effective the pitch? Perhaps. ALL CAPS CARD BACK TEXT though, yeah, nope. These will have to go in at 18/page, for sure.
I thought Robles was an Outfielder.
And, where's Gretl?
I bet Robles, or Hansel (this can get confusing in 2019 Topps) probably wouldn't wanna hear that 2nd tease.
I do look forward to the day I start picking keepers from 2019 Topps. I should re-visit my First Pack, Best Pack blog post from release time. Over time I grew disenchanted with the heavy use of software photo filters in the set and declined to complete it. But it surely has pages of highlights to assemble...thanks for the reminder, repack.
Surprise!
I am sure -some- collectors are quite familiar with this Never Happened card and the circumstances that lead to it. I never completed 2001 Topps though am close. So this upped the amusement factor of that drab January evening a fair bit. Where else (outside of Baseball Card blogs) are you gonna stumble across card chaos like this?
I like Darryl Strawberry cards.
I like it when the Powder Blue gets picked up by the Baseball Card designer.
But I don't like Green Bay Packer style Baseball Cards. One and one team only should have appeared in this part of the multi-colored 90 Score checklist. Ok, ok, some Packers cards on this otherwise gets-the-job-done-ok-enough design would be OK, too.
A Minor League stadium with an upper deck? What a rabid Baseball town Denver must have been, I guess? So, I "did the research" and sure enough, the Zephyrs played in Mile High Stadium. With Baseball Cards, you can truly learn something new, every day.
And were the Zephyrs an affiliate of the Green Bay Packers? Close. They were the AAA affiliate for the Brewers back then. Props for the imaginative use of Home Plate in the functional, clean design here, too.
I mostly scanned this one because it has a key feature of Spring Training photos, one I quite miss on such Baseball Cards here in the 21st: other players. I truly don't know why they had to be banned from Baseball Card photos. Just let the photog work the field, and let the game of Baseball appear, too. Would that be so hard?
Finally, a Hall of Famer
I was getting close to the end of the fun little stack of cards before the Fairfield repacker remembered the key rule: one HoF card, per package.
Oh no, he's smiling at me
I have a small collection of cards with that working title. I have never seen this expression on a hitter, before.
And, yes, I might could best "upgrade" this particular copy. That isn't the cumulative effects of being run through the Baseball Card distribution system, twice. Rather, that is a common fate of 2001 Topps cards, which just love to brick themselves together in storage. If you haven't opened a tightly packed box of '01 Topps in a while, you might be a little disappointed when you do. I was.
Such a great stroll through the wonders of Baseball Cards. But did I get that wondrous 8th box with the "hit" in it? Alas, I didn't find any cards theoretically worth theoretical money - no hits. But then, how many "hits" in brand new boxes of Baseball Cards are actually worth any "real" money? I'll leave that for you to discern on your next box-ripping adventure.
I did however, receive one of the "randomly inserted packs" I was supposed to be looking for:
I'll bet you never noticed that one of the blue-est, though not the none-more-blue set, of Baseball Cards ever designed, came in a mostly red wrapper. That the designers could achieve this colorful, attractive simplicity on the outside but so fail on the inside just feels like the exception that proves my you-can't-go-wrong-with-red-white-and-blue on Baseball Cards rule. Plaid just isn't part of Baseball, save that for the Grunge musicians. Or, me, where every cold day is usually Plaidurday.
Anyhow, I decided to share the contents of that pack with ya -
Perhaps the cards that fare the worst in this set are when the uniform is blue, too.
Anyhow if those cards had appeared loose in the repack, which is certainly always possible in any repack though 89 Donruss might be even more common, well I doubt I would have scanned any of them. Perhaps the simple joy of a Rated Rookie might have made for a scan. And I do have to wonder if anyone in 1988 found it remarkable to pull two future Hall of Famers sequentially. Did I pull 2 Hall of Famers in a pack of 2025 Topps Series Two this afternoon? I doubt it.
Mostly what intrigued me about that pack was this sequence:
OF-IF-OF-SS-2B-2B-OF-IF-3B-OF-OF-2B-2B-SS-IF
Which means - no Pitchers, or Catchers, in 15 sequential Baseball Cards.
Just how did Donruss lay out their sheets for the 1988 set?
Ahh, the mysteries.
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