2009 Upper Deck

What? Me blogging about new cards? After I've derided the cardmakers time and time again and vowed not to buy any more packs or boxes? 

Don't worry. I've held true to my vow up to this point. I met a great dealer at my first show in Chicago last year who busts open cases upon cases of cards. I talked to him for a bit at that show and asked him if he wouldn't mind pulling out a team set plus any miscellaneous inserts of Tigers from the stuff he opened. He said he'd be glad to and a great relationship has come of it. He usually makes it to a show here to Chicago about three times a year. I'll go and pick up my cards and chit-chat with him and his dad for awhile and the whole arrangement works out well for everybody.

Well he wasn't able to make the show last week, so instead he mailed me the latest batch of Tigers that he had saved up for me. I've been putting off blogging about any 2009 cards because I have so few of them since I am NOT buying any packs anymore, but with the big package that came in today I thought it might be fun to review something current, especially with all the time I've been spending on 90's cards around here.

So I'll start with this 2009 Upper Deck release. There are so many good things about this set that I like. These are great looking cards, the inserts look great too, this is one of the biggest team sets I have seen in a long time, I got a Clete Thomas AU Insert, all around these are just absolutely fantastic. 

As I do when I get new cards, I catalog them so that can I print out a sheet of paper of what I'm missing (there always seems to be a missing a card or two) so that when I go to my next show I don't have to lug around a bunch of binders. But as I was cataloging these this evening I noticed something that literally floored me.

THERE ARE CARDS OF THE SAME PLAYERS IN $ERIE$ 1 AND $ERIE$ 2!!!

What the fuck is the deal with that?!? $erou$ly? You've got to be kidding me!

Arghhh....it was bad enough when Topp$ did it in their 2007 $et (Gary Sheffield and Mike Rabelo) but there are quite a few of them here. I count FIVE players that were duplicated, and damn if one of them isn't Sheffield, who didn't even make the team out of Spring Training! Gerald Laird only shows up on the front of one of the team checklist cards. There are no cards of Ryan Raburn, Fu-Te Ni, Brandon Lyon, Matt Treanor, Dusty Ryan, or Jeff Larish. What could possibly be the reason for this? 

Ok, I can understand that there are no cards of those guys because I'm sure there is little demand for them. But they did issue cards of Zach Miner, Bobby Seay, Freddy Dolsi, Chris Lambert, and Todd Jones, so it's not like they didn't already issue some low demand cards. So then why make duplicates of other guys and then end up with a set that checks in at over 1,000 cards? If I was trying to build an entire set I would be pissed. Especially with the price of packs these days. I guess little has changed in the last year. Both card companies are still out to fuck as many people over and take as much money from them as they possibly can. It's a shame too. This is a nice set. There was absolutely no reason for this.

The 2009 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

125 Armando Galarraga

126 Miguel Cabrera

127 Placido Polanco

128 Edgar Renteria

129 Carlos Guillen

130 Gary Sheffield

131 Curtis Granderson

132 Marcus Thames

133 Magglio Ordonez

134 Jeremy Boonderman

135 Dontrelle Willis

136 Kenny Rogers

137 Justin Verlander

138 Nate Robertson

139 Todd Jones

140 Joel Zumaya

428 Chris Lambert

437 Team Leaders

495 Team Checklist

633 Fernando Rodney

634 Justin Verlander

635 Bobby Seay

636 Clete Thomas

637 Placido Polanco

638 Ramon Santiago

639 Adam Everett

640 Gary Sheffield

641 Curtis Granderson

642 Freddy Dolsi

643 Magglio Ordonez

644 Zach Miner

645 Brandon Inge

945 Rick Porcello

995 Team Checklist

1006 Ryan Perry

It's a shame to be disappointed in this set, because there are some great looking inserts too. (These are probably not all the inserts, just the ones I did a limited amount of research on.)

O-Pee-Chee Preview

OPC-15 Magglio Ordonez

O-Pee-Chee Insert

OPC-37 Magglio Ordonez

Stars of the Game

GG-MC Miguel Cabrera

Starquest

SQ-19 Miguel Cabrera

SQ-36 Justin Verlander

Inkredible

INK-CT Clete Thomas AUTO

Needless to say, I'm glad I haven't caved in on my vow not to buy any more packs of cards and pissed away money in the wind trying to complete sets that can't be completed without spending hundreds of dollars. But now I'm contemplating giving it up altogether and just sticking to making my own......instead of letting the card companies continue to stick it to me.