Bad Wax

Every time I go into Walmart or Target, I head over (like a strung out crack addict to a dealer) to the 10 foot long card section (5 ft. if you take out the Magic et. al cards), located next to the last register. If you are reading this you know what I’m talking about. You look for the best packs while 6 and 7 year olds, who couldn’t be bothered with sports cards move around you. My wife asks me, do I ever feel like a loser? My answer is always no, not when I’m trying to pick out the pack, but rather I feel like a loser when I open it. I’m 36 now and started buying packs when I was 7, so 29 years of wax pack buying and I can remember the best pulls I’ve ever gotten (and where I pulled them). It’s easy because out of roughly 5000 packs I’ve bought over the years I have had one good pull. I was about 24 or 25 it was in a hobby shop in Matawan, NJ, I pulled a Don Larson Yankee threads card, worth about 80 dollars. That’s it, every card I have that is worth money I have purchased seperately. Now knowing this you might ask, why the hell are you still buying packs. The answer is I feel that I’m due. Unfotunately every time I open a pack and get what I call bad wax, I do indeed feel like a loser. So last night when walking through Walmart, I went over to the card aisle and found a pack that looked intriguing. The Topps ‘52 Rookie Card Baseball pack. I always loved the 1952 design, and who doesn’t like rookie cards. I didn’t even care what the inserts were. So today I am taking a break from the Walmart Blaster Box I bought in order to see if my luck has changed (probably not though).

The Pack:

I liked this pack also because of the 1:29 chance to pull an autograph. So here comes that loser feeling and what I know about each rookie:

1.Billy Petrick - P - Cubs - 142 - I don’t know if I’m old but this guy looks really young, I mean he looks like he’d get carded for cigarettes. Upon further research he’s a relief pitcher, man what a kick to the gut. Is there anything less glamerous in baseball than a middle innings relief guy? Maybe a defensive utility guy, but that’s about it.
2.Shane Youman – P – Pirates – 43 – First thing that comes to mind . . . any relation to Floyd Youman, I thought Floyd was gonna be the crap. Only turns out he was crap. Here’s what I dug up on Shane 3-5 this year for the Pirates (turns out he was drafted originally in1997 but he was a 45th rounder, waited 4 years, playing at LSU and in 2001 was drafted in the 43rd round, I bet he’s glad he waited). I think this might be card 2 of 2 of dead wood. Bad wax looks imminent!
3.Andy LaRoche – 3B – Dodgers – 44 – Don’t get confused with Adam LaRoche (his brother). Oh would it kill Topps to give us an idea of what position he plays? Nowhere on the card is the listed position. I don’t really have an opinion of him yet since he only got a small cup of MLB action. I’m giving him the benfit of the doubt.
4.Mickey Mantle – OF – Yankees – 7 (of course) – Legend. What the *&^% would they taint this card by screwing up the background? Stars???? really??? like no one would have any idea that this isn’t a real 1952 Topps card? Breaks my heart to see this and should break yours too.
5.Matt DeSalvo – P – Yankees – 13 – Again another reliever, and a crappy one at that. Come on please give me something in this god for saken pack besides a starry background Mantle. By the way he does look like the police guy from Heros.
6.Franklin Morales – P – Rockies – 164 – Actually if he can get his control down, he might turn out to be semi good. Other than the shelling he took in the World Series, he isn’t half bad and is very much a K artist averaging one an inning. Overall probably the best rookie in the pack.

So my head hangs low yet again, as I don’t get a pull. I think I might go for the Morales auto (as the stud) and the Youman auto (as the dud). So here are my rating for this pack (out of 5.0 stars).
Initial cost - $2.99 – 4.0 stars – Not to bad since you know you are getting all rookie cards, except for me I get 5 plus one starry background Mantle.
Cards in pack – 6 – 3.5 stars – Again, more than 5 in this day and age is a blessing.
Stars in pack – 1 – 2.0 stars – Mantle, and maybe Morales in a couple of years.
Beckett Value of Pack – a buck tops – 2.0 stars – Could have some strong cards depending on how they do but no inserts so I have my doubts.
Design of card – 5.0 stars – I love this design and I would want to collect the base set if it wasn’t for the short print cards (my biggest pet peeve).

Number of awful players – 3 with a chance of 4, another awesomely bad pack by yours truly, the original card cooler. Overall it was a 3.3 star pack. I do like this set, but I’m not willing to dump more money into it. Let me know your opinions of the set.