This morning, groggy from last night’s sleep, I reach in and pull out 2005 Fleer Authentix baseball card pack. The packaging has me jazzed, very slick looking orange with black stripes Cabrerra is on the front and it’s Fleer and you know I can’t say no to a Fleer product. When you see the word Authentix in nice cursive letters across the pack, you get that itch again, the one that you just know there’s a jersey card or an autograph just waiting for you. Here is what the pack and card look like:
Further examination of the pack has me noting 5 cards per pack, there are 32 insert sets. So the chance of opeing a pack and not finding at least a crappy insert is pretty low. I’m going to guess right now that I will find at least one mid level insert 1:24 kind. Let’s get to ripping:
1. Jeromy Burnitz – OF – Rockies – 23 – I have to compare Burnitz to Ryan Klesko and Phil Nevin, just a very up and down career. Always a power threat but never a hitting or running threat. This picture has him turning his body to throw like he’s playing SS, which is strange since he’s always been and OF or 1B guy.
2. Michael Young – SS – Rangers – 50 – What happened to him, he entered his peak years crusing to 20 and 24 homeruns, then tailed off when he should have been getting more homers. He still swings a great bat, but the power / speed combination he once had as a 20/20 guy is gone and at 31 may not be coming back. With the amount of prospects lurking around in the Ranger minor leagues, I don’t think it will be long before Michael is moved either to another team or another position.
3. Randy Johnson – P – Diamondbacks – 84 – The Big Unit, what can I say . . . I hate you! You killed my team! We knew you had the bad back, but I guess with no HGH to get you through a season you have broken down and your age has caught up with you. Hopefully this will be your last year, and then I only have to see you one more time when you enter the HOF. You are 44 and 16 wins shy of 300, but your 5 Cys and nearly 4700 strikeouts will get you in. Hey if you learned to tame your control before you turned 27 you would have made 300 wins. Too bad . . . so sad.
4. Jason Schmidt – P – Giants – 76 – Jason is way past his prime and really didn’t take advantage with his peak, only having 2 very good seasons. He has never had the opportunity to pitch on really good teams, so it’s hard to judge as to how good he could have been, but at turning 35, you know he won’t turn into a Randy Johson, he has had too many injuries and too many miles on that arm.
5. Rocco Baldelli – OF – Devil Rays – 4 – Can Rocco be a good player? I don’t know, at 26 years old, it’s got to happen soon! THe problem is that he is so riddled with injuries, we may never know just how good he can be. I think he has the potential to be a 20/20 guy, but he has to stay healthy. I would say that this year will be him make or break year and I really hope he doesn’t break.
Well that’s it, just 5 cards in this pack. I am relatively shocked that with as many inserts as this set is supposed to have, I didn’t stumble across one insert. One thing of note, the pack has a rather large cardboard insert, which I think is to deter pack searchers, but when you don’t know this it’s kind of annoying since you thick, oh my god, I found a jersey card. Psych! So let’s go ahaed and rate this pack.
Initial cost – $2.99 – 2.0 stars – The cards are very nice looking so for three bucks you get some great looking cards. But it’s 3 bucks and I didn’t get three dollars worht of cards. Makes me sad.
Cards in Pack – 5 - 2.0 stars – Hey at least it’s 5, which is the most a pack as had in my last 3 packs. I don’t like the sub – 8 cards packs, but this one is OK since the card looks so damn good.
Stars in Pack – 1.5 – 1.5 stars – Randy Johnson is one and Michael Young is a half. If Young does well this year it would upgrade the pack to two stars, so we’ll see.
Value of pack – worthless – 0.0 stars – I seem to be getting a lot of these of late and well, it wouldn’t be awesomely bad wax if I got good packs so at least my mojo seems to be running full tilt!
Design of Card – 4.5 stars – Great looking card! If Authentix was still around I would definitely want to collect it. I like the ticket on the bottom of the card and the focused in player with blurred background. The only knock I have is the lack of stats on the back of the card, only current stats and splits.
Overall we had a 2.0 star pack. Which in the grand scheme of things and the contents I had, is a good score. I should have gotten some kind of insert so I’m a bit peeved at that. What can you do though. If you would like any card from this pack, please let me know.
