Sunday, August 25, 2013

Box Break: 2012 Bowman Chrome- Xfractor Hot Box!

I haven't indulged in pack breaking in a few weeks, but I went to Target today and saw that last year's Bowman Chrome offering was on sale for $12.99.  I don't usually buy Bowman Chrome due to it having only 3 cards per pack, but I figured it was a decent enough bargain for 7 packs plus 1 "bonus" pack.

I started out by opening the "bonus" pack, which I assumed would be three refractors of some sort.  As expected, I found these:



I broke into the first official pack and found this trio:



Sweet, another cluster of xfractors.  Somebody must have messed up and thrown a few extra in a regular pack.  Surely there couldn't be more...


But the xfractor train kept rolling along, leaving me with a total of 21 xfractors, including the following additional players:  Jason Motte, Matt Dean, Forrest Snow, Colby Rasmus, Tom Milone, Manuel Hernandez, Justin Masterson, Aroldis Chapman, Wilsen Palacios, J.D. Martinez, Donald Lutz, and Shaun Marcum.


There were only three cards in the box that weren't x-fractors; two normal refractors of Ted Lilly and John Hellweg, along with a Futures Game insert of Yordano Ventura.  I know that none of these cards are worth much, but for someone that doesn't do much box breaking, it was pretty cool to have almost an entire box of x-fractors.



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Diamondbacks @ Red Sox, 8/4

Not quite as successful as Saturday, but I tried for the Red Sox this time in hopes that Jake Peavy might sign up a storm like he did the previous day.  Unfortunately, getaway day always makes things more challenging.





Outside the stadium:
  • Brock Holt- 13 Archives RC
  • Heath Bell- 11 Topps Town, 12 Topps
  • Josh Collmenter- Diamondbacks blank card
  • Drake Britton- 100th anniversary Red Sox schedule
  • Johnny Gomes- 12 Topps
  • Mike Carp- 09 Heritage RC

Monday, August 5, 2013

Diamondbacks @ Red Sox, 8/3

Saturday turned out to be a great day for graphing as I hit my season high for autographs in a day.  I spent about 10 hours around and inside the park, and ended up with 15 signed cards.







Outside:
  • Alan Trammel- 09 Heritage 
  • Steve Sax- 90 Topps (weird oversized card)
  • Eric Chavez- 09 Toppps
  • Heath Bell- 11 Topps diamond, 12 Topps Archives
  • Cliff Pennington- 09 Topps
  • Ryan Dempster- 13 Heritage
  • Brandon McCarthy- 07 Topps
  • Cody Ross- 13 Heritage
  • Tony Sipp- 11 Topps
Inside:
  •  A.J. Pollock- 12 Topps RC
  • Wil Nieves- 09 Upper Deck
  • J.J. Putz- 13 Heritage
  • Cody Ross- 13 Topps
  • Kirk Gibson- 07 UD Masterpieces


TTM Return: Justin Maxwell

  • Justin Maxwell 2/2- Even though he was traded at the deadline, Justin must have brought his mail on the road with him while the Royals were visiting the Twins last week.  He signed cards from the 13 Topps and 13 Heritage sets, with the envelope postmarked from Minnesota.  Sent 7/15 (21 days)