2009 Goudey Box Break - First Impressions

I was surprised yesterday when I went to my local shop and found the 2009 Goudey on the shelf, staring me in the eye, daring me to buy it.

"C'mon, Dan, you know you want me! I'm irresistable!"

"I just bought some cards at the card show on Sunday, and I need to spend some money on some sleeves. How can I afford to buy you?!!?"

"It doesn't matter. Look at me! I'm new! I'm fresh! I'm unopened! Take me home."

"Willpower . . . draining . . . feel . . . weak . . . can't . . . resist!"

"Resistance is futile, silly human."

Yeah, I bought a box. $75, plus tax. After seeing the prices around for this online, I really appreciate my local store all that much more.

So, I opened all the packs while I was sitting there. I had some time to kill, waiting to pick the kids up. My hands were shaking - would this be the day I pull the Derek Jeter autograph? Or a Grady Sizemore? (Who knows if Grady is even on the UD payroll. I can hope, can't I?)

I start ripping the waxy wrappers, which are much better than those hermetically sealed things that so many cards come in these days, and much easier to open, and perusing the base and inserts. Hmmm, looks a lot like last year's Goudey. Standard size, though. Same color schemes. No Derek Jeter Says or Ken Griffey Says, though. Good. It was intrusive, and didn't contribute to the card, really.

The pictures are kinda funny, though. Look at this Teixeira. It breaks Mario's Baseball Card Commandment #2: Thou Shall Not Make Baseball Cards From Press Conferences.

 

OK, what is this junk? Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Retrospective of the Pope?!?!! Geez, I wish they would stop putting this stuff in all their products, taking away a card from the set I'm trying to collect. They did that with the "Yankee Stadium Legacy" last year, and it annoyed me then, too.

(I love the fact that my scanner, which auto-splits images and justifies them, thought the slanted stripes on the back of the card indicated the correct orientation!)

Great! The first of hopefully two hits. Trevor Hoffman jersey. Hmmm. Well . . . boring. No pinstripe, really small jersey. The only saving grace on this card is Trevor's face. Looks like he just ate a lemon.

Why couldn't they put him in a Brewers uniform, just like they did for C.C. in New York?!? Oh, wait, they didn't, did they?

Hey, I like this 4-in-1 cards. They are interesting, and at least they coordinate the players on the card by team or by position. Nice work on these.

Sports Royalty. Again. (Yawwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn)

Heads Up. Again. (Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn)

Multi-colored-back minis. (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Down to my last pack. No buyback or autograph yet. And look at that! They fill half the box with some styrofoam! What the . . . ! Talk about a waste of . . . hey! What's that? Goudey Graph!

It looks like a Yankee!

It looks like a Jeter!

It looks like . . . like . . . Francisco Cervelli. Damn.

Well, let's see what the overall totals are:

• 1 box, 18 packs, 8 cards per pack, 145 cards total, 13 RC
  
• 106 Base
• 1 SP (!)
  
• 4 Sport Royalty SP (Carlton, Wang, Upton, Peterson)
  
• 1 Goudey Graph (Cervelli)
  
• 1 Goudey Memorabilia (Hoffman)
• 4 Heads Up SP (Berra, Berkman, Beckett, Soriano)
• 12 4-in-1: 9 red, 2 blue, 1 green
  
• 7 Mini: 3 green-back, 2 blue-back, 1 black back (#/21), 1 Heads Up SP (Beckett)
• 9 20th Anniversary Retrospective
  

My Opinion If you could not tell already, this is a tired design that needs to be re-tired for a few years, just as Hand Collated suggests. I love the old-style cards, with the real cardboard and thicker appearance, but this one has run its course. A few more suggestions:

• Get rid of the extraneous stuff, like 20th Anniv. Retro. and YSL
• Keep the nice set size, 200 base and only 20 regular SPs
• Mix up the other SPs, such as replace the Heads Up with the 4-in-1, and switch around in every release
• PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop putting wasted autos in these packs; no one wants a Francisco Cervelli except for the ultra-minor-leaguer-obscure collector
  

Overall I would give this release a 6 out of 10. Nice effort, good quality, but boring and stale.