Pack Break Week: 2010 Topps National Chicle

I went to Target last night, and bought a random pack of each of the following products:

• 2010 Topps Series 1
• 2010 Topps Series 2
• 2010 Topps 206
• 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter
• 2010 Topps National Chicle

I never did get around to buying any Chicle cards, so this is my first pack ever. I think I'll buy a full master set on the Bay if and when prices crash. The same thing goes for Allen & Ginter (and yes, I have seen full master sets - the 350 cards plus 100 regular sized inserts - for under $60.00). The Topps 206 set is too brand new, and with all the Strasburg hype, prices are still high. I still don't have last year's set, so I probably will start there when the time is right.

Back to the point.

So this week (Monday through Friday), I will go ahead and open one of these packs and show them off to the world. All five are retail (from Target...duh), so I'm not expecting much in terms of the "big break." But I need something to do around here, and thought this would be a good start. And on Saturday, I will finally...finally...open the value box bought from WalMart a couple of weeks ago.

So let's get right to it. The first pack to open will be 2010 Topps National Chicle.


The cards that came out of the pack are (in the order of how they were packaged):

• #66 Johan Santana (by Brett Farr)
• #26 Rick Porcello (by Mike Kupka)
• #171 Mike Cameron (by Paul Lempa)
• #160 Jonathan Sanchez (by Ken Branch)
• #259 Henry Rodriguez (by Ken Branch)
• #14 Mariano Rivera (by Mike Kupka)

My thoughts...your average pack. Five pitchers, and one hitter. No inserts, no SP's. The art is very interesting indeed (you can click on the artist's name for a link to their website). If I ever acquire the complete set of National Chicle, one of the things I'd want to do is to sort the players by artist, and (if it's possible) run simulated games to see which artist had the best team (ie. in this case, team Kupka would have both Porcello and Rivera on its pitching staff while team Branch has youngsters Sanchez and Rodriguez available).

That's one pack down, four more to go. Tomorrow, I'll open the Series 1 pack. Here's hoping for a short print.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama