A Gentlemen’s Wager with Night Owl: Packs 1-4

Prior to Opening Day, Night Owl said something anti-Russell Martin in one his posts that I thought was a little cheap. Looking back it probably wasn’t too bad, and I was probably in a bad mood or something that day, but I made a comment about it on his blog. I see anti-Yankee comments on a nearly daily basis of posts, but I usually remain respectful of opinions or don’t bother piping up. It’s not my blog and not my opinion, so I leave it there. Plus I could easily say something derogatory about any other team on my own blog, if I so choose. I usually save that for putting down the Red Sox as opposed to teams thousands of miles away from me that I don’t really care about. However, once in a while I don’t bite my tongue, and this was an instance of that. In response to the Martin comment, I told him to enjoy a season Rod Barajas and Dioner Navarro. He said it shouldn’t be hard to perform as well (or as poorly) as Russell, I disagreed and we set up a small gentlemen’s bet for a blaster box of cards: Russ Martin vs Barajas/Navarro. The stats we agreed upon were: BA, Hits, HR, RBI, OBP, Slugging % and WAR. We kept it simple. Whichever side won four or more of the categories at year's end would win a blaster of his choice.

Martin won these categories by a score of 5-2. Now, Russell didn’t have a great offensive year by any means and I won’t play it off like he did. His BA was low and thus hurt his OBP, but he did manage respectable power numbers. I suppose I wasn’t too disappointed because he put up those numbers in the bottom third of the Yankees order, usually hitting 8^th or so. That’s a big difference than if he were hitting in the middle of the line-up and produced at such lowly levels. I immensely enjoyed watching his defense all season long, from his ability to block balls to throwing runners out. Mind you, I’ve been watching Posada behind the dish for the last 10+ years. He plays tough and hard-nosed ad handled the pitching staff well. Girardi counted on him a little too much in the beginning of the year and I think he broke down a little in the middle, but finished strong. I fully expect him to be back next season as the starting catcher, probably giving way to Jesus Montero for about 30-40 games or so.

True to his word and without any prodding from me, Night Owl was a gentleman and contacted me about the bet right after the season ended. I gave him a few choices of blasters I’d prefer, and eventually I received a package with a blaster’s worth of Topps Chrome packs. I had every intention of sending Greg all of the Dodgers from this blaster, but I got one stinkin’ Dodger. I do have a different card on the way to Greg as a thank you. I’ll post the first four packs here and save the next four for another post.

For some reason, I have been pulling a crapload of Phillies lately. Everything but the Yanks are for trade, FYI. Here we go:

Pack 1:

105 King Felix

93 Pablo Sandoval Purple Refractor (005/499)

167 Billingsly (only Dodger pulled)

182 JP Arencebia

Pack 2:

VC19 Utley Vintage Chrome

155 Hanson

91 A. Soriano

81 Latos

Pack 3:

70 Cano

136 CJ Wilson (I do not want the Yanks pursuing him this off-season. I find him to be terribly overrated.)

147 Chone Figgins (how is he still being featured in sets?)

117 JimmY Rollins X-Fractor

Pack 4:

198 Eduardo Nunez (or NunEEEEEEEEEE) Refractor

42 Mariano Rivera (still love this shot of him)

130 Holliday

58 Bay