Repack reassessment

I've never shown much self-restraint when it comes to buying cards. I'm a sucker for just about anything. Piece of History, X, Opening Day, Spectrum, I'll try anything once.

I'll buy repack boxes, too, because my card standards aren't all that high, and I always find something good in repacks.

But there is one repack box in particular that I have always treated like the bad girl propped up against a locker. The one giving me the unsettling stare. (Her looking at me like that. No good can come of this). I have turned the Fairfield repack down every single time.

It's probably because of the packaging. Other repacks I can see through the container and gauge at least some of the packs that I'm getting. With the Fairfield box (a descendant of Pandora's Box, it seems), all I see is a plot to separate me from my money.

It's all too Field of Dreamy. The ball and bat and glove. The old-time uniform. The baseball "Collector's Box." What card collector do you know that has a "Collector's Box"? We keep our cards in shoe boxes, Fairfield. If you want to bring the kids over to the dark side, you need to speak the lingo.

But then I read about someone actually pulling something decent out of Fairfield repack. And two days later, it was enough to instantly chuck everything my mom had told me about repacks from the wrong side of the tracks and slip into the passenger's seat of Fairfield's cherry red convertible. "You're going to like what you see," Fairfield said to me with a wink.

Well, I didn't like what I saw. I opened the box right there in the car. Packs of 1990 Fleer. 2007 Upper Deck. 1992 Score. No, no, no! Why was I so stupid? Shame washed over me. I began to think of scenarios in which the customer service employee would be convinced to give me my money back in exchange for my already opened packs of 1990 Fleer.

Instead, I drove home resigned to my fate, threw the cards in a pile and planned to never look at them again.

But then I thought, "why am I always looking at the worst in things?" Surely, there was something good in the repack box. After all, there were cards in there that I needed. And that's always a good thing, right?

So I went through them again and picked out five cards that I found worth admiring. And, I present to you those five.

5. Mike Felder, 1992 Topps. See what the Giants do to their players? They make them dress up in goofy outfits in lieu of actually putting a competitive product on the field. Felder looks like he's about 2 feet tall.

4. Pete Incaviglia, 1987 Topps. Any rookie cup card that I don't have is a good one. But look at how drab the photo is. Is this the way baseball looked in the late 80s? I watched a lot of baseball then. I don't remember it looking so BARREN.

3. Lastings Milledge, 2004 Topps. Beckett says this card books for $4. I have news for you. If a card is sitting in a repack box, no one's getting 4 bucks for it.

2. Ian Kinsler, 2006 Topps Updates & Highlights insert. As you may know, I am collecting as many 2006 Topps cards as I can. This is a Rookie Debut insert card that I don't have. Really, the repack box almost paid for itself with this one card. It was just the 1990 Fleer that was clouding my view.

1. Alex Diaz, 1995 Topps. How AWESOME is this card? Alex Diaz is Superman!

So, there. I found something that made me smile.

Will I buy another Fairfield repack again? Nope. I've learned that lesson. You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't get in the bad girl's cherry red convertible. And you don't mess around with Fairfield.