I'd call that a bargain

Before I get to the good stuff, a couple of things to address:

1. Bud Selig, my man, where ya been? Please, please, never let anybody play owner again.

2. I am imploring everyone to stop posting that video of Brian Wilson, Cody Ross and the kid. I know it's for a good cause. But Wilson is toolish, the Black Eyed Peas and their evil spawns are a crime against music, and the Giants, well, you know how I feel about them.

OK, on to happier topics.

I bought one of those Baseball Value Boxes that have popped up at Walmart lately. I did it because I had seen a few good things and figured it couldn't possibly be worse than the marked down blaster of Timeline that I bought that yielded THREE cards that I needed. THREE CARDS. THREE CARDS, and one of them was stupid Yankee Legacy cardboard CRAAAAAAAAPP!

(excuse me, I think I'm hyperventilating. Just a second)

I am in an all-out war against blasters. After a year of waffling on them, it's finally clicked. They suck. I will not buy them unless they're marked down or less than 10 bucks. They're just not worth it, and many times they're absolutely infuriating.

So my only retail alternative, if I'm looking for cards packaged in the shape of a box, are one of these bargain box thingies. I like what they say on the front. Five packs of 2011 Topps base, two packs of 2011 Heritage hobby, two code cards, a special refractor, and a booklet with blurbs on famed Topps cards from each of the last 60 years.

The best  part of the booklet is there are season schedules for every team in the back. (There are also coupons for vitamins and lawn fertilizer, which is ... um, weird).

The base packs didn't yield anything special. Two diamond parallels, one of which is headed to Nachos Grande. I'm not going to show the exclusive refractor either, because it's Mickey Mantle and I can't bear to show another Mantle card on my blog.

I liked the Heritage packs better. There is nothing more satisfying than getting hobby packs and not having to go into my hobby shop to get them. Notice I said MY hobby shop, not YOUR hobby shop. I have nothing against your hobby shop.

The first pack yielded a short-print and nothing else you haven't seen before.

I'll show the second pack.

Your hobby wrapper with an unnamed baseball player on the front. Let's call him Rusty.

#111 - Brad Lidge. I find myself rooting against the Phillies more often these days.

#356 - Jose Bautista. Here's hoping he has a 3-home run game in him tonight.

#24 - Detroit Tigers. Notice how the guys in the middle of the top row are lacking legs. Topps, please fix this.

#246 - Andrew Bailey. I mentioned how I liked this card way back. So Topps has given me three more of them. I don't like it that much.

#50 - Albert Pujols. I don't know what it is about Dodger Stadium that reminds top players that they should start hitting, but it's getting a wee bit tiring.

#144 - Jackie Robinson Short Print, inserted 1/50 hobby packs.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

They even applied the appropriate accent marks on "resume" (sorry, I don't know how to do it here).

This is the last card in the 10-card Robinson series. Down to nine that I won't get. But one is so worth it.

#58 - N.L. Win Leaders: Roy Halladay's tweet after he suffered his first loss last night: "I'm SO sorry."

Take it easy, bro, it's not like you ran over someone's dog.

#28 - Vernon Wells. Hitting .180 with .230 slugging. Wow, couldn't see that coming.

#304 - Brett Myers. I really thought we had evolved from showing bald people on baseball cards. But I guess I was wrong.

That left the code cards to redeem, which I always save for last.

The first card I redeemed was:

This is the second pre-1971 Orioles card that I've redeemed on the Diamond Giveaway, which should be helpful.

The second code card, which happened to feature a Derek Jeter diamond die-cut card on the front, redeemed this:

A diamond die-cut Babe Ruth card.

Since I'm not an industry junkie, I had to do a little research on this. Apparently, they're exclusive to the Diamond Giveaway and they're a little bit rare. I looked on ebay and they're selling for prices all over the board (If you pull a Koufax apparently you can charge a fortune).

I didn't see a Ruth card, so I have no idea what I can get for it, but I'm hoping to sucker ... er, entice some Yankee fan.

So, not bad for 15 bucks.

I can see those blasters collecting a lot more dust now.

(EDIT: First 4 offers on the giveaway site for my Ruth card: Billy Wagner diamond diecut card, 1974 Brooks Robinson, Marlon Byrd diamond diecut card, 1958 Dick Donovan)