Pack Clash, Junk Wax Style
August 13th, 2011 by slangon
A while back, I happened to be hanging out with my parents and my dad slipped me a couple of packs of unopened cards that he said he got at a comic shop, 3 packs for a buck. Now as soon as he told me what they cost I immediately had a suspicion of what they were going to be. I took a look at the packs and sure enough my suspicions were confirmed.
Houston, we have a Junk Wax Battle. It’s been a long while since I’ve done one of these, so let me refresh your memory as far as the rules. During a Pack Clash, 2 (or more) packs of some sort of card product will be ripped open. Points will be awarded and/or deducted based on cards found therein as well as the overall pack. These points will be based on very arbitrary rules that I make up as I go along. Very rarely snarky comments are made. Since this particular Pack Clash consists of all Junk Wax Era products, and since I’ve been trying to curb my acquisition of cards that I don’t want/need lately, even cards that don’t outright offend me will automatically have a 1 point deduction just for being another card that I don’t want that’s taking up space in my life.
First up, the 1990 Fleer.
Overall: Not my favorite of the junky Fleer designs, but not the worst either. No points added or deducted there. This pack has the most cards out of all three packs. More than twice the other two combined. Normally that would be cause for bonus points but this is junk wax we’re talking about. -2 for adding so much more clutter to my life. -33 for having 33 cards. I actually like Fleer Action Stickers so I will not apply the standard 1 point deduction to them.
#369 Juan Berenguer
#164 Mark Parent
#220 Juan Agosto
#447 Don Mattingly
+2 for being Donny Baseball, one of the few Yankees throughout time that I actually liked.
#146 Claudell Washington
+1 for being a Met for half a second so many years ago.
#95 Duane Ward
#640 Rudy Seanez / Colin Charland Prospects
#397 Lenny Harris
+5 for being one of my favorite all-time Mets. +2 for being the All-Time Career Pinch Hits Record Holder.
#299 Drew Hall
#352 Mark Langston
#115 Jeff Montgomery
#135 Jack Howell
#371 Carmen Castillo
#38 Lloyd McClendon
#610 Jack Morris
+1 for being a pretty darn good pitcher.
#156 Mark Grant
Minnesota Twins Action Sticker
-2 for not using that Twins logo with the 2 dudes shaking hands. That was a funny logo.
Twins / Yankees / A’s / Mariners Action Sticker
-4 for being such a bleh mix of teams. Yes, thats -1 per team.
Pittsburgh Pirates Action Sticker
+3 because that’s more like it.
#633 The Starter & Stopper Super Star Special
+2 for illiteration. +2 because I like Super Star Specials. -3 because this is a pretty lame one.
#251 Ken Hill
#504 Rich Yett
+1 for having a slightly funny name. Rich Yett? No. But I’m working on it.
#203 Sid Fernandez
+3 for El Fatso Sid.
#186 Billy Ripken
+1 for having a notorious card. -2 for not being that card. +1 for being Billy Ripken. -2 for not being Cal Ripken. +2 sympathy points because I’m sure Billy Ripkens life is a lot like the way this card just got scored.
#335 Jerry Reuss
#100 Kevin Appier
#199 Gary Carter
+5 for The Kid.
#488 Tom Candiotti
#430 Jose Rijo
#623 Dale Murphy Players of the Decade
I used to have this same card and I kind of liked it. A while back I did a trade with the Cardboard Junkie and figured he’d like it more so I sent it to him. +2 for karma bringing it back to me.
#72 Chris Speier
#289 Bob Stanley
+2 for helping the Mets win a World Championship.
#37 Greg Maddux
+2 for being awesome.
#326 Ted Higuera
#127 Dante Bichette
#127 Dante Bichette
-20 points. That’s not cool, dude.
Fleer came awfully close to climbing back to positive points until that Dante Bichette thing happened. -31 overall.
Next we go to the 1988 Donruss.
Overall: I’m not exactly sure why, but for whatever reason Donruss has always been my least favorite out of the junk wax era sets. -5 to start off. +3 for having my favorite wrapper of the bunch. -15 for the 15 cards and take off another 5 because those puzzle piece things are even more useless than a junky junk wax card.
#378 Steve Farr
#490 Tom Henke
+1 for being such a nerd.
#21 Will Clark DK
+2 each because I actually like Diamond Kings.
#345 Tim Raines
+2 for The Rock.
#456 Bill Buckner
+5 for Billy Buck. That half a point for each eyebrow, +1 for the ‘stache amd +3 for that creeping mess that’s threatening to spill over his shirt collar.
#567 Duane Ward
#556 Terry McGriff
#52 Pat Clements
#643 Keith Hughes
#660 Jerry Royster
#266 David Palmer
#309 Darren Daulton
-2 because I just don’t like Darren Daulton.
#61 Nolan Ryan
+5 for the Ryan Express.
#173 Lou Whitaker
#163 Alan Ashby
Stan Musial Puzzle Pieces
Well well. Donruss, which as I said has always been my least favorite of the Junk Wax Big Three, has pulled out a surprising good negative 7 point performance. Can Topps top that? Lets see.
Honestly, this probably wasn’t fair to the pther 2 packs, since I’m a Topps man. Therefore, I award Topps 1,000,000 points to start off without even opening the pack. However, upon flipping the pack over and attempting to rip it open, I discovered this:
Some jackass has opened this pack and scotch taped it closed again, probably trolling for a Randy Johnson or John Smoltz rookie. How low can you get? Even as cool as those cards are, they’re still junk wax. I just checked on Sportlots and saw that I could them both for a combined total of $0.36. Shame on you, sir. You just cost Topps 1,000,001 points and a shot at glorious victory over it’s subpar opposition. He even took the gum. The gum! Now Topps will have to defeat it’s nemeses base upon the quality of their product and the virtue of the awesome cards I’m about to pull. Oh, and that’s -15 for 15 more cards. I’m not sure what I would’ve penalized this pack if the gum was still there.
#716 Wayne Tolleson
I don’t know what the hell is going on by his eyes. It seems to be some sort of glasses type contaption but it looks like his eye black is built into them. Sunglass bifocals? What is that? Do I add points or subtract them? Uhhhhhh… +1… I think…
#745 Fred McGriff
+3 for the sweet swing of the Crime Dog.
#316 Walt Weiss
#373 Tracy Jones
#214 Charlie O’Brien
+1 for going on to play for the Mets. +1 for having to fill Gary Carters shoes.
#581 Gene Nelson
#469 Jose Bautista
Topps Sweatshirt Offer
+2 because these things always make me chuckle.
#335 Dave Righetti
+1 because I always liked Righetti. Or was that spaghetti I always liked?
#261 Cardinals Leaders
#162 John Davis
#221 Cecil Espy
#376 Steve Lombardozzi
#736 Jeff Hamilton
#90 Vince Coleman
+2 for being nicknamed Vincent Van Go. Classic.
#566 Al Pedrique
-3 for giving me a gum stained card with no gum.
And in a stunning upset, Topps ended up with negative 8 points. Donruss has done the impossible. My least favorite card company from the 80’s and 90’s has toppled my all time favorite card brand. U-S-A. U-S-A. (insert crowd roars here).
Much better than Gint-A-Cuffs.