Breaking Wax After Midnight... Pack 31 of 1997 Pinnacle X Press

Okay, I am really cruising here. Not sure if anyone is reading, but I am psyched to be making headway… I still haven’t heard from 4 people from this first box break. If you had the Phillies, White Sox, Rockies or Tigers in the first box break, PLEASE get in touch. I would like to be mailing stuff out beginning on Wednesday morning. My house was already overcome with cards, but an extra 2000 of them in 30 different piles isn’t helping… I will post team by team totals before I ship everyone’s cards out. In the beginning it looked the Braves were running away with everything, but it has got much closer. The Braves, Marlins, Rockies, Mariners and Yankees are all about the same height. The Rangers and Blue Jays are not too far behind. Anyway, here we go with the 31st pack of 1997 Pinnacle X Press!
#112 Roberto Alomar Baltimore Orioles (Alomar was an All Star at second base EVERY year from 1990-2001, representing 4 different teams and both leagues-the Orioles were his third)
#72 Dean Palmer Texas Rangers (After putting up monstrous power numbers in ’96-38 homers and 107 RBI, Palmer was traded to Kansas City for Tom Goodwin in July of 1997)
#79 Pat Hentgen MEN OF SUMMER Toronto Blue Jays (The 1996 Cy Young Award winner in Gold!)
#15 Alex Rodriguez Seattle Mariners (A-Roid won his first (and only) batting title in 1996 at 20 years of age, just 3 years after the Mariners made him the first overall pick in the draft. He also paced the AL in doubles with 54 and runs scored with 141. He had 215 hits in ’96 which is still his career best. Thirteen years later and that was his ONLY batting title and doubles crown)
#??? Swing for the Fences Game Card Barry Bonds San Francisco Giants
#97 Joey Hamilton San Diego Padres
#146 Mike Piazza Peak Performers Los Angeles Dodgers
#101 Rondell White Montreal Expos
Okay, just five more left to go… It has been a really long day. I am work till 7 and then have class at 8. I don’t think I will post anymore tonight. I am WIPED OUT! Go Rays! Troll out.

Los Angeles Dodgers Pack Rip???

We are the up to pack #24 of 1997 Pinnacle X Press, but this pack would more likely be titled “Dudes from the ’96 Dodgers” (that was lame, but you get my point), because out of 7 cards, 4 of them are Dodgers. Go figure. Here we go!
#17 Ken Hill Texas Rangers
#150 Hideo Nomo Chase Checklist Los Angeles Dodgers
#104 Raul Mondesi Los Angeles Dodgers (1994 NL Rookie of the Year)
#145 Tony Clark Peak Performers Detroit Tigers (Tony was the 2nd overall player selected in the 1990 draft)
#16 Mike Piazza Los Angeles Dodgers (Piazza was a 62nd round pick in the 1988 draft, and was the 1993 NL Rookie of the Year)
#??? Joe Carter Swing for the Fences Game Card
#10 Hideo Nomo Los Angeles Dodgers (Nomo was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1995, do you see a pattern? Many great rookie players, great farm system, but how many pennants did these guys deliver?)
#65 Will Clark Texas Rangers (Will the Thrill didn’t bring home a ROY Award or a ring or an MVP, but he’s still one of the most popular players out there… Popular with the fans, not necessarily with the Baseball Writers)
Wow, we are 2/3 of the way there with this brand! Bring on the end! Check out the previous post(s) for info on the caption contest and win a free slot in the next break just for making fun of relief pitchers… Troll out.

1997 Pinnacle X Press Pack Number 5

I liked the ’94 Pinnacle set a lot, but then again I think I like all 3 products we are working on. Since there are 36 packs to go through on the X Press, I am gonna jump back to it… Here we go!
#135 Shannon Stewart 1997 Rookie Toronto Blue Jays
#29 Todd Hundley New York Mets
#69 Wade Boggs New York Yankees (Hall of Famer in the pack!!! One thing I don’t like about this brand is that it doesn’t show career totals for stats on the back. It does break them down month by month, which is cool, but I wanted to know where Boggs was at in terms of hits and I don’t feel like looking it up. He did bat .311 for the Yanks in ’96)
#24 Rey Ordonez New York Mets MEN OF SUMMER Insert (this is the first insert we’ve pulled out of this one. This is a 150 card insert set and the odds are 1:7. I bet this was a bear to finish back in the day. Theoretically you would have to rip 1,050 packs and not get a double. Remember there were no card blogs back in ’97!)
#137 Hideki Irabu 1997 Rookie New York Yankees (I’m not sure if the Yanks paid him by the win or by the pound, but he made a lot of US dollars during his short big league career-over parts of 6 seasons he posted a 34-35 record with a 5.15 ERA)
#36 Jay Buhner Seattle Mariners (I wasn’t sure if I had shown what the back of the card looks like. This one shows Jay’s signature pants stain and shows that he hit 12 homers in May and 44 for the season in ’96. His final line in ’96 was .271 BA/44 HR/ 138 RBI. Damn.)
#123 Vladimir Guerrero 1997 Rookie Montreal Expos (Some people thought that Waxaholic was crazy when he chose the Expos-he knew what he was doing… Vlad the Impaler on played in 90 games in 1997 but he started to show what he could do with the bat, hitting .302 with 11 homers and 40 RBI. In his first full season with the Expos the guy batted .324 with 38 homers and 109 RBI. Since then he has been to 8 All Star games, won the AL MVP in 2004 and he just hit his 400th career homer last year. AND he is only 34 years old and still has a whole lot of pop in his bat left. Oh, and he still doesn’t have that ring-you can’t hang up the spikes till you win the ring Vlad!)
#??? Swing for the Fences Game Card -3
#16 Mike Piazza LA Dodgers (Speaking of rings… Piazza never won his. He never won the MVP award either. He was in the top-10 in voting 8 times and finished second in ’96 and ’97, but he never took it home. His stats in ’96 were awesome for anyone, especially a catcher-.336/36/105. Nice. He brought things to another level in 1997 when he hit .362 with 40 homers and 124 RBI, but he finished behind Larry Walker in every offensive category and also in the MVP voting.)
Okay, 5 down, 31 more to go. That was a pretty good pack. 1 HoFer, 2 future HoFers, an insert and I think that every team has been pulled at this point. I started stacking everything up and the Braves are the most frequent pull, followed by the Rockies, Marlins and Red Sox. We still have a LOT more to rip. Until the next pack, troll out.