Greatness from Steve M - Part 1

Steve M and I have traded a few times in the past, and recently he sent me a box full of great cards!

Okay, so I realize that you get the basic idea with just that one photo. But let's look in a bit more detail, shall we?

I'm going to break this up into a few pieces. Today, let's look through those three packs! Those are my first MLB packs of 2015, though they are from 2014.

 Let's start with the Bowman Draft pack. I never open Bowman products (or any products these days) so this was my first pack ever of Bowman Draft... I'm pretty sure. I'm familiar with it enough to know the dual-set concept, and this pack had a great selection from all four base sets.

 The two Bowman Chrome cards came from the two sets. How many Alex Gonzalezes have played in professional baseball?

 The sole insert was from the dual draftees set, whatever it's called this year. It looks the same as last year's...

 Two more "paper" Bowmans. Since I haven't touched any Draft product (Kenny gave me some, I think, but I still don't have the set in my database) essentially five of the seven cards in the pack could end up in my type collection!

 Elite Extra Edition is another product I don't care for. Elite has never been my cup of tea, and I'm not a prospector. But that makes this a great pack to open since I never do it otherwise!

 My scanner clipped the bottom of this Griffey Jr. insert I pulled. I was very happy to see it, and it certainly made the pack that much more fun!

 A couple Bay Area youngins finish off the pack. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with EEE. It's just not a set I'd collect.

 So, I bet you're itching to see what happened in the Topps Heritage pack...

 Unfortunately, there are a lot of names I don't recognize here. Living in Japan, I don't have much of a chance to follow the game. I wish I could get Baseball Tonight streamed. Is that possible?

 I like seeing the recycling of vintage designs in a modern product. I don't like the Instagram filtering that card companies do these days to alter the photos.

 If you haven't noticed yet, I haven't pulled anything special...

And that's how the pack would end. I'm surprised that in this day of short prints, inserts, and parallels, a normal pack exists without a special card of some kind. Did I miss some kind of parallel or variation? None of these cards are SPs, as far as I can tell. I'm no Heritage expert, but boo to Topps for that.

Despite the last pack's lousiness, I couldn't wait to rip these three wrappers open and free the cardboard inside. This was a blast... I wish I could open packs more often. (Uh oh. I have the fever...)

Thanks, Steve! There's more to come as I keep going through the stacks!