2011 Topps All-Star Set

It's been almost a month since my last post and we're still not completly settled into the new house, but I wanted to try and catch up on some posts. I was able to attend the Home Run Derby and All-Star game that was here in Phoenix recently. I also attended FanFest on Saturday and Tuesday. I had an amazing time and loved every second of it!

Topps had a booth at FanFest and had a promotion going where if you bought 3 pack of any of their 2011 products at one of the other participating vendors and brought them back to their booth to open then you got to pick a card from a special 7-card 2011 MLB All-Star set. Because of the promotion, the packs were overpriced. Three packs of 2011 Topps Series 2 for $12. I bought three packs on Saturday and got the Justin upton card. On Tuesday I decided to buy three more Series 2 packs and three packs of Opening Day (3/$5) and get Ichiro and Jeter. When I got to the booth I opened my first pack of Series 2 and pulled out a couple of damaged cards. I asked the guy at the booth if he could do anything about the damaged cards and he took them and looked at them for a little bit and then asked me, "What do you want?  Do you want the whole set?" I agreed and he gave me all 7 cards in the set. I guess every once in a while factory damaged cards are a good thing!

I know there was a lot of discussion about Jeter opting out of the All-Star game and I don't know exactly how I feel about it. I think that some of the frustration though came from the fact that there just was not a lot of star power at the game in the first place and so to have him opt out just added more fuel to the fire. Look at the seven card set below which feature some of the games biggest names. Ichiro - not at the All-Star game, Pujols - not at the All-Star game, Tim Lincecum - there, but did not pitch, Jeter - not at the All-Star game, Ryan Howard - not at the All-Star game, and then you have Justin Upton and Jose Bautista who were at the All-Star game, but let's be honest, they are stars, not super stars.