Pack Break-The One Where Hackenbush Finds Something Positive To Say About Every Card

As we approach the end of January I'm pleased to say that I've been doing a reasonably good job keeping my New Year's resolutions.  I've spent $0 on junk food and as a result have lost a few pounds.  I've made good progress on and am continuing the daunting task of organizing my card collection.  Today I took a a goodly amount of junk wax and commons to my local thrift store that supports special needs adults in the community. One resolution that for me is probably evening harder than losing weight is to consistently have a more positive view of life.  Let's give it a go with this pack.

Easy to like this.  I love the look and feel of an unopened pack (I am a prince of pack stashes).  And who is pictured but Cubs third baseman and Rookie of the Year, KB, Kris Bryant.  Fantastic start!

First of all, I love the way the green plays out on this card.  Very nice.  I knew the name but nothing else about Eric.  I checked out his Twitter feed and he looks like a pretty cool guy.  As one who tried contacts and couldn't adjust to them, I love the glasses.

 I've never heard of Keone but he looks to have had a decent year as a setup man for the Rangers, with 22 holds and 7 wins.  He has a cool alliterative name, Keone Cole Kela, the only Keone listed in Baseball Reference.com in either the Majors or Minors.

 Obviously the name Van Slyke rings a bell but being the son of Andy Van Slyke is just the start.  Here's a great bit of trivia via Wikipedia:
"On June 1, 2012, Van Slyke was part of a record-setting Dodgers infield that featured the sons of five former Major Leaguers (along with Tony Gwynn, Jr., Iván DeJesús, Jr., Dee Gordon, and Jerry Hairston, Jr.). This was the first time in Major League history this had ever occurred and was also the first time for a starting infield of four major league sons: first baseman Van Slyke, second baseman Hairston, third baseman De Jesus and shortstopGordon."

Elvis has entered the building.  There have be dozens of Elvi in the Minors but Araujo is only the third to take it to the big stage.  Check out this punim:

Kind of like a Cabbage Patch doll with facial hair.

 Neftali is a former Rookie of the Year! (2010)  His Twitter feed is lately filled with pictures of his daughter and son.  Very nice!

 Not a Sox fan but I am from Chicago.  Back to Back ROY cards.  This one is a 1:6 packs pull.  Monster first two seasons for the Good Guys, .303, 66 HR, 208 RBI.

He's only half-Jewish. ;)  Ryan had a decent year.  He's now the franchise's all-time home run leader.   I don't follow the Brewers. Is he in the fan's good graces these days?

 No controversy here.  Great card!  More awesome alliteration!

 Second generation hotpack!  Father's Jeff and Len were both All-Stars. (Update: Not so fast.  Allan is the son of Randy Dykstra who was not a major league ballplayer. Sorry, Randy.  Thanks for catching the error, Joe Schlabotnik.)  Very positive to have readers who pay attention.  Positive to have any readers at all!

 No longer a Brave, picked up by Anaheim.  The guy has some non-baseball skills:

He paints!

He whittles!  The son of a gun whittles!

 Nice tight crop.  Cool patch!

 Jose hit for an even .300 in 2015.  The reflection in his glasses adds a little pop to the photo.

TILT!

I've been seriously organizing my collection lately, so much so that I've barely spent any time on Blogger.  I obviously haven't been posting and worse, I haven't been reading your blogs either.   Here are some cards I came across.  Are they not the tiltiest (yeah, that's a word- we're not playing Scrabble here) cards you've ever seen.  They actually make me a bit seasick.