Box Break – 2008 Upper Deck Heroes

I love 2008 Upper Deck Heroes baseball.  It’s a fact, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.  The first entire box of packs I ever bought was 1992 Upper Deck baseball, and inserted every few packs was a Heroes card of Ted Williams.  It had a cool “stone” looking border and a round picture in the middle.  I loved pulling these and thought (at the time) that they’d some day be worth a TON.  Heck, I thought all of my cards would some day be worth a ton.  There’s still time, I guess, but my cards’ values are trending in the wrong direction.

A few years ago Upper Deck brought back the Heroes insert, and in 2008 they went all out with an entire set of the stuff.  Lots of you probably hate the stuff, especially if you’ve become jaded by higher end cards with more than a hit or two per box.  That’s OK, to each their own.  But at $52 for the box (after a coupon code), the three relics and one autograph – not to mention my favorite card design of all time – I couldn’t pass it up.  I put together a decent amount of the base set (with more doubles than I’d like for a box in this price range), and I purchased a retail box to try to collate the entire thing.

Let’s take a look at the inserts and hits from my box of ’08 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes:

Yankee Stadium Legacy:

I can’t imagine what it’d be like to NOT be a Yankees fan while busting packs of any 2008 Upper Deck product – the YSL cards are freakin’ everywhere.  I’m not even sure how much I like them any more, I’ve got so darned many of ’em.  I suppose if there’s a positive, it’s that I don’t have any doubles yet.  Of course, that has something to do with the fact that there are six million cards in the set.  Moving forward…

Carlos Delgado, Reggie Jackson, Andruw Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Corey Hart, green serial numbered to 499:

Bob Gibson, Mark Teixeira, Andre Eithier, gray serial numbered to 399:

Erik Bedard, Delmon Young, John Maine, brown/gold serial numbered to 299:

Kevin Kouzmanoff, red serial numbered to 249:

Ryan Braun, Andrew Miller, blue serial numbered to 199.  The Braun is noticably darker (in person) than the Miller, so maybe it’s a different “variation”.  There are too many to bother figuring it out:

Daric Barton, charcoal/black autograph serial numbered to 150:

Alex Gordon dark blue relic (#9/50), Troy Tulowitzki light blue relic (#25/200), and James Loney light blue relic (#2/200):

At first I was disappointed with the box, thinking my relics all stunk.   Which they do, in retrospect.  But if I’d purchased this back when it was released I would’ve been pumped about a low number Gordon relic since he was supposedly the next George Brett and the savior of the Royals organization.  That didn’t work out, but it’s not Upper Deck’s fault that I purchased this box so long after it’s initial release.  There are worse relics in the set than the Tulowitzki, plus the guy has been huge for my fantasy team this year.  So maybe the box wasn’t so bad after all.

I pulled more serial numbered cards than I would’ve liked, but most people probably care about them more than I do.  I would’ve rather gotten more base cards, but again, not everyone buying these boxes is looking to collate the entire set.  The base cards I did get were nice, thick, and glossy. I’m satisfied, but let’s hope my retail box has the missing pieces I need!

As always, anything you see pictured is available for trade.