2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Review

If you’re the type that likes watching out of sync box break videos, check it out here.  For those of you who like written words as opposed to spoken, see below.

Main Set

It’s tough to review the main set, because it’s not really clear what the main set is sometimes with this product.  It starts out with 190 established players, then moves to cards 191-220 for the rookie cards.  220 cards, got it.  No problem so far.  But then it gets weird.

The product also contains two prospect cards per box on average.  Those are numbered BCP131-240.  Then come the autographed chrome prospects which are BCP241-285.  Sure, I could possibly look this up or rely on the outstanding vast knowledge of the blogging community to find out why the numbering starts where it does for the prospects, which are supposedly part of the same set as the Jeters and the Lincecums, etc but my point is I shouldn’t have to.  This should just make sense.  I hate when products (and inserts for that matter) put letter prefixes in front of the numbers.  And don’t get me started on the fact that a one per box hit, in the autograph, is part of the set and is 45 cards deep.  Unattainable shouldn’t be a word for set collectors at a price point like this.  Maybe if you’re talking about a high-end $200/pack type thing, but for less than 100 bones, you should easily get a set or two from a case.

Our only two non-refractor rookies and a selection of vets. Guillen's edging on inappropriate and Bedard is posing for a statue that I don't think will ever be sculpted.

The design on these cards is enh.  It’s not horrible, I suppose.  I kind of like the way the team and player names are handled on the bottom, and the border isn’t distracting or obtrusive or hideous.  It also doesn’t blow me away by any means.  The backs aren’t so hot.  They sacrifice stats in favor of tidbits and scouting reports for the veterans, and the stats they do include are very limited.  Overall, it’s bland enough that I don’t have much to say about it.

The prospects get a completely different look to their set, which to me is an indication that these should actually be two separate products, but I don’t make the rules.

Does Carlos Santana play ball better than he plays guitar? Time will tell. Also, anytime I squeeze in some Furbush, I'm a happy blogger. You heard me.

This I don’t like as much.  The border is invading the card.  The blue and white stripes on the sides serve little purpose other than to distract from the fact that the picture area is so greatly reduced.  And on top of that, they have to fade out the picture near the bottom to make room for the simulated signature.  A lot of these guys don’t have action shots, so you could argue that there’s little chance for something to be missed, but it still seems squeezed, which is bad.

If you can zoom in on the scan, you can see another little quirk, which is bothersome.  Andy mentioned it in the video break, but there’s this white edging around the design.  This isn’t really part of the design, because it’s too inconsistent from card to card.  I’m not sure if this is where the glue went or maybe where it didn’t go, but the weird markings are ugly once you notice them and it makes me wonder about the future structural integrity of the cards.  Remember when I deconstructed a card?  Could the same happen to these?

Inserts

There aren’t really any “inserts” here necessarily.  The only non-regular cards you can pull are refractors or autograph refractors.  I don’t mind that approach.  This is the one spot where the product does it’s job.  It focuses on giving you prospect cards and tries to minimize potential filler with countless insert sets.

Hits

The hit, as I mentioned, is actually part of the set.  The only time it’s not is if you get a refractor parallel version.  We were not so lucky, but we did at least get someone we’ve heard of.

Only 4 more cases to open to complete my set!

I think I’ll be analyzing this autograph in a future post for a new segment I’ve been kicking around.  I suppose if I can say anything positive about the autograph, it’s that the checklist is limited, and they do tend to be some of the bigger names in the long run.  This is an ’08 product and I recognize a helluva lot more people on the auto section than I do in the non-auto.

Conclusion

We’re not prospectors, so there’s really little value in it for us.  We mostly had the itch to rip and were looking to try something new.  I don’t think this will convert either of us to the darkside, but we’ll still make our own fun out of it.  It’ll be interesting to track the prospects as time goes on and see how good our box really was looking back.  You can see the first update in the previous post.  Prospectors know what this product is about and know what to expect.  Those of you that aren’t should trust their instincts and stay away.

Design – **
Set Collecting – **
Inserts – *
Hits – **
Overall – ** out of 5