You may not know all of their names yet, but you’ll get a peek at baseball’s future in 09 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects.
Welcome to my first product review for Sports Collectors Daily. For those of you who may not know my background in the hobby, my name is Rich Klein and I’ve been active in the hobby for more than three decades. I was an occasional writer and frequent contributor to Baseball Hobby News in the 1980’s and spent most of the last two decades working at Beckett Media (Publications). I am also writing a bi-monthly column on various hobby topics for Card Informant. I’d like to thank Clay Luraschi at Topps and Scott Prusha at Panini for beginning the process of sending me products so we can review the new issues.
Writing a review for a product like Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects is always difficult. One of the reasons is frankly, not everyone is aware of the players that make up the set, especially those drafted in 2009. To me, the best part of BDPP is not always what you pulled from a box today, but what can be put away for a few years. It’s a time when those rookies and prospects will bloom including some you might have placed in a “commons” box.
Released in mid-December, the design for this issue is similar to the Bowman designs of recent years. Collectors will have no problem recognizing this as a Bowman product. Most of the cards of both the rookies and the 2009 draftees have black borders surrounding the player’s photo. There are gold and blue parallels and refractors. The player’s name is on the bottom of the card. The redesigned backs contain biographical information as well as some information about the rookies’ potential or in the case of 2009 draft picks, a scouting report.
As of early this week, these boxes were being offered at between $60-70 per box online. We pulled the following cards from the box:
*46 Base (2009 Rookie) Cards out of a possible 55
*14 Base Chrome (2009 Rookie) out of a possible 55
*1 Base Chrome Refractor (Vin Mazzaro)
*34 Prospects (2009 Draft Selections) out of a possible 75
*30 Prospects Chrome (2009 Draft Selections) out of a possible 75
*1 Prospects Chrome Refractor (Derek McCallum)
*8 Gold Base (2009 Rookie) cards
*16 Gold Prospects (2009 Draft Selections)
*1 Bowman Prospect Blue Border (#’d to 399) of David Nick
*14 World Baseball Classic Stars out of a possible 33
Note here: My beloved wife, Dena, opened some of these and when I explained what these packs were about she asked why Ichiro was in the box. I then asked her if he wearing a Japan uniform. She said he was and I realized there were World Baseball Classic Cards in this issue. Frankly, it’s a nice insert to add because for a person who has casual baseball knowledge, cards such as the Ichiro WBC let them see someone he/she may know. We also found:
1 WBC Blue Border (#’d to 399) of Dustin Pedroia
1 WBC Chrome (#’d to 199) of Daisuke Matsuzaka
1 Autograph Card of Mike Leake (2009 Draft Selection)
The best part of what we pulled was EVERY card was different. Excellent collation is usually a cause for collector celebration. Overall, 2009 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects was an excellent experience and a truly fun product to open.
Rich Klein can be reached at Sabrgeek@aol.com
on eBay: Shop for 2009 Bowman Draft Picks
