You are looking at a complete 2005 Upper Deck Flyball 209-card set of baseball cards. These cards were produced in conjunction with aninteractive baseball computer game (not included).The cards were included in two versions of baseball game boxes and sold separately in “expansion packs”. Samples of a few cards were inserted in 2005 UD Pro Sigs packs. The cards are the size of standard sports cards – 2.5” x 3.5”.
The game boxes and expansion packs were primarily sold through big box stores (e.g. Target, K-Mart and Meijer) and not through sports card dealers and stores. As a result, few sports cards dealers and stores are aware this set of baseball cards exists despite being produced by Upper Deck.
Each standard game box (with the Albert Pujols card from the set on the box front) contains: 1) a manager's playbook, 2) a cartridge for an electronic computer pen (sold separately), 3) a game board/sheet, 4) a pack of “Hot Streak” game cards, and 5) a pack of 28 player cards (the same 28 cards were included in every box).
Another less common version of the game boxes (with an added label “Includes 10 Legends” and an image of the Mickey Mantle card from the set on the box front) contained an additional pack of 10 Legends cards (#'s 201-210 in the set).
The other 171 cards in the set were only made available in hard plastic “Expansion packs” which contained 2 packs of cards with 6 player cards and 1 “Hot Streak” game card in each pack. The mix of player cards varied in each pack. The most valuable cards in the set are found only in the expansion packs especially #123 Yadier Molina RC, #148 Ken Griffey Jr. AL All Star Team Captain #196 Derek Jeter NL All Star Team Captain. Several cards in the Legends subset continue to hold their value most notably #206 Mantle, #208 Ruth and #209 Ryan cards.
In addition, 6 slightly modified Flyball cards were inserted in 2005 UD Pro Sigs packs to promote the Flyball game. The promotional cards are distinguished by an additional line of text on the card face. The promotional cards are very easy to find, less valuable, and are not included in this set. Interestingly, the non promotional versions of the same cards are among the most difficult to find.
There are multiple reasons to love these cards:
· Action Images – With only a few exceptions (the Griffey and Jeter captain cards and some of the Legends subset) all the player images are action shots
· Unique Images – Aside from the Legends subset, I've not seen the player images in this set used in any other sets
· Portrait Layout – This set displays really well since all of the images are portrait (vs. landscape) in orientation so there's no having to turn the binder or head to peruse the cards
· Set Rarity & Value – This is a really tough set to assemble and rare to find anyone selling a set which isn't reflected in the “book value” of the set. Less than a third of the cards are available online (i.e., Beckett, COMC, eBay, SportLots) at any price. This is only the 4th set I've managed to assemble over 10 years of collecting.
There are significant challenges with these cards:
· Poor Quality Control – Many of the cards I have purchased over the years suffer from variation in sizing/cutting, skewed/angled images, and white flecks on lower front and backside edges. I've thrown out hundreds of these cards that were too flawed to include in a set.
· Dark Edge Design – Anyone familiar with the 1971 Topps baseball set will appreciate how hard it is to find cards with perfect edges. Although 95% of these cards were pulled directly from factory packaging most suffer from some flecking. The cards in this set were typically the best culled from 3-8 of the same card in my inventory resulting in very minimal flecking throughout this set.
· No set is perfect (Near Mint/Mint) including my personal set. I would grade this set is 90% Near Mint, 9% Excellent/Near Mint, and 1% Very Good/Excellent.
The cards in the set are listed below. Note: there is no #10 card thus it's a vente 209-card set and not 210 as the number on the last card would imply.
Base Set
1 Johan Santana
2 Randy Johnson
3 Pedro Martinez
4 Jason Schmidt
5 Curt Schilling
6 Roger Clemens
7 Eric Gagne
8 Mariano Rivera
9 Mike Piazza
11 Ivan Rodriguez
12 Jorge Posada
13 Albert Pujols
14 Todd Helton
15 Jim Thome
16 Alfonso Soriano
17 Jeff Kent
18 Bret Boone
19 Scott Rolen
20 Alex Rodriguez
21 Adrian Beltre
22 Nomar Garciaparra
23 Derek Jeter
24 Miguel Tejada
25 Manny Ramirez
26 Adam Dunn
27 Miguel Cabrera
28 Carlos Beltran
29 Jim Edmonds
30 Ken Griffey, Jr.
31 Vladimir Guerrero
32 Ichiro
33 Bobby Abreu
34 Sammy Sosa
35 Gary Sheffield
36 Ben Sheets
37 Roy Oswalt
38 Carlos Zambrano
39 Jake Peavy
40 Mark Prior
42 Tim Hudson
43 Kerry Wood
44 Joe Nathan
45 Brad Lidge
46 Jason Isringhausen
47 Armando Benitez
48 Keith Foulke
49 Octavio Dotel
50 Trevor Hoffman
51 Johnny Estrada
52 Victor Martinez
53 Jason Varitek
54 Paul Lo Duca
55 Jason Kendall
56 Michael Barrett
57 Mike Lieberthal
58 Carlos Delgado
59 Derrek Lee
60 Jason Giambi
61 Rafael Palmeiro
62 David Ortiz
63 Jeff Bagwell
64 Paul Konerko
65 Mark Loretta
66 Ray Durham
67 Luis Castillo
68 Marcus Giles
69 Adam Kennedy
70 Jose Vidro
72 Eric Chavez
73 Melvin Mora
74 Vinny Castilla
75 Hank Blalock
76 Troy Glaus
77 Michael Young
78 Carlos Guillen
79 Jimmy Rollins
80 Rafael Furcal
81 Edgar Renteria
82 Alex Gonzalez
83 Carlos Lee
84 Hideki Matsui
86 Craig Biggio
87 Moises Alou
88 Chipper Jones
89 Andruw Jones
90 Corey Patterson
91 Torii Hunter
92 Carl Crawford
93 Steve Finley
95 J.D. Drew
96 Brian Giles
97 Lance Berkman
98 Shawn Green
99 Larry Walker
100 Magglio Ordonez
101 Mark Mulder
102 Barry Zito
103 Oliver Perez
104 Carl Pavano
105 Matt Clement
106 Bartolo Colon
107 Roy Halladay
108 Mike Mussina
109 Javier Vazquez
110 Josh Beckett
111 Tom Gordon
112 Francisco Rodriguez
113 Guillermo Mota
114 Juan Rincon
115 Steve Kline
116 Ray King
117 Giovanni Carrara
118 Akinori Otsuka
119 Kyle Farnsworth
121 Brandon Inge
122 Charles Johnson
123 Yadier Molina
124 Miguel Olivo
125 Joe Mauer
126 Rod Barajas
127 Aubrey Huff
128 Travis Hafner
129 Phil Nevin
130 Pedro Feliz
131 Lyle Overbay
132 Carlos Pena
133 Craig Wilson
134 Brad Wilkerson
135 Mike Sweeney
136 Tino Martinez
138 Todd Walker
139 DAngelo Jimenez
140 Jose Reyes
141 Juan Uribe
142 Mark Bellhorn
143 Orlando Hudson
144 Tony Womack
146 Aaron Miles
147 Miguel Cairo
148 Ken Griffey, Jr.
149 Casey Blake
150 Chone Figgins
151 Mike Lowell
152 Shea Hillenbrand
153 Corey Koskie
154 David Bell
155 Eric Hinske
157 Morgan Ensberg
158 Cesar Izturis
159 Julio Lugo
160 Jose Valentin
161 Omar Vizquel
162 Bobby Crosby
163 Khalil Greene
164 Angel Berroa
165 David Eckstein
166 Cristian Guzman
167 Kazuo Matsui
168 Lew Ford
169 Geoff Jenkins
170 Coco Crisp
171 Jason Bay
172 Jacque Jones
173 Reggie Sanders
174 Pat Burrell
175 Rondell White
176 Cliff Floyd
177 Ryan Klesko
178 Luis Gonzalez
179 Jose Guillen
180 Mike Cameron
181 Vernon Wells
182 Aaron Rowand
183 Scott Podsednik
184 Marquis Grissom
185 Rocco Baldelli
186 Bernie Williams
187 Mark Kotsay
188 Milton Bradley
189 Garret Anderson
190 Preston Wilson
191 Wily Mo Pena
192 Jeromy Burnitz
193 Jermaine Dye
194 Jose Cruz, Jr.
195 Richard Hidalgo
196 Derek Jeter
197 Juan Encarnacion
198 Bobby Higginson
199 Alex Rios
200 Austin Kearns
Legends Subset
201 Yogi Berra
202 Harmon Killebrew
203 Joe Morgan
204 Ernie Banks
205 Mike Schmidt
206 Mickey Mantle
207 Ted Williams
208 Babe Ruth
209 Nolan Ryan
210 Bob Gibson
