Let's go to the mall

I've lived right across the street from a mall for the last 19 years of my life.

And, true to the depictions of classics like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Mallrats, I can attest to the fact that teenagers do still spend a lot of time in malls these days.

Me, I never got that big into the whole scene. I'm not a big clothes connoisseur, nor do I keep up with whatever the hip trends are during any given week. (Yes, Robin Sparkles would be massively disappointed.)

Although I was unfortunately one of those mall-raiding kids during my middle school years, I'm happy to say that I pretty much stay away nowadays. Not many of my current friends care about the whole mall scene, anyways.

Heck, the fact that my local mall includes a Target is its lone saving grace. Whether I like it or not, I usually find myself in the store's familiar card aisle on a semi-weekly basis.

Were it not for that, I doubt I'd ever step foot into malls anymore. So, in a way, you could say cardboard has kept me somewhat up-to-date on the whole mall scene.

After fighting through hoards of pre-teens and trendy young adults, I once again found myself in the Target card aisle a couple weeks ago with my dad. We carefully selected another 2013 Topps Series 2 rack pack to break over lunch.

That's all I could ever wanted from a mall.

Baseball cards.

This same exact photo was featured on Hanley Ramirez's 2013 Opening Day issue.

I sure wish Topps would use different shots for their Opening Day product. It took a lot of the excitement out of pulling this one from my rack pack.

But...that's another topic for another post.

Despite its replication, this is still a beautiful shot of Hanley.

It'll look nice in my Dodger binder nevertheless.

Hey, look!

Not one...but two Juan Pierre cards! In the same rack pack!

I'm probably one of the few collectors who still gets somewhat excited over Juan Pierre cardboard. However, even I'll admit that Topps went a bit overboard by including two different cards of his in their Series 2 checklist.

I just don't see the point.

Topps has produced quite a few terrific nominees for my frankenset thus far in 2013.

You can certainly add this pair to the bunch.

Between the "at the wall" Bourn and "throwback" Santiago, both of these are awesome hits to a couple of my most treasured mini-collections.

I still contend that the White Sox should bring back their blue '70s jerseys one of these days, though.

Now those would be awesome to see on cardboard.

This was easily the best base card I pulled from my rack pack break.

Mesoraco isn't a "binder guy" in my organizational system, but I have a feeling he'll be holding down the #570 slot in my frankenset for a long time to come.

True, he's in the process of tagging out one of my beloved Cubbies in this photo, which I never like to see.

Still, given the rather demonic look on Mesoraco's face (not to mention yet another beautiful Wrigley backdrop), it's definitely one of the better "play at the plate" shots around.

I'd expect to see this one pop up in "Card of the Year" discussions come December.

I've had decent luck with pulling "keeper" inserts from Flagship this year.

While I'm not the most avid "Chasing History" fan out there, any day I can add a card to my Stan Musial collection is a good day.

Even if it does feature a shot we've seen a million times before.

I'm not big on the "Making Their Mark" inserts from Series 2, either.

Still, seeing as how Mr. Rizzo is the basis for one of my newest player collections, that pull was a pleasant surprise. As was the red-bordered parallel of Mr. Bruce.

It's only natural that red would look good on a card featuring, well...a Red.

Something about Tim Lincecum just seems to fit well on the '72 design.

That's what made this mini my personal favorite pull of the afternoon.

The thrill of discovering great cardboard inside a seemingly random pack of cardboard is what keeps me going back to the mall on a regular basis. Outside of that, though, I'm just not the mall-loving type.

So, yeah, you mallrats can have all your designer clothes and fedora hats.

All I want are my baseball cards.