Group Break: A Trio of Finest (Because Four's a Crowd, not Three)

Sometimes its hard to write the beginning blurb before I show the contents of the group break packs.  I often wonder if anyone ever reads these things anyhow.  I once had an English professor in college who would automatically take 5 points off for every "illegal" word we used in our papers.  The word "these" was one such word - "feel" was another.  I don't remember a lot of stuff from my non-mathematics courses in college, but I still remember most of the illegal words.  To this day, I cringe whenever I use them - or anyone else for that matter.  Ok, enough of that.  Let's rip packs.

2000 Topps Finest:

Pack 8:

167.  Octavio Dotel - Astros

175.  John Olerud - Mariners

185.  Juan Gonzalez - Tigers

212.  Chuck Knoblauch - Yankees

230.  Eddie Yarnall - Yankees

239.  Peter Bergeron - Expos

Normally, in a pack without any sort of inserts or parallels, the team with the most cards gets the pack win.  In this case, the Yankees have two players - but one is Knoblauch (who went crazy) and Yarnall (who sounds like a folk singer rather than a baseball player).  As such, I'm giving the pack win to the Mariners because I've always liked Olerud.  So there.

Pack 9:

205.  Craig Biggio - Astros

213.  Moises Alou - Astros

216.  Javy Lopez - Braves

227.  Brad Penny - Marlins

235.  Rafael Fucal - Braves

236.  Dee Brown - Royals

The Astros get their second pack win of the break - which puts them one win away from the group break lead (only the Padres have three pack wins thus far).  Who'da thunk it?

Pack 10:

155.  Frank Thomas - White Sox

161.  Andy Ashby - Phillies

179.  Jeff Cirillo - Rockies

180.  Gabe Kapler

224.  Dante Bichette - Reds

246.  Milton Bradley - Expos

Oh man, another pack that's tough to pick a winner for.  I guess the White Sox get the victory - even if we've already pulled two of the exact same Thomas card earlier in the break.