2000 Bowman: Box Review (Home Team Advantage)

Now that I'm back to blogging, I need to get back to sorting cards from my recent gigantic Breaker's Club group break!  In all actuality, I'm nearly done sorting - only a few more boxes to go including the box for today's post:  2000 Bowman.  

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Bowman myself but I try to include a nice selection of boxes and brands for each Breaker's Club - and while I may not like Bowman, I know many other people do!  

This is a Home Team Advantage box which means you get 12 packs that are chock full of cards (21 cards per pack)!  You also get a "Bowman $125 guarantee*" (which expired in December 2000) and a promised autograph box topper.

To cash in on the $125 guarantee, you had to do the following:

1. Mail $5 to Topps by December 31, 2000 to get a "$125 Guaranteed Value Certificate"
2. Between August 31, 2003 and December 31, 2003 you had to exchange your certificate plus a complete base set of 2000 Bowman (cards #1-440).  Cards had to be shipped at your own expense.
3. Within 30 days of Topps' receipt of the cards and certificate, they would mail you a $125 check.

Suffice to say, I'm guessing most people didn't jump through all of those hoops to get that cash!

Each box of 2000 Bowman promises an autographed box topper which I found interesting.  We actually did quite well with our signature:

Yep, a sweet Ben Sheets autograph (and it's the blue stamp version which is a rarer parallel than the "regular" Sheets autograph).  Certainly a nice score for the Brewers team slot in the group break!

The rest of the Bowman base set is split into two sections.  First, the "veterans" which all have a gold stamp.

Second, the rookies and prospects which all have a silver stamp.

There is also a parallel set called Retro/Future for each base card.  The idea here is that each card either has a retro old school TV design for the veterans or a Future (HDTV) design for the rookies.  Both card designs are meant to be reminiscent of the 1955 Bowman design.

Our box did not feature any of the retro designs (we did pull 12 of the future designs, however).  Unfortunately, the Piatt card shown above came out of the pack completely creased in half.  The only good news for the group break is that the Athletics went unclaimed so no one (other than me) ends up with that trash.

Moving on to the inserts, the most prevalent was the Tool Time cards of which we pulled four.

The highlight of the design for me is the pegboard on the back of each card.  Anyone who has a "garage shop" is probably well-acquainted with pegboards (I know I am)!

We pulled a pair of Early Indications inserts.  

These are probably my personal favorite inserts of the box, for whatever that's worth.  The Early Indications set is only 10 cards in size so we are 20% of the way there to completion!

Finally, we had two inserts that we found exactly one of - Major Power and Bowman's Best Preview.

The Bowman's Best Preview set also has ten different subjects:

• BB1 Derek Jeter
• BB2 Ken Griffey, Jr.
• BB3 Nomar Garciaparra
• BB4 Mike Piazza
• BB5 Alex Rodriguez
• BB6 Sammy Sosa
• BB7 Mark McGwire
• BB8 Pat Burrell
• BB9 Josh Hamilton
• BB10 Adam Piatt

That checklist drops off in a hurry the farther down you read through the list, doesn't it?!

And that's it - that's our box of 2000 Bowman.

Overall, I give the 2000 Bowman (Home Team Advantage) box the following rating:

Set Design:  D

Collation:  C-

Opening Thrill:  F

Overall:  F

I said it upfront, Bowman isn't a product that's made for me.  I'm not a huge fan of the split base set between veterans and rookies - especially with the change in foil color on the Bowman stamp...it makes the set feel like two different sets, neither of which is satisfactory on its own.  Our box did have some duplicate show up...and we didn't get a single "retro" parallel which felt underwhelming.  We also had that creased parallel which sucked.  Finally, the box promises an autograph but you get to see it right away as the box topper...ripping the rest of the box felt a lot more like "going through the motions" that I'd like, especially since boxes of Bowman aren't nearly as cheap as I feel they should be!