My Ginter Habit

A simple sampling of this year's Allen & Ginter product.

I've been quietly squirreling away a small supply of this year's Allen & Ginter set while largely avoiding any big purchases this past summer. Aside from buying a blaster (good for an upcoming post) and a few loose packs, I've mostly been getting by on Listia purchases and a couple of group breaks that I entered. My Cardboard Habit hosted once such break, and here are a few cards I received in it.

I snagged the Cardinals, of course, and was happy to receive most of the team set proper in this break. I'm just missing one SP (#340) before I'll have all of the regular issue Cardinals cards. Of course, there's still the matter of the doubles that I need for the full set and all of the crazy parallels and inserts that they throw your way. You know, nothing big or anything.

I've made peace (HA!) with my decision to "slow collect" this set. These cards are still new to me when I look at them, and for perhaps the first time since I started this blog more than five years ago I think I'll be able to full avoid the "Ginter Fatigue" phenomenon that overtakes some of us by fall. I may even post my want list in its infant stages this time to encourage people that have abandoned collecting the set to dump their stuff on me. Maybe. We'll see.

The Rays were my randomly assigned team, and since I have so few base cards I'll probably be keeping most of them. By virtue of their win tonight, the Rays now have a leg up on their competition in the now three-way race for two so-called Wild Card spots. I still think the real playoffs start when the Divisional Series games start, but I'm sure there are plenty of older, crustier men than I who think than pennants should be decided in the regular season.

It's good to see Enos Slaughter in this set, a Cardinal legend that hasn't been used and abused to death by Topps thus far. As for the Cardinals, there is good news. With an off day tomorrow, St. Louis heads into their final series (versus the pesky Cubs) needing a single win or a single loss by the Pirates to clinch the NL Central. Nice.