Al & Al

Just a couple of bangin' @BubbaStup hits. 

Good news! The cards from my 10th anniversary break are almost completely shipped. There's just a few stragglers left, and I promise they will be out the door before summer is officially over. (Fun fact: Summer is not yet officially over.) Matt from Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits was kind enough to donate an entire unopened box to the break, as we've discussed here, but I never showed off these two great cards that he sent along for my personal stash.

While the Pujols jersey was certainly a surprise, I wasn't prepared for Matt parting with a hand-numbered card from Allen & Ginter, as he is a collector of all things Ginter.

It's a rare "Brooklyn Back"! While I'm not wild that the numbering was done over some of the printing on the card instead of an available white space, I'm guessing that Topps has to dip into a pretty shallow labor pool to get people to do stuff like this. That has to be tedious. Of course, I've also never understood how any professional athlete can sign so many autographs in their lifetime. It seems awful.

I love this card, however, and I am still hoping that Alex Reyes will be able to come back someday and be an important piece of the Cardinals puzzle.