The Great Allen and Ginter Swindle

After skimming the reviews all over the blogs, I did my usual hemming and hawing about diving in to the Allen & Ginter craze that hits every summer or taking the rational approach of buying a bunch of the cards on the cheap when I can actually afford it and when everyone else has bucketloads of doubles. Guess which route I chose?

Pack 1:

28 - Dustin Ackley (Ackley's my first Ginter card of 2012. He's had a really rough season, and it's starting to feel like a dark cloud - figuratively, not just literally this time - hangs over Safeco Field these days. Call it the curse of Richie Sexson or something.)
197 - Ty Cobb (Ol' crankypants who would think nothing of aiming his spikes at your jugular.)
264 - Brian McCann
102 - Huston Street

250 - Brennan Boesch Mini (I like minis.)

336 - Gio Gonzalez (How close are short prints in the A&G set to being "regular" prints? In retail, you tend to get 9 base cards including 1 SP in every 2 packs. If 1 in 9 cards are short printed base cards, and 1 in 7 numbers from 1 to 350 land in that 301-350 range, these only barely qualify as being "short printed" by my rudimentary calculations.)

Pack 2:
21 - Matt Moore
296 - Mark Trumbo (Trumbo the Giant!)
274 - Eric Jeber

BH-10 - Albert Pujols Baseball Highlight Sketches (I've been highly critical of the sketch cards. I'm not saying this is great, either, but at least they've taken steps to improve the design a little bit. This has a bit of a stamp look to it.)

PB-1 - David People of the Bible (I know these must be a direct reaction to the Ascent of Man inserts from last year's set. I find it interesting that there's no information on the back of the card beyond a sort of checklist.)

WIN22 - Matt Kemp What's in a Name? (I can barely tell the difference between the This Day in History cards and Hometown Heroes. And now this? Not cool, Topps. Not cool at all.)

Pack 3:
151 - Jose Valverde
256 - Brandon Morrow

232 - Kate Upton (B.J. Justin Kate Upton looks a bit like Sharon Stone here, which is kind of weird. Did anyone ever think we'd see a Topps trading card with the words "Teach Me How to Dougie" on it in their lifetime?)
84 - Andre Ethier

175 - Luke Hochevar "Black" Mini (Not that I dislike the look of these, but I feel like they're really stretching the use of the word "black".)

345 - Nolan Ryan (I really like that they included a bunch of retired players in this year's set, even though it comes at the expense of frisbee-catching dogs and airguitar wizards.)

Pack 4:

99 - Sandy Koufax (Koufax is new to the Topps gang this year, I believe.)
219 - Ian Kennedy
179 - Cole Hamels

HTP4 - The Reformation Historical Turning Points (Tempestuous is a word that's not used very often in today's society. This card uses said word.)
239 - Liam Hendriks A&G Back Mini (I won't beat the lack of Old Planter thing into the ground except to say that I hope it was some licensing thing. Or, maybe I hope it wasn't some licensing thing. I'm not sure which I'd prefer, incompetence/ignorance or just simply another example of Topps being cheap. Like how the blaster packs just float around in an empty cardboard box now to save 1.7 cents per unit in packaging costs.)
WIN86 - Dan Haren What's in a Name?

Pack 5
144 - Joe Benson
63 - Zach Britton
95 - Felix Hernandez

176 - Babe Ruth (The Babe looks like he's about to get plunked with a water balloon.)

171 - Stephen Strasburg (Who are all these young kids? I can't keep up.)
348 - Chase Headley

Pack 6:

155 - Edinson Volquez (This is the straightest Volquez's cap has ever been worn since he joined the Padres.)
138 - Josh Willingham
236 - Scott Rolen

- Scrap of Paper Code Clue Card (So apparently, this year's Code is just going to be one massive episode of Murder, She Wrote Encyclopedia Brown story (R.I.P.)).

Does this help anybody? Leave me a comment or an email if you're someone who can actually use this. I'm just curious.
157 - Roger Federererer Mini

WIN100 - Zack Greinke What's in a Name?

Pack 7:
39 - Brad Peacock
124 - Jered Weaver (I cackled a little when Joe Buck called him "Jeff" during the All-Star Game and even had to rewind the ol' DVR for a repeat laugh.)

AGR-MCA - Melky Cabrera Framed Relic (Long live the front loaded blaster theory! This has been my primary motivation justification rationalization for buying one of the stupid things as soon as I can get out to Target. These look fantastic, by the way, but I would be willing to trade this for the right price. It's nice to get the ASG MVP, but then again, Melky Cabrera doesn't exactly have the mass collector's appeal.)

MM-3 - Ludwig Van Beethoven Musical Masters (Here's a mini insert concept that works for me. Give me more of these. Erin is going to be all over these as well, I know it.)
333 - Kelly Johnson

Pack 8:
100 - Troy Tulowitzki
103 - Alexi Ogando

55 - Colin Montgomerie (I'm sure this guy is great, but I have no idea...)

WTB3 - Petronas Towers World's Tallest Buildings
125 - Ben Revere Mini

WIN81 - Coco Crisp What's in a Name? (Were it not for Crisp being a Cardinal draft pick originally, I probably would have been pretty surprised to learn about his real name.)

And we've come to the end of the blaster. None of these cards are available to trade except for the Melky jersey card, though I must say it would be really nice to get ahold of a Cardinal relic from this same set or someone from the "players (we) collect" list.

Helpful Tips

This Craigslist posting just about nails it.

Cards from Padrographs

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I'm close to being caught up in trade posts once again. Can you believe it? If that's not the universal signal for everyone to send me cards at once (and for me to get extremely busy at the same time), I don't know what is.

This latest batch of cards came way of fellow Portlander Rod from Padrographs. I still need to figure out which cards I need from Series 2. This is my first Brandon Dickson card, who has now had a cup of coffee with the big club in each of the last two seasons.

Maikel Cleto is in the same boat as Brandon Dickson, having made brief appearances this season and last. He was the return in the fated Brendan Ryan trade, and can throw 100 mph with the uncanny ability to find all the spots outside the strike zone.

Rod gave me a few "Gold Rush" stamped cards, which I guess gives me a new parallel to chase. I know there's a Gold Rush redemption thing, but that's not what these are. A little bit of internet research leads me to believe that these are some sort of hobby shop exclusive, but I don't know much beyond that. Does anyone else have any of these? I also have Kyle Lohse and Chris Carpenter's NLDS card, so I could use any others if anyone has some laying around.

This Jaime Garcia card has been a tough catch. I actually owned two of the code parallel versions of his card before I got the plain ol' SP version. I now need a second copy for my set, though.

Pete Kozma's shiny refractor reminds me that I really need to clean my scanner glass. Yikes.

Finally, here's proof that Padrographs is capable of something really cool that I wish I could do. He takes the custom card concept another level by actually producing a physical card, with some weight to it even. Here's the Portland Trail Blazers interim head coach who guided the sinking ship towards the salvage lot at the end of last season. Canales is, by all accounts, a good guy and a smart one at that. I'm not sure if he has a realistic shot at having that "interim" tag removed from his title once it comes time to hire someone (and that time is soon), but all indications are that he'll remain with the organization in some capacity.

Thanks again to Padrographs. He has some cards available for some lesser traded teams if you're into that sort of thing, so you should go on ahead and check it out.

Airbrushed Fridays: 1976 Topps #386

Is it just me, or was that the longest in-season break in meaningful baseball ever? Okay, I guess it wasn't just me. There's nothing at all that I understand about the decision to extend the all-star break this season and I hope that it's not permanent. Real baseball is coming tonight! Hopefully the Cards will have an answer for those pesky Reds.

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Ed Goodson's the name. Part-time baseball was his game. Goodson was a corner infielder who spent eight years in the league, all during the '70s.

Why does this card exist? Goodson was packaged alongside current Reds manager Dusty Baker in a 6 player swap between the Braves and the Dodgers after the conclusion of the 1975 season. Topps had to airbrush his photo to include him with his new team in the 1976 set. They left everything but the cap alone, it seems.


Airbrushed Fridays is a weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything other than a hyperlink and a pile of Topps Stickers adhesive backing, but you never know!

Life and Death on TV Tonight

MLB Network will be premiering a special called "The Life and Death of Darryl Kile" tonight at 6:00 PM PDT (9:00 PM EDT.) I encourage anyone who is a fan of baseball, casual or otherwise, to check it out.

Kile was my favorite pitcher in all of baseball at the time of his sudden, unexpected passing 10 years ago last month. On June 10th that very same month, I finally got to see the Cardinals play in person (a 10-0 drubbing at the hands of the Mariners at Safeco Field.) On June 18th, they lost longtime broadcaster Jack Buck. And on the 22nd, the news of Kile's death came down.

All-Star Contest Winner!

Congrats to Tenets of Wilson for winning yesterday's All-Star Contest. Wilson was, surprisingly, the only person to pick Matt Holliday out of 21 participants. Here's the final tally by player in case anyone is curious:

• Matt Holliday: 0.027
• Carlos Beltran 0.004
• David Freese: -0.001
• Rafael Furcal: -0.001
• Lance Lynn: N/A (DNP)

As you can see, no Cardinals players had an extreme impact on a game that was basically over in the first inning anyway. Had someone come closer to Holliday's score, they could have won the prize. Instead, it will go to a Cardinals fan. This is probably the best news of all to me, since I have more Cardinals to get rid of than most teams combined! I will get this prize package out the door as soon as I can send off the last prize from my last contest... which happens to be going to the same person. Congrats.

30 Teams in 30 Posts: #5

I have a few "trade bait" type cards that Erin has charged me with finding suitable homes for, and some of these may be featured in a future post if I work up the ambition to do so. I also may just start sending out some emails to find trade partners. In any case, the one thing I would like to ask anyone that trades with me from now going forward is to at least pay some consideration to the players on Erin's player collection list. (See the sidebar if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) We're still working on coming up with a complete list of what she has for each player she is going after (and I plan on doing that for my PC lists as well), but for now I know a good final resting place for any of your extra Yadier Molina and Tim Lincecum cards - for example.

Tonight I'm supposed to talk about the Blue Jays. I actually just sent most of my Blue Jays cards (aside from the surplus stashes of stuff like 1991 Donruss) out in a package last month, so I don't have a lot to show. I have been fond of Toronto's since I was a kid, seeing them as both a strange bird as now the only Canadian team left in the league and some sort of blue kindred spirit to the red Cardinals club. Also, a lot of my more liked early '90s non-Cardinals players (Dave Stewart, Dave Winfield, Joe Carter, Rickey Henderson, etc.) ended up in Toronto at some point.

Favorite current Blue Jays player: Omar Vizquel. I know this is kind of a cop out. I just can really appreciate the existence of a 45 year old major league shortstop, even one that's been relegated to spot duty.

Least favorite current Blue Jays player: Edwin Encarnacion. I don't really have anything against him personally. He was just a lousy fantasy player for me, year after year. Oh, did you think I was going to say Colby Rasmus? Nah...

Favorite Blue Jays player of all-time: Fred McGriff. Man, who didn't like the Crime Dog? My only regret is not having any McGriff cards at hand for this post. Dave Winfield gets honorable mention here, but that's only because I think I picked him for several other teams in this series of posts.

Least favorite Blue Jays player of all-time: Juan Guzman. Like with Encarnacion, I don't really have anything terrible to say about Guzman. He got me all excited about his career (and consequently, his baseball cards) with his terrific 1992 season only to fade in notoriety. He worked really slowly on the mound. I thought he was going to be one of the all-time greats, and then I just kind of forgot about him.

The Toronto Blue Jays merely exist at #5 in my reverse-ranking of favorite teams as of the moment I picked them a long, long time ago on October 4th, 2010. All of these cards are very much up for trade, so please contact me if you're interested.