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Thursday, July 24, 2008

2008 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 3: Packs 5-8

Onward and upward...

Pack 5:
75 Travis Hafner
256 Garret Anderson
1 Alex Rodriguez
334 Jo Jo Reyes SP
22 Chin Lung Hu A&G mini
US20 Maryland - Mark Teixeira
288 Pete Weber
293 Pedro Feliz

Pronk's card is how a horizontal A&G card should look. A-Rod's card with the action in mid swing looks pretty slick too. JoJo Reyes' facial expression is exactly like the one on the deer that took a bounce on the hood of my Olds back in '96. With any luck it's a short print so less people have to see his look of sheer terror. I don't understand Pete Weber's card. Why is a bowling champion wearing a sport coat and a t-shirt? What's wrong with his bowling shirt? I like my bowling champion card better. One post after screaming for Mark Teixeira to be traded already, I pull his flag card. Don't get me wrong, I love my Tex Braves cards... I just want there to be less of them so the ones I have will be more special.

Pack 6:
138 Andy Pettitte
193 Edwin Encarnacion
265 Brian Roberts
179 Hideki Matsui
PA4 Pioneers of Aviation Aerial Steam Carriage
US27 Nebraska - Alex Gordon
109 Joey Chestnut
297 Max Scherzer RC

Brian Roberts' card is fucking terrifying. The mottled face, flared nostrils, aggressive mullet... all trifles compared to those EYES. One brown eye, the other Oriole orange. He looks like a cross between a soul eating zombie and an evil laser eyed robot. A ZOMBOT. Don't even try to escape the zombot, your soul is as good as eaten. Every other base card in the pack has smiling happy players on them (Alex Gordon is playing "I'm too damn cool for Nebraska" on his flag card) and Evil Zombot Roberts is an atom bomb wiping everyone out. Andy Pettitte: "Holy shit, I got away with it!" relieved smile. Edwin Encarnacion: flirty over the shoulder "I see you looking at my Red Man logo" half smile. Hideki Matsui: "The press is mad at everyone but me" satisfied smirk. Joey Bag O' Donuts: Huge shit hot dog eating grin. Max Scherzer: "I"m just happy to be here!" big happy smile. Brian Roberts: GRAARARRHHGH I SHALL EAT YOUR SOUL PUNY HUMANS. Who greenlighted this card? That eye is going to haunt my dreams for months. The pack is saved by a stealth "Pioneers of Aviation" mini insert. I don't know how common these things are but I want them. If I complete any of the mini sets it'll be this one. Who wouldn't want a card of a DaVinci Ornithopter?

Pack 7:
62 Dustin Pedroia
79 Jose Guillen
124 Greg Maddux
350 Kevin Youkilis SP
19 Albert Einstein mini A&G
US50 Wyoming - John Buck
37 Pedro Martinez
294 Torii Hunter

Torii Hunter alert! Torii has a hearty salute in this edition of Allen & Ginter. Or perhaps he's shading his eyes so he can shoot beaver. If you don't know what shooting beaver is, read Ball Four. Albert Einstein on a trading card is brilliant. This is my third A&G mini card, I'm having good luck with those. Native Wyomian (Wyomer? Wyomese?) John Buck trails only Mike Lansing and Mike Devereaux as the greatest Wyominian baseball player of them all. Devo is the greatest player born in Wyoming? Seriously? Then again, baseball is older than Wyoming, so they have some catching up to do. It's obvious from this pack that Topps had several different interns working on artsying up the photographs so they looked somewhat like Victorian lithographs. The intern who did Dustin Pedroia did a decent job, except for the 5-O'Clock shadow over his entire body. Guillen looks like a Seurat painting gone horribly wrong. The intern who did Maddux's card did a great job, unfortunately Greg has looked like a complete slob on every one of his cards since 1992. Unshaven, jersey buttoned in the wrong holes, Maddux staring off into space at God knows what... The card looks good, but Greg is a mess. Kevin Youkilis looks like a swarthy pirate. Give him an earring, a parrot and swap the B for a P on his cap and he's Blackbeard. Yarrrrr...

Pack 8:
66 Joe Mauer
140 Jimmy Rollins
78 Ivan Rodriguez
28 Adam LaRoche
8 Brian Bass mini A&G
US13 Illinois - Curtis Granderson
16 Hiroki Kiroda RC
284 Daisuke Matsuzaka

Joe Mauer's helmet is fantastic. This pack kicks off with some serious star power. Mauer, J-Roll and Pudge. All stand in the shadow of the greatest of them all, Adam LaRoche. I'm not going to risk Brian getting mad at me again... Half the mini cards I've pulled so far have the A&G back. Strange. Not strange is the roller marks on the card. I hope that doesn't become a trend. Earlier in the season it was looking like Granderson was the next Christian Guzman, but he's been on fire lately and finally brought his stats up. He's not getting 23 triples again, but he's still hitting nicely for the Cats. The pack (and this post) finishes off with this year's Japanese import pitching phenom and last year's Japanese import pitching phenom.

The box so far:
Base cards - 48/351 13.7%
Short Prints - 4/50 8%
mini -2
mini A&G - 4
mini black - 1 (1 SP)
State Flags - 7
Jersey relics - 1 (Joe Mauer)
Pioneers of Aviation - 1
Old Planter ad - 1

3 comments:

Billy Suter said...

I'm still waiting for someone to get a card from WV. Does anyone know who'd be on it?

dayf said...

The West Virginia card features Seth McClung. I'll post it as soon as I find one.

Captain Canuck said...

Roach!!!
All hail the Roach!

I wonder what he's looking at???