2008 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 5: Packs 13-16

Here's four more packs from the box, with a little luck I'll have the whole thing busted and posted by tomorrow night.

Pack 13:
161 Randy Winn
118 Mariano Rivera
41 Paul Konerko
271 Paul LoDuca
The World's Greatest Victories - The Battle of Thermopylae

YEEEESSS!!!!!

THIS.
IS.
SPARTAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*ahem* Back to the regularly scheduled box break.

237 Zack Greinke mini
AGR-AP1 Albert Pujols Jersey
Old Planter code ad
238 Todd Clever

Ze box, she is dead. Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols ain't a bad pair of jersey cards though. Not bad at all. The Pujols is from Group A (1:280) and Mauer is from the more common Group C (1:20). There's 6 Braves relics in the set, Chipper, Smoltz, Glavine, Teixeira, Hudson, McCann and Hampton. Make that 7 Braves relics. I'm not sure where they dug up a Hampton jersey... he hasn't worn one in about 4 years. The code card is pretty cool, Topps got the wall 'o text on the back right. That might be another cool set to collect if the prices aren't ridiculous. Plus I got to post my favorite obnoxious YouTube video again. The Rugby champion is in this pack, which is cool, I guess. I know diddley squat about rugby other than you get points for ripping people's ears off. I never knew that the ball looked like a pop art Easter egg, so I've gleaned that little bit of knowledge I suppose. I guess I should mention the lowly base cards... Winn - meh, Mariano - yay, Konerko - whee, Greinke - zzzzzz.

Pack 14:
67 Kevin Kouzmanoff
20 Vladimir Guerrero
254 Hunter Pence
196 Edgar Renteria
WL48 Gordon Brown World Leaders
US44 Utah - Brandon Lyon
176 Claude Monet
117 Jeff Niemann RC

Hey... Edgar Renteria's name isn't in all caps on his base card. I guess he's only a bad mother on his mini card. Vlad's action card looks a hell of a lot better than Bill Hall's but I still prefer the portraits on these cards. Brandon Lyon is the all time saves leader for pitchers born in Utah. There's a joke in there somewhere but damned if I know what it is. Claude Monet is a dirty old man. Or am I thinking of Manet? Ahh, they're French artists. They're all dirty old men. Is it just me or do the rookies all colossally suck this year? I pulled the first World Leader cards out of the box in this pack, I must say I like the set. They look pretty good, although I'm subconciously comaring them to the fantastic lithography on the original A&G cards which isn't fair. For example on this card, I expect to see the UK in metallic ink and a little more color and artistry on Gordon's mopey face. If you ever get a chance to see Gordon take questions from Parliament on C-Span at two in the morning, take advantage of it. It's freaking incredible. All these random MPs pepper him with questions ranging from legitimate to softballs to attacks to the completely inane and Brown has to fire back with equal vigor or else he'll get eaten alive by a pack of wild political dogs. No US President from my lifetime could ever handle this. None of them. Not W, not Clinton, Carter, Nixon, none of 'em. Reagan might have been able to bullshit 'em for a few minutes but as soon as he had a senior moment, POUNCE. It would have been all over. If McCain and Obama joined forces and tried to tag team them with Barack lulling them to sleep with some lofty preaching and McCain tossing out off-color jokes here and there to distract the more rowdy members, they might escape with their skins assuming Hillary was there to punch out any MP'sthat lunged for an attack with her vicious right hook.

Why, yes, I do occasionally watch C-Span for fun. What of it?

Pack 15:
57 Ben Sheets
112 Akinori Iwamura
53 Chien-Ming Wang
342 Aubrey Huff SP
70 Matt Holliday mini
US32 New York - Alex Rodriguez
39 JR Towles RC
139 Greg Reynolds RC

It's a lot nicer ripping these packs now that I know which ones are the short prints. I'll leave the Aubrey Huff snark to Kevin though. This is the second or third time I've gotten two Asian players back to back in a pack. Ben Sheets' card is another excellent example of how to do a horizontal action card correctly in this set. So far Topps has had more hits than misses so that's good. Derek Jeter on the New Jersey card and now A-Rod on New York. Topps is really pandering to the Yankee fans aren't they? I'm happy to say that JR Towles finally has a good photo on one of his trading cards. He still looks incredibly anxious, but at least he's smiling on this one.

Pack 16:
131 Todd Helton
149 Freddy Sanchez
5 Captain Cheezburger Sabathia
90 Jose Reyes
197 Bigfoot A&G mini
US37 Oregon - Jacoby Ellsbury
209 Clete Thomas RC
102 Ray Durham

Todd Helton may or may not make the Hall of Fame, but he has firmly established himself as the preeminent beard of our era. Just look at that follicular work of art. Lush and verdant, yet meticulously pruned into the traditional Van Dyke. He looks like a hipster Grizzly Adams. There's too much white space on CC's card. They should have made it vertical instead of horizontal. The Reyes card looks good with his Statue of Liberty follow through on his posed imaginary swing. Is that stupid Jacoby Ellsbury card I pulled out of last years Updates & Highlights still worth anything? Eh, they're selling for about half what they were 6 months ago. I shoulda dumped it. Who the heck is Clete Thomas? I know I haven't been following baseball as closely as I did last year, but I've never heard of this guy. I'm mildly disappointed in the mini card even though it looks pretty damn awesome. I think cryptozoology when I hear the word Bigfoot. The card is the third one I've gotten so far with a printer roller mark on it too. Grrrrrr. I suppose a roller tread is actually quite appropriate on this card when I think about it.

The box so far:
Base cards - 95/351 27.1%
Short Prints - 8/50 16%
mini -6
mini A&G - 5
mini black - 3 (1 SP)
State Flags - 14
Jersey relics - 2 (Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols)
World Leaders - 1 (Gordon Brown)
Pioneers of Aviation - 1
World's Greatest Victories - 1 (SPARTAAAAAAA)
Old Planter ad - 2