LaRoooooooooooooooche!

There's going to be some property destroyed in Calgary tonight.

In other news I still haven't a clue what the hell Theo Epstein is doing up in Baahstun.

UPDATE: After futher research and reflection upon the matter, I think I understand what's going on in Baahstun. You can read my comment about it here. The comment from the not-a-Red-Sox-apologist still rubs me the wrong way. Garret Anderson is on pace to hit .290ish with about 15 homers and an OPS+ of 105 or so which is pretty much EXACTLY what he's done each of the past five years. Fine, Albert Pujols he ain't, but it's not a bad last-minute pickup for $2.5 mil.

Gint-a-Blaster!

Everything's scanned now. Time to post this properly. Basically, I got a blaster of A&G as soon as I could find one and took the time to see how it would score using the Gint-a-Cuffs rules. This was a pretty damn good blaster if I say so meself. I'm not doing pack by pack breakdowns on this thing, only the relevant information needed for scoring.

25 BASE CARDS:

Out of the 25 base cards in the box 6 were doubles. This was compared to just the base in the first half of my hobby box, there may be more. There probably will be, actually. I'm not listing all this junk out, but here are the point getters (or losers):

CHIPPAH +3

Wright, Mauer and Willie Williams +2 +2 +2

Mick & Tex Dirty Yanks -1 -1

4 Short Prints:

I was happy to get the short prints when I opened the box. Then I scored the rest of my hobby box and realised they were all dupes that could be found in the second half of my box. So it goes.

Adrian Gonzalez' brother +5

Smilin' Justin Masterson +5

BJ "Unconditional Release" Ryan +5

Wierdly Scanned Chris Young +5

If anyone needs 'em let me know. No promises on when I'll e-mail you back though.

5 Mini Cards:

Four of them are worthless, one is a short print so +7 for me. Strangely, the one Chris Volstad SP mini is worth as many points as all my base cards put together.

Chris Volstad & Friends +7

Vladdy Daddy A&G +2

Another oddity: The SP and A&G minis that had point values are the only two minis that didn't make the mini binder. Volstad was blocked by Kerri Walsh and Vlad <>

National Heroes - Poland +5 points

Tadeusz Kosciuszko is a Revolutionary War hero who liked fighting the British so much he started his own revolution against the Russians. Topps picked some really fascinating folks for this series.

Hoaxes etc. +5

YES! An actual Hoax and not a criminal! This is a real old school hoax too. I'm very happy with this one. It kind of screws up the rant I had planned for my second hobby hoax, though. Oh well, I'll live.

9 National Pride Inserts:

They were all in a run from 19-126 so I just scanned the whole page.

Money cards:

David Wright +4

Chase Utley +4

Yunel Escobar +2

Ichiro Sketch Card +3

Ichiro! 'Nuff said. Now for the Biggie:

Evan Longoria Relic +40

Gotta love a relic in a blaster. REALLY gotta love it when it's a star and not Eric Gagne or Bobby Crosby. Ok, total Gint-a-Cuff points for the blaster:

99 points

Can anyone out there beat that? I've heard there's been lots of relics coming out of blasters...

Actual Trading Card History - 1909 T206

LONG day today. Too tired to post the rest of my now-ripped-and-Gint-a-Cuffs-scored A&G box. Soon, though... In the meantime here's a happy smiley Dice-K 2008 Trading Card History T206 card.

Here's is an actual T206 card of Hall of Famer Ed Walsh so you may compare the two and discover Topps' chicanery for yourself.

That Topps card shore looks ugly in comparison, don't it?

Tales from the draft folder: 2008 Mayo Football

For the second straight night, I've passed out while watching the Braves. As a result, the posts I had planned ain't exactly written. I scoured the draft folder and found this Mayo pack I had started writing about back on January 27th, but never actually posted for some reason. Maybe I ended up posting it on A Pack A Day or something.

Also: everyone who has sent me a trade e-mail will be replied to by Friday. If I don't get back to you, please punch me in the face to get my attention.

Ok, now for an old pack. Updated notes in blue.


Just got this pack today (1/27/09), $5.50 at Champion Sports Cards in Kennesaw. I'll let the cards speak for themselves and do a more detailed dissection on my own blog (probably did post this already on APAD) once (typo) I've been able to examine them more thoroughly.

24 Matt Cassell

274 John Harvey Kellogg

267 Maurice Jones-Drew

40 Marcus Smith RC SP

227 Derek Anderson mini

SB39-B Super Bowl XXXIX thick insert

76 Muhsin Muhammad

101 Jerry Porter

To sum up: Topps spent a fortune in black ink. The photos ranged from pretty good (Cassell, Porter) to dreadful (Smith). I'm not impressed by the Pro Set throwback thick Superbowl insert. The mini card is kickass as always, but Derek Anderson? Eecch. I would eat cornflakes for every meal if I could get my mustache to grow the way Kellogg's does. I'm glad I didn't drop $100+ on a Hobby box, but you can bet your sweet bippy that Blasters Shall Be Bought. (One blaster that is. I wasn't all that impressed with this set after the short prints turned out to be needlessly tough. I still want my McLovin autograph!)

Gint-a-Blaster! rough draft

NO TIME TO FINISH NOW - STILL NEED TO SCAN BASE AND NATIONAL PRIDE

HAVEN'T DONE SCORING ON THEM EITHER

EFF IT - POSTIN' IT ANYWAY

Mini Mall pt 10 Vintage O-Pee-Chee

Only two more posts for this mini mall thing and we can move on. The fodder for both posts came out of the vintage card (if you consider '70s cards vintage) dime box. Every time I see this dealer I make sure to always get something out of that box then once I get home I become deeply regretful that I didn't get more cards out of the box. One day I'll just buy the whole bloody box and be done with it.

Part one of the vintage cavalcade has to do with our friends north of the border. While there were a lot of '70s Topps cards in that box, there were also a few '70's O-Pee-Chee cards in there too. I have quite a few O-Pee-Chee cards from the '80s, but ones from the '70s are few and far between in my collection so I snapped all of 'em up. Well, not all of them, there were a lot of doubles in there. No one really needs more than one 1980 O-Pee-Chee Tony Brizzolara, do they?

1977 O-Pee-Chee:

155 Andy Messersmith
209 Jeff Burroughs
251 Jerry Royster

That Burroughs card does not say Braves in the '77 Topps set. It has the same crummy photo, but the Rangers team name. So that is most likely Jeff's very first Braves card! That might mean something if anyone knew who Jeff Burroughs was anymore, let alone that he once played for the Braves in The Dismal Years. Since the big attraction to O-Pee-Chee Cards is the french on the back, I scanned Andy Messersmith's card back. Read up, Francophiles. I also felt compelled to scan the cartoon on the back of Jerry Royster's card.

I'm glad Joe Morgan is an expert in something, 'cause it sure ain't baseball analysis.

1979 O-Pee-Chee:

142 Bobby Bonds

This one isn't a Brave, but it had the cool O-Pee-Chee logo inside the baseball and the traded blurb so I couldn't resist.

1980 O-Pee-Chee:

59 Bob Horner
73 Biff Pocoroba
86 Tony Brizzolara
241 Jerry Royster
263 Gene Garber
283 Jeff Burroughs

It just occurred to me that the 1977 and 1980 O-Pee-Chee cards are identical to Topps on the front. Well, except in Jeff's case. Eagle eyed collectors can tell from the card stock that something is amiss. In addition to the French (and in Jerry Royster's case some additional stats) on the back, O-Pee-Chee cards are printed on white cardstock instead of the traditional Topps blah gray. The edges of the card are often a little more ragged too. This comes from O-Pee-chee's practice of not using a blade to cut the card sheets but instead having an angry moose rend the cards asunder with his mighty antlers. That moose did a pretty good job too, except on those occasions he got into the stash of LaBatt's in the back room.

Mini Mall pt 12 - Braves Rookies

Last batch from the nickel box. Here are all the rookies I deemed to be 'good' that I could scrounge. It was still hit and miss. Out of 8 cards only 3 are still in the organization. I've grouped them accordingly.

The Present:

2006 Topps Updates & Highlights #UH245 Martin Prado

Martin got his shot thanks to injuries and slumps by his infield teammates and has gone from super sub to starting second baseman in a couple of months. Don't be surprised if Kelly Johnson is moved in the next month.

2006 Bowman #B44 Diory Hernandez

He's torn up Triple-A this year but has only hit .145 in the bigs. He'll probably be back on the farm once Infante is healthy.

The Future:

2007 Bowman #BDPP12 Freddie Freeman

The conventional wisdom is that Casey Kotchman is just keeping first base warm for Freddie. The kid's not even twenty yet but he's hitting well at Double-A. This isn't that surprising once you know that he's a superhero.

The Past:

2007 Bowman #BDPP12 Elvis Andrus

Ok, so he's playing damn well for the Rangers concidering he's only 20 years old and by all rights shouldn't be much past A-Ball right now. Life's too short to dwell on bad trades. Besides, I'm pretty happy with Yunel Escobar right now.

2005 Bowman #BDP53 Brandon Monk

I'm not sure what the heck happened here. Brandon was a 7th round pick in 2005 for the Braves. Then he got suspended for performance enhancing whatevers in 2007 and then fell off the face of the earth. I guess he's out of baseball, but I can't back that up at all.

2004 Heritage #402 Brayan Pena

I'm still mad the Braves let him go, and I don't understand why he can't get a shot to play somewhere. At least as a backup! The dude can hit!

2006 Upper Deck #1175 Travis Smith

This card makes an utter mockery of the MLB rookie card logo. Travis made his major league debut for Milwaukee. In 1998. Logos push product out the door though. Nice pose by the bespectacled one.

2006 Upper Deck #1016 Phil Stockman

The Braves' other Australian reliever. I remember a couple of awesome interviews from him, but injuries cut his time with the Braves to ten games over two non-consecutive seasons.

Gint-a-Cuffs Halftime Report

I said I'd get around to adding all these Gint-a-Cuffs scores together and I finally have. This is becoming the slowest box break in the history of mankind so I'm going to try to get it finished off by Sunday. Now for the totals.

Box Topper:
Jefferson & Hancock Cabinet +8

Pack 1:
Frank Evans +2
Chipper Jones National Pride +6

Pack 2:
Bupkis

Pack 3:
Adrian Gonzalez +2
Christian Guzman SP +5
Rocco Baldelli mini SP +7
Lynne Cox relic +12

Pack 4:
Delmon Young SP mini A&G back +9

Pack 5:
Art Pennington +2
Old Faithful SP +4
Brad Lidge Baseball Highlights +3
Janos Damjanich National Heroes +5

Pack 6:
Milky Way -1
Scott Rolen Code Card +2
Enron bleeeeecch +5
Jair Jurrjens National Pride +2

Pack 7:
Tim Hudson +1
St. Patrick's Cathedral mini A&G +2

Pack 8:
Red Moore +3
Justin Duchscherer SP +5
Evan Longoria National Pride +4

Pack 9:
Andy LaRoche SP +5
Mark Teahen mini black border +3

Pack 10:
BIGFOOT +7

Pack 11:
AJ Burnett SP +5
Jay Bruce jersey +40
Eric Chavez A&G Mini +2

Pack 12:
Bobby Crosby -1
Ken Griffey Jr. Sketch +3

So all total that's...
8+8+0+26+9+14+8+3+12+8+7+47+2=152-2 for yankees I forgot=150

150 points at the half. Not too shabby, but I'll have to get a monster hit to contend. Time to start posting!

(tomorrow)