I don't have any idea what's going on

On one hand the Braves are shopping Tex all over the place.

On the other hand we're desperately trying to get Jason Bay from the Pirates, but on a third hand the Pirates ownership already kiboshed a deal. .

On yet another hand (maybe a foot) a Tex to Arizona deal is all but done, except that it isn't.

And on a kneecap or earlobe or something, Will Ohman is more sought after than Tex.

Chipper and Huddy are definitely on the DL and the Braves beat writer sees chum in the water.

I'm so confused about all these hands, feet and various other appendages, that I just need a nap.

There is no doubt about one thing though...

When it comes to heads, this is the greatest haircut ever.

UPDATE: Tim Hudson = Tommy John. It keeps getting worse and worse.

I'm too busy crying in my beer folks, Card of the Week wil be up tomorrow.

2008 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 7: Packs 21-24 and wrapup

Ok, this time, the box really is dead. 'Cause I opened all the packs. I didn't say there was nothing left in the box...

Pack 21:
248 Lastings Milledge
171 JD Drew
180 Ryan Braun
93 David Eckstein
329 Jeff Clement RC SP
247 Lisa Leslie mini black border
US46 David Wright
178 Jose Vidro

Lisa Leslie is the fourth mini card in the box with a big roller mark on it. Meh. JD Drew finally made an All-Star team and he wins the MVP. Double meh. Lota meh in this pack. Like Jef Clement. He's a good catcher, but unless Kenji Johjima gets eaten by Godzilla he's hopelessly blocked. Meeeeeeeh. At 7 1/2 games back, I'm not interested in any damn Mets cards so the Virginia flag is more meh. I did learn that Willie Horton is the all time leader in homers anmong Virginians though. Ryan Braun is the lone Anti-Meh of the pack with an interesting action card.

Pack 22:
141 Jermaine Dye
96 Carlos Zambrano
51 Brian McCann
10 Manny Ramirez
B15 Mel Ott mini
US39 Rhode Island - Paul Konerko
232 Davy Crockett
103 Kerri Strug

Cool, I got one of Topps' newly paid for Legends cards. You'd think that since they forked out all that loot to get their rights, that Topps would actually put them in the set instead of making them a one every other box insert. Quick - without looking it up, how many homers does Mel Ott have? Kerri Strug is one of the few highpoints about a 1996 Olymic Games that was ruined by political assholes. Davy Crockett is inexplicably not wearing a coonskin cap. Seriously Topps, WTF? Poor Paul Konerko. He's the all time leader in home runs for players from Rhode Island, but he'll never be the best player from the state. Napoleon Lajoie isn't giving up that honor. Brian McCann is a welcome Brave in the pack.

Pack 23:
55 Josh Beckett
188 Kelly Johnson
257 Luis Gonzalez
316 Ervin Santana
240 Magglio Ordonez mini
AGA-IK Ian Kinsler autograph
Old Planter ad
84 Bonnie Blair
292 Elijah Dukes

Yeah, I have no idea how I managed to pull four framed cards out of this box. Pretty crazy actually. Kinsler's not a bad auto either. Not bad at all. I guess I'm obligated to post L.A. Woman after that. Mr. Mojo rising...



Anybody care about the rest of the pack? No? Good. Let's post a scan of Kelly Johnson and move on then.

Pack 24:
14 Adrian Gonzalez
50 Albert Pujols
30 Miguel Cabrera
284 Dice-K mini black border
US18 Louisiana - Jonathan Papelbon
83 Masahide Kobayashi RC
137 Annie Oakley
107 Matt Biondi

Ok, box is done. Let's hope I can still afford another one in the next couple of weeks. I've been afraid to check prices. More roller marks on the mini. It looks like the black bordered cards got fed into the machine wrong or something. Nice pack to finish up on with Pujols, Cabrera and a veteran from the original Allen & Ginter series, Miss Annie Oakley.

And as usual, here's the last card in the set: Matt Biondi.

SPARTAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

FINAL TALLY:
Base cards - 142/351 40.5%
Short Prints - 12/50 24%
mini -10
mini A&G - 5
mini black - 5 (1 SP)
State Flags - 20
Jersey relics - 3 (Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, Jeff Francoeur)
Autographs - 1 (Ian Kinsler)
World Leaders - 2 (Gordon Brown, Stephen Harper)
Baseball Legends - 1 (Mel Ott)
Pioneers of Aviation - 1
World's Greatest Victories - 1 (SPARTAAAAAAA)
Old Planter ad - 4

Verdict: Either these boxes are loaded or I'm lucky as hell. I hope I'm just lucky because you need 3 boxes minimum to complete a set and I don't want box prices shooting through the roof. The mini cards have gotten a bit ridiculous though. Only 10 base minis in a box? I'm sure glad I'm not trying to build that set. I like the mini inserts I pulled. Not sure about the other ones, especially the Team Orange craziness I just learned about. I'll do a separate post on that mess. There's almost too many insert sets this time though. I don't know which one to try to collect. I've gotten a good start on Braves relics at least. I'm not sure why Topps decided to change the border frames on the relics from white to black, but they look good. All in all a nice effort by Topps.

I almost forgot about the Hall of Fame inductions

Congrats Goose,

and congrats, Dick.
And congrats to everyone else except the ghost of Bowie Kuhn, because by any measure the guy was an abysmal commissioner. Just truly awful.

To add to my forgetfulness, I also completely forgot about SportKings Series B being released today. Now If you'll excuse me, I need to desperately try to forget about SportKings once again.

DEATH TO SHANE VICTORINO

Ok, I don't mind that he's absolutely pwned the Braves this year. It seems like he's hitting about .950 (1.200 on base percentage) with 75 homers and three thousand RBIs this year just against the Braves.

But now he just pasted Brain McCann on a play at the plate and damn near knocked his head clean off.

THIS SHALL NOT STAND.

Death to the evildoer!

Death to the Hawaiian menace!

Bring me Shane Victorino's head on a platter!

Look at the beady criminal eyes... we must eliminate this threat to decent society!

UPDATE: McCann has a mild concussion. I was worried for a minute that he may have been Estradaed. Perhaps Shane doesn't quite deserve death, but he sure as hell ain't getting no cake from me.

Sticky Saturday or Sunday whatever - Crystal Ball Edition

All Right... The non-waiver trade deadline is almost here. The Braves are under .500 but still in the race thanks to a weak NL East. They can go out and pick up an outfielder and some pitching and make a run at the pennant, or ransom Teixeira and some bullpen arms for a truckload of prospects and shoot for 2009. They are in a crucial series with the Phillies this weekend, the rubber game of which starts in about an hour. The first game they demolished the formerly front running Phils, yesterday they squandered a huge lead and suffered yet another one run road loss. What to do? Buy or sell? It's time to...

LOOK DEEPLY INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL

No not the Styx version, or the dumb Keane video, or even some new age hippie crap (although juggling is cool) I'm talking about looking into a real live crystal type ball! Of course I don't have one, so I tried the interwebs. You knew there would be a web based crystal ball amongst all the Magic 8-balls so I tried it.

Oh crystal ball, Can the Braves win the division?

Ask again tomorrow?? Stupid crystal ball. I'll have to resort to cardboard prognostication instead. Let's see what that Fleer sticker from the 80's can tell us about the 2008 Braves. I can't remember what year it's from and I don't care. I'm interested in the FUTURE not the past. Ask FleerFan. He's the one who gave me the sticker. Let's flip this puppy over and see what the future has in sto-

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT THE ROYALS!!! OH DEAR LORD NOT THE FRACKING ROYALS! Wait, wait, calm down. They were good back in the mid 80's... they won a World Series! They had George Brett! And then they fell in to a long stretch of losing and despair noooooooooooooooooooooo


TRADE TEX!

FIRE FRANK!

SEND FRENCHY BACK TO THE ROOKIE LEAGUE!

HAMPTON'S A WITCH, BURN HIM!

USE THE BULLPEN FOR KINDLING!

PANIC!

Too much stuff going on today

Xavier Nady is a Yankee.

Casey Blake is a Dodger.

The Mets are desperately looking for an outfielder.

Manny could be out of Boston soon.

The Braves don't know if they're buying or selling. (Oh please be selling)

Hell, even Frenchy might get traded.

And most improbable of all, Mike Hampton is supposedly going to pitch in a real live game for the first time since 2005 in less than an hour. I don't believe it for one second. He's going to walk out on the mound and his head is going to explode like in Scanners. Maybe right after that, we'll trade Tex for Youk. Oh how I would dance naked in the streets if we were able to trade for Youk... Let get a deal done Frank! And not for Jason Bay!

I want YOOOOOOUUUUUUUKKKKK!!!!!

(and don't trade Frenchy, I just want to get rid of Tex and Boras not have a fire sale)

2008 Allen & Ginter Box Break Part 6: Packs 17-20

We're to the last third of the box and after pulling my two relic cards the box is dead. OR IS IT?? That's what we writers call 'foreshadowing'.

Pack 17:
25 Aramis Ramirez
86 Kelvim Escobar
236 Alex Gordon
220 Erik Bedard
301 Felix Pie SP
21 Miguel Tejada mini
AGR-JF Jeff Francouer
Another Old Planter ad

(sound of needle scratching over record)

What what WHAAAT?
Another relic card? This is a case of serious

And it's Frenchy too, kickass. The good 'ol "two hits per box ON AVERAGE" working out in my favor again. Of course some poor kid in Cedar Falls who mowed lawns all summer in the 120 degree heat to scrape up enough money to buy a box from his local rip off dealer who jacked up the price to $175 because they are the only hobby store in a 300 mile radius just opened his box and got NOTHIN. No cards at all, just empty wrappers full of David Wright Topps of the Class ads, checklists and dried clown tears. I don't even care that I got gypped out of a card. There's even a shot print in the pack. Everybody loves Pie. Well, everyone except the Cubs.

Pack18:
123 Josh Willingham
184 Felix Hernandez
143 JJ Hardy
40 Justin Upton
WL5 Steven Harper World Leaders
US38 Pennsylvania - Ken Griffey Jr.
197 Bigfoot
172 Pablo Picasso

Ken Griffey Jr. was born in Pennsylvania? Did his dad play for the Phillies for a couple of years or something? I went to Baseball-Reference.com to see how King Felix was pitching this year and found that he has one of the more cryptic sponsor ads I've seen. I want my crown back, but I'm too scared to click on the ad. I I got my second and most likely last world leader card. With two World Leaders and an Aviation Pioneer I'm probably done with mini inserts in this box. Maybe there will be a Bazooka back or an orange parallel, whatever the heck that is. I got Stephen Harper, King of Canadia to go with Gordon in my World leaders plastic sheet. I wonder how many of these leaders will be out of office when 2009 A&G comes out. Bush will, obviously, And Gordon Brown is having some major problems in merry ole England. Vladimir Putin is on the checklist, but I thought Russia had a new president already? According to Wikipedia he's now Prime Minister, so that's cool. There's no Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Robert Mugabe on the checklist though. What's the point of having a World Leader insert set if you're going to leave out the ones that are always in the news? I got another gem from the non- baseball cards in the set. No, not the truck, Pablo Picasso. More theoretical physicists and artists, please.

Pack 19:
173 Rick Ankiel
218 John Maine
17 Kenji Johjima
325 Stephen Drew SP
125 John Lackey mini
US22 Michigan - Jason Varitek
295 Chone Figgins
189 Rampage Jackson

Ok, Rampage Jackson frightens me. I wonder who would win in a fight between him and the Brian Roberts ZomBot. And a ninja. As long as we're fighting people, lets throw in a ninja. And a Viking. A Viking with a gun. That would be cool. Has Chuck Norris gotten his own Allen & Ginter card yet? Poor Rick Ankiel. Last year he was the big comeback story in baseball and now Josh Hamilton has completely blown his ass out of the water. Which is totally unfair because Ankiel had to go through a lot more than Hamilton. Josh just had to kick heroin, he didn't have to deal with Tony LaRussa. John Maine is in the lead for the 2008 A&G "Douchiest Smirk" award. I've learned a very important thing from the State Flags insert set. I know a lot about baseball, but I have no freaking clue where anybody is from. Jason Varitek is from Detroit??



Pack 20:
250 Ichiro
15 BJ Upton
267 Andrew Miller
235 Dan Haren
135 Robinson Cano mini
US10 Georgia - Nick Markakis
182 Nate McLouth
73 Tadahito Iguchi

Awww... Andrew Miller is shy. Now that Dan Haren is on the D-Backs, I can officially start confusing him with Brandon Webb. Ichiro is good as an insert. The flag card pisses me off though. Half the players on the Braves team went to high school within spitting distance of Turner Field and the player on the Georgia Flag card is Nick Markakis. He wasn't even born in Georgia! He was born in New York and moved here! Brian McCann: born in Athens, GA. Jeff Francouer: born in Atlanta, GA. Tim Hudson: born in Colombus, GA. Chuck James, Blaine Boyer, Clint Sammons all born in Atlanta. Even Chipper Jones is from Northern Florida which is practically Georgia. This card is dangerous... Show the wrong cracker a card with the new style Georgia flag featuring a transplanted New Yorker and there's going to be a riot. SONNY LIIIIIIIIIED!!!


The box so far:
Base cards - 118/351 33.6%
Short Prints - 10/50 20%
mini -9
mini A&G - 5
mini black - 3 (1 SP)
State Flags - 17
Jersey relics - 3 (Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, Jeff Francoeur)
World Leaders - 2 (Gordon Brown, Stephen Harper)
Pioneers of Aviation - 1
World's Greatest Victories - 1 (SPARTAAAAAAA)
Old Planter ad - 3

Friday Night Negativity

It's been a very stressful week here at Casa de Junkie, so I'm gonna take a few moments to vent a bit. Make that a lot.

THINGS I AM COMPLETELY SICK AND TIRED OF IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

1) Steve Bartman and whatever the fuck NAXCOM is called now.
I hate the stinking Cubs and I laughed like hell when those losers blew that game, but how any rational thinking baseball fan can blame that loss on Steve is beyond me. Just because ESPN showed the clip 8 billion times does not mean that stupid foul ball meant a damn thing in the Cubs losing that game. Steve Bartman did not:

walk Luis Castillo after the foul ball.
boot a grounder to short, loading the bases.
give up six hits in the inning including three doubles.
to go along with three walks for nine baserunners in the inning.
eight of which scored, with none of the runs counting against Steve Bartman's ERA.
BECAUSE HE WASN'T PITCHING.
he also didn't blow game 7 at Wrigley with Kerry Wood on the mound.

So just shut up already. Alou had no chance to catch that ball anyway. If he wasn't such a whiny little bitch who slammed his glove on the ground afterwards it probably wouldn't have had turned into the big goddamn mess that it did.

As for the artist formerly known as NAXCOM, I didn't use your service before simply because I wasn't familiar with it. I'm not going to be using it now because you're exploiting some poor chump who was in the wrong place at the wrong time to try to promote your service, which is a completely dickish move. AND spamming me with the crap to boot. Bartman has wisely stayed the hell out of the public eye instead of trying to milk elvery second of his 15 minutes of fame and I respect him for that. You guys can take your ill-gotten free publicity and shove it up your ass.

2) Topps and the Sklar Brothers and Meaningless Marketing.
I've never really watched the Cheap Seats. I don't have a lot of time to watch TV, and when I do I usually gravitate to the 5 or 6 shows I know I like to waste the hour or so I have to waste. I'll admit I haven't watched their show and I don't really know anything about it. Maybe once for 5 minutes at 3am while flipping channels, but I sure don't remember it. They may be super geniuses, they may suck, I just don't know. They did voices on The Oblongs so they couldn't suck that bad. What's pissing me off is Topps thinking that a couple comedians doing a web show about their products will make up for them half assing the cards. It's obvious that Eisner's vision for Topps is all marketing, but it would be refreshing if they paid just a little attention to the goddamn product for once. Looking at this year's releases and the stuff schedued for the rest of the year, and it's starting to look that when it's all said and done and we're looking at the 2009 products there will have been exactly two sets from Topps worth a shit from 2008. It's easier to market stuff when it's actually good. I'm sick of gimmick cards, I'm sick of phoned in set designs, I'm sick of superduper short prints, I'm sick of artificial scarcity, I'm sick of walking into a card shop or the card aisle at Target, looking around, and seeing absolutely nothing that's worth my time.

I WANT TO BUY YOUR CARDS.

GIVE ME A REASON TO BUY THEM.

WEBCASTS AND RIP MASTERS AND TOPPSTOWNS ISN'T A REASON.

3) People acting like Ben Henry is Hitler reincarnated for having the audacity to point out the donate button on his blog.
I just don't get the whole "Let's shit on Ben" fad. The guy writes well, he loves his cards and the blog is consistently a fun read. He's been blogging about cards for longer than just about everyone and had a pretty good readership until the posting frequency fell off due to real life concerns. Now for some reason, he's The Big Evil. I guess since he's been around a while and had a lot of readers, he's The Establishment Blog, and we all know one of the favorite pastimes on the internets is hating on The Establishment. The guy is a card collector from Massachusetts for fuck's sake, not Halliburton or Monsanto or some shit. What the fuck does it matter that he's been blogging for a little longer than the rest of us? I've had a shitty blog since 2004 and if it had just occurred to me back then to write about cards instead of random internet bullshit, then I'D be the big fucking Hitler right now. Who cares how long he's been writing, I'm just glad he's writing more frequently.

And about that... The reason he's writing more frequently is because he's freaking unemployed. As in no job. As in, he's not making any money from a job. So he light heartedly points out the donate button on his blog, and everyone reacts with such shock and horror you'd think he ran up to the President of the United States, kicked him right in the nuts with a steel tipped boot, wrenched the nuclear football out of his hands and gave it to Osama Bin Laden, and then dropped his pants and shit on the flag while eating a live kitten during the halftime of the Super Bowl. NEWS FLASH: BLOGGERS BEG FOR MONEY ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. Look all across the interwebs, and there's blogs as far as the eye can see, and 99% of them have donate buttons, google ads, banner ads, pop up ads, cafepress t-shirts and coffee mugs and shit and when they need money to keep things rolling, THEY BEG FOR CASH. That's how it works, folks. Running a halfway decent blog takes lots of time, serious talent and in many cases significant money for hosting and bandwidth costs. The guy who runs MLB Trade Rumors quit his job this year to blog full time, and no one freaked when he asked for support. Josh Fruhlinger of The Comics Curmudgeon begs for cash occasionally and usually gets it. You don't even really need talent to make money off a blog as evidenced by that girl who begged for money to pay off the credit cards she ran up a few years ago.

Here's the deal. Ben's a good writer. He puts out a good product. If you're reading this blog, you've probably come across his blog at some point or another. If you like his stuff and have some cash, help him out. If not, ignore it and move on. Don't act like this is a big affront to the purity of collecting or anything. It's how the damn internet works.

Heh. Right as I was proofreading the post I see Bad Wax has a similar take on the subject. Good post, Chemgod.

4) Brett Favre on Goddamn ESPNFL all the damn time.
Retire or don't. Quit pulling this Michael Jordan "I'm retired, no I'm not, yes I am, trade me now, I'm retired again" crap. I don't want to hear it anymore. Ya know what? Fuck the NFL. There's gonna be a lockout or a strike that wipes out a season or two soon anyway because the owners are going to screw up the salary cap and try to grab more money off the players they routinely cripple. Do whatever you want, I'm done with you idiots. Fuck the Falcons and Fuck Arthur Blank and Fuck Matt Ryan and Fuck the NFL.

5) The Braves thinking they have a chance.
It's after the All Star Break, you're 4 games under .500 and 6 out of first. YOU'RE NOT MAKING THE POSTSEASON. I've been listening to them kick the crap out of the Phillies while whiting this long ass post, but it doesn't matter. Even if they sweep the Phils this weekend they're still going to be under .500 and in 4th place. The Wildcard winner is coming from the NL Central this year so in order to get into the postseason we have to jump three teams in the division. Ok, so crazier things have happened. If they go on a ten game winning streak all of a sudden they're back in it. They could do it! They could win it all!

NO THEY CANT.
THEY DON'T HAVE THE PITCHING.
THE ROTATION IS IN SHAMBLES.
SMOLTZ IS GONE.
GLAVINE IS OUT.
HUDSON IS HURT.
JURRJENS IS A ROOKIE.
LEAN TOO HARD ON A ROOKIE PITCHER IN A STRETCH RUN AND YOU GET KERRY WOOD.
OR MARK PRIOR.
OR FRANCISCO LIRIANO.

The pitching just ain't there. Jo Jo Reyes and Jorge Campillo are not leading us to ther promised land. Hampton is scheduled to pitch tomorrow but I will bet anything he pulls or tweaks or breaks something tomorrow. If he actually makes it out to the mound he'll probably spontaneously combust during his windup. This is all with an offense that has woefully underachieved all year. Forget about Chipper being gimpy, forget about Frenchy forgetting how to swing and forget about the dozens of scoring opportunities that have been wasted all year long. The pitching just ain't there!

That's why it's driving me nuts every time I see an article stating that Frank Wren hasn't figured out if we're buyers or sellers yet. We have no chance and at least two or three extremely valuable trade pieces, including a first baseman that can win a division for the team that picks him up. See this is my recurring nightmare:

We keep Teixeira.
Scott Boras demands $20mil a season.
The absentee owners in Denver say hell naw.
We think about offering arbitration.
Management gets cold feet again because Boras and Greg Maddux accepted arbitration a few years ago and made a mint.
We don't offer arbitration.
We lose the two compensation draft picks for Teixeira.
The Mets swoop in and sign him through 2015.
Tex beats the crap out of us for years and we end up with nothing.

Now, there is probably not a chance in hell that this happens, but it's been standard operating procedure for the past five years so who knows what will happen. The great teams of the ''90s were built on pitching and bringing up good prospects. We are just about out of pitching, it's time to just let go for one year and get back some of the prospects. If the braves keep trying to win now every single year and making dumb moves like giving up a first round draft pick for two Tom Glavine wins, this is going to be a .500 team for a long, long time.

6) Negativity on the Internet.
GODDAMNIT one of the main reasons I started blogging was to get away from all the bullshit internet drama on the forums and do something I could enjoy without all the griping and complaining and whining and bitching and moaning and sniping at each other and NOW PEOPLE ARE DOING THE SAME STUPID SHIT IN THEIR CARD BLOGS AND IT'S PISSING ME OFF SO CUT IT OUT AND YES I KNOW I'M DOING IT TOO I'M PUNCHING MYSELF IN THE FACE WHILE I TYPE THIS BECAUSE I'M SO SICK AND ANGRY OF THIS CRAP GARRRRAARRGHRGAHRGHAGRGRGRRGRHAGRAGGAGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

(deep breath)

Ah. The Angry has been purged. Now I feel better.

Silliness to return tomorrow morning.

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

2008 Allen & Ginter Short Prints

Holy Crap, they made it easy for once!

Topps just released the short print base and autogamer card list.

Thankfully the SP's aren't skip numbered. Cards 301-350 are the SP's this year.

301 Felix Pie, Chicago Cubs
302 Brad Lidge, Philadelphia Phillies
303 Jason Bay, Pittsburgh Pirates
304 Victor Hugo, Poet/Playwright/Novelist
305 Randy Johnson, Arizona Diamondbacks
306 Carlos Gomez, Minnesota Twins
307 Pat Neshek, Minnesota Twins
308 Jed Lowrie, Boston Red Sox
309 Ryan Church, New York Mets
310 Michael Bourn, Houston Astros
311 B.J. Ryan, Toronto Blue Jays
312 Brandon Wood, Angels
313 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author/Abolitionist
314 Mike Cameron, Milwaukee Brewers
315 Tom Glavine, Atlanta Braves
316 Ervin Santana, Angels
317 Geoff Jenkins, Philadelphia Phillies
318 Andre Ethier, Los Angeles Dodgers
319 Jason Giambi, New York Yankees
320 Dmitri Young, Washington Nationals
321 Wily Mo Pena, Washington Nationals
322 Hank Blalock, Texas Rangers
323 James Bowie, American Pioneer/Soldier
324 Casey Kotchman, Angels
325 Stephen Drew, Arizona Diamondbacks
326 Adam Kennedy, St. Louis Cardinals
327 A.J. Pierzynski, Chicago White Sox
328 Richie Sexson, Seattle Mariners
329 Jeff Clement, Seattle Mariners
330 Luke Hochevar, Kansas City Royals
331 Luis Castillo, New York Mets
332 Dave Roberts, San Francisco Giants
333 Coco Crisp, Boston Red Sox
334 Jo-Jo Reyes, Atlanta Braves
335 Phil Hughes, New York Yankees
336 Allen Fisher, Arm Wrestling Champion
337 Jason Schmidt, Los Angeles Dodgers
338 Placido Polanco, Detroit Tigers
339 Jack Cust, Oakland Athletics
340 Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay Rays
341 Ty Wigginton, Houston Astros
342 Aubrey Huff, Baltimore Orioles
343 Bengie Molina, San Francisco Giants
344 Matt Diaz, Atlanta Braves
345 Francisco Liriano, Minnesota Twins
346 Brandon Boggs, Texas Rangers
347 David DeJesus, Kansas City Royals
348 Justin Masterson, Boston Red Sox
349 Frank Morris, Rubik's Cube Champion
350 Kevin Youkilis, Boston Red Sox

Pretty weak list, Big Unit and Glavine are the only players that can be remotely considered hobby stars. It makes it easier to build the set at least.

A brief respite from Allen & Ginter

I've been trying to write up packs 13-16 from my A&G box for an hour and I'm not getting anywhere. Time to cleanse the palate. I was originally going to post this last Sunday, but my balky back canceled all plans for the weekend. A few days late but just as useless, feast your eyes on...

RANDOM CRAP I BOUGHT FROM THE FLEA MARKET LAST WEEKEND

I've been getting stuff from this one seller at the flea market near me for at least five years now. He used to show up every week, but gas prices and lack of sales has caused him to cut it to once a month or so. He has an uncanny knack for showing up the week before a product I want to buy several boxes of hits the shelves. Which means I have lots of money saved up that I inevitably spend at his stall because I want him to come back next month. I always go overboard at the flea market. I got off easy this time though because there weren't as many autos and other big ticket items as there normally are. Instead I attacked the cheapo boxes pretty hard. Let's start off with the ten cent box.

THE TEN CENT BOX:

I snagged three main things from the dime box. A pile of Topps from the 70's, a handful of 2006 Bowman Heritage mini cards which I didn't scan because I sorted them into my set already, and a few high end 2007 cards like this Legendary Cuts Eddie Mathews card. I love this set, but I hate the price tag of ten bucks for four cards because maaaaaybe there's a cut auto in the pack. A dime a piece is a much better price in my opinion. Eddie's worth full retail though.

I got a few bucks worth of cards from the 70's. Most are from '76 and '77, but there's a '72 Ken Brett and a couple of multi-player rookies that I thought I needed but probably don't in there too. The original plan was to simply buy him out of '77 Topps. He's had a small box of 1977 cards for a while and every time I go to the flea market, I forget to bring my list. I vowed to just buy the whole box this time and be done with it. Then I saw another pile of 1976 cards next to the '77s. I took half of each pile and now next time he's there I'll buy him out.

I chose Brian Downing's card to represent the 1976 set because, well, the card is fantastic. First of all, he looks like I.Q. from The Bugaloos. Don't give me that look, if you grew up in the 70's you watched that goofy show and drooled over Joy just as much as I did. Or maybe you drooled over Martha Raye if you were a strange little child, who knows. IN ANY CASE, Brian Downing looks like a Bugaloo in that hideous red pinstriped monstrosity of a uniform, just slap some wings on him and he'll fly away. There's a great shot of the epic Comiskey scoreboard. There's a couple of guys loitering in the background and they left their junk all over the field. And best of all, Brian's fake pose perfectly shows off his cup enhanced boner. He had the hots for Joy too, I bet.

While the Downing card had everything but the kitchen sink going for it, this 1977 Paul Reuschel is an example of pure simplicity. A tableau of the delicate intercourse between blue and white. With a little bit of blotchy pink and some huge ass glasses thrown in for good measure. Rick should be known as Paul Reuschel's brother for this card alone. It even has the "Gary Carter collects baseball cards" cartoon on the back.

THE NICKEL BOX:

There was also a 5 cent box, or 22 for a buck. I freely admit I went a little crazy on that one. Here's a dozen or so choice picks from that box.

There were a few 1980 Topps Burger King "Pitch, Hit and Run" cards in the box. I'm mildly fascinated by the Burger K9ing cards of the late '70s and early '80s as they were the first oddball cards I ever got. Plus the red and black backs look a lit better than the blue backs of the base set.

Another Eddie Mathews card, this time in an Astros uniform. It's sad but cool to see Eddie in a uniform other than the Braves. Did you know he won a second championship ring with the Tigers in 1968? Ya do now.

What in God's name is Greg Maddux's first Topps card doing in a nickel box?! I know it's '88 Topps and he's in the '87 Traded set, but come on.

I'm a sucker for cards of retired players, especially of Johnny Mize. Look at the size of that bat. Big John just ripped an Oak right out of the ground and started swinging away. The 2002 Fleer Greats set put the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set design to good use here.

I bought quite a few packs of Donruss Triple Play in 1993 to get these Gallery of Stars Diamond King rip-off cards. Now I picked up half the set for about a quarter. The only one I was missing was this David Nied card. Too bad there's a big crease right on the cap

Gotta love finding numbered parallels in the common box. This '05 Donruss Stat Line card is numbered to 289, his career batting average as of 2004.

Yep, I bought a Bowman's Best rookie card of Doug Mientkiewicz. I don't know why either.


Nolan Ryan wasn't the only pitcher to be shown in a tux on their 1991 Stadium Club card. And unlike Nolan, Dave Stewart makes this look good.


I made a point of grabbing every horrible late '90s insert card I could find out of the box. This '97 Score Blast Master card is by far the most horrible.

'70s Kellogs cards are wonderful things to behold. this '77 card of should be Hall of Famer Bobby Grich has a beautiful creamsicle border stripe on it.

In keeping with the lenticular theme, here's a goofy looking card from Denny's. There's actually a hologram of Dave Justice on the back. You'd get a pack of one of these card with every Grand Slam meal. Assuming you could find a waitress willing to give you a pack.

Here's a 1997 rookie card of Bubba Trammell with soime strangeness you'll never be able to see in the scan. In '97 Topps tried using spot UV coating to frame the pictures of their cards as a gimmick. Needless to say it wasn't used again in 1998. the printer screwed up on this one and the UV frame is cutting through each player right in the middle. Completely worthless but bizarre enough to force me to get it.

Albert Belle works on his anger management in this 1994 Bowman preview card.

I'm pretty sure this 2004 Fleer Platinum dual rookie card of Rickie Weeks is a short print, but no one cares anymore.

Yeah, retro cards! This '97 Fleer insert of Eddie Murray swiped the Goudey design (sort of) way before that sort ofthing was cool.

Enough with the cruddy cards, it's time to show off the expensive ones. The ones in toploaders. The ones from...

THE FIFTY CENT BOX:

BUT... if you bought 10 they were only 40 cents each! So after finding four '07 Topps Heritage cards I thought I needed of course I found 11 more so the discount kicked in.

I got a 2007 All Star Game Home Run Derby contest card of Justin Morneau to add to my '07 Topps collection. One lousy year too late. To add further insult to injury the only 2008 Derby predictor card I have is of the '07 winner, Vlad Guerrero.

I didn't really need an XFractor of a mediocre Dodger propsect who can't seem to get past A-Ball, but dadgum it shore is purdy! Note how I think the Blast Master card above is hideous, yet this is a work of delicate beauty.

Tricky Dick! Everyone needs at least one Richard Milhous card in their collection.

Ok, now time for the expensive ones... Thankfully I only got two.

THE SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT OFF BOX:

I've managed to completely avoid all NFL football cards since my ex-favorite team completely screwed up their draft, but I still can't resist cards featuring my Bulldogs. This nice Ben Watson sig from Press Pass set me back less than four bucks.

THE FIFTY PERCENT OFF BOX:

This is mercifully the last card for the post and in my opinion the best. The UD Masterpieces rainbow of framed parallels is confusing and annoying. There's no doubt about that. I have no clue what color frame this is supposed to be, it's kind of a very dark grey with little gold glittery things in it. I didn't really give a crap what color frame it was, it was the cheapest Chipper in the half off case and I needs it my pressiousss. So I pay for the thing as and I drool all over the toploader due to it's extreme Chipper Mojoliciousness (Chip-Jo? Mojipper? Jones-Jo? wait, I got it... MO-JONES!) I finally notice the serial number.

JERSEY NUMBER MO-JONES!

So yeah, now I'm one of those dorks. Showing off serial numbers of overwrought parallel cards. That's all I'm gonna collect now too. Chipper Jones cards serial numbered to 10. If there's no serial number, I'm writing it in with a Sharpie. Number 10 of 1, baby. 'Cause it's now a one of one since I just scribbled all over it, but it's got Chipper's jersey number on it too. Time to buy a fresh pack of Sharpies. See how much trouble I get into when I hit the flea market?