Completed insert set – 2011 Allen & Ginter Baseball Highlight Sketches

It’s nice to get to an insert set from Ginter that has something to do with baseball.

Info about the set:

Set description: “Full size cards featuring reproductions of original artist sketch cards showcasing the greatest baseball highlights of the year and of all time!”  This is a set that Topps does every year for Allen & Ginter.

Set composition: 25 cards, 1:6 odds

Hall of Famers: None – the set is all current players

How I put the set together:

8 cards from the 2 hobby boxes

1 card via trade

14 cards from Sportlots

2 cards from eBay

Thoughts on the set:  Most of the sketches are very well done.  A few, like the A-Rod, are done a bit “sketch-y”.  Haha, you like how I did that.  But after mostly looking at specialty inserts, it’s cool to do a baseball insert set.  Plus, it’s a good representation of what happened in the 2010 season.

Card that completed my set:  #BHS5 - Albert Pujols

I’m kind of going off memory, but I’m pretty sure this was one of 2 cards I got in an eBay purchase of a lot of 15 A&G inserts back in January.  It commemorates Pujols becoming one of the youngest players to reach 400 home runs.

Highest book value:  #BHS18 – Stephen Strasburg, #BHS5 – Albert Pujols

Best card (my opinion):  #BHS25 – Ichiro

Ichiro Suzuki extends his own record with his 10th consecutive 200-hit season.  The 10 seasons overall ties the all-time record held by Pete Rose.  This card is pretty funny – Topps references Rose on the back, but not by name.  They just say “the all-time hit king” is the only guy with 10 200-hit seasons that aren’t in a row.

BHS12 is a close second.  Jim Joyce blew a call at first that would have given Armando Galarraga a perfect game.  This, combined with the class the 2 of them showed later on, was probably the most memorable moment of the season.  I would have probably picked this one, but Ichiro’s card is a much better sketch.

My Favorite Reds card:  #BHS15 – Aroldis Chapman

The first pitcher to record a 105-MPH fastball, and the sketch is nicely done.  The Jay Bruce walk-off, division-clinching home run card is a great card.  It’s a close up of the shot that is also included from his base Topps card from 2011.

Here’s the list of these cards - and the 2010 event commemorated.

• BHS1 – Target Field opens in Minneapolis to a Twins victory
• BHS2 – Jay Bruce’s walk-off home run clinched the NL Central for the Reds, sending them to the playoffs for the first time in 15 years
• BHS3 – Starlin Castro becomes the youngest player to homer in his first at bat, and knocks in 6 runs in a drubbing of the Reds
• BHS4 – Roy Halladay hurls the second postseason no-hitter ever, ruining that first Reds playoff game in 15 years
• BHS5 – Albert Pujols hits his 400th career home run, the 46th player to do so
• BHS6 – Jose Bautista’s 54 homer outburst paces the majors by 13 shots, the largest margin since 1965
• BHS7 – CC Sabathia wins his 150th game
• BHS8 – Cody Ross is a San Francisco Giants’ postseason hero after being picked up on the waivers from Florida
• BHS9 – Edwin Jackson throws the second no-hitter in Diamondback history
• BHS10 – Ryan Howard hits his 250th home run, the fastest player to do so
• BHS11 – Trevor Hoffman becomes the first pitcher to record 600 saves
• BHS12 – Armando Galarraga loses a perfect game after a blown call by first base umpire Jim Joyce
• BHS13 – Tim Lincecum leads the Giants to their first World Series title in San Francisco
• BHS14 – Mariano Rivera notches his 550th save
• BHS15 – Chapman fires a 105.1 MPH pitch
• BHS16 – Dallas Braden hurls a perfect game on Mother’s Day
• BHS17 – Cliff Lee shuts down the Rays in a decisive game 5 to give the Rangers their first postseason series victory.
• BHS18 – Stephen Strasburg lives up to the hype in his debut
• BHS19 – Matt Garza throws the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay franchise history
• BHS20 – Alex Rodriguez hits his 600th home run, the 7th (and youngest) player to do so
• BHS21 – David Wright becomes the youngest Mets player to reach 1,000 hits (this one is easily the biggest stretch to include in this set as a “highlight”)
• BHS22 – Ubaldo Jimenez throws the first no-hitter in Rockies history
• BHS23 – Mark Teixeira hits his 250th home run
• BHS24 – Jason Heyward hits a homer in his first swing in the majors
• BHS25 – Ichiro Suzuki extends his own record with his 10th straight 200-hit season.

Completed insert set – 2011 Allen & Ginter Floating Fortresses

After posting about a few mini inserts from 2011 Allen & Ginter.  I’ve finished off 2 more regular size insert sets – this is the first one.  Another that doesn’t have anything to do with sports.

Info about the set:

Set description: “A flotilla of maritime history, from Henry VIII’s majestic Mary Rose to today’s mammoth Sovereign of the Seas.”  The set has a white border with a rope designed as the frame.  A picture of the ship is shown in the middle, and it tends to look quite a bit like the Wikipedia picture for the ship.

I’m not sure where they were going with the today comment – the Sovereign of the Seas was from the 17th century, and the most recent ship in this set is from the early 1900′s.

Set composition: 20 cards, 1:8 odds.

Hall of Famers: None as it’s not a sports set.

How I put the set together:

6 cards from 2 hobby boxes

4 cards from trades

2 cards from a card show

4 cards from eBay

4 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set:  Another set that I’d say I’m “so-so”.  The concept of it isn’t bad, but there sure are a lot of ships they didn’t use.  There are no World War II vessels, no ships from the 16th century Spanish Armada (or Spain at all for that matter).  They could have had some fun with this.  A couple of mythical ships could have been thrown in – the Flying Dutchman, Noah’s Arc, Argo from Jason and the Argonauts, or Hringhorni from Norse mythology.

Card that completed my set: FF9 – USS Merrimack.

I got this card from a Sportlots purchase in June.

Highest book value: They all book for the same

Best card (my opinion): #FF4 – HMS Indefatigable

Cool looking ship, and the background Topps put with the moon looks really cool.  I also like FF1 – HMS Victory, because it looks like the British ship from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Like most Ginter sets – this is another one of those different kinds of sets.  I was curious as to how the breakdown of these ships went.

British (10)

• FF1 – HMS Victory (Launched 1737, sunk in 1744 in Solent – the straight between mainland England and the Isle of Wright.  Found in the English Channel in 2009, plans to be raised in the future)
• FF2 – Mary Rose.  (Launched 1511 for England, sunk in 1545 in the English Channel.  Found in 1971, raised in 1982.  Turned into a museum in Portsmouth, England)
• FF3 – Henry Grace a Dieu.  (Launched 1514 for England, fate unknown)
• FF4 – Great Michael.  (Launched 1511 for Scotland, fate unknown)
• FF5 – Sovereign of the Seas.  (Launched 1637 for England, burned in 1697)
• FF6 – HMS indefatigable.  (Launched 1784, decommissioned and broken up in 1816)
• FF13 – HMS Warrior.  (Launched 1860, taken out of use in 1923. Turned into a museum in Hartlepool, England)
• FF16 – HMS Dreadnought.  (Launched 1906, scrapped in 1921)
• FF18 – HMS Devastation.  (Launched 1871, scrapped 1908)
• FF19 – HMS Revenge.  (Launched 1915, scrapped 1948)

Ottoman (1)

• FF7 – Mahmudiye.  (Launched 1829, decommissioned and broken up in 1874)

French (4)

• FF8 – Le Napoleon.  (Launched 1850, struck in 1876)
• FF11 – Lave.  (Launched 1855, scrapped in 1873)
• FF12 – La Gloire.  (Launched 1859, scrapped in 1883)
• FF14 – Solferino.  (Launched 1859, struck in 1882)

United States (5)

• FF9 – USS Merrimack.  (Launched 1855, burned in 1861 in Norfolk, VA.  Hull was used as the base for the Confederates’ CSS Virginia, which was scuttled the next year in Norfolk)
• FF10 – USS Monitor.  (Launched 1862, lost at sea in December 1962.  Found in 1973, never raised, portions of the ship on display in Newport News, VA)
• FF15 – USS Cairo.  (Launched 1861, sunk in Haines Bluff, MS.  Found in 1959, raised in 1964, on display in Vicksburg, MS)
• FF17 – USS Texas.  (Launched 1892, sunk in shallow waters in 1908 as a target ship, demolished in Tangler, VA in 1959)
• FF20 – USS Pennsylvania.  (Launched 1916, struck 1948)

Completed insert set – 2011 Allen & Ginter Step Right Up

Here’s a third mini set from Allen & Ginter that I’ve completed recently.

Info about the set:

Set description:  “All the stars, freaks, and weird attractions from a carnival sideshow!”  The mini cards have a circus tent, a curtain behind the picture of the act, and the act name in a box at the bottom of the card.

Set composition: 10 cards, 1:15 odds

Hall of Famers: Not a sports set.

How I put the set together:

3 cards from 2 hobby boxes

3 cards from trades

4 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set:  This is probably my least favorite of the 3 mini sets I’ve done the last couple of days, though it is fairly interesting.

Card that completed my set: #SRU2 – Fire Breathing

This was one of 2 cards I just got from a Sportlots purchase.

Highest book value: They all book for the same

Best card (my opinion): #SRU5 – Human Cannonball

• SRU1 – The Bed of Nails
• SRU2 – Fire Breathing
• SRU3 – Fire Eating
• SRU4 – The Flea Circus
• SRU5 – The Human Cannonball
• SRU6 – The Human Blockhead
• SRU7 – Snake Charming
• SRU8 – The Strongman
• SRU9 – Knife Throwing
• SRU10 – Tightrope Walking

Completed insert set – 2011 Allen & Uninvited Guests

Here’s another mini set from Allen & Ginter that I’ve completed.  I actually completed this one 6 months ago but forgot to do a post on it until now.

Info about the set:

Set description: “Paranormal spooky tales, eerie hauntings, and supernatural events pictured on to cards.”  This set focuses on the locations (often a house) that are now believed to be haunted.  The cards feature a picture of the house, with the words “Uninvited Guests” at the top, the name of the “haunting” in a blue-gray box at the bottom.

Set composition: 10 cards, 1:12 odds

Hall of Famers: Not a sports set.  These are the “ghost story hall of famer houses”!

How I put the set together:

4 cards from 2 hobby boxes

1 card from a trade

5 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set:  Another one where, even though it’s not baseball.  For what A&G does, this is a set that gets me to read the back of each card when I pull it from a pack.

Card that completed my set: #UG10 – Lizzie Borden House

I got this card in a Sportlots purchase in January.

Highest book value: They all book for the same

Best card (my opinion): #UG7 – Alcatraz

I like all things Alcatraz.  I wish they hadn’t cancelled that damn show!

I’ll summarize the write-up on the back of each card:

UG1 – Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery:  This abandoned graveyard in a South side Chicago suburb has had reported hauntings since the 1970′s.

UG2 – White House:  The home of the country’s head of state in Washington, D.C. is claimed to be haunted by no less than President Harry Truman himself.

UG3 - Waverly Hills Sanatorium:  A hospital in Louisville that was used in the early 20th century to combat tuberculosis patients.  It’s been featured on numerous “ghost story” television shows.

UG4 - Villisca Axe Murder House: A plain Iowa house that was the site of a gruesome axe murder of an entire family in 1912.  The murders were never solved, and today you can pay $400 to stay there.

UG5 – Ammityville Haunting: The 1974 murders of the DeFeo family in Long Island, NY has inspired numerous spin-off novels and movies.

UG6 – Lemp Mansion:  A St. Louis family that saw a number of tragedies around the turn of the century is believed to haunt the mansion they once lived.

UG7 – Alcatraz:  The island prison off the San Francisco coast was believed to have been haunted by inmates and prison guards alike.

UG8 – Winchester Mystery House:  When Winchester (founders of the rifle company) family member William Wirt died, his wife believed their mansion in San Jose, CA was haunted by ghosts of people who’d died at the hands of Winchester guns.  She kept building onto the house because of this – and continued to do so for some 38 years.

UG9 – RMS Queen Mary:  The former ocean liner is now a haunted tourist attraction off the coast of Long Beach, CA.

UG10 – Lizzie Borden House:  The house where Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered is now a bed & breakfast.  Andrew’s daughter was acquitted at a trial for the murder of her father and stepmother, but no one  elsewas ever arrested for the crime.

Completed insert set – 2011 Allen & Ginter Portraits of Penultimacy

I haven’t been as actively pursuing the 2011 Allen & Ginter insert sets as some of the other retro sets from last year.  But I finished a couple of the mini insert sets off, with this being the first one.

Info about the set:

Set description: “These 10 second bananas, assistants, and also-rans finally get their place in the sun.”  In other words, guys who played second fiddle.  The mini cards have blue-gray border with a frame surrounding the picture of the subject.

Set composition: 10 cards, 1:12 odds

Hall of Famers: None – it’s not a sports set.  Plus by definition of the set – they are 2nd fiddle to some other guys who are Hall of Fame caliber!

How I put the set together:

4 cards from the 2 hobby boxes I bought

2 cards from trades

4 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set:  I like this concept.  It’s not baseball, sure – but that’s the idea for Allen & Ginter.  It would have been cool if they’d have made the set 15 cards and included some sports subjects.  Lou Gehrig, Don Drysdale, Scottie Pippen, Mark Messier, Kobe Bryant (haha haha) would have been some good ideas here.

Card that completed my set: #PP3 – Watson

This was a card I got from a recent Sportlots purchase.

Highest book value: They all book for the same

Best card (my opinion): #PP3 – Watson

Anything related to Sherlock Holmes on a baseball card is pretty cool in my book.

Since this is a different kind of set – I’ll summarize the write-up on the back of each card:

PP1 – Antonio Meucci:  A 19th century Italian immigrant who is believed to have developed a device that conducted sound across a wire well before Alexander Graham Bell.  He submitted a caveat for his design in 1871, though he never earned a patent, and it’s possible he didn’t completely understand what his design did.  Ultimately, Bell is credited with inventing the telephone.

PP2 – Mike Gellner:  This is a pretty cool nod to previous A&G sets and the code cracking contest that is a part of each year’s product.  In 2009, Nick Jacoby cracked the code and got a card in the next year’s set, but he had help from Gellner.  Topps only allowed one person to get a card in the set, but they gave Gellner a card in this insert set 2 years later.

PP3 - Dr. Watson:  The physician who worked with Sherlock Holmes from Arthur Conan Doyle’s 19th century mysteries, Watson is the ultimate sidekick.  He’s sometimes portrayed as “bumbling”, but that wasn’t the intent in Doyle’s original creations.

PP4 - Igor: Another sidekick from a 19th century literary work, Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein and his monster are the most “famous” character’s from Mary Shelley’s book.

PP5 – The Hare: This one deserves to be in this insert set – his cocky attitude cost him a victory to the tortoise in one of Aesop’s fables.  Slow and steady won the race.  This one actually made me think – Goliath would have been a good addition to this set.

PP6 – Tonto:  Another “sidekick” – Tonto was the Lone Ranger’s scout (Ke-mo Sah-bee) on the great frontier.

PP7 – Antonio Salieri:  18th century composer who always played “2nd fiddle” to Mozart.

PP8 – Sancho Panza:  Another literary sidekick – this one all the way back to the early 17th century.  Panza was the squire for the legendary Don Quixote from the novel by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.

PP9 – Thomas E. Dewey:  Dewey was the governor of New York 1940′s and 1950′s.  In 1948, the Chicago Tribune famously declared him the winner in the Presidential election over incumbent Harry Truman.  Since he’s in this set – obviously that was a mistake by the future owner of the Cubbies.

PP10 – Toto:  The loyal dog from The Wizard of Oz.  There’s no place like home!

2011 Allen & Ginter box #2

I purchased 2 boxes of Ginter, and just picked one of the 2 for Gint-A-Cuffs.  After I tallied up my points from the first box (a respectable 211), it was on to box #2.  I won’t have tallied them up until I get to the end of this post, but my gut reaction is I “chose wisely”.

First, here are some of the inserts.  I was a little harsh with my post yesterday – there are some nice cards to be had in this product, and the quirkiness is pretty cool.  What other set could I put Shawn Michaels next to Toto?  One thing that does kind of interest me – how is Topps able to use Toto in their set?  Warner Brothers definitely owns the rights to Wizard of Oz.  I don’t think Topps is technically owned by Disney – it is owned by the Company of Disney’s former CEO – but these are just the kind of random things I think about.

Speaking of movies, Man in the Iron Mask is a really good one.  I don’t much like Leo DiCaprio, but I like French history and I like that movie.  Glad the subject of it made it into this mini set.

Here’s some more of the colorful Ascent of Man inserts.  I really like both of these insert sets – though I will say that A-Rod sketch looks awful.

Finally, here’s the hits.  3 Red Sox relics – nothing but relics in 2 boxes, which makes it tough to try to re-coup anything on this product.  The framing Topps did is pretty cool, though.  If I was a Sox fan and I picked Beckett as my favorite player, and I picked this box instead of my other one, this box would have dominated Gint-A-Cuffs.  A big if, though.

The “stats” for the box follow.  The amounts below also include the number of points I would have received toward Gint-A-Cuffs if I did this box.  I got more Yankees and even less Reds in this box (I didn’t get many Reds in either box).  As with yesterday, the math doesn’t always work as you’d expect for each category – because you gain/lose points for Yankees, Favorite Teams, Players and for things like being Kyle Petty.

24 packs per box * 8 cards per pack + 1 box topper – 3 cards for relics = 190 cards

116 of the 300 card base set (38.7% set completion) {12 points}

12 SP cards {24 points}

128 of the 350 card set (36.6% set completion)

128 of the full 400 card set (32.0% set completion)

5 Minis

2 Mini SPs {6 points}

5 Mini A&G backs {11 points}

2 Mini black border {6 points}

1 Mini A&G back SP (Cody Ross) {12 points}

2 Code Card parallels (1 SP) {7 points}

2 World’s Most Mysterious Figures {6 points}

1 Step Right Up {3 points}

2 Portraits of Penultimacy {6 points}

2 Animals in Peril {6 points}

2 Uninvited Guests {6 points}

1 Cabinet Card (Braden Perfect Game) {8 points}

18 Hometown Heroes {19 points}

4 Ascent of Man {4 points}

4 Baseball Highlight Sketches {11 points}

3 Floating Fortresses {6 points}

3 Minds that Made the Future {6 points}

3 Relics (a bunch of Red Sox) {30 points}

******************

The total was 189 points, compared to 211 for the first box.

Combining the 2 boxes

200 / 300 of the base set (67%)

224 / 350 of the base & SPs (64%)

224/400 of the full set (56%)

2011 Gint-A-Cuffs recap – (A&G box break #1)

Earlier in the week I finished up with my participation in Gint-A-Cuffs III.  I’ve got a couple of thoughts – first, I love the idea of this “competition” or whatever you want to call it.  If Gint-A-Cuffs didn’t exist, I probably wouldn’t have bought Ginter this year.  Oh, I would eventually have purchased 2011 Ginter – just not in 2011.  I think eventually I’ll try to collect all the retro-themed sets from when I wasn’t collecting cards.  But I’m much more excited about Topps Lineage coming out soon – and I could have either started back up on my Topps project, or finished up Goodwin, or blogged about some trades I’m behind on.

But the cool thing about Gint-A-Cuffs is the “blogging community” part.  It’s been fun posting about the results from the box and how many points I had, and seeing some of the other posts as well.  Plus, I read the back of the cards and paid way more attention than I otherwise would have.  There are a lot of cool things about Ginter – all the weird insert sets, and those make it a great box to do this with.

All that said, A&G isn’t my favorite product this year.  There’s a lot of inserts – and out of all the hard-to-find hits, I think there are too many in the “too hard-to-find” category.  There are so many “chase cards” that I don’t even know what they look like – cloth, wood, state box toppers, rip cards, flora autos (yes, 2 boxes – I didn’t get a single one), book cards – and that doesn’t even mention anywhere near all of the ultra-rare 1/1 type stuff.  I think those cards sound cool, but I didn’t have a monster box, so I don’t know what they look like.  There’s too many mini parallels, too - there are four different types of minis that look exactly the same on the front (regular, A&G back, A&G no number, Bazooka).  You get barely more than 1/3 of the regular set in 1 box.   How about making the cloth cards out of 50 instead of 10, the rip cards 5x more common (just make the super-short prints that come inside a more common), and take out that Hometown Heroes set.  Then you’d have more base cards, and some of the other stuff would be a little more accessible.  More value all the way around.  I don’t know – just some ideas.  It sticks in my craw a little bit that there are cards #’d 351 to 400 that are basically not collectible in their entirety.

There are 5 retro-themed sets I’m collecting this year (Heritage, Gypsy Queen, Goodwin, A&G, in that order - with Lineage still to come).  I like all 4 I’ve seen so far, but Ginter is definitely last out of the 4.  I’m not saying I don’t like Ginter, it’s just that I liked all the others a lot!  BTW, did I mention I can’t wait until I start opening Lineage (next week)!  Another BTW – did I mention that 2011 Heritage is (still) tremendous?

OK, that sounded a bit too strong on the bashing side – so let me reiterate, I do like this product, and doing Gint-A-Cuffs made it really fun.  It looks like Chris from Nachos Grande is primed to take home the prize – so good luck to anyone else still finishing up.  Overall, here’s the highlights of the box:

And here are the “stats” for the box.  It’s interesting – you get 24% of the SPs in a box and 38% of the set, so the SPs are really not that much rarer than base cards.  And I’m convinced that mini SPs (#301-350) are actually more plentiful than regular minis.

The amounts below also include the number of points I got toward Gint-A-Cuffs.  The math doesn’t always work as you’d expect for each category – because you gain/lose points for Yankees, Favorite Teams, Players and for things like being Kyle Petty.  The total was 211 points.

24 packs per box * 8 cards per pack + 1 box topper – 3 cards for relics = 190 cards

114 of the 300 card base set (38.0% set completion) {18 points}

12 SP cards {28 points}

126 of the 350 card set (36.0% set completion)

126 of the full 400 card set (31.5% set completion)

4 Minis

2 Mini SPs {7 points}

5 Mini A&G backs {10 points}

3 Mini black border {12 points}

1 Mini black SP {14 points}

3 Code Card parallels (1 SP) {9 points}

1 Code Decipher card

1 World’s Most Mysterious Figures {3 points}

2 Step Right Up {6 points}

2 Portraits of Penultimacy {8 points}

2 Animals in Peril {6 points}

2 Uninvited Guests {6 points}

1 N43 (Jimenez) {5 points}

18 Hometown Heroes {22 points}

4 Ascent of Man {4 points}

4 Baseball Highlight Sketches {11 points}

3 Floating Fortresses {6 points}

3 Minds that Made the Future {6 points}

3 Relics (Melky Cabrera, Verlander, A. Sanchez) {30 points}

Gint-A-Cuffs wrap-up: Packs 21-24

I’m at the end of the road with this box.  I’m at 175 points and should be all out of hits; so I don’t have chance to win the glory (the leader is at nearly 240).  But it’s been fun, so here’s hoping I get to 200!

Pack 21

#295 – Chris Carpenter.  He may be my least favorite player in all of baseball.

#251 – Ian Desmond.

#109 – Martin Prado (+2 for someone else’s FP).  This is the most surprising Favorite Player on the list.

#83 – Mat Hoffman.

#340 – Ryan Zimmerman (+2 for SP, +3 for Code Card).  The code is colored red for SP cards.

#BHS9 – Edwin Jackson (+3 for Baseball Highlight Sketches).  I really like these cards.  They’re just clean all the way around.

#343 mini – Drew Stubbs. (+3 for SP mini, +1 for FT).  Finally, a Red mini!

#HH51 – Josh Beckett (+1 for Hometown Heroes).

Pack total: 15 points

Running total: 190 points

That was a really good pack, almost guarantees I’ll get to 200.

Pack 22

#154 – Todd Helton.

#66 – Starlin Castro (+2 for someone else’s FP).

#69 – Neftali Feliz.

#272 – Wee Man.  The “small person” from Jackass.  Apparently he did a squat with Shaquille O’Neal on his back.

#60 – Brandon Belt.

#317 – Brian Matusz (+2 for SP).

#190 mini – Sue Bird (+2 for A&G Back mini).

#HH95 – Kyle Drabek (+1 for Hometown Heroes).  From Woodlands Texas – from when his dad pitched for the Astros.

Pack total: 7 points

Running total: 197 points.

Pack 23

#292 – Wade Davis.

#87 – Colby Lewis.

#173 – Mariano Rivera (-1 point for being a Yankee).  I’m not scanning negatives in this last round.  Got to stay with the positive vibe.

#27 – Dillon Gee.

#227 – Lucas Duda.  Back-to-back Mets pitchers.

#BHS4 – Roy Halladay (+3 for Baseball Highlight Sketches).  I’ll say it again.  I like these cards.

#PP2 – Mike Gellner (+2 for being one of 2 dudes who cracked the 2009 Ginter code, +3 for Portraits of Penultimacy).  The back of this card is written in code, too.

#HH85 – Michael Young (+1 for Hometown Heroes).

Pack total: 8 points.

Running total: 205 points.  Cracked that magical 200 barrier – with one pack to spare!

Pack 24

#75 – Jose Reyes.  This is one of the guys I’ve had on my fantasy baseball teams a number of times, and because of that, I like him.  I hope the Mets re-sign him, though it would have been cool for the Reds to get him via trade.

#249 – Carlos Ruiz.  I have a ball signed by Don Larsen and Yogi Berra.  I hope to get it signed someday by Roy Halladay and Carlos Ruiz.  Hopefully you baseball fans out there can “crack that code” without me telling you why.

#22 – Michael Bourn.  No longer a Houston Astro.

#221 – Mark Rogers.

#81 – Gregory Infante.

#319 – Jon Niese (+2 for SP).

#9 – Joe Saunders (+2 for A&G back mini).

#FF5 – Sovereign of the Seas (+2 for Floating Fortresses).  An English Navy Battleship launched in 1637 to protect the Empire.

Pack total: 6 points.

Running total: 211 points.

So I didn’t win, but I made it over 200 points – but nowhere near claiming the prize for Gint-A-Cuffs.  Looking at the posted scores and those that have commented – this gets me into 5th place currently.  With nowhere to go but down!  I’m going to do an overall re-cap of the box later this week.

Gint-A-Cuffs: Packs 17-20

Two more posts to go, I’m not looking like the winner.  I’ve only got 143 points, with 8 packs (and only 1 hit) left.  Maybe I can break 200 though!

Pack 17

#297 – Travis Hafner.  One of the better nicknames out there.  I’ve always found it interesting that his decline came right when they started testing for steroids, though.  Funny, I’m watching the Red Sox v. Indians right now, and he just hit a dinger off Lackey.

#124 – Chad Billingsley.

#94 – Josh Rodriguez.

#284 – Eric Jackson.

#AOM26 – Homo Sapiens (+1 for Ascent of Man).  This is a really strange picture any way you look at it.

#305 – Justin Morneau. (+2 for SPs).

#245 mini – Brian McCann. (+3 for Black Border mini).

#HH77 – Mark Buehrle (+1 for Hometown Heroes).  Another non-Red – like Halladay from the last pack – who is one of my fan favorites.

Pack total: 7 points

Running total: 150 points

Pack 18

#120 – Adrian Gonzalez (+2 for someone else’s FP).  Doing exactly what I predicted he’d do in Boston.

#195 – Tommy Hanson.

#217 – Shaun Marcum.

#133 – Geno Auriemma (-1 for being Geno Auriemma).  Reading the back of this card I noticed that they say “through the 2009-2010 season, his squads have won 7 National Championships”.  They didn’t win the title last year – losing in the Final Four to Notre Dame, who they’d actually defeated 3 other times that year.  I just don’t get why they don’t say the most recent season on there.  It’s still accurate.

#48 – Fancisco Liriano.

#338 – Lance Berkman (+2 for SP, +2 for being someone else’s FP).  A shoe-in for Comeback POY.  Unfortunately, this is for the Reds’ bitter rival.

#AP16 – Markhor (+3 for Animals in Peril mini).  This picture isn’t very good – I don’t know if the goat is camouflage, but it’s hard to see the animal from the background. It’s a species of goat found in the Far East.

#MMF22 – Ada Lovelace (+2 for Minds that Made the Future).  Creator of the first algorithm intended to be mechanically processed – by a rudimentary computer in the 1830′s known as the “Analytical Engine”.

Pack total: 10 points

Running total: 160 points.

Pack 19

#130 – Robinson Cano (-1 for Yankees).  HR Derby Champ.

#220 – Prince Fielder.

#215 – Andrew McCutchen.

#183 – Mike Napoli.

#AGR-ASA – Anibal Sanchez (+10 for Relic).

#192 mini – Carl Pavano.

#HH63 – Cody Ross (+1 for Hometown Heroes).

Pack total: 10 points.  Not too good for a pack where I had a hit.

Running total: 170 points.

Pack 20

#268 – Dallas Braden.  He will probably never amount to anything, but in a 2-month span in 2010, he got in a fight with A-Rod and threw a perfect game.

#245 – Brian McCann.

#41 – Carlos Santana.  The baseball player, not the musician.

#166 – Geovany Soto.

#79 – Aimee Mullins (+1 for “doing what most of us can’t dream of”).

#135 – Kyle Petty (+1 for being Kyle Petty).  Got 2 of the 4 bonus cards in the same pack.

#SRU5 – The Human Cannonball (+3 for Step Right Up mini).  First performed by Matilda Richter in 1877.

#HH59 – Brett Gardner (+1 for Hometown Heroes, -1 for Yankees).  Since he’s worth the same as Geovany Soto’s base card, Brett doesn’t get a scan.

Pack total: 5 points

Running total: 175 points.

New Pace - 203 points.

That was even worse than the previous grouping of 4 packs.  And it included a hit.  I’m barely on pace for over 200 points, with no hits left.  The last four will be posted tomorrow.

Gint-A-Cuffs: Packs 13-16

First off – for everyone going to or at the National Convention – enjoy.  I went last year and would have gone this year if I still lived in the Midwest.

OK, back to Gint-A-Cuffs.  I’ve passed the halfway point with a running total of 114 points.  That includes the box topper, though, and I’ve already gotten two hits, so I’m probably looking at lower than the current pace I’m on.  We’ll have to see.

Pack 13

#230 – Mark Teixeira (-1 for Yankees).

#226 – Andre Ethier.

#73 – Brandon Morrow.

#24 – Kristi Yamaguchi.

#274 – Stan Lee.  Wow, I had no idea this dude was in the set!  This is an unexpected surprise – Mr. Lee is the founder of Marvel Comics.  As “Thor” & “Captain America” are out this summer and there is an “Avengers” coming out next summer, I was catching up.  I watched the original “Hulk” movie from ~2003 – which didn’t get the most positive reaction.  I like the movie, and the DVD had a cool extra on it where they interviewed Lee and how he originally thought up and jump-started the idea of the Incredible Hulk.

#199 – Jake Peavy. (+3 for Code Card).

#171 mini – John Lackey. (+2 for A&G back mini).  John Lackey and Adam Dunn – the worst stories from 2011.

#HH32 – Roy Halladay (+1 for Hometown Heroes).  He’s not a Red, but I love Halladay.  Maybe I should have included him as my favorite player.

Pack total: 5 points

Running total: 119 points

Pack 14

#241 – Ike Davis.

#88 – David Ortiz.  Whenever he retires – I see him as the guy who could start gaining more popular vote for the Hall even though he has the steroid cloud.  I don’t know why, I just do.  Actually, Pudge may be first.  I think people forget he’s been accused.

#81 – Yonder Alonso (+1 for FT).

 

#177 – Aaron Crow.

#AOM23 – Homo Erectus (+1 for Ascent of Man).  If I was in the 4th grade, that would make me giggle.  Actually, I’m 31 and it still does.

#333 – Carlos Lee (+2 for SP).

#UG7 – Alcatraz (+3 for Uninvited Guests).  It says no inmate every escaped this island prison, but Topps hasn’t done their research.  Sean Connery did, and then he took Nic Cage back to show him how he did it.

#MMF17 – Carl Friedrich Gauss (+2 for Minds that Made the Future).  Created the Bell Curve.  Every school says they use it, none of them really do.

Pack total: 9 points

Running total: 128 points.

Pack 15

#105 – Ubaldo Jimenez.  Topps didn’t use the same exact photo here as they did for Heritage – but it’s nearly the same photo.

#283 – Daric Barton.

#239 – Brett Myers.  His season was underrated last year.  He always went at least 6 innings until his 33rd and final start.

#255 – David Price.

#36 – Eric Sogard.

#228 – Brandon Snyder.

#161 mini – Casey McGehee (+3 for Black Bordered mini).

#HH67 – Jon Jay (+1 for Hometown Heroes).

Pack total: 4 points.  Worst. Pack. Ever.

Running total: 132 points.

Pack 16

#150 – Troy Tulowitzki. (+2 for someone else’s FP).

#52 – Coco Cordero (+1 for FT).  I wish we’d have traded him away.  I think the Reds would be better if he didn’t have to close games any more.

#259 – Tim Hudson (+2 for someone else’s FP).  It seems like all the FP’s I’ve pulled are in just a few packs.

#298 – Peter Gammons.  THIS SHOULD BE WORTH POINTS!!!! HALL OF FAMER!!!!  OK, I’m over it, I guess it’s not that big of a deal.

#178 – Ben Revere.

#350 – Joe Mauer (+2 for SP).

#307 mini – Ryan Ludwick (+3 for SP mini).

#HH45 – Ike Davis (+1 for Hometown Heroes).

Pack total: 11 points

Running total: 143 points.

New Pace: 207 points.

That was the worst set of 4 packs I’ve had – and my pace is dropping off.  Hopefully the next 8 will be better.