Getting around to Allen & Ginter's

Hey, everybody! Long time, no type. Well, here at least. I still type all the time (some would say too much!) for Gaslamp Ball, including a fair amount of card posts. But since the pack of cards I got and am writing about now contained no Padres, now seemed like a good time to dust off the old cardblog. I just made a Just Commons order the other day that included several non-Padres, so my next hiatus shouldn't be as long.

But I digress.

It seems like everyone else in the world has already dipped a foot in the Allen & Ginter's pool this year, so I'm late to the party. Fashionably late, but late nonetheless. I'm not much of a pack guy, especially when it comes to current products because I collect next to no active players, save for Padres, and there are typically fewer of them in sets than there are guys from other teams. In fact, not only was this pack devoid of Friars, so were the eight packs of 1991 Leaf I got from the hobby shop's discount bin the same day. Nine packs, 106 cards, no Padres: Story of my life.

But I digress.

Even though I knew the odds were against getting something I'd want to keep, I decided to spring for an 8-card hobby pack just for the experience and see how they look in-hand. From what I saw on other blogs, I liked this year's design more than recent issues, and I figured someone out there would need whatever cards I wound up with, so what the hey? Before I digress again, let's dig in.

Not a bad start. I wouldn't call myself a Reds fan, but I watch a lot of their games because I live in their viewing area, and passively root for them 156 games a year (the other six being when they play the Padres, of course). I don't collect Votto, but he seems like an interesting guy and I like that we share a birthday (along with Randy Johnson, Arnold Palmer, Roger Maris, and others).

Up next were a pair of All-Star infielders on horizontally oriented cards. While I don't care one way or another about either of these guys, I do love the horizontal cards. The design seems to fit them better, and the images they chose -- at least on these two -- were perfect for the format.

Pudge! Ever since the Rangers mothballed the Nolan Ryan-era uniforms, they've been flipping between blue and red as their primary color seemingly every other year. The one Rodriguez is wearing here is from the beginning of the flip-flop era, before tweaks were made here and there, including adding beveling to the lettering and eventually taking it back off.

I don't know or care much about planes but, yay, insert! The design is nice and all, and I'm sure I can find someone who needs it who'll give me a Joey Cora card for it. This was the first of three inserts (minis are inserts, right?) in this pack. The only insert I was hoping for was one of the Little Lions cards, because cats are the jam. In fact, my brood recently grew by two twin baby boys. They're actual identical twins, which the vet said is rarer amongst felines than it is with humans. Here's a picture of my little lions Tony and Tobias with their cat-sister Cora and their dog-brother Chester.

Since they're twin kitties, their favorite team is from the Twin Cities, and their favorite Twin is Kent Purrbek.

But I digress.

Here's the second insert I pulled. While I don't plan on holding on to it, it's a great-looking card. I enjoy the matte black background along with the lettering and little line-drawings. I'm not crazy about the name "Pastime's Pastimes", but it's not their responsibility to run these things by me, the guy who will buy one pack of their product regardless.

The penultimate card of my pack was the Jered Weaver mini. I cast it aside as soon as I saw it because I simultaneously spotted the card behind it. Yes! Craig Biggio is one of a handful of never-Padres who I collect, so this awesome addition to my player collection of him was a great way to finish an already-good pack. Of the eight packs of 1991 Leaf I opened the same day, the only card I had any use for was also a Biggio, so it was quite a Craigeriffic day of collecting.

All in all, I'm pleased with the pack I got. I wasn't expecting any Padres, so I wasn't disappointed. I did well on inserts, and all of the cards seem like ones someone would want. Adding a keeper card to the mix at the end was just a bonus. As for the cards themselves, I'm a fan. I won't be buying any more packs, but that's just because I wouldn't have anyway. I did order Jedd Gyorko's card from this set on my last Just Commons order; speaking of which, I should be back in a few days with a breakdown and a look at the non-Padres I got.