A&G Blastery Goodness?

Ruiz looks like he's spent quite a bit of time at the post-game buffet table, am I right?


Millwood is proof positive that if you pitched good once a bunch of years ago that some franchise with a terrible pitching staff will still let you go out and throw every 5 days when you aren't hurt.


I don't like Shane Victorino. I'm pretty sure it's solely due to him playing for a fantasy nemesis. I'm sure he's gritty as heck, but I hate him.

This is one of the worst cards I've ever seen. I have no idea what I'm looking at.

And one of the cooler subsets in the A&G product this year, if you ask me, and you didn't, so I'll tell you. Really I dig the art and the stare from De Coronado. Staring contest between him and Ian Desmond . . . no clue who would win. It would be close, but I'm going with Coronado. It's really too bad his ship was eaten by Nessie.

When will I just stop posting the TDH cards, they're pure pain. I'm going to need to roll off back to back Ginter Code wins in 2011 and 2012 just to feel better about it.

For the record, I've heard rumblings that there is another code coming up . . . not on my site again though (yet).

A&G Blaster Pack #5

I'm leading once again with the mini from the pack. I think Topps did a nice job on the design of some of the mini-subsets and no-so-great on others. Visually the grey is appealing to me, and anchors the card. Dinosaurs are cool.

Who's more ferocious? Velo-ci-raptor or Mike Leake? You're right . . . not Mike Leake. Where' the game face Mike?


E-Jack pre-trade . . . nice game face, but Velociraptor still wins.



Some guy named Tejada. Sorry Mets fans, I'm not required to know who #79 out of spring training is. My knowledge goes deep, but not this deep.

Mark Reynolds once tried to kill a Velociraptor, but he swung and missed him.


... ... ...

Still Testing The Theory: 2010 A&G Blaster Break

Moving onto pack 4! Little less commentary today, but here we go . . .


I'll lead with the Black Bordered mini parallel of AAAA player Chris Davis. Sorry Chris, the dream is dead. Enjoy your AAA HR titles.


Lucy ...



Durango! (I don't know who this is)




Please enjoy the Barton scan.


Ian Desmond looks angry doesn't he? Does anyone else get the feeling the Nationals will be all the talk of the 2013 season?


Bleh, TDH cards . . . I loath you.

JD's Wild Theory: Part 3 . . . It's Getting Sketchy

Pack three (chosen by JD himself as the big winner) featured this sketch card of Mark Buehrle's perfect game from last season. Very cool. Not Theory Proving Cool yet however.

Side note, the mini was this:



Feels like there should be a Spice Girl or the Queen involved in this card.

JD's Wild Theory Part II: The Hunt For The Undies

I know there's a swatch of some wrestlers undies waiting for me somewhere in this blaster. JD says so. I don't want to have to purchase a second blaster to prove him even more wrong. So let's dive into pack #2

Neil Walker? Is that his name? This guy must be 29 now. I remember when he was the young up and coming catching prospect in the Pirates organization. I believe some injuries set him back the better part of a decade. Of course my memory is horrible. But here it is, one of 13 of his rookie cards!


Sometime back in 2019 I'm going to come back and look at Mr. Hollands card and remark how young he looks. Baby faced! I'm a fan of his and hope he bounces back into form in the playoffs and next season. Still nothing to prove JD right . . . yet!


Matt Kemp. Man, I wish I didn't confuse you and Andre Either all the time. You're basically the same person to me - which solely has to do with the fact that you both arrived on the scene at the same time, both played outfield, and I'd never heard of either of you when you were making impacts on rival fantasy baseball teams. I can't remember which guy is better though either. Still nothing in our hunt for the undies.


Roy Halladay is a superstar, and I love him. I wish him well in the post season. However I can't bear to look at this card.



Jorge Posada mini. I believe this is a regular backed mini. Definitely not a retail exclusive mini, although with a little work, maybe he could be the next "Hot Tejada"?



Sorry JD, nothing to prove you right here, but we've got 6 packs to go.

In honor of my appearance at the Twins/Yankees game tonight I'll do another pack break at lunch and post the results. Thus far I've opened packs #7 and #8. Any requests for the next one?

JD's Wild Theory

Mr. JD. I'm calling you out. I have terrible luck with blasters, but you say they're filling them with all sorts of fabulous prizes. Including, but not limited to: diaper swatches, autographs, cool retail exclusive minis and other fine treats.

So here I am, going back on my word not to touch the Topps Allen & Ginter product. But just know it's being done for friends . . . and in the name of SCIENCE!

I can assure everyone this is for the greater good, the trading community, and again . . . SCIENCE.

So with this I bring you . . .

2010 A&G BLASTER PACK 1:

Okay, here we go. Someone called Scott. Old timer. Cool? Maybe. Part of the greatness of buying a blaster? Likely not JD.

Mr. August! Very cool, but not Theory Proving Cool.

Let's pretend this is Balderdash. You guys ever play? Gosh, what a great game for people who like to bs each other. Lyle Oitker is the world record holder for holding both his hands over his head while holding one object in his left hand. He did this for 19 days, 11 hours, 58 minutes, and 12 seconds. Amazing.

Stoic Alex Rios. Game on!

Oh, and then these GD cards. Okay, I'll let it fly. Although we had the right concept for solving the Ginter Code, we were using this cards as the text to build from (since, oh, you know we didn't know we had to give up and email Topps with some random giving-up sort of statement). Many of these cards contain typos on the back. A select few have text on the front that doesn't match the first sentence from the back. We thought we were onto something between these and the celestial star cards. We knew we had to chunk some sub-set of players cards out by birthday, and then use the astrological breaks in the months to order the whichever cards fell into those 12 star signs. Ah, anyway, not even close to Theory Proving Cool. I promise.

Lastly, a mini. A Twins mini. Some sort of non-regular back. JD, it's yours if you want it.

But what, what's this? One more card? Relic??? Auto??? Oh, checklist. 1 Pack down, 7 to go.