Night Owl Cards

I am eager to finish off these contest posts. As much as I enjoyed it last week, I'm just not feeling it anymore. Could be something to do with the way this box ended. So, instead of the three-packs-at-a-time routine that I've gone through, I'm going to post the final six packs here. That way, I can finally get to the business of collecting this set. Through 18 packs, I had 225 points (I shorted myself two points in Pack 12 as I missed that someone had Mariano Rivera as their favorite player. So that's been corrected). It appears that Gint -a-Cuffs creator beardy is still leading with 347. I think. I have family in town and it's pretty freakin ' hard to catch up on blog posts, let alone scan and post to my own blog, when your relatives barely know the point of baseball cards, let alone blogging about baseball cards. ("Sonny, why are you on the computer all the time? Come in the living room and listen the story I've told 18,000 times before.") But ...

When I last did this Gint -a-cuffs thing, I was pulling relics at an alarming rate. So, I guess you're wondering: will this be a four-hit box? Will I pull a red-ink auto, which have been popping up all over the place? Will I stuff this post with fake hits now that Topps has agreed to sponsor Gint-a-Cuffs and give a prize to the winner? Oh, hell, I'm terrible at keeping surprises. No it won't, and no, I won't, and no, I won't again. But please read anyway. Here are packs 16-18: PACK 16 121 - Ryan Church (0 points) 113 - Rafael Furcal (+1, favorite team). Furcal's finally hitting above .250. So that's something, I guess. His fielding is making me nervous though. 102 - Edison Volquez (0 points) 241 - Trevor Cahill (0 points) 93 - David DeJesus (0 points) 41 - Victor Martinez (0 points) 25 - Evan Longoria mini, A&G back (+3 favorite players list mini, +2 A&G back, +5 total) NP55 - Kosuke Fukudome , National Pride (+4, favorite player list) PACK...

Is Andy still with us ? Hang in there, bud. Only about 460 Allen & Ginter posts to go in this Gint -a-cuffs-a- thon . Meanwhile, I've lost confidence that I will win this thing. But it won't be the fault of packs 13 through 15, that's for sure. Here they are: PACK 13 267 - Melvin Mora (0 points) 221 - Brandon Webb (0 points) 109 - Samuel Morse (0 points). You think I'm going to try to learn Morse code in one minute and write something snappy all code-like? Fat chance. 155 - Yadier Molina (0 points). The NL losing the All-Star Game was not his fault. Hell, at one point I was about ready to adopt him. AGR -AER - Alex Rodriguez relic (+6). OK, this sucks. Not because it's A-Rod or anything. OK, yes, because it's A-Rod. You see, because of our great rules, I have to cut the point total for any Yankee relic in half. But, come on, it's freakin ' A-Rod! One of the better hits you can get! Six points? Arrrrgghhh. (I'm saying this is a short-print re...

This will have to serve as my All-Star Game post. Because if I wrote a post exclusively about the All-Star Game, it would degenerate into either a) speculation about which National League reliever will blow the game this time, or b) a diatribe about how the game is so overmanaged that it's possible to run out of pitchers when each team has at least a dozen on the roster. So, I'm staying happy with more Allen & Ginter " Gint -a-Cuffs" fun! Let's get to Packs 10-12: PACK 10 99 - Chris Duncan (0 points), not an All-Star 2 - Zack Greinke (0 points), All-Star 258 - Feliz Hernandez (0 points), All-Star 92 - Joe Mauer (+2 points, favorite player list). All-Star, and my selection for this year's MVP. I know I picked Justin Morneau in 30-Year-Old Cardboard's contest, but that was only because someone already picked Mauer . 17 - Manny Ramirez (+1, favorite team). Not an All-Star. Something about taking something he shouldn't have. 334 - Pat Burrell ...