ginter grande

i recently participated in the allen & ginter case break hosted by nachos grande.  it turns out that i overpaid, but that was the risk that i took hoping for a big dodger (koufax) or angels (pujols) hit and just some trade bait in general (twins).  at any rate, i wound up with a mess of base and mini cards for my cash, including the lovely ms. upton

i also got a complete dodger team set - jackie, clayton, andre, sandy, james, tim (?), matt, dee, and chad

bills is an sp, and there were two of them in the case.

there were also all of the dodger what's in a name inserts.  duke snider makes an appearance despite not being in the base set.  i figured i would show the backs so you can see what the name is all about.

some good info there for most of the guys.

here's the jackie robinson highlights sketch card

and some of the dodger minis

the horizontal action minis have to go away.

topps changed up the background color on the kershaw and koufax minis.  i was lucky enough to get an a&g back mini of sandy

as well as joe mauer

i learned that justin morneau has two middle names,

and that rod carew's middle name came from the guy who helped deliver him on a train in panama

i think aside from steven patrick garvey, rodney cline carew was the only full name of a ballplayer i knew back in the late 70's.  one of the angels' announcers - i don't know if it was dick enberg or don drysdale or ron fairly - would refer to him as rodney cline carew fairly often.  it's a cool sounding name, for sure.

i almost got bipped by the howie kendrick sp - 4 of 'em in the case

plus a black bordered pujols mini

and two nice torii hunter minis - black border and a&g back

someone else in the break claimed all of the bryce harper base cards, so those weren't distributed among the rest of the participants, but i did get to keep a couple of cards from the likely american league rookie of the year, mike trout.

i went through a harlem globetrotter phase when i was about 8 or 9, so i was happy to see a meadwolark lemon card in the set.

i was also happy to see a larger number of players of yesteryear and hall of famers like these guys.

i'm jumping the gun with pujols, obviously, but i appreciate the fact that his base card image is different than the one used on his mini.

by the way, all of the cards i received in the break are available for trade, aside from the dodgers of course.  so, if you see anything here or if there are any inserts you are looking for, shoot me an email.

i was pretty pleased to see more baseball subjects in the set, and would have liked even more (especially if it meant getting the football analyst james brown and that gamer guy out of the set), but i would have drawn the line at replacing kate with, say, paul o'neill.

i'm sure she appreciates my support.  

thanks for hosting chris.  looking forward to your upcoming contest.

one fell swoop

no more packs! i mean it.  anyone want a peanut?  right.  i decided last year sometime that i was done buying packs.  so far, so good.  instead, i bought the 2012 topps series 1 dodger team set on ebay.  it came along with a bunch of dodger inserts, too.  so, for the price of maybe 3 packs, i got five jackie robinson golden greats inserts

topps has got to be running out of jackie robinson images to use.  we've seen these photos way too many times in the last few years.

i also received three sandy koufax golden greats inserts

topps should try to find some non-blurry koufax images to use.

there were also a bunch of these things. are they gold? cognac? whisky? what?  anyway, here's tim federowicz

not the catcher who wore 31 that i am used to

javy guerra

with dioner navarro lurking.  nice of topps to get navarro on a card so that his dodger double dip is properly recorded.
tony gwynn jr

i was disappointed that gwynn jr didn't get a card in 2011 update, so it's nice to see him in series 1
here's one of the three (!) league leader cards that matt kemp appears on

having a dodger on a league leader card was a big deal to me when i was a kid.  the 1981 era leaders card is one of my favorites because it seemed like a long time coming to me as i started collecting in 1978, too late for the andy messersmith 1976 cards and the davey lopes cards in 1976 and 1977.
hong-chih kuo

looks like he's pitching in a forest fire
ted lilly

at this point, i am already bored with these cards.  no offense, mr. lilly

here's that dee gordon gold futures insert

someone said this looks like an upper deck card and i agree

more matt kemp!

30/30 = golden moment.  yessir. 40/40 would have been nice, too
here's kemp sharing space with a giant

although i don't really have anything against willie mays.
finally, free agent to be andre ethier and his 1987 style mini

i think it was nice of topps to do this as a nod to the fact that 50 years ago they went with a wood design (1962) and then 25 years ago they updated it (1987).  i would have been disappointed, however, if their flagship design was another play on wood.  so, having an insert set that acknowledges the timeline is ok by me.

see you when series 2 comes out topps!