Gint-a-cuffs III: Boring hits and weird dreams

Look! It's Marlin No. 6!

I bought a few Allen & Ginter rack packs yesterday. Didn't get anything great. Went back and bought the last rack pack hanging there. Still didn't get anything great. All it did was alert me to the usual disturbing collation in Topps products and prompt a strange dream a few hours later.

I noticed when I opened the rack packs that the cards were slightly bowed. Uh. Oh. I wouldn't say they were full-on Pringles like last year's Chrome, but it was alarming anyway. The cards are in better shape now that they've been out of the pack for awhile, but I like my A&G squashed-bug flat.

That night, I had a dream that I put one of those A&G cards inside a penny sleeve and a top loader. The card was Jay Bruce for some unknown reason. When I put the top loader with the card on the floor, it proceeded to flip around the living room, end over end, because the card was so curled.

I woke up sweat covered (but only because it was 90 again last night), but ready for the next round of Gint-a-Cuffs!

PACK 5

300 - Ryan Braun, Brewers (0 points, on the precipice of short prints, but not a short print)
27 - Dillon Gee, Mets (0 points)

227 - Lucas Duda, Mets (0 points, what a monster)

291 - Grady Sizemore, Indians (0 points)
102 - Wandy Rodriguez, Astros (0 points)

324 - Domonic Brown, Phillies, code card (+2 for SP, 0 points for weird code-breaker designs)

47 - Phil Hughes, Yankees, black border mini (+3 for black-borderness, -1 for Yankee loserness, +2 overall)

I will trade this for Dodger minis, especially black-border ones.

HH40 - Prince Fielder, Brewers (+1 Hometown Heroes insert)

Hero of the National League. Unless the Giants win again. Then Fielder goes back to being simply fat.

Pack 5 total: 5 points
Total through 5 packs: 39 points

Crawling along.

PACK 6

285 - Alex Rios, White Sox (0 points)
221 - Mark Rogers, Brewers (0 points, on a serious Brewers run here. Too bad none of them count for anything)
17 - Jonathan Papelbon, Red Sox (0 points)
25 - Nelson Cruz, Rangers (0 points)

BH2 - Jay Bruce, Reds (+3 for Baseball Highlight Sketches, +2 for favorite player card, 5 points total)

Not the Jay Bruce card that flipped around the room in my dream.

345 - Zack Greinke, Brewers (+2 SP)

342 - Mike Pelfrey, Mets, regular back mini (+3 SP mini)

Does any pitcher get overanalyzed more by the hometown broadcasters than Mike Pelfrey? Everytime he pitches, I feel like the poor guy is on a psychiatrist's couch in front of the entire broadcast audience.

HH48 - Evan Longoria, Rays (+1 Hometown Heroes insert)

Clueless Kim Jones and the Yankees YES broadcast crew did it again last night. Jones "unearthed" that video of Longoria supposedly saving an interviewer from an incoming baseball with his bare hand. Ken Singleton asked Jones "where did you find that?" Apparently nobody there has discovered youtube. Once again, the YES crew proves their motto: if it didn't involve the Yankees, did it really happen?

Pack 6 total: 11 points
Total through 6 packs: 50 points

PACK 7

19 - Daniel Bard, Red Sox (0 points)

(*rubs eyes*) Is that ... is that ... a Dodger?

127 - James Loney, Dodgers (+1, favorite team)

Go back and get a bat with RBIs in it, James.

84 - Gregory Infante, White Sox (0 points, Who?)
94 - Josh Rodriguez, Pirates (0 points, Who?)
89 - John Axford, Brewers (0 points, Who ... nah, I know him)

115 - Shin-Soo Choo, Indians (0 points, cropping photos like that would get you a nasty gram where I work).

200 - Josh Hamilton, Rangers (+3 A&G back mini, +2 favorite player, 5 total points)

HH85 - Michael Young, Rangers (+1 Hometown Heroes insert)

Pack 7 total: 7 points
Total through 7 packs: 57 points

PACK 8

252 - Omar Infante, Marlins (0 points)

79 - Aimee Mullins, world record paralympic champion (+1 for being amazing)

She is so out of your league.

135 - Kyle Petty, NASCAR driver (+1 because the commissioner likes auto racing)

AOM5 - Cnidarians (+1 Ascent of Man insert)

Jellyfish freaked me out as a kid. They still do.

AGR-MBY - Marlon Byrd bat relic (+10 points)

A series of observations about my first hit:

1. A Cub. Bleah.
2. Probably headed to Project '62
3. Almost all of my hits in previous A&G boxes didn't arrive until the middle row of cards. Is this a good omen? (this is a question you only ask after the first hit. And the answer is "no.")
4. This card does not slide around, not even when you try to move the bat piece. I feel like I'm going to break it.

250 - Ichiro mini (0 points, but any mini of Ichiro is cool).

HTH63 - Cody Ross, Giants (+1, Hometown Heroes insert)

Ross had to go and tarnish the best pack in the box so far.

Pack 8 points: 14 points
Total through 8 packs: 71 points

Six Marlins
Five Brewers
One Dodger

Tonight I will have dreams about beer-guzzling fish.