Night Owl Cards

  All right, you don't care much about 2022 Allen & Ginter anymore. I get it. It should have been released in June like it used to, what's with shoving it into Christmas with everything else we're supposed to be buying? But I still find it a little bit interesting and opening a blaster of this stuff and showing it here is probably better than whatever you've got cooked up tonight. Besides I'm showing you the results of the "What should I buy with my gift cards" post . Don't you want to see what I decided? Yeah, it's that box you just saw. That's it. I chose just an A&G blaster and nothing else. The remaining gift card is sitting there waiting for something that won't be disappointing. But foolish me, I didn't know when I ordered it that Nachos Grande was going to dump just about the whole set on me. Oops. He even sent me a cryptic warning on the "Help Me Decide" post: I know, I know. Everyone has seen enough. Too late....

  I signed up for Nachos Grande's "Not-So-Secret-Santa" event with only a small expectation of what I might get (and even less awareness of what I was supposed to be giving back). A large box arrived quickly and inside of it -- I should have seen this coming -- was practically the whole 2022 Allen & Ginter set. BAM.   I had been following along daily as Chris opened a case of his favorite product and displayed the contents of each box. At the time I didn't really consider what he would do with all of his extras, but I should have linked the Santa contest and his case break together. Of course! A&G is multiplying in his house! Chris sent me every 2022 A&G card except for the short-prints and two base cards, Bryson Stott and Blake Snell. Here are all but one of the Dodgers in the set. I suppose if I'm now trying to complete 2022 A&G, I need another copy of each of these. So much like a teacher, giving me surprise assignments!   Here are just about a...

I've got a couple Target gift cards to spend, which means finding a modern card product that will be a satisfactory rip without annoying me too much.   Scrolling through the available options, obviously I discounted the many Panini products available -- there was annoyance just looking at those boxes on the screen. I also scrapped any Topps flagship and that includes Update, just nothing there that's exciting. The possibility of trade bait is pretty low, too. I narrowed it down to two choices very quickly: Allen & Ginter and Archives. Now, I have enough for two blasters. So I could select one of each. It's my first time opening either of them, so I'd find enjoyment in both. But maybe I should buy two of one and scrap the other. I can find good reasons for doing that, too. So I'm asking you to help me decide. Get one of each? Get two A&G boxes? Get two Archives boxes? Here are the plusses and minuses of each product according to my box-opening emotions: ALLEN...

  Last night I finally put together the list of non-baseball players who have a card in this year's Allen & Ginter set, an annual tradition that I update on the sidebar every year. I'll get to that sidebar list in a day or two, but the cold, hard truth is sitting in front of me in ink and paper. (EDIT: The 2022 list is now added! ) Let's get the good part out of the way first. There are 48 cards of non-baseball players in the 2022 A&G set. That is the most in an Allen & Ginter set since 2013 when there was also 48. If you toss out "Places or Things" cards that appeared in past A&G sets (there are none of those in this year's set for the third year in a row), the 2022 set has the most non-baseball people of any A&G set ever! That's cool for those of us who buy A&G for more than the ballplayers. Now, the not-so-cool part is what I've been complaining about for A&G for at least the last seven years: the non-baseball players in ...