Some Early Ginter Returns

There are six cards in the Tigers team set. Guess how many relics there are? Yeah*














*Ok, so maybe there are only 5. You see, there are two Austin Jackson cards--one with a jersey and one with a bat--but they are actually the same card. Same card number, same picture, same everything except for the little swatch. To me this is only one card, with your choice of how you want your one square inch of memorabilia, but I could see how some people would want both.

The Card That Had To Be Made

Love it, love it, love it.

The only sad part is that Galarraga isn't a Tiger anymore. Also, that it's not crystal clear from that picture that Donald was out. Still, I couldn't be happier that this card will exist and A&G is the perfect product for it.

HT to Sports Card Info for bringing this card to my attention.

Card of the Year

It took over a month, but what I consider the front-runner for Tigers' Card of the Year has made its way into the "wild."



Pixelated as that eBay screen grab may be, this Miguel Cabrera auto/relic boxtopper is awesome. It also has what I believe to be a very reasonable BIN price of $250, which, as these things go, is not totally crazy.

I mean, it's Miguel Cabrera, with a nice big, on-card autograph, on a great looking card, (with a relic piece that I could take or leave) numbered by hand to 5 copies. Show me a better Tigers card from these year. Go ahead. Anyway, $250 is out of my price range at the moment so I'll just have to file this away under "someday..."

But don't cry for me, folks. It just so happened that I picked up what very well may be last year's card of the year just before the National came to town, and for a bargain:

2009 Goodwin Champions #GCA-AK Al Kaline Autograph

While not numbered, I'm pretty sure that WOTS was that this card was limited to 50 copies. It enjoys the rare combination of an excellent looking card plus a big, crisp, clean, on-card autograph from the greatest living Tiger. I'd say that the only other real contender for the best card of 2009 is this guy, so either way I think I've got it covered.

We'll have to see whether this Cabrera can hold on to the tentative top spot with just under half of the year to go. Could be tough to unseat.

It's The Little Things

Baseball is all about the little things. A Saturday afternoon game on Network TV so that I can watch my team halfway across the country. A 5'9 rookie turning a slow roller into a gorgeous double play with skill unlike anyone in Detroit has seen since the days of Tram & Lou. A short left field with a huge wall that turns a routine fly ball into a leaping catch at the wall. The cumulative effect of bad pitches and bad decisions and bad luck leaving Tigers fans dejected and angry, and Red Sox fan euphoric, even though they know in their heart of hearts that David Ortiz's bat speed has slowed to the point where he needs to be sitting on a pitch to drive it. Baseball's greatness is contained within the little things.

So too with collecting, although I mean it much more literally. I've received a lot of good mail recently, but nothing quite makes me smile like the little things. I'll start things off with a bang:

2008 Allen & Ginter #373 Justin Verlander Mini

2008 Allen & Ginter #387 Miguel Cabrera Mini

It took being shipped from Taiwan, but they're here. Two of the three Tigers "extended minis" from 2008 Allen & Ginter. As I find myself more and more drawn towards mini cards, the extended set was something that I just couldn't ignore. It makes me kind of wish that all cards were mini cards...

Like, what if all those cards you had from the 80s, looked like this:

1989 Topps Mini Leaders #53 Gary Pettis

1987 Topps Mini Leaders #53 Kirk Gibson

Seriously, how much better would that have been. Or the early 90s, when Upper Deck blew us all out of the water with holograms and such? Why weren't we captivated by these:

1991 Topps Cracker Jack #26 Alan Trammell

I had totally forgotten that there used to be cards in Cracker Jacks. They are so small. You can fit 4 to one regular sized card. In fact, I'm a little disappointed that nobody has come up with a 36-sleeve card holding page. I would totally get one. Unfortunately, because the scale is still basically the same as a regular card, it's hard to tell just how small it is. Here's some help:



That's the cracker jack on the far right with an 80s era Topps mini next to it. A full size card is the Gibson in the middle, next to what I can only describe as the Biggest Donruss Card I've ever seen. Of Sparky Anderson. Probably explaining how important the little things are in baseball.

The A&G minis come courtesy of my diligent eBay bargain hunting. The Pettis comes from Rhubarb Runner and the rest come from Cards on Cards, who provided me with a package rich with 80s and 90s goodness including minis galore and a bunch of other cards that I didn't have. Thanks so much to both of you!

That's Two Thus Far

Two wins makes it official. A winning streak. This time (like most times) there hero was Miguel Cabrera. Odd then, that just like the Scherzer autograph that I got the other day, that I got this Miguel Cabrera card today.

2009 Allen & Ginter #AGA-MC Miguel Cabrera

First, I'd just like to say that I'm pretty sure that this is the best card that I own. In fact, I'm pretty sure that its not even close. This is from the 2009 Ginter set and was originally released as a redemption, of which only 49 copies were made. A fortunate mis-listing of sorts that used "Autograph" but not "Auto" led it to sell for approximately 40% less than the majority of other sales of this card that I've seen. I call that a bargain.

So this seems to be the pattern: I get an autographed card in the mail and the Tigers win with said card's subject playing the hero. Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that I just got a ton of cards in the mail--maybe even enough for a 4 or 5 game win streak. The bad news is that after that, there will be bupkis. I like to think that perhaps the autographed cards will just start showing up, or that maybe, somehow, old timers can fit into this pattern. I mean, Al Kaline can still factor into a game these days, right?

The First Step...

...towards restoring the faith.

2010 Allen & Ginter #AGA-MS Max Scherzer

Nicely done Max.

This card just came in the mail yesterday, which worked out nicely. These 2010 framed autographs are simply incredible looking--by far the best that Allen & Ginter has ever done.

Tigers Gallery Checklist: 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter

It's that Allen & Ginter time of year again. Rather than procrastinate and wait until I have images of all the cards to post a gallery--which ultimately leads to galleries being posted weeks/months after their release when nobody cares any more, I thought that I'd actually post a timely gallery this time. It also serves as a checklist, so points for functionality.

A&G is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be, and when you remove all the odd characters and off-beat mini sets and other various wacky elements and boil it down to the team set, you're left with one thing: simple, classy, nice cards. This is the hallmark of Allen & Ginter, and it holds true in the 2010 release as well. With simple design changes from previous years, the set it distinct yet fits in cohesively with other iterations. A mix & match of cards from across the A&G set would not be out of the question, if you were adventurous in your binder-page creation.

The question does remain though: when does A&G lose it's magic? For me, I think that it's already started to happen. Granted, I'm writing this without having any of these cards in-hand yet, but I started to feel this way in 2009, in what I thought was the strongest release design-wise to date. The base cards don't do it for me anymore. I find them too plain.

The minis though are gold. Pure bliss. There is nothing in the card collecting world today that can compare to Allen & Ginter minis, in my opinion. Similarly, the framed autographs stand on their own, with the relics a nice complement. In this though, we need to wonder, can a set sustain itself on parallels and "hits" alone? I mean, ALL the other sets do it, but that's what made Allen & Ginter so unique in the first place. It was supposed to be for the set collector. And I guess it still is, with a checklist that is consistently refreshed with new and interested non-baseball characters. For the team collector though, I think that ship has sailed. The checklist by-team features too few players, too many similar poses, too little aesthetic variety.

But that's ok, as long as I can get my hands on those teeny tiny tobacco era throwbacks. And autograph cards that must induce the most horrifying hand cramps and nearsightedness. And box toppers. And cabinet cards. And more minis. Come to think of it, A&G is still all right with me.

Base Set As opposed to rambling into a review of this (see above), I'll just give you the pictures. There are 10 cards in the base set, including new Tigers Max Scherzer and Johnny Damon and rookie cards of Austin Jackson (wooo!) and the former started 2nd baseman and current minor leaguer Scott Sizemore. Both are Short Printed. WOTS is that another Brent Dlugach RC was on the preliminary checklist but by the mercy of god was removed. Brennan Boesch is nowhere to be seen, in what is, to me, the biggest card disappointment of the year so far. Scans of the full-size cards are here, but you know that I'll show off a mini set of my own as soon as I've got one:

#25 Max Scherzer	#45 Justin Verlander	#93 Brandon Inge

#139 Miguel Cabrera	#197 Johnny Damon	#235 Carlos Guillen
#250 Magglio Ordonez	#256 Rick Porcello	#319 Austin Jackson SP RC
#320 Scott Sizemore SP RC

Mini Exclusives These are some of those things that I love and don't know why. The Extended Mini (EXT) set consists of cards #351-400 and are contained only within Rip Cards, making them extremely hard to find and expensive to collect (Rip Cards are found at a rate of 1 per case). This year there are two Tigers: Rick Porcello and Miguel Cabrera, featuring a different picture of them from their base card. Again, I'm not sure why I like these, but I do. Here are the two extended minis, plus another special treat.

#361 Miguel Cabrera EXT mini	#376 Rick Porcello EXT mini	#PS18 Miguel Cabrera A&G Originals

Yeah, that extra thing is a 1 of 1 "Allen & Ginter Originals" sketch card. It is also only available in Rip Cards and Cabrera's is the only Tiger. It just sold for $380 and looks awesome.



A pat on the back of Jeff Zachowski, the artist.

Inserts I tend to be lukewarm on A&G inserts ever since I saw the old Dick Perez sketches from 2006-2007 that looked horrible. But then 2008 had the players with their home state and 2009 had players with their countries and I was ok with those. This year matches a player's birthday with a historical event that happened on that day. Conceptually, that is an A+. I love the idea. I also like how the cards look, but I feel kind of "meh" towards them. Maybe it's the bad application of a horizontal. I don't know. Anyway, there are three of these in the set:

#TDH14 Justin Verlander	#TDH21 Magglio Ordonez
#TDH45 Miguel Cabrera

Autographs Tigers hit the motherload this year. There are four autographs and they are all gorgeous. Why Ryan Perry has ANOTHER autograph from Topps is beyond me, but when I can round it out with Cabrera, Scherzer and Porcello I won't complain one bit. These look amazing in scans, thanks to the bright frames that get two thumbs way up from me.

#AGA-MC Miguel Cabrera	#AGA-MS Max Scherzer	#AGA-RP Rick Porcello
#AGA-RPE Ryan Perry

Relics One? Hmmm. I'm ok with this, because I tend to think that they're a major overpopulation of relics out there and I'd like to see it cut back drastically. However, there is a huge overpopulation of relics in Allen & Ginter too, and one Tiger means that I have a pretty bad chance of pulling a Tiger as a hit from my box. Double edged swords you know.

#AGR-MCA Miguel Cabrera

Box Toppers For the first time in a some time there are no Tigers featured as part of regular box toppers or cabinet cards. BUT, there are two super-amazing awesome box topper fantasmo cards. Or, officially, an N43 Autograph (Max Scherzer, #/15) and an N43 Autograph/Relic (Miguel Cabrera, #/5). One of the Scherzers already sold, but had a horrible scan that I couldn't grab. I also lost that auction by a dollar, so I'm kind of bitter. I'll keep my eyes peeled for more appearances, though. (Update: Found one!)

#N43BA-MS Max Scherzer (#/15)	#N43BAR-MC Miguel Cabrera (#/5)

Rip Cards Two of these guys also. The only Rip Card that I have is a ripped 2008 Granderson--which I absolutely love. Not sure that the design on these ones is up to the same level, I've seen a lot of non-action poses, for example, but I'd sure love to have one. The Ordonez has surfaced (#/50), while the Verlander is yet to see the light of day. There's some case breaking in my future, so maybe, just maybe one of these will come my way.

#RC32 Justin Verlander	#RC63 Magglio Ordonez (#/50)

Allen & Ginter: Get In On It!

Ok, people are about to go Ginter-crazy. Since it was announced that Strasburg is in the set, prices have gone up, up, up. I Am Joe Collector just recommended sitting back for 6 months or so until prices go back to normal. But I get it, you still want your A&G Fix.

Well how about this:

Get in on a CASE BREAK of Allen & Ginter, in which 20 teams are still available and the price has been LOCKED IN at pre-Strasburg levels. This is a great chance to load up on Ginter, and have a chance at a case hit and all the other goodies the set provides.

Time's running out. You don't want to be the last one on your block without the Ol' Planter by your side, do you? Join the break here.

The Grand Scheme Loses Faith in the Invisible Hand

Hold On To Your Loonies First, let me proclaim this: ATTENTION ALL TEAM COLLECTORS, the veritable Tunguska is hosting a 2010 Allen & Ginter CASE BREAK on his blog and as of right now, most teams are still available. I jumped on board as soon as I found out last night, and if you've got the cash to spare, I highly recommend that you do so as well. It's a case, for goodness sake. Think of the minis!

Also, Tunguska is a Canadian, and is charging just $45 Canadian per slot, which means that you can take advantage of our northern brother's favorable exchang...wait, WHAT?!?!

The Canadian dollar is currently worth more than it's American counterpart. $.97 to the Looney. It was as low as $.92 in May. In fact, monthly averages haven't shown a favorable exchange rate since February 2008 (when $1.00146 would buy us a Canadian buck). I knew things were bad in the US, but geez. This really puts things in perspective.

Even so, I recommend that you sign up for the group break if you're still looking for a way to get your A&G fix.

I think in Philly, you're considered a bad parent if you don't let your kids drink beer

Sweet mother of God, Philadelphia. You embarrass us all.

Big Potato Day Yesterday was the anniversary of Dan Quayle infamously telling a spelling bee contender that his Potato was "missing a little something on the end" (it was the E). To celebrate this, I was going to show a fancy new baseball card of the Tigers' own Big Potato, Jose Valverde. So, I went to my Series 2 pile to pull him out only to find...no Potato. Here's a pitcher who currently has an ERA under 0.70 for the Tigers and is as dominant a closer as exists in the AL and I don't have a Series 2 card of him? Considering that he was in Series 1 (as an Astro), I guess I can't complain too much, but if you're going to give me Phil Coke, why not go the extra mile with the Tigers' big free agent signing?

Still not an All-Star The latest All Star ballot results came out Monday and Miguel Cabrera is still in 3rd place among AL first basemen. This is the player that is leading the league in Home Runs. And RBIs. and has a .330 batting average. And a 1.062 OPS!

The silver light is that Justin Morneau (who, I begrudgingly admit, is also extremely deserving of All Star status) has overtaken Mark Teixeira. The worry was that the undeserving Teixeira would win the fans' vote, with Morneau selected by the players and Cabrera out in the cold...again. This is essentially what happened last year, but would be far more criminal in this season, aka "the best individual season by a Tigers player in history."

But don't take my word for it:

"You have to be careful when you talk about personal things, but like I said, if Miguel Cabrera's not on the All-Star team, then you might as well not have an All-Star team."

That's Jim Leyland, who is actually notoriously stingy with praise for his own players. But he also doesn't pull punches and he's saying what we're all thinking. If Miguel Cabrera isn't an All Star, they might as well not even play the game.

Johnny Damon goes a step further:

"He's in a class by himself. I haven't got to see (Albert) Pujols play too often, but what he's doing, especially in this ballpark ... this ballpark could be the only thing that keeps him from winning the Triple Crown. He's that good. The thing is, he still has a chance to be that Triple Crown candidate."

This is his direct response to a question about how Cabrera compares to ARod and David Ortiz. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good praise.

Also, Cabrera is 26. You may now pick your jaws up off the floor.

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time that Damon has praised Cabrera. A Bless You Boys post from back in February includes this snippet (from Jason Beck initially):

[Cabrera] is going to win an MVP before he's done. Magglio is on his contract year."
Cabrera's eyes widened as he looked over attentively. Damon smiled back.
"That's right, MVP, baby," Damon said. "And then you take me to dinner."

And he's right. Cabrera is having an MVP-caliber season, and Magglio Ordonez has performed like Magglio Ordonez always has save for the first half of last year. There's something to say for track records, I suppose. Although he's not actually in a contract year as much as he's in an "I better play well enough for the Tigers not to bench me so that I am automatically re-upped to another elephant-caravan load of money" year. Still, no complaints from this end.

Cooling down Austin Jackson was benched last night with some back troubles, which comes in the midst of a dramatic cool-down, in which he is batting a weak .220/.235/.280 in June and is 4-41 since his 4-hit came on June 3. This is probably just a regular slump, albeit one that drags him down to the general levels he should have been in all along (.300 hitter, good XBH power), and isn't too much to be worried about. He's no Bashó after all...
I will say this about Jackson, which I may have said at other points so far this season. I am really impressed with what he has done, especially defensively. I think that he is going to be an excellent player for the Tigers for years to come and may become the career Tiger fan-favorite fans lost when Granderson was traded.

Speaking of Bashó The Free Press today makes the case for Brennan Boesch over Austin Jackson has rookie of the year:

The Tigers first baseman is having a season to end all seasons. He finally will make the All-Star Game as a Tiger. He will be invited to take part in the Home Run Derby. And he’ll take his rightful place in the conversation that starts with, “Who is the best player in the game not named Albert Pujols?”

What's that you say? That quote was all about Miguel Cabrera? Hmm...maybe because that's the basis of Samuelson's argument for The Banana Tree to win the ROY. Protection. He even calls himself out on it:

Sometimes, a little too much credit is given to “protection” in the lineup. Ultimately, it’s still Cabrera doing the damage. He’s the stud. Boesch is the supporting player. But the bottom of the Tigers' lineup is so offensively challenged that the rookie has been the key to keep it going.

Indeed, sometimes too much credit is given to protection, sometimes not enough. The fact is, Boesch has excelled in his role and has both provided protection for Cabrera and inflicted a bunch of damage on his own. At the same time, just as Jackson has hit a cool streak, it is only a matter of time before Boesch--a .250 hitter in the minors--comes down somewhat as well. Bashó has surprised and impressed all of us, and if, come the end of the season, he has outperformed Jackson, and the rest of the AL rookie class, then he deserves the award for sure. I'm just not sure that a month and a half of production is enough to make the distinction yet, although it's certainly enough to put him at the forefront of the conversation.

Rookie Redemptions Which brings me back to something that I brought up yesterday: Are we going to get a Jackson or Boesch rookie redemption card of some sort? I certainly hope so and here's why:

This is the Tigers' lone rookie redemption card from the last few years--a Rick Porcello refractor (#/199) from 2009 Finest. It is a fabulous card which is an excellent addition to the team set. I would absolutely love to see Jackson or Boesch have a similar offering in 2010 Finest. It is worth noting, by the way, that though Porcello was the top of the class in 2009, he was the 9th (of 10) redemption, announced towards the end of the year. I guess there's no arguing with the hype machine, especially in this day and age.

As I write this, the Indians' Carlos Santana was announced as Topps Red Hot Rookie #1, meaning that everyone with redemptions 2 and above just saw the value of their cards increase incrementally.

Misc. I don't have much to say about other things at the moment, so I'll relegate them to here. Ooh! Except this: The custom-designed Infinite Baseball Card set, which I regrettably missed out on before it was pulled for legal reasons, has an update set available with new players! This should avoid the legal messiness that he faced before. These cards are really nice looking and I think I'm going to pick them up, although the OCD in me now wants to seek out the other 10 cards that he discontinued. Topps Attax has a follow-up set called "Battle of the Ages" in which Verlander and Cobb both have cards. They will be added to the Topps Attax gallery. Speaking of Galleries: I'm waiting on a few more cards to trickle in, but a Topps S2 gallery is in the offing. Following up on my Michigan draft posts, the Michigan Daily has a good rundown of the five 2010 draftees. Also, an excellent story on the best home-field advantage in sports. More Michigan stuff? How about the fact that realignment is what made Michigan a Big-10 power in the first place. Fingers crossed that the new realignment does the same thing. Tigers go for the sweep tonight with Verlander on the mound in a series in which they didn't have to face Stephen Strasburg, which is probably a bad thing given the ticket sales it could have brought.

The Grand Scheme Feels Like A Giant

The Little GuysI don't know if you're one to peruse the comments around here, but if you were you may have noticed this snippet:

I like the tiny ones the best. I enjoy holding them between my thumb and forefinger and pretending that I am a giant.

That was my wife's partial response to the Anniversary note. Of course, these tiny cards were at the forefront of her mind, because I've recently been blessed with a constant flow of A&G Minis in the mailbox. I decided I needed to backfill some collections, and 2006 and 2007 mini cards were high on the list. When all was said and done I had 22 new minis to call my own. Here's a taste:

I'm this close to being completely caught up with those sets.

The Big Guy A few weeks ago when Ernie Harwell passed the Tigers held a brief ceremony before the game. They also provided fans with a commemorative card--the specifics of which were very unclear when it was announced. Well, my family was at the game, saved one of the cards and sent it my way, where it arrived yesterday. Thanks Dad! I feel like this would look very nice in an understated frame.





For the record, this is roughly cabinet card size. It's pretty big.

The Empire Strikes Back This blog's arch nemesis has struck again, this time infuriating a professional, grizzled blogger to the point of italicizing his frustration for extra emphasis The offending paragraph:

Once upon a time it was Michigan State that got into all the trouble. It was East Lansing where there were stability problems. …

Michigan State is now the regional example for how a Big Ten athletic program should be run. There was a bad mess with November's dormitory fracas. But between Mark Dantonio's reconstructed football program and Tom Izzo's spotless work in making MSU basketball an elite and ongoing force, MSU has become the Michigan of 20 and 30 years ago, while Michigan has taken MSU's unenviable place as the campus where too much bad sports news originates.

...and the italics:

"Fracas"? The number of kids kicked off the team reached double digits! It was the second consecutive year a large group of Michigan State football players descended upon a group of innocent bystanders and heard the lamentation of the women! Just the most recent incident has outstripped the entire Rodriguez era when it comes to player arrests… by a factor of five! Dantonio was directly responsible for the second incident because he let Glenn Winston walk out of jail and directly on to a practice field! This is brushed off in a single sentence!

This is MGoBlog, the blog by which all blogs should balance their blog-scales for awesomeness. The offending writer is none other than everybody's favorite...

Lynn Henning.

Topps Series 2 Series 2 is out and I'm excited. There really seems to be some good stuff in there. Also, not so good stuff:





These are all basically the same card. One is cool. Ten(!) is lame. Dial it down Topps, you've already ruined a good idea.

Also lame: the fact that Justin Verlander (2006) and Rick Porcello (2009) are featured in the "Cards Your Mother Threw Out" insert set. No she didn't. There is no reason that anything after 1980 should be included in this set, much less cards that are less than 5 years old. Another decent idea that went way, way too far.

There's good stuff too, but I'm still wrapping my head around the whole set. I hope to have cards trickle into my possession over the next week or so so that I can give a more complete evaluation.

Misc. I thought, since it's been a long time since a Grand Scheme, that I'd have a lot to say. Not so much, I guess. In links, how about funding a good cause by buying this wrong on many levels Kirk Gibson Kansas City Royals Card? Come on. Do us all a favor.