Allen & Ginter 2008.

Firstly, we would like to remind players like Mr. Tulowitski and Mr. Helton that they are NOT posing for Mount Rushmore. They are posing for a baseball card.

The original point of baseball cards was fun. Seeing that there was no TV and all. In that regard, thank you Topps for Allen & Ginter 2008. We have enjoyed our little blasters of A & G more than any other new card series. (We're still loving Cracker Jack and some older series, but that's another story.)

Our front-loaded theory seems to hold true for the two that we got at WalMart (thanks for the tip, dayf; we hardly ever go there and not long after we saw your post, we tried, and sure enough, there were two left). Of course we can't be Certain of Our Front-Loaded Theory until a month from now, if we drop $20 on a blaster and find nothin' special. But here's our view of what we thus far have seen of blaster A&G.

First of all, the smile cards are top-notch. We got many, including exceptional grinners Kelly Johnson, Kaz Matsui, Fausto Carmona, Phil Hughes, Michael Cuddyer, and Mariano Rivera (!).

The Annie Oakley card, we'll have you know, is one of the few historical depictions that do not portray truly alarmingly bad hair. Thank you, Topps, for not putting people like Harriet Tubman and James Bowie into little baseball hats. We like the Oakley because we have a small collection of vintage Calamity Jane cards. (You cannot imagine how politically incorrect they are, but the art is great.)

We love the minis bestest of all.

Do you realize this is the first time we've put new cards right away in a binder? It's not just the fact that we usually have No Spare Time. There must be some psychological significance to this. The only other straight-to-binder cards have been extraordinarily great ones from other bloggers.

This is the autograph we pulled from one of the two WalMart blasters. On the side of the box, the odds of pulling this guy is 1:466. It's a nice card. However, in the same group of odds...Curtis Granderson, whom we collect, and Jeff Francis, whom we kind of collect. Narrowing it to those two would increase the odds to...er, you do the math. The other auto card we're interested in is Ian Kinsler, from our Nice Guy List, who is in Group C. So, if anyone is interested, we would trade this fellow for Ian, Jeff, and especially a dreamy Curtis auto.

Then there's Mr. Alou. He may be injury prone now, but Moises is ours. This is a handsome shot.

Sorry for the flashification. These state cards really do look Mount Rushmore-like, don't they?

Here is a mini of A Rod. It's the first A Rod card we've ever gotten that we kind of like. Then there's this one:

As for the crossed-arm look, ergh. We dunno know about that.

We like the oh-so-subtle rendition of Josh's tatoos here.

Our favorite cards include: every single mini that we found. Every one. They are sweeet. The depictions of Kelly Johnson, Jarrod Saltamacchia, and Edwin Encarcion, all of whom are doing interesting things with bats and smiling, are among our favorites. The light-footed earnest run of Curtis Granderson (near the top of this post): fantastico.

We are seeking these cards:

Curtis Granderson (any variation but mini)

Curtis Granderson state card

Barry Zito state card

Empire State mini

James Fennimore Cooper mini

Joe Mauer (any and all variations)
Bram Stoker (aaav)

Tadahito Iguchi (aaav)

Helen Clark mini

Don Larsen (aaav)

Bill Mazerowski (aaav)

Gary Carter & the '86 Mets (aaav)

Charles Dickens (any variation but mini)

David Wright (aaav)

Ian Kinsler (any variation except full size)

Johnny Mize (aaav) (this is for....my aunt)

Pat Neshek (aaav)

Mel Ott (aaav)

A.J. Pierzynski (aaav)

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

Carlos Beltran (aaav)
Davy Crockett mini

John Maine (aaav)

We have these to trade (or we can trade

other stuff):

Fausto Carmona

Empire State Building

Andrew Litz

Tom Gorzelanny

Kazuo Matsui

Eugenio Velez

Kevin Van Dam

Dustin McGowan

James Shields

Harriet Tubman

Carlos Guillen

Mary Shelley

Carlos Lee

The Gateway Arch

Jeanette Lee

Lisa Leslie

Scott Rolen/Indiana

Nick Markakis