Today was not supposed to be a day of
participation for me. Today was for vicarious living and spectating. A winning scratch-lottery ticket changed that. I had money to burn and so off to the hobby store I went. Fresh out of the box is this;

The very first card in my very first pack of 2009 A&G belongs to...........
Jose Lopez from Seattle.

The pack quickly turns towards mound magicians and pretty much stays there now. Next up we have another Mariner in the left-handed Erik
Bedard and all six-foot-three of the Giants' Matt Cain.

A quick note here to Upper Deck. If you notice the first three cards are posed and quite possibly studio poses as well. However, you will notice that attempts have been made to not necessarily make that fact too obvious. The abomination you call
OPC makes no attempt to mask it. As it stands right now,
Topps 3
UD 0.
This next card began life as C.C.
Sabathia. However, being that I am not a Yankees fan and the gracious owner of my local hobby
store, All-Star Cards, knows this, it quickly turned into Roy
Halladay.
Thanks Glynn!!

This next card was first seen by the previously mentioned shop owner. I try my hardest to mask what I pull so it appears right when it should. It makes it feel more magical. Anyway, like I said, I'm not a Yankees fan so this Bronx Raspberry was aimed right at me. Still a cool card though.

My first A&G mini is yet another hurler. Cincinnati's Aaron
Harang.

And, lastly, the 'National Pride' card of the pack represents Panama and the Houston
Astros, Carlos Lee.

This was a great way to start out the 2009 Allen &
Ginter season. The first pack with some
Hideki-
mojo was still a cool rip. I am looking forward to the next few days as the box breaks roll out and the
blogosphere explodes with reviews and scans. I bought 4 packs in all and will post the rest of the interesting/noteworthy cards on my blog sometime later. This, however, was the best pack of the four.
Cheers,