Happy A-G day!

The biggest day of the card-collecting season has arrived. My box of 2010 Allen & Ginter has been delivered into my greedy, giddy hands.

I've decided that this day is even bigger than the day when the first cards of the 2010 season come out. A&G is much more special than your average base card set. It comes with more anticipation and the promise of something special -- even if it doesn't always deliver.

But enough with the philosophy. You all know how I feel. I'm a two-time Gint-a-Cuffs participant, after all.

I'm not going to begin the proceedings right now, though. In fact I haven't ripped a pack yet.

But I have opened the box.

Oooh, pretty blue packs. Fire that ball to first, Minty Beans.

I also opened the cabinet card that came with the box. It's one of 10 cabinet box-loaders. This year's theme is engineering achievements. Of course, there are baseball players mixed in, too. So you could receive an engineering feat, or a cabinet boxloader that features Lance Berkman, Ivan Rodriguez and Carlos Lee; or CC Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter; or Jacoby Ellsbury, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada (there's a combo); or Joe Mauer. Yep, Mauer gets a cabinet all to himself.

But here is what I got:

Brooklyn Bridge. Well, that's not too bad. I like the look of the cabinet cards this year. Nicer than last year.

That's a look at the base set checklist. Hopefully, you can read it all if you click on the images. The set is 350 cards as usual. One thing I noticed is that cards 301-350, which are usually the short-prints, are all ballplayers this time. No need to look under every rock for a card of Old Faithful, like last year.

Obviously, part of the charm of A&G is the non-baseball players and finding out what unusual people/places are in the set. I did a little quick research on some of them. Others I knew already. Others, even with research, I still have no idea who they are.

Here are some of them that I know:

#9 - Kelly Kulick - pro bowler

#20 - Sacagawea - famed female Native American
#54 - Tony Hawk - richest skateboarder ever
#68 - Betelgeuse - basically your Milky Way for this year's set
#78 - Leonardo da Vinci - he painted some stuff you might know
#103 - Niccolo Machiavelli - I had to read "The Prince" in school. I was very confused
#105 and #118 - Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Gallei - astronomers are big this year
#110 - Sherlock Holmes - Not sure why it's not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#129 - Johannes Gutenberg - My profession owes a lot to this guy
#130 - Area 51 - A nice place to visit
#144 - Stuart Scott - I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS GUY IS IN THE SET. Why? WHY? At least it's not Berman
#148 - Anne Donovan - She could play some mean basketball
#152 - The Parthenon - This year's Alamo, except much, much, MUCH older
#165 - Nick Jacoby - Otherwise known as one of the two card bloggers who cracked some code
#185 - X-Rays - Funny. I was at the dentist today
#199 - Summer Sanders - The appearance of female athletes is one of the big reasons why I like Ginter. I get sick of looking at grubby guys
#203 - Sig Hansen - Deadliest Catch fans know who he is
#205 - Meb Keflezighi - Marathon man
#216 - Jordin Sparks - random American Idol winner. At least it's not Clay Aiken
#236 - Shawn Johnson - U.S. gymnast/Dancing With the Stars contestant
#242 - Jules Verne - Pioneering sci-fi author
#255 - Robert Scott - Antarctic explorer
#264 - Captain Nemo - famous Jules Verne character
#271 - King Tut - Steve Martin sang about him. Us eighth graders thought he was funny
#272 - David Blaine - He does mean stuff to himself and somehow survives. Crazy magicians
#277 - Regis Philbin - His show is on too early for me. And he likes teams I don't like
#286 - Revolving Door - I'm intrigued as to how this card will look
#287 - Drew Brees - This is a cool card for the set

Here are a couple I looked up:

#10 - Gary Stewart - I think it's the country singer from the 1970s

#38 - Tiago Della Vega - Brazilian guitar player, supposedly the fastest player ever
#59 - Ivory Crockett - once the fastest man ever
#73 - Avery Jenkins - disc golf champ. I love playing disc golf on the Wii
#99 - Anthony Gatto - famed juggler
#104 - Mahlon Duckett - there are several more Negro League players in the set, which is great. Here is one of them.
#193 - Rory/Tony Hoard - disc dog champ and handler
#232 - Hubertus "Master of Hellfire" Wawra - fire eater. Better him than me

And here are a few that stumped me:

#22 - Lucy - Is this Lucille Ball? Lucy from Peanuts?

#95 - Judson Laipply - Some dancing guy. Sometimes I suck at knowing pop culture
#211 - Johnny Strange - I think it's that wacky teen who does all the crazy mountain climbing
#270 - Max Poser - All I know is it has something to do with computers

There are a few others that I don't know as well. I suppose I should open a few packs and start knowledging!

Oh, and don't worry. There are plenty of baseball players included, too.

(A couple of updates: Lucy IS the skeleton mentioned in the comments. Max Poser is a dominoes guy. Meanwhile, Gary Stewart is not the country musician. It's a dude who holds the record for bouncing on a pogo stick the most times. Silly me).