For the few who still care about A&G

 

Probably the best way I can explain the difference between card blogs when I first started blogging, say 2008-11, and card blogs now is the difference in how Allen & Ginter is received and perceived.

During the golden age of blogging and A&G (well, the recent incarnation anyway), the release of Allen & Ginter was an event on the blogs. The set was celebrated and there was enthusiasm for the framed autographs, the weird inserts and the non-ballplayers in the set.

Sure, some collectors still didn't like it/understand it and there was always a little bit of "what the hell is this card?," but the overall reaction to those cards and the set was, "it's wacky, it's zany, it's interesting! Let's learn about stuff and maybe find a piece of hair from an old, dead, president!"

Then, in perhaps the biggest party the card blogs had at that time, 30-40 blogs or more would participate in "Gint-a-Cuffs," a celebration of a set the likes of no one has seen before or since. Each of the participating blogs would buy a box of A&G and match the contents of their box with the contents of every other participants' box, according to the arbitrary point system devised by this blogger. Topps even offered up a box of A&G to the winner.

This went on for a few years and it would dominate the blogs for a month. Yeah, it got a little tiring seeing the same cards over and over, but the cool kids liked those cards and the popularity of A&G meant that other bloggers simply waited for it to go by and blogged about what they liked. There was no stopping the A&G juggernaut.

Speed forward to 2021, and I can't envision any of that happening on blogs. It seems like another time. When A&G arrives now, I seem to be one of the few who is enthusiastic about the set (well, I'm not exactly "enthusiastic" anymore, but I'm still interested). There seems to be a lot more bloggers who cower at the thought of pulling a card of an egg. And when I post about A&G, I can count on comments about how, "I never liked that set," "it's not for me," etc. I wonder where 2009 went.

Many of the bloggers who participated in Gint-a-Cuffs a decade ago have moved on. They either blog sporadically, don't blog at all (they tweet) or have stopped collecting cold. Some of those blogs have disappeared completely. So that's where the enthusiasm went.

But it's not just the change in who's blogging about cards that explains the muted celebration for A&G these days. It's also that A&G is now 16 years old. It's only natural that people won't be as excited. Also, A&G is NOT the set it was a dozen years ago. I've posted about that several times.

Each year, I update the list of all the non-baseball players in the newest version of A&G on my sidebar. I just did it for the 2021 set, which gets released tomorrow (but the cards are already all over ebay, for stupid prices in many cases).

The current version of A&G has fewer non-ball players that interest me. Per usual of late, it's full of Instagram stars and comedians and cooks and just, who cares? There are no past famous figures and there are no animals or famous sites or any of that good stuff in the base set.

Still, I can always find a few cards that interest me.

For example, Rocky Bleier is in the set. Bleier was one of my first favorite football players. I have known about his Vietnam past since I was a kid. His '70s cards were always cool.

 

Buzz Bissinger, who wrote "Friday Night Lights" is in the base set. I appreciate authors being recognized.

And there are several female figures who are working in baseball in the set. Marlins general manager Kim Ng, a former Dodger front-office executive, is in the set. Giants coach Alyssa Nakken is in the set as is baseball coach Bianca Smith.

I also enjoy seeing an individual card of each of Slap Shot's Hanson Brothers and women's soccer great Michelle Akers, who was among the first of the high-profile USA women's soccer players.

But these cards are few-and-far-between, because the high-dollar collectors aren't interested in/can't make money off of a picture of a building.

 

Those inanimate objects are now entirely in the insert sets. I've been following A&G so long that I'm starting to see repeats of insert themes. There is a World Leaders mini set. That's been done before. There is a mascots set (pictures of animals that also represent MLB teams). That's been done before. There is a shark insert set. That's been done before, although the first version was a stealth mini set and this one is a full-size insert (it admittedly probably looks cool like this).

None of the mini inserts interest me. Hats, trees, stars, birds. Not much creativity there. (The "good for you" set of fruits and vegetables at least might inspire an overweight collector). Maybe I'm starting to fall into the "who cares" A&G camp.

I counted up the rookies in the base set. There are 56 of them. None of them in the SP portion of the checklist. This is weird. Topps likes rookie-chasers, don't they want them to buy more cards? 

 

 

There are 97 retired players, which I appreciate. Now that A&G has shed famous past authors and composers and such, they should at least recognize baseball's past. There are a few new old players in the checklist. And there are the usual recently retired players that I think shouldn't be included for awhile. Also, give it a rest on Hideki Matsui.

 

Oh, and I haven't said anything about the design. It's not my favorite. It's similar to the "cameo" look of 2017 A&G. Kind of looks like a Christmas ornament.

 

Yes, yes, I know, the set "looks the same every year" (actually, it doesn't). And the "backs look the same every year" (you've got a point there).

 

But this is not me hating on A&G or inviting anyone else to do so. It's just me missing a bygone period. Topps doesn't need me to collect A&G, which is obvious because it's still being released and I haven't tried to complete the set since 2015 (and haven't actually completed one since 2014).

 

But if you want to see real blog enthusiasm for the set and what that set used to be, just go back to some of my Gint-a-Cuff posts back in the archives. It was some good times then.