I'm too old for this $#!&

 

Last night I finally put together the list of non-baseball players who have a card in this year's Allen & Ginter set, an annual tradition that I update on the sidebar every year.

I'll get to that sidebar list in a day or two, but the cold, hard truth is sitting in front of me in ink and paper. (EDIT: The 2022 list is now added!)

Let's get the good part out of the way first. There are 48 cards of non-baseball players in the 2022 A&G set. That is the most in an Allen & Ginter set since 2013 when there was also 48. If you toss out "Places or Things" cards that appeared in past A&G sets (there are none of those in this year's set for the third year in a row), the 2022 set has the most non-baseball people of any A&G set ever!

That's cool for those of us who buy A&G for more than the ballplayers.

Now, the not-so-cool part is what I've been complaining about for A&G for at least the last seven years: the non-baseball players in the set are the same old cards that make it look like Topps cut a deal with some people to promote them.

This year's A&G theme seems to be Curlers, Fitness Instructors and Musicians You've Never Heard Of. Oh, and family is a big deal as there are three pairs of relatives in the set, each with their own card, two brother teams and a father-and-son team.

There are also the comedians I don't know and not one, or two, but three cards of former or current members of the '90s rap band Cypress Hill.

Danny Glover has a card in the set, too, which works because I'm too old for this shit.

I don't know why I'm still listing the non-baseball players as the very thing that has excited me in the past about A&G hardly excites me at all. It mostly annoys me.

Ten years ago, this was the non-baseball player list:

Erin Andrews
Jerry Bailey
Guy Bluford
Keegan Bradley
James Brown (announcer)
Michael Buffer
Swin Cash
Don Denkinger
Annie Duke
Fatal1ty (Jonathan Wendel)
Roger Federer
Rulon Gardner
Greg Gumbel
Hank Haney
Kirk Herbstreit
Marty Hogan
Bob Hurley Sr.
Bela Karolyi
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Bobby Knight
Lefty Kreh
Meadowlark Lemon
Ewa Mataya
Colin Montgomerie
Curly Neal
Arnold Palmer
Ara Parseghian
Richard Petty
Phil Pfister
Michael Phelps
Al Unser Sr.
Kate Upton
Dale Webster

Now, here are the cards in 2022 A&G that can match up to the name-recognition of those 2012 subjects (which, by the way, I called a "down year" then):

 

Landon Donovan

Joe West

Martin Sheen

Bradley Beal

Drew Rosenhaus

Rachel Balkovec

Danny Glover

Charlie Sheen

Michelle Wie West

 

Not great, Bob.

 

Still, there is still a shred of charm left in A&G. If I can find one card that interests me in the set then I guess it's still worth issuing each year (for that and the inserts, which are still great).

 

This year, this is that card. As soon as I saw she was in the set, I found a shiny foil version and grabbed it.

 

I've known about Kate Brownell since before I had a blog, heck before I was really back into collecting. She grew up in a small Western New York town called Oakfield, and she made the national news in 2005 as an 11-year-old, playing as the only girl on an all-boys Little League team.

 

In a game on May 14, 2005, Brownell struck out every batter she faced, all 18 of them, for a perfect game. The Batavia Daily News, a sister paper for the newspaper that I work for, broke the story. It was then picked up nationally. Brownell became a celebrity, had a conversation with then President Bush and became the youngest person to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

She threw out the first pitch at Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium. Her Little League team was called the Dodgers.

When she grew older, she took up softball and played four years for my alma mater, Buffalo State College, playing infield and catcher.

So, those are her pseudo connections with me, both the Dodgers and Buffalo State. It's also cool that she was a communications major there, just like me, even if her senior year was 30 years after I first stepped on campus.

Brownell had a difficult road growing up with family turmoil. Her dad was in a bad accident when she was in college. When she graduated, she didn't know what she wanted to do for a career. She got into coaching softball at Amherst College and that peaked her interest in becoming a personal trainer.

She now runs her own fitness company in Connecticut and I just took a look at a couple of her online workouts and yikes.

It's pretty cool when you discover someone in A&G that you know but probably a lot of other people don't. I guess that's one reason to put so-called "minor celebrities" in the set so people can learn their stories. I just wish Topps would mix it up more with some more notables and historical figures like they did not all that many years ago.

 

The back of Brownell's card hardly does her justice (also the word "for" is missing after the word "playing"). Good thing you have me here to relay a little more information!

Also, for those of you who don't care anything about A&G except for the ballplayers, I went through and found the retired guys in this year's set. Here they are:

Ernie Banks

Reggie Jackson

Frank Thomas

Rickey Henderson

George Brett

Ivan Rodriguez

Pedro Martinez

Mariano Rivera

Larry Walker

Lou Gehrig

Thurman Munson

Johnny Bench

Ken Griffey Jr.

Greg Maddux

Mike Schmidt

Babe Ruth

Eddie Murray

Hank Aaron

Todd Helton

Roberto Clemente

Al Kaline

Harmon Killebrew

Adrian Beltre

Willie Stargell

Willie Mays

Ichiro Suzuki

Cal Ripken Jr.

Ryne Sandberg

Buster Posey

Randy Johnson

Hank Greenberg

David Ortiz

Robin Yount

Nolan Ryan

Kirby Puckett

Ted Williams

Steve Carlton

Mark McGwire

Roger Clemens

Alex Rodriguez

Lou Brock

Jackie Robinson

Mel Ott

Vladimir Guerrero

Yogi Berra

Andre Dawson

Roy Campanella

Tom Seaver

Dick Allen

Willie McCovey

Barry Larkin

Dave Winfield

Paul Molitor

Tony Gwynn

Brooks Robinson

Joe Morgan

Hideki Matsui

Frank Robinson

Carl Yastrzemski

Rod Carew

Derek Jeter

Mike Piazza

Sammy Sosa

Chipper Jones

Duke Snider

Joe Mauer

Tony Oliva

Amos Otis (!!!)

Ron Santo

Bill Mazeroski

Paul Konerko

Roger Maris

Bob Feller

Tom Glavine

Monte Irvin

Larry Doby

Honus Wagner

Tim McCarver

Whitey Herzog

Darryl Strawberry

Bert Blyleven

Jason Varitek

John Mayberry

Jack Morris

Dave Concepcion

Jim Kaat

Sal Bando

Rogers Hornsby

Scott Podsednik

Geoff Jenkins

Steve Garvey

Juan Gonzalez

Manny Ramirez

Joe Carter

Luis Gonzalez

Dale Murphy

Lou Piniella

Torii Hunter

Rick Sutcliffe

 

That's a lot!

 

It was looking like the same-old, same-old until I got to Amos Otis. Amos Otis!!! WOW. Somebody has finally heard my complaint about Topps ignoring '70s stars??? There's a John Mayberry card, too, and when you get into the SPs, there's Dave Concepcion and Steve Garvey and Lou Piniella. Also, very weirdly, there are cards of Geoff Jenkins and Scott Podsednik.

 

None of this is enough for me to try to collect the set, but I think besides the Dodgers and the Kate Brownell card, I found a couple others I might need to add.

 

Maybe I'm not too old ... yet.