A Look at All of the Cubs Ginter

 This year marks the 17th edition of Topps Allen and Ginter. There have been a total of 188 Cubs cards. 

 The number of Cubs per year has been all over the place: 9, 10, 7, 11, 9, 11, 10, 11, 10, 13, 14, 15, 18, 14, 14, 12, and 14.  Early on, 9-11 was pretty typical, Lately that has been up to 13-15. This year's 14 is on par with most of the past several years.  The difference with this year is the large number of retired players.  The six active players is the smallest number in many years.

Below are the 202 main set Cubs cards from Allen and Ginter.

2022 Ginter Mini Cubs

 The Ginter minis are one of my favorite sets.  The cards always look great.  They should, since Ginter is a set based on tobacco cards.

The cards, as usual, have the same design as the base cards, with some slight readjusting and or cropping due to the difference in size ratio of the mini cards.  There were 14 Cubs in the base set, so there are 14 minis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022 Allen & Ginter Cubs Inserts

 There are Cubs included in Ginter's two main baseball inserts.

The title of these pretty much says it all, Banner Season.  The Cubs cards represent two MVPs and a Cy Young Award.  Do you remember that in 1998, it was Sosa, not McGwire, that won the NL MVP?

This title is pretty self-explanatory, too.  And how often do you get to learn from a baseball card that tanzanite if the birth gem for December?  Baseball cards -- fun and educational!

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 20,848 Cubs cards from 305 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1973 O-Pee-Chee #285 Don Kessinger  He's choking up, even in his posed shot.  Do players choke up any more?  Seems like they are more free-swinging (and more often than not, missing).  I wonder if they will play to contact more now that the shift has been banned.

1980s: 1989 Bowman #281 Rick Sutcliffe  It looks like a nice sunny day, but there appear to be a bunch of empty seats.

1990s: 1993 Stadium Club #21 Frank Castillo  I've always preferred the look of the Cubs numbers on the back as we see in this picture.  They are a plain blue, instead of the blue with red outlining we see on today's uniform.  Also, no names on the back is my preference too.

2000s: 2006 Greats of the Game Pewter #41 Gary Matthews  Sarge doesn't show up as a Cub very often, so it was nice to see him in this set.  

2010s: 2018 Factory Team Set #CC11 Tommy LaStella He had a career high in games played in 2018, 123 games.  Theo wasn't impressed though, and traded him to the Angels after the season in exchange for a player to be named later.

Sixties Saturday - 1965 Topps Inserts

 There were two inserts in the 1965 Topps set.  I've looked but haven't been able to find which series the different inserts were released with.  I've seen wax wrappers that mention one set or the other, but the wrappers are empty.  Anyone have an unopened pack that they'd like to open for me??

 

 

The embossed set has 72 cards, 36 for each league.  The National League cards are red and there are four Cubs, three HOFer and Dick Ellsworth.

 

There are 72 transfers, but just three of them are Cubs.  These are Larry Jackson, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams.

Allen and Ginter 2022 Cubs

Better late than never?

I suppose.

I'm used to Allen and Ginter coming out around the 4th of July, not at Thanksgiving like this year.  It seems really odd for such a major brand to get a release after the season is already done.  You'd think that would cut down on the buzz the set could have at its release.

The set is the usual Ginter, with a mixture of current and retired players along with "Champions."  There are 350 cards in the base set, 300 regular and 50 SPs.

The Cubs have 14 of the 350 cards.  The weird thing is that just six of the fourteen are active.  Five of the six are still with the team.

 

 

 

Pitcher Ethan Roberts takes over as the designated rookie.  One good thing about the late release date is that Topps was able to figure out that Greg Deichmann was not the rookie they thought he would be.

 

 

 

There are seven retired Cubs.  Ernie Banks makes an appearance for the sixth year in a row and ninth time overall.  Ryno is also a regular in Ginter, being included for five consecutive years and nine total times.  Santo, and Sosa are in the set for the second time.  Maddux is also in for a second time, 16 years after his first Cubs appearance while an active player.  Making their Ginter Cubs debuts are Hornsby and Sutcliffe.

The Wrigley Field PA Announcer, Jeremy Paprocki, is included as a Champion.  It is the second time a Cub made the set as a Champion, as Theo Epstein was in the 2018 set.  Any casual fan looking at the card would assume that he is a player in a hatless card.  I wonder if he can hit?

A Look at All of the Topps 2022 Flagship Cubs

  The 32 base cards from the 2022 set along with another 24 inserts give me a total of 56 Cubs cards from the Topps set.

Here are all 56 Topps Cubs in a 56 seconds.