Theme Week: The 2006 Topps Allen & Ginter Base Set (the Baseball Subjects)!

Welcome to this week's theme week:  2006 Topps Allen & Ginter!  

Yesterday, I took a look at the overall structure of the 2006 Topps Allen & Ginter base set as well as the card design.  Today, we turn our attention to the contents of the 350 card base set, more specifically, today we will look at the various baseball subjects in the set!  Next post, we'll shift our focus to the non-baseball subjects in the base set!  

The set begins with Albert Pujols in the card #1 slot.  

Cards #1-9

I'm no Pujols fan myself but I have to give Topps credit for choosing a player who is still playing MLB right now (albeit in his final year in the big leagues).  Also of note on the first page is our first short print of the set:  #5 Ken Griffey, Jr. (who also happens to be the first Cincinnati Red in the set).  Finally, also on the first page we have the father of a current MLB player (Vlad Guerrero, Sr.).  Not bad for the first page of a fledgling new brand, right?!

One of the few bad things I can say about the 2006 Allen & Ginter set is that the designers must have hated the Cincinnati Reds.  The Reds did manage to get six cards in the set (Griffey, Jr., Austin Kearns, Brandon Claussen, Felipe Lopez, Adam Dunn, and Bronson Arroyo) but of those six three are short prints!  That being said, Ginter short prints aren't nearly as tough (or expensive) to track down as short prints in other Topps sets (*cough* Heritage *cough*) so I guess it's not a huge problem.

Cards #73-81, including a nice Verlander rookie!

The rest of the baseball subjects in the set consist of mostly current players with a smattering of retired stars thrown.

Cards #271-279

Nice to see some "lesser known" retired stars make the cut here to along with your much more common Mantles and Yastrzemski's.

Topps also felt it was a good idea to include almost a full binder's page worth of managers (past and present) in the set.  An odd choice to be sure, but it fits with the quirky nature of Allen & Ginter so I'll let it slide.

Cards #289-297

After you get through the manager section of the base set (card #300 is Frank Robinson pictured as the Nationals' manager) you move on to (mostly) non-baseball subjects.  I'll cover those in a future post as this particular post is long enough as it is!

Full checklist for the 2006 Topps Allen & Ginter set:

1 Albert Pujols

2 Aubrey Huff

3 Mark Teixeira

4 Vernon Wells

5 Ken Griffey, Jr. SP

6 Nick Swisher

7 Jose Reyes

8 David Wright

9 Vladimir Guerrero

10 Andruw Jones

11 Ramon Hernandez

12 Miguel Tejada

13 Juan Pierre

14 Jim Thome

15 Austin Kearns SP

16 Jhonny Peralta

17 Clint Barmes

18 Angel Berroa

19 Nomar Garciaparra

20 Joe Nathan

21 Brandon Webb

22 Chad Tracy

23 Derek Jeter

24 Conor Jackson

25 Jason Giambi SP

26 Johnny Estrada

27 Luis Gonzalez

28 Javier Vazquez

29 Orlando Hudson

30 Shawn Green

31 Mark Buehrle

32 Wily Mo Pena

33 C.C. Sabathia

34 Ronnie Belliard

35 Travis Hafner SP

36 Mike Jacobs

37 Roy Oswalt

38 Zack Greinke

39 J.D. Drew

40 Jeff Kent

41 Ben Sheets

42 Luis Castillo

43 Carlos Delgado

44 Cliff Floyd

45 Danny Haren SP

46 Bobby Abreu

47 Jeromy Burnitz

48 Khalil Greene

49 Moises Alou

50 Alex Rodriguez SP

51 Ervin Santana SP

52 Bartolo Colon SP

53 John Smoltz SP

54 David Ortiz SP

55 Hideki Matsui SP

56 Jermaine Dye SP

57 Victor Martinez SP

58 Willy Taveras SP

59 Brady Clark SP

60 Justin Morneau

61 Xavier Nady

62 Rich Harden

63 Jack Wilson

64 Brian Giles

65 Jon Lieber SP

66 Dan Johnson

67 Billy Wagner

68 Rickie Weeks

69 Chris Ray

70 Chris Shelton

71 Dmitri Young

72 Ivan Rodriguez

73 Jeremy Bonderman

74 Justin Verlander

75 Randy Johnson

76 Magglio Ordonez

77 Brandon Inge

78 Placido Polanco

79 Ryan Howard

80 Jason Bay

81 Sean Casey

82 Jeremy Hermida

83 Mike Cameron

84 Trevor Hoffman

85 Mike Matheny SP

86 Steve Finley

87 Adam Everett

88 Jason Isringhausen

89 Jonny Gomes

90 Barry Zito

91 Bobby Crosby

92 Eric Chavez

93 Frank Thomas

94 Huston Street

95 Jorge Posada

96 Casey Kotchman

97 Darin Erstad

98 Chipper Jones

99 Jeff Francoeur

100 Barry Bonds

101 Alfonso Soriano

102 Brandon Claussen

103 Aaron Boone

104 Roger Clemens

105 Andy Pettitte SP

106 Nick Johnson

107 Tom Gordon

108 Orlando Hernandez

109 Francisco Rodriguez

110 Orlando Cabrera

111 Edgar Renteria

112 Tim Hudson

113 Coco Crisp

114 Matt Clement

115 Greg Maddux SP

116 Paul Konerko

117 Felipe Lopez

118 Garrett Atkins

119 Akinori Otsuka

120 Craig Biggio

121 Danys Baez

122 Brad Penny

123 Eric Gagne

124 Lew Ford

125 Mariano Rivera SP

126 Carlos Beltran

127 Pedro Martinez

128 Todd Helton

129 Aaron Rowand

130 Mike Lieberthal

131 Oliver Perez

132 Ryan Klesko

133 Randy Winn

134 Yuniesky Betancourt

135 David Eckstein SP

136 Chad Orvella

137 Toby Hall

138 Hank Blalock

139 B.J. Ryan

140 Roy Halladay

141 Livan Hernandez

142 John Patterson

143 Bengie Molina

144 Brad Wilkerson

145 Jorge Cantu SP

146 Mark Mulder

147 Felix Hernandez

148 Paul Lo Duca

149 Prince Fielder

150 Johnny Damon SP

151 Ryan Langerhans SP

152 Kris Benson SP

153 Curt Schilling SP

154 Manny Ramirez SP

155 Robinson Cano SP

156 Derrek Lee SP

157 A.J. Pierzynski SP

158 Adam Dunn SP

159 Cliff Lee SP

160 Grady Sizemore

161 Jeff Francis

162 Dontrelle Willis

163 Brad Ausmus

164 Preston Wilson

165 Derek Lowe SP

166 Chris Capuano

167 Joe Mauer

168 Torii Hunter

169 Chase Utley

170 Zach Duke

171 Jason Schmidt

172 Adrian Beltre

173 Eddie Guardado

174 Richie Sexson

175 Miguel Cabrera SP

176 Julio Lugo

177 Francisco Cordero

178 Kevin Millwood

179 A.J. Burnett

180 Jose Guillen

181 Larry Bigbie

182 Raul Ibanez

183 Jake Peavy

184 Pat Burrell

185 Tom Glavine SP

186 J.J. Hardy

187 Emil Brown

188 Lance Berkman

189 Marcus Giles

190 Scott Podsednik

191 Chone Figgins

192 Melvin Mora

193 Mark Loretta

194 Carlos Zambrano

195 Chien-Ming Wang

196 Mark Prior

197 Bobby Jenks

198 Brian Fuentes

199 Garret Anderson

200 Ichiro Suzuki

201 Brian Roberts

202 Jason Kendall

203 Milton Bradley

204 Jimmy Rollins

205 Brett Myers SP

206 Joe Randa

207 Mike Piazza

208 Matt Morris

209 Omar Vizquel

210 Jeremy Reed

211 Chris Carpenter

212 Jim Edmonds

213 Scott Kazmir

214 Travis Lee

215 Michael Young SP

216 Rod Barajas

217 Gustavo Chacin

218 Lyle Overbay

219 Troy Glaus

220 Chad Cordero

221 Jose Vidro

222 Scott Rolen

223 Carl Crawford

224 Rocco Baldelli

225 Mike Mussina

226 Kelvim Escobar

227 Corey Patterson

228 Javy Lopez

229 Jonathan Papelbon

230 Aramis Ramirez

231 Tadahito Iguchi

232 Morgan Ensberg

233 Mark Grudzielanek

234 Mike Sweeney

235 Shawn Chacon SP

236 Nick Punto

237 Geoff Jenkins

238 Carlos Lee

239 David DeJesus

240 Brad Lidge

241 Bob Wickman

242 Jon Garland

243 Kerry Wood

244 Bronson Arroyo

245 Matt Holliday SP

246 Josh Beckett

247 Johan Santana

248 Rafael Furcal

249 Shannon Stewart

250 Gary Sheffield

251 Josh Barfield SP

252 Kenji Johjima

253 Ian Kinsler

254 Brian Anderson

255 Matt Cain SP

256 Josh Willingham SP

257 John Koronka

258 Chris Duffy

259 Brian McCann

260 Hanley Ramirez

261 Hong-Chih Kuo

262 Francisco Liriano

263 Anderson Hernandez

264 Ryan Zimmerman

265 Brian Bannister SP

266 Nolan Ryan

267 Frank Robinson

268 Roberto Clemente

269 Hank Greenberg

270 Napolean Lajoie

271 Lloyd Waner

272 Paul Waner

273 Frankie Frisch

274 Moose Skowron

275 Mickey Mantle

276 Brooks Robinson

277 Carl Yastrzemski

278 Johnny Pesky

279 Stan Musial

280 Bill Mazeroski

281 Harmon Killebrew

282 Monte Irvin

283 Bob Gibson

284 Ted Williams

285 Yogi Berra SP

286 Ernie Banks

287 Bobby Doerr

288 Josh Gibson

289 Bob Feller

290 Cal Ripken, Jr.

291 Bobby Cox

292 Terry Francona

293 Dusty Baker

294 Ozzie Guillen

295 Jim Leyland

296 Willie Randolph

297 Joe Torre

298 Felipe Alou

299 Tony LaRussa

300 Frank Robinson

301 Mike Tyson

302 Duke Paoa Kahanamoku

303 Jennie Finch

304 Brandi Chastain

305 Danica Patrick SP

306 Wendy Guey

307 Hulk Hogan

308 Carl Lewis

309 John Wooden

310 Randy Couture

311 Andy Irons

312 Takeru Kobayashi

313 Leon Spinks

314 Jim Thorpe

315 Jerry Bailey SP

316 Adrian C. Anson

317 John M. Ward

318 Mike Kelly

319 Capt. Jack Glasscock

320 Aaron Hill

321 Derrick Turnbow

322 Nick Markakis

323 Brad Hawpe

324 Kevin Mench

325 John Lackey SP

326 Chester A. Arthur

327 Ulysses S. Grant

328 Abraham Lincoln

329 Grover Cleveland

330 Benjamin Harrison

331 Theodore Roosevelt

332 Rutherford B. Hayes

333 Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck

334 Kaiser Wilhelm

335 Queen Victoria SP

336 Pope Leo

337 Thomas Edison

338 Orville Wright

339 Wilbur Wright

340 Nathaniel Hawthorne

341 Herman Melville

342 Stonewall Jackson

343 Robert E. Lee

344 Andrew Carnegie

345 John Rockefeller SP

346 Bob Fitzsimmons

347 Billy The Kid

348 Buffalo Bill

349 Jesse James

350 Statue Of Liberty