I missed pretty much an entire day of life earlier this week when the smoke from all of the fires in the western half of the United States triggered an allergy flare-up for me. I've been pretty heavily-medicated ever since, just to keep me upright enough to go to work. My car is also in the shop being repaired from the little incident I had in San Diego, so my morning schedule has been thrown off by either riding my motorcycle to work or bumming a ride from my wife after the kids head for school. This weekend figures to be busy as well, with me working, the kids at a babysitter, and my wife out of town. I guess I shouldn't whine too much. Everyone has a busy life, and I am pretty blessed in all aspects. It's nice to have this blog as an outlet to vent a little bit on, though.
One of my favorite things to do when a new Allen & Ginter checklist comes out is comb the autograph and relic sections for non-baseball subjects who I'd like to add to my collection. There are usually a few folks each year whose cards I try to track down, usually celebrities, athletes from other sports, and oddball inclusions. So far I've picked up a handful of cards from the 2017 Allen & Ginter release, and I thought I'd show them off.
First up is a relic card from Eric LeGrand, a football player who was severely injured during a college game in 2010. He was paralyzed from the neck down, and worked hard to regain the ability to breathe on his own. He has since regained some of the feeling in his shoulders and arms, and has received several awards for the determination with which he pursued his recovery, including an honorary contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance, a Subway athlete sponsorship, and induction into the WWE Hall of Fame by being presented the Warrior Award. I believe LeGrand also has an autograph in the set, but I haven't tracked one down yet.
I'm not a huge Shatner fan, to be honest, but a William Shatner relic was available from the same seller as some other cards I purchased, and for a couple of dollars I decided to grab it. I've always been more of a Star Wars guy than a Star Trek guy, and I just never felt the love for Shatner. I loved me some Leonard Nimoy, though.
Brooke Hogan is someone who is more famous for being famous than anything else. She is the daughter of Hulk Hogan, and has made some attempts at a television and music career. I don't actively follow the lives of the rich and famous, but I probably know more than I ought to about celebrity goings-on. I've thought about picking up some of Hogan's autographs in various Panini products, but this Allen & Ginter on-card framed autograph presents a lot better than most of those do.
Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez was the big name on this year's checklist that I wanted to track down, and I was able to get her autograph pretty soon after Allen & Ginter released. The American gymnastics teams of the last couple Olympics have been a pretty big deal, and I like chasing down their cards when they appear in Allen & Ginter.
Sticking with Laurie Hernandez, I also got her relic card from the set. This has a plain pink swatch in it, which is fine with me. I saw a couple of relics with sequins and stuff on them, but those went for big bucks and I was happy to get this one without breaking the bank.
There are still a few cards from this year's set that I want to track down, but I am trying to wait until my Gint-a-Cuffs box comes in. My order that includes that box is held up due to a delay in the release of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, so I still have a couple of weeks to wait. Gint-a-Cuffs might be over by the time I get my cards.
