It’s what I look forward to each year — the new Allen & Ginter baseball card set issued by Topps.

It’s the kind of set that satisfies my love for history, variety and off-the-wall surprises.

This is the fifth version of A&G, and Topps continues its winning formula. The basic design and format remain the same, although the fronts of this year’s cards feature a color sketch of the player that is feathered into a surrounding background that has a light greenish tint. In previous years, the card fronts were white or off-white. This year’s cards also have a white border.

A hobby box consists of 24 packs, with eight cards to a pack. Baseball players remain the focus, but historical figures and world champions remain an intriguing part of the set. What other set can boast cards of Lucy, the skeletal remains of a woman who lived more than 3 million years ago? Or Disc dog champion Rory? Or even Hubertus Wawra, the fire-eating world record holder?

Other cards of interest include “Deadliest Catch” star Sig Hansen, Area 51 and world archery champion Randy Oitker.

The hobby box I sampled contained 136 of the 350-card base set. Each pack contained a This Day In History insert, along with a mini card. Some of those minis were parallels, with regular or Allen & Ginter ad backs (or there were even the more ornate black border parallels). Others were subsets like National Animals, Lords of Olympus, Monsters of the Mesozoix, Sailors of the Seven Seas and the World’s Greatest Wordsmiths.

Hobby boxes contain a boxloader. The one I sampled had an N43 card of Jimmy Rollins. Other boxes will have the larger Cabinet boxloaders, which includes several U.S. Presidents. My favorite would be the card including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Each hobby box promises three “sizzle” cards, ranging from relics, autographs, printing plates, cut signatures or rip cards.

The rip cards (found only in hobby boxes and numbered 351 to 401) have created the most buzz, due to the late addition of card No. 401 — the card of Nationals pitching sensation Stephen Strasburg, which has been selling for simply ridiculously high amounts on eBay (up into four-figure territory) and other auction sites.

The hobby box I sampled contained three relics: a game-used jersey card of Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, and bat cards of the Orioles’ Brian Roberts and the Angels’ Kendry Morales. This year’s relic cards are brighter, with a red-orange hue surrounding the mini card.

A&G also continues its DNA series, with 1/1 framed cards of famous historical figures, including hair strands from people like Beethoven, Lincoln, John and Jackie Kennedy, Andrew Jackson, John Adams, Ronald Reagan, Charles Dickens, Alexander Hamilton and England’s King Edward VII.

A 20-card set of cut signature 1/1 autographs include eight U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama, Jefferson, Franklin Pierce, James Garfield and James Madison. The set also includes a cut autograph of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Strasburg mini has driven up the price of hobby boxes, but the boxes are still flying off the shelves. This year’s A&G set stacks up well against its predecessors, with some interesting, fascinating cards.