Most Wanted List - Now with Kids!

Certain cards catch my eye for various reasons.  Sometimes it is a great design or color scheme.  Other times it is the photography or a funny pose.  But I will always take a second look at a card with a kid in it. 

Even though kids play sports, watch sports, love sports, buy cards, trade cards, and collect cards you don't see too many kids ON sports cards.  Those precious square inches on the front of a piece of cardboard are reserved for the MEN -- the modern-day warriors who perform at the highest level in the games that they play and entertain millions with their skill.  Since their on-field personas can be so tough, it is easy to forget that many of these guys are family men with a "real life" off-the-field. 

All that brings me to this card:

2010 Allen and Ginter #287 Drew Brees

I love this card because it captures a moment that I remember so well.  The picture for this card is from the celebration after the New Orleans Saints won Super Bowl XLIV over the Indianapolis Colts.  The Saints had scored 15 points in the 4th quarter to win the game.  As the confetti rained down, all the players were celebrating and a big crowd was gathered on the field. 

When I saw this happen on that Sunday, I was first drawn in because the little tiny kid was wearing gigantic earphones (who doesn't love ridiculous proportions, right?).  However, a second look at that really touched me.  Here was Drew Brees, the winning QB -- He could celebrate with anyone, and who does he do it with?  His one-year-old son, Baylen.  Wow. 

My first son had been born three months earlier, so while he was new I definitely knew what it was like to have that fatherly-love.  It humanized Brees to me in a way that otherwise I never would have seen.  At that moment he was just like any other daddy who was done with work and wanted to see his family at the end of a long day. 

That's why I love this card.  Well, besides the giant headphones, of course.  :-)  However, I still don't have it!  Therefore, I am putting it as card #1 on my newly-christened "Most Wanted" List (see the bar at the top).  If anyone has this one for trade, please let me know.  I will be steadily adding more cards to this list over the next few weeks. 

For another article about that moment:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/a-quarterback-and-his-boy/

For a gallery of Baylen/Drew Brees pics from that day:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/07/drew-brees-son-baylen-cel_n_452946.html?slidenumber=hCi%2B1CLIcwQ%3D&slideshow#slide_image