Enough of the faux vintage cards from O-Pee-Chee. It's back to the real thing.
Deuces are wild on this page: two hatless, two airbrushed, and two ex-Cubs
#177 - Ron Reed A two sport player, Reed played for the Pistons from 1965- 1967 and averaged 8 points per game. In baseball, he was an All Star in 1968, with an 11-10 record. In 1969 he won a career high 18 games for the division winning Braves, yet didn't make the All Star team.
#178 - Ray Oyler Hatless Ray is wearing a Tigers uniform, a team he played on for four seasons. After being with the World Champion Tigers in 1968, he moved to the hapless expansion Pilots in 1969, going from the penthouse to the outhouse.
#179 - Don Pavletich This back up catcher spend his entire career in the Reds organization before being traded to the Sox after the 1968 season. He, like many other Reds in the set, had their picture taken at Wrigley Field in 1967. The Wrigley identifier in the picture is the upper deck grandstand and roof to the left of his face.
#180 - Willie Horton Willie had a great year in 1968 for the Tigers, slugging 36 homers and finishing fourth in MVP voting. He's shown taking a cut at spring training.
#181 - Mel Nelson This is the second time that a Cardinal card follows a Tiger card in the set. Two strange things about that; these were the World Series opponents in 1968 and the teams share the same card color scheme, yellow circle, red last names. There are very few instances in the set where the same color scheme is in consecutive cards. Mel Nelson lasted on 8 games in 1969 before his big league career was done.
#182 - Bill Rigney Bill was the Angels first skipper in 1961 and by 1969 was still with the team. Expansion teams aren't that patient anymore. The Angels ran out of patience in 1969 and fired him after 40 games. He resurfaced as the Twins manager in 1970 and ed them to a division title.
#183 - Don Shaw Don's Mets cap is airbrushed. He was one of many young arms the Mets had and they felt he was expendable. They were right as he went 2-5 with a 5.21 ERA for the Expos working out of the bullpen
#184 - Roberto Pena This is a really old picture of Pena in a Pirates uniform, as he was traded by the Bucs to the Cubs in 1964. The light hitting shortstop was given a chance with the Cubs in '64, but lost the job to future all star Don Kessinger. He hit .250 for the Padres and was there staring shortstop in 1969, but was traded to Oakland after the season
#185 - Tom Phoebus Phoebus is the forgotten starter on the Orioles. He was not Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, or Mike Cuellar, but did an adequate job for the O's, winning 15 in 1968 and following it up with 14 wins in 1969. But in 1970, he slipped to 5-5 and his career was in free fall. He ended up with the Cubs in 1972 going 3-3 out of the pen. He was finished after that.
Overall Set Totals (player cards only)
Hall of Famers - 11
Hatless - 43
Airbrush - 35
Cubs (includes past, present, or future) - 30
In late June a settlement was reached between Topps and Upper Deck in regards to a lawsuit Topps filed challenging Upper Deck's use of Topps' designs on O-Pee-Chee cards. This site says that the agreement calls for Upper Deck to stop selling OPC after July 16.
Well, tomorrow is drop dead day, July 16. What will happen?
It this article accurate? Does anyone have more information on this? Will stores be able to continue to sell existing stock or do they have to pull it off the shelves? How much OPC stock is already out there? How much will they have to destroy? And what will it do to the value of existing cards?
Please jump in with any information you've got.
On Monday, when posting about the O-Pee-Chee Cubs team, I complained about the posed shots against a school picture background instead of using a ballpark. Well, if you're going to complain about something, you should be willing to do something about it.
I did something.
This is the boring original.
And here is my version of the 2009 O-Pee-Chee Derrek Lee card, at Wrigley Field, the way cards are supposed to look
A while back I wrote about long-time Cubs clubhouse manager Yosh Kawano. You my readers know more about him than current Cubs security staffers, who recently tossed Yosh out of the park. According to this Sun-Times article, Cubs brass pledged to apologize to Yosh for their over-zealous security staff.
You would think the security personnel would recognize a man who is pictured in a huge banner hanging in the concourse.
I haven't heard any rumblings about an OPC update set. With all the litigation, I would doubt very much that there will be anything more. The base Cubs set was missing some players who have made decent contributions to the team, so with the magic of photoshop, I added them to the OPC roster. Take a look...
Mike Fontenot, while his batting average is down, he did a decent job filling in for Aramis Ramirez at third base. Now that he is back at second, I hope he can get back to hitting.
Jake Fox, recently called up again from Iowa after hitting over .400, he has shown some decent pop with his bat. The problem is his defense. He played some third when Ramirez was hurt, but first base is his best position and that is filled. He is a real liability in the outfield. And now with Soto out for a month, he will be doing some catching. He'll make a great DH when we get to the World Series, though.
Angel Guzman has been a nice addition to the bullpen. He's turning into the seventh inning guy and doing a decent job.
Koyie Hill returned to the Cubs this spring and won the backup catcher job. He's no Hank White, but is adequate in his role. Hill is really going to have to pick up his game as he steps in as the everyday catcher until Soto is healthy.
Micah Hoffpauir, see Jake Fox. Decent bat, no glove.
Sean Marshall has moved from the rotation to the pen and has done a great job as our LOOGY (and recently as our left fielder!).
Randy Wells has been a very pleasant suprise since moving into the rotation when Sean Marshall was put in the bullpen. He has pitched in hard luck, not picking up many wins, but with a fantastic ERA of 2.72.
Lou Piniella, this year, the kinder, gentler Lou, although I love the scowl on his face in this picture. I can't fault Lou for the teams decline this year. I put the blame squarely on the offense, or lack thereof.
Hope you liked them. Did I miss anyone?
Well, actually, tied for fourth.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – July 13, 2009 – As Major League Baseball heads into the All-Star Game, the New York Yankees find themselves on top as the favorite baseball team among those who follow Major League Baseball for the seventh year in a row. The Boston Red Sox move up one spot to 2nd place while the Atlanta Braves drop one spot to #3. Rounding out the top five are the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers both tied for 4th spot on the list. Last year the Cubs were at number 4 and the Dodgers were at number 5.
These are some of the findings of The Harris Poll, a new nationwide survey of 2,177 U.S. adults surveyed online between June 8 and 15, 2009 by Harris Interactive.
Read the entire article.
Despite the fact that Upper Deck had reruns on many of these cards, I went ahead and put together the O-Pee-Chee Cubs team set. There are 21 cards listed on the team checklist. About half feature a posed shot. I suppose this was to give them an old-time look. But the poses are a massive failure. Back in the day, the pictures were all taken at a ballpark. One of my quirky things is to try and figure out what stadium the picture was taken at. I can pretty much figure out any MLB park, and a few of the spring training sites. But these poses are all against a very boring background. I want baseball cards in baseball stadiums, not looking like its picture day at school (I wonder if the players all got the free black plastic comb?).
One old school feature these cards are missing is the miscut cards that were so common years ago. These are all perfectly centered, unlike their '70's counterparts. Apparently printing technology has dramatically improved over the past 30 years. That is a good thing.
Well, anyway, here they are in alphabetical order.
Team Checklist - I like that they used a picture of Wrigley Field. Too bad they didn't use a picture from 2008. This was taken in 2006 or 2007, since the bleachers are expanded, but the extra seats added past the Cubs dugout for 2008 aren't there. Still, in my biased opinion, this is the best looking baseball scene in MLB today.
Milton Bradley, with the old-school bat coming at you pose.
Ryan Dempster, gripping the ball against the seams. Hey Ryan, watch out for that dugout railing!
Kosuke Fukudome, ho hum, very boring
Joey Gathright, no longer with the Cubs.
Kevin Gregg, Unfortunately, still with the Cubs
Rich Harden, in action
Reed Johnson, showing off his stirrups. I wish he would pull them a little higher and show more stirrup and white sock. Do any of you also follow Uni Watch?
Derrek Lee, Looking good as usual.
Ted Lilly, our lone All-Star representative this year.
Carlos Marmol, who has forgotten how to throw strikes.
David Patton, a rule five pick who has to stay on the roster all season or go back to the Rockies. He hasn't been all that impressive, and he recently and conveniently got injured and went on the DL.
Aramis Ramirez, shown running, something he is not known for.
Jeff Samardzija, Spellcheck had been on the Des Moines shuttle this year, now in his second stint with the Cubs.
Alfonso Soriano, rounding the bases after a home run.
Geovany Soto, taking his lead.
Ryan Theriot, fininishing his slide into third that he started in UD Series I and continued with in Series II.
Luis Viscaino, no longer with the Cubs. This is the player they got for Jason Marquis, who now leads the NL in wins. Oops!
Carlos Zambrano
The two moment cards feature Zambrano at the All Star game (when the Cubs sent 8 players) and a July 31 win that kept the Cubs in first place. The patch on his hat tells me the Zambrano picture was really taken at the All Star game. The date on the second card in July 31 and on that date the Cubs crushed the Brewers 11-4 at Miller Park. The blue wall in the background matches Miller Park, so UD could actually have this one right.
