Happy Birthday to Me

Well, actually it's not my birthday, but it is Wrigley Wax's birthday. One year ago my first post went up. It's hard to believe a year has gone by. I've enjoyed sharing my cards and my Cubs passion. I hope you have gotten something out of it too.

When I started, I had a few goals. One, I hoped to get fifty people a day to read this. Yesterday I picked up Follower #52. So I guess that goal has been accomplished.

Another goal was to have one post a day. That, too, has been taken care of. In fact, I'm at little over 400 posts for the year. I was most concerned about this goal, not knowing if I would have enough to write about every day. That has not been a problem at all.

A third goal was to use the blog as a reason (or excuse!) to keep adding to my Cubs collection. That goal has been reached, and over-reached! The next couple days I will review what I've added to the collection over the past twelve months.

To all of you who take the time to read this, thank you! It's been a great year and I look forward to another good one in 2010.

And finally, for those of you who missed the big debut a year ago, here is my very first post.

FLOATING HEADS

Floating Heads was a name I was considering for this blog. Those of you familiar with Cubs cards from the 1970's would get the connection. But the rest of you would be left scatching your non-floating head. So let me explain...

Topps began issuing team picture cards with the 1956 set. This continued through the 1981 set (except for 1968 which had only 13 and 1969 which had none). The players were usually arranged in the traditional team photo pose - first row sitting on ground with legs crossed, second row sitting, third row standing, fourth row standing on benches.

But for some reason, for nine years in the 70's and 80's, the Cubs team cards were not the usual team pose. Instead, they were composite pictures of floating heads. No other team was featured this way, only the Cubs. The big question is why??

Some theories...
--Playing all day games at Wrigley, the players were always too hung over to come in early for a team picture
--The teammates couldn't stand one another and wouldn't be able to pose for a picture without getting into a fight
--The team owner was too cheap to have a team picture taken (instead, it was ...here Topps, take these team head shots and make your own dang team picture)
--Submit your theory here:__________________________

Actually, many of the floating heads pictures Topps used were team composites the Cubs sold at the ballpark. The 1970 picture used on the 1971 card was available at Wrigley Field souvenir stands for all of 75 cents. I have the 1969 version (although Topps didn't use it on the 1970 card, they had a picture with the team in the regular pose).

When Topps started using team pictures again in 2001, the Cubs picture was the standard pose. No more floating heads. If Topps Heritage ever makes it up to using the 1971 cards, I wonder what they will do with the Cubs? It would be cool to see them bring back the floating heads.

Anyway, here they are in all of their float-tasic glory, the floating Cubs heads.