Stadium Club Finally Complete!

By my count there are 220 Cubs cards in the base set of Stadium Club during its run from 1991-2003 and 2008. Putting the team sets together was fairly easy. Most were available on Ebay or else I picked up singles through Sportlots. I started in the spring of 2009 and I think it took me only two weeks to get all of the cards....

....except for one stinking card!

By the end of its run, the Stadium Club sets were getting fairly small. In 2000 there were only eight Cubs and in 2001 the number shrunk to a mere five Cubs.

Even worse, in 2002 there were just three Cubs. You would think it would be easy to get a set with only three cards. But no! Topps was doing the stupid short print numbered card thing in the base set. One of the three Cubs, Juan Cruz, had a SP card. And it was a pain to find. Actually, I found it right away at Burbank Sportscards. But if you know anything about Burbank, you know they are notorious for overpricing their cards. I was not going to pay $20 for a card of Juan Cruz. Ernie Banks or Billy Williams, maybe; but not Juan Cruz.

So I just saved an Ebay search for 2002 Stadium Club Cruz and waited. And waited....and waited. It took 18 months for one to finally pop up. I set my sniper and watch, waited, and hoped.....and won!

I got the card for $9.49. That still seems ridiculously high for a card of Juan Cruz, but it was less than half of Burbank's price and I didn't want to wait another year and a half.



So here it is. My 220th and final Stadium Club Cubs card. It's #1236/2999. I would have thought more of these would have shown up. After all, 2999 is still a lot of cards. But now that I have it, I've got that hole in my binder filled and can move on to other more important cards and players.