2012 Series Two Cubs

My series two cards arrived over the weekend!  Like I did with series one, I bought all my Cubs, inserts, and complete set from brentandbecca.  He busted a whopping 50 cases of this stuff.  Getting everything from one seller has made it much simpler for me.

The Cubs were in the re-tooling, dumping mode over the winter, which left them very short in series one--- only seven cards.  As I figured, that was fixed in series two, as a total of 16 Cubs cards were included.  I'll show the cards in three different groups...

Returning players  Nine of the cards were of players who were with the team last year. That means no photoshopping

Jeff Baker, signing at autograph.  I wonder who the guy in the beard is?  Does he know he showed up on a baseball card? 

Cool action shot of Darwin Barney sliding into second base.  Even better is the stirrup action he's got going.

Speedster Tony Campana make a catch against the ivy.  It's the third "ivy catch" card in the set (Byrd and Johnson from series one were the others).  

Ryan Dempster, on the road in my best guess, Cincinnati, based on the empty red seats.

Bryan LaHair taking a cut at Wrigley.

Trade bait Carlos Marmol on the mound against the Nationals on the 4th of July.  Would it surprise you to find out that Marmol blew this game?  He came in a tied game in the bottom of the tenth, allowed Jayson Werth to steal third, and then threw a wild pitch that let Werth score the winning run.

Jeff Samardzija tossing against the Pirates.  He's become a decent starter this year.  As long as he keeps that up, I'll use his correct name instead of calling him Jeff Spellcheck.

Alfonso Soriano batting against the Cardinals.  Pay attention to his uniform number; I'll come back to it a little further down.

Kerry Wood, celebrating something.

New guys, Photoshop or No Photoshop?  

 

David DeJesus...PHOTOSHOP...remember that Soriano number I mentioned?  Look at DeJesus' number.  Look familiar?  DeJesus actually wears #9.

Rafael Dolis...No Photoshop...This is a shot from picture day in Arizona.  Dolis turned into Marmol II in his brief stint as closer and is now in AAA.

Paul Maholm...Photoshop...I think (that's why I didn't use all capitals).  

Ian Stewart..PHOTOSHOP...The white border around "CHICAGO" is wrong; but this was a decent try.  And the dirt was a nice touch too.

Chris Volstad...No Photoshop...The pinstripes look really good.  Too bad Volstad's performance didn't look as good.  He's in AAA right now, compliments of his 0-6, 7.46 ERA.

NEVER PLAYED WITH THE CUBS.. This is the third group, guys who have never even played with the Cubs.

Anthony Rizzo...PHOTOSHOP...This card was also included in the factory team set, and its a bad Photoshop job.  The Cubs patch is way too small.  Also, the Cubs don't wear the style of helmet he's got on.  But Rizzo is tearing up AAA and should be in Chicago before the end of the season.

Dave Sappelt...PHOTOSHOP..Problems with this card include red outlining around his number instead of white, the wrong type of helmet, and the Cubs logo on the pants in too big and in the wrong spot.  The Cubs got Sappelt in the Sean Marshall trade with the Reds.  He's hitting .226 in Iowa right now.  If he doesn't improve, this may be a card of a player that never played an inning for the team he's shown with.