World Series!

The Cubs are in the World Series!

Hey...stop laughing....be nice!

Last Saturday I showed the Cubs 1999 Victory set, which gave me an excuse to use a word that hasn't been used much in the Cubs world this season.

Today, a phrase used even less...World Series.

Fleer 1970 World Series.

Topps sued Fleer out of the baseball card business in 1963. But that didn't mean that they were going to stay completely out of the baseball business. In the late '60s they put out team logo patches.

And in 1970, today's featured set was released. The set title, World Series, says it all: there are 66 cards in the set, one for each World Series through 1969. The cards feature the colorful work of artist Robert G. Laughlin. Laughin had self-produced a black and white version of the set a few years earlier. Fleer had him update his work and add some color for their 1970 release.

Did I say that the artwork was colorful? I mean it was colorful! These cards have great eye appeal, even after forty years.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but the Cubs are featured on ten cards. Yup, the Cubs have been in ten World Series. In fact, the Cubs played in ten of the first 41 World Series...that's just about 1/4th. By 1945, the only NL team with more series appearances than the Cubs were the Giants, with 11. Of course, since 1945 the Cubs have not made another Series appearance.

The backs of the cards had a write-up on the series. An interesting note is that Fleer used the names of retired players in the write-ups, but no active players were mentioned by name. That was not a problem with the Cubs cards, but it forced the writer to be creative on some of the later cards.

Here are your ten 1970 Cubs World Series cards.

Fleer released another version of the set in 1971, and I'll have those cards on Monday.