Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,346 Cubs cards from 108 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1954 Bowman #29 Johnny Klippstein  Johnny did not have a very good year at all.  He was 4-11 with an ERA of 5.29.  His appearance were split pretty evenly between the rotation and the bullpen and he was lousy at both.  But he's got a very nice looking autograph, so kudos to him for that.

1980s: 1986 Fleer #382 Chris Speier  For a while during the 1985 season the Cubs had old '70s shortstops market cornered with both Speier and Larry Bowa.  Speier stuck around through the 1986 season, but was replaced by Shawon Dunston.

1990s: 1990 Fleer Traded #10 Hector Villanueva  Hector put up decent numbers in his rookie season of 1990, hitting .272.  That didn't really matter, though.  What any Cub fan remembers about him was they way that Harry Caray would try to pronounce his name.

2000s: 2006 Upper Deck #87 Aramis Ramirez  Doesn't he look like Turk from Scrubs?

2010s:  2015 Finest #37 Jorge Soler  It will be interesting to see what the Cubs do with him when he comes off the DL.  The outfield is getting pretty crowded.

60 Wins... Caution

Yesterday I had some recent history of the Cubs quest for 60 wins.

Today, I have a cautionary tale.

Prior to this season, the last time the Cubs got to 60 wins in 100 games was 1977.

They picked up their 60th win in game 99 in dramatic fashion on July 28, 1977.  I wrote more about that game here.  

But the rest of the season didn't go so well.  In their final 63 games, the Cubs were 21-42. They finished in 4th place, 20 games off the pace of the Phillies.

The 2016 team has way more talent than the '77 squad.  I don't expect the '16 Cubs to tank like the '77 team.

But history has taught me to be cautious.

60 Wins

On Tuesday the Cubs picked up their 60th win of the season.  It took them 100 games to do that.

A tweet yesterday by @Wrigleyblog gave the Cubs record when they picked up win #60 over the past five seasons.  It's been an amazing climb.

2012: 60-100...160 games to reach 60 wins

2013: 60-80....140 games to reach 60 wins, a 20 game improvement

2014: 60-74, 134 games to reach 60 wins, a 6 game improvement

2015: 60-48, 108 games to reach 60 wins, a 26 game improvement

2016: 60-40, 100 games to reach 60 wins, an 8 game improvement

The improvement from year to year is 20, 6, 28, and 8 games.  There is a big gain, then a smaller one the following year.  This year was a small gain, so if the pattern holds, next year they should have a gain of about 20 games, winning #60 after 80 games.

60-20 in 2017?  Sure....get to work on that now Theo!

Stadium Club Over the Years

Last week I put my 2016 Stadium Club Cubs into their binder and I took some time to page through the entire book.  It now contains 17 years worth of Stadium Club.

What struck me is that when the cards are full bleed, the design options become more limited.  For most years, the only design question is how to show the player's name. For the first ten years, that all that was on the front of the card...name and a Stadium Club logo.  Team names didn't arrive until the 2001 edition.  But even with the arrival of the team name, a team logo was used only twice.  The design mantra seems to be to keep it very simple.

In 2015 the mantra had an addition...keep it simple and add smoke to the bottom of the card.

Below is a time with the 17-year run.  From each year I picked the first card alphabetically that had a vertical design.  That's why use see lots of Assenmacher, Banks, Adams, and Alcantara.

All I've Got of Him: Mark Grace

It's been widely discussed how recent HOF inductee Mike Piazza was drafted by the Dodgers in the 60th round of the 1988 draft, the 1390th player selected.

Today's featured Cub player has a similar story.  Mark Grace was selected by the Cubs in the 24th round of the 1985 draft.  There were 621 other players taken ahead of him.  Grace won't make it to Cooperstown, but he would qualify for the Hall of Pretty Good.  A lifetime average of .303 with 2445 hits is not too shabby.

Grace's Cubs career ran from 1988 - 2000, which lines him up smack dab in the middle of the junk wax era.  And being a star player, he ended up in just about every junk set.  My Grace total is 361 cards.  Subtract 17 cards that came after he retired, and you average about 26 cards per year.  That's a lot of cards, and a lot of junk!

Ginter Binders

I'm ready with my binder as soon as the cards arrive.

I'm hoping that by Friday the pages will be full.

I keep my Topps sets in the big 2" blue baseball binders.  But since Ginter sets are smaller, they get generic white 1½" binders.

However, I can't keep the binders looking generic, I've designed a front cover and spine.  I use the Ginter logo for each year, so each binder has its own unique look.

Here's a peek at each of the 11 Ginter binder covers:

2012 Heritage Barney No Position Update

I'm still tracking Ebay sales of the 2012 Heritage Darwin Barney no position variation card.  One was listed in late June with a BIN of $49.99 and someone snapped it up rather quickly.

 By my unofficial tracking, this is the 38th card to be sold via Ebay since March, 2012.  The average price of the 38 is $92.66.  The high was $325 and the low was $24 (paid by me!).

Another seller has been listing and relisting the card for the past month or so.  It was first listed for $350.  There were no takers.

Since then, each time it's been relisted with a lower price.  Here is the most recent, which ended yesterday.

Still no takers at $185.  I'm expecting it will be relisted again at a lower price, several times, before it finally sell.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,345 Cubs cards from 108 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1978 Hostess #69 Manny Trillo  Topps produced the cards for Hostess and it looks like....

 ...they took the picture for the Topps set at the same time.

1980s: 1988 Donruss MVP #10 Andre Dawson  Donruss had a set called MVP but this is the only card in the 1988 set of the reigning NL MVP.  

1990s: 1996 Bazooka #90 Brian McRae  I love the could of dust after his slide.  You don't see that any more, with the modern clay infields.  Bring back dirt!

2000s: 2000 Opening Day #24 Sammy Sosa Remember when Opening Day had big giant foil logos?  The giant logo matches nicely with Sammy's giant head.

2010s: 2016 Opening Day #47 Kyle Schwarber Another Opening Day card, giving us the chance to see how boring the look of the set has become.  Opening Day = Foil-less flagship.

There's a New Shirriff in Town

I've added #101 to the Billy Williams PSA master list.

Sharp readers may say, "Hey, we've already seen the 1962 Salada Tea coin.  What gives?"

But this isn't a Salada Tea coin.  It is it's Canadian cousin.  The up North version was given away in bags of Shirriff potato chips.

Here's a look at both the Salada and Shirriff coins:

 

The backs are, obviously, different as the brand name was on the back.

It didn't scan well, but in the middle is says "Packed in Shirriff potato chips."  You can make out the words "potato chips" on the coin.

I couldn't find much at all about Shirriff.  It looks like the company disappeared some time in the late '60s.  Anyone have any more information about them?

I've now reached 80% of the list, with 101/127 now in hand.

Where's Kyle?

Yesterday I read a couple of interesting things about the Cubs #5 starter, Kyle Hendricks.

• He had the major's third lowest ERA this season, 2.27
• Since June 19, his ERA is a major league best 0.72.  Yes, 0.72

Not bad for a #5 starter!

His three season career numbers are 24-15 with and ERA of 3.13.  Those are pretty impressive stats for a guy with a fastball that will only hit 90 on a good day.  He proves that there's more to pitching than just speed...brains, location, and changing speed are important too.

Yet this year, and for his entire career for that matter, Topps has basically ignored him.  He has had cards in Heritage and the flagship set.

That's it.

No Bowman, Ginter, Gypsy Queen, Chrome, or anything else.

I have a total of seven cards of Hendricks.  And two of them are from the factory team set, meaning they are identical to the flagship.

Hopefully, Hendricks continues to put up the same numbers  and Topps starts to include him in more products.

Waiting For Ginter...

Topps released the 2016 Allen and Ginter checklist about a week ago.  The cards are scheduled to come out tomorrow.  The wait is just about over.

After the flagship, Ginter is probably my favorite set.  It's the only other brand that I get the full set in addition to my Cubs sets.  I've already got my order placed and in a week or so I should have Ginter set #11.

To help out fellow team collectors, I've got the checklist below, sorted by team.  Dodger fans...there are two players listed for #120...not sure how that will sort out.  Also, Yankee fans, Rob Refsnyder has two cards listed.

Angels
Kole Calhoun	148
Kaleb Cowart	231
Andrew Heaney	122
Albert Pujols	211
Huston Street	193
Mike Trout	194
Astros
Jose Altuve	295
Carlos Correa	56
Matt Duffy	220
Evan Gattis	118
Carlos Gomez	200
Dallas Keuchel	89
Lance McCullers	288
Collin McHugh	76
George Springer	197
Tyler White	238
A’s
Billy Burns	173
Jose Canseco	250
Khris Davis	215
Sean Doolittle	347
Dennis Eckersley	192
Rollie Fingers	19
Sonny Gray	267
Rickey Henderson	296
Josh Reddick	196
Marcus Semien	137
Stephen Vogt	313
Blue Jays
Jose Bautista	281
Josh Donaldson	285
Edwin Encarnacion	80
Russell Martin	307
Roberto Osuna	340
Kevin Pillar	77
Drew Storen	204
Troy Tulowitzki	272
Erick Aybar	223
Braves
Orlando Cepeda	284
Freddie Freeman	58
Tom Glavine	9
Ender Inciarte	33
Hector Olivera	232
Julio Teheran	217
Ryan Weber	316
Brewers
Ryan Braun	2
Jonathan Lucroy	124
Paul Molitor	279
Jimmy Nelson	95
Robin Yount	117
Cardinals
Bob Gibson	206
Randal Grichuk	328
Matt Holliday	144
Carlos Martinez	103
Brandon Moss	239
Stephen Piscotty	251
Stephen Piscotty	338
Ozzie Smith	253
Michael Wacha	283
Kolten Wong	18
Cubs
Jake Arrieta	142
Kris Bryant	112
Andre Dawson	287
Carl Edwards	125
Dexter Fowler	68
Jason Heyward	156
John Lackey	26
Anthony Rizzo	260
Hector Rondon	55
Addison Russell	23
Ryne Sandberg	180
Kyle Schwarber	97
Jorge Soler	1
Ben Zobrist	21
Diamondbacks
Welington Castillo	311
Patrick Corbin	310
Brandon Drury	225
Zack Godley	330
Paul Goldschmidt	39
Luis Gonzalez	135
Zack Greinke	129
Shelby Miller	343
Peter O'Brien	326
David Peralta	38
A.J. Pollock	271
Yasmany Tomas	309
Brad Ziegler	31
Dodgers
Andre Ethier	329
Adrian Gonzalez	143
Yasmani Grandal	304
Kenley Jansen	258
Scott Kazmir	334
Howie Kendrick	11
Clayton Kershaw	299
Zach Lee	163
Kenta Maeda	120
Frankie Montas	174
Joc Pederson	133
Yasiel Puig	319
Corey Seager	121
Trayce Thompson	16
Justin Turner	108
Julio Urias	120
Alex Wood	181
Giants
Brandon Belt	207
Trevor Brown	302
Madison Bumgarner	278
Santiago Casilla	315
Brandon Crawford	171
Matt Duffy	27
Joe Panik	208
Buster Posey	189
Jeff Samardzija	167
Indians
Roberto Alomar	69
Michael Brantley	149
Carlos Carrasco	261
Yan Gomes	332
Jason Kipnis	96
Corey Kluber	297
Carlos Santana	205
Mariners
Robinson Cano	84
Steve Cishek	337
Nelson Cruz	165
Felix Hernandez	265
Hisashi Iwakuma	65
Adam Lind	233
Ketel Marte	49
Edgar Martinez	188
Taijuan Walker	331
Marlins
Justin Bour	214
Wei-Yin Chen	303
Jose Fernandez	88
Dee Gordon	273
Marcell Ozuna	292
Martin Prado	147
A.J. Ramos	51
J.T. Realmuto	48
Giancarlo Stanton	262
Mets
Gary Carter	224
Michael Conforto	98
Travis d'Arnaud	349
Jacob deGrom	275
Lucas Duda	127
Curtis Granderson	30
Matt Harvey	276
Steven Matz	92
Mike Piazza	93
Matt Reynolds	71
Neil Walker	176
David Wright	83
Nationals
Gio Gonzalez	139
Bryce Harper	254
Daniel Murphy	50
Jonathan Papelbon	293
Anthony Rendon	266
Ben Revere	46
Max Scherzer	170
Pedro Severino	318
Stephen Strasburg	282
Trea Turner	300
Trea Turner	342
Jayson Werth	35
Ryan Zimmerman	344
Orioles
Kevin Gausman	13
Adam Jones	86
Manny Machado	277
Brooks Robinson	131
Jonathan Schoop	175
Mark Trumbo	15
Padres
Alex Dickerson	105
Matt Kemp	136
Wil Myers	345
Colin Rea	141
Tyson Ross	301
James Shields	73
Phillies
Steve Carlton	350
Maikel Franco	269
Aaron Nola	102
Pirates
Roberto Clemente	320
Gerrit Cole	157
Josh Harrison	162
Jung Ho Kang	153
Starling Marte	256
Andrew McCutchen	183
Gregory Polanco	130
Rangers
Elvis Andrus	28
Adrian Beltre	169
Shin-Soo Choo	333
Yu Darvish	306
Delino DeShields	219
Ian Desmond	17
Andrew Faulkner	290
Prince Fielder	85
Joey Gallo	3
Cole Hamels	252
Luke Jackson	226
Nomar Mazara	222
Mitch Moreland	229
Shawn Tolleson	335
Rays
Chris Archer	257
Brad Boxberger	236
Alex Cobb	123
Corey Dickerson	47
Logan Forsythe	53
Kevin Kiermaier	291
Evan Longoria	146
Luke Maile	6
Brad Miller	115
Jake Odorizzi	43
Richie Shaffer	341
Drew Smyly	41
Steven Souza	164
Red Sox
Mookie Betts	184
Xander Bogaerts	264
Nomar Garciaparra	255
Brian Johnson	81
Craig Kimbrel	87
Ryan LaMarre	322
David Ortiz	151
Henry Owens	134
Dustin Pedroia	237
David Price	270
Hanley Ramirez	263
Jim Rice	57
Eduardo Rodriguez	109
Pablo Sandoval	346
Carl Yastrzemski	187
Reds
Jay Bruce	29
Caleb Cotham	140
Billy Hamilton	59
Raisel Iglesias	325
John Lamb	7
Devin Mesoraco	60
Joe Morgan	172
Jose Peraza	259
Brandon Phillips	155
Joey Votto	195
Kyle Waldrop	5
Rockies
Nolan Arenado	182
Charlie Blackmon	25
Miguel Castro	44
Dustin Garneau	79
Jon Gray	190
Nick Hundley	91
DJ LeMahieu	242
Jake McGee	72
Tom Murphy	336
Gerardo Parra	82
Jose Reyes	116
Trevor Story	12
Royals
Lorenzo Cain	111
Alcides Escobar	113
Alex Gordon	186
Eric Hosmer	150
Raul Mondesi	327
Kendrys Morales	14
Mike Moustakas	75
Salvador Perez	339
Yordano Ventura	317
Tigers
Miguel Cabrera	61
Nick Castellanos	321
Guido Knudson	286
J.D. Martinez	185
Victor Martinez	323
Francisco Rodriguez	22
Justin Verlander	4
Jordan Zimmermann	40
Twins
Jose Berrios	78
Byron Buxton	104
Brian Dozier	74
Tyler Duffey	305
Max Kepler	24
Byung Ho Park	201
Glen Perkins	234
Trevor Plouffe	348
Miguel Sano	66
Ervin Santana	154
White Sox
Jose Abreu	54
Melky Cabrera	67
Adam Eaton	52
Carlton Fisk	199
Todd Frazier	94
Jose Quintana	289
David Robertson	178
Carlos Rodon	294
Chris Sale	274
Frank Thomas	268
Yankees
Carlos Beltran	312
Dellin Betances	62
Greg Bird	126
Starlin Castro	314
Aroldis Chapman	128
Roger Clemens	101
Jacoby Ellsbury	298
Brett Gardner	159
Chase Headley	70
Don Mattingly	168
Brian McCann	221
Andrew Miller	209
Paul O'Neill	280
Andy Pettitte	308
Michael Pineda	20
Rob Refsnyder	100
Rob Refsnyder	324
Alex Rodriguez	36
Gary Sanchez	152
Luis Severino	99
Masahiro Tanaka	218
Mark Teixeira	177
Champions
Monica Abbott	63
Anthony Anderson	191
Denise Austin	8
Michael Breed	210
Dwier Brown	245
Timothy Busfield	227
Colin Cowherd	228
Cuban Embassy	42
Dawn Spacecraft	37
Falcon 9	32
Mike Francesa	246
Pope Francis	247
Missy Franklin	202
Vinny G	161
Gennady Golovkin	119
Gravitational Waves	244
Mike Greenberg	145
Ernie Johnson	203
Orlando Jones	241
Steve Kerr	160
Rick Klein	34
Laurence Leavy	45
George Lopez	90
Jill Martin	248
Paul McBeth	249
Cord McCoy	138
Joe McKeehen	158
Jessica Mendoza	230
Jay Oakerson	243
Robert Raiola	240
Steve Schirripa	64
Ari Shaffir	198
Maria Sharapova	212
Jason Sklar	10
Randy Sklar	114
Morgan Spurlock	166
Steve Spurrier	106
Michele Steele	110
Leigh Steinberg	132
Matt Stonie	107
Hannah Storm	216
Heidi Watney	213
Jen Welter	179
Cheyenne Woods	235

All I've Got of Him: Bill Buckner

I've had Bill Buckner on my mind lately, so I thought I'd take a look at all I've got of him.

Buckner was with the Cubs from 1977 - 1984 and was very productive for most of those years, despite his gimpy wheels.  He was my favorite Cub during that time.  

In addition to cards in the Topps sets, and later, Fleer and Donruss, Buckner showed up in several other sets.  He was one of the few big names on the team, leading to his inclusion in sets like Hostess, Kelloggs, and Drakes.

Buckner was an extremely intense player.  He left it all on the field.  Yet in almost every one of the posed shots, he's got a nice smile.

I've got 56 cards of Billy Buck.  Of those 46 are from his playing days and the other ten are after he retired.

Thank You Tom For the New Barney Autograph

P-Town Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year has to be one of the most generous bloggers out there.  I am constantly seeing posts from other bloggers showing the haul that Tom sent their way.

Today, I've got one of those posts.

The haul was small, but doesn't quality trump quantity?  He sent me one card, this one:

Its a dual autograph of Darwin Barney from 2008 Just Minors.  The other signature belongs to a fellow Cub farmhand, Donnie Veal.

Tom also wrote a note on the back of this calendar page...

...that features my all-time favorite player.  How's that for thoughtfulness!  In the note Tom said he hoped that I didn't have the card.  I didn't!

Just Minors put our a couple different dual auto cards and I had this one...

...with Darwin and Tyler Colvin,  Now I've got Darwin and Donnie!

Thank you Tom for being so generous!!

Topps Screwed Up the Autograph

Yesterday this was one of the Five Random Cubs Cards, from 2012 Archives:

I wrote that the autograph was not the same as on the original card of Buckner's in 1982.

 

I wondered, why the difference?

There is also a certified autograph version of the Archives card and I have one.

This is Buckner's modern signature.  Similar to the 1982 version, but completely different from what was on the base archives card.

There were two different comments on the topic. Jim said, tongue in cheek, "Proof positive that it's been some Topps lackey signing these cards!"

Joe had a different take : "I once read a story about how the "Walt Disney" script logo was not based on Walt Disney's signature, so after enough people got upset with Walt that he wasn't signing his name "right", he had to learn to sign his name the way it appeared in the movies and TV shows.

...Which is a long-winded way of saying that I suspect that some athletes and celebrities have a legal signature and then they have an "autograph signature". If this is true of Buckner, then I would guess that one card shows his signature and the other his autograph."

Joe makes perfect sense....if it was any other company that we'd be dealing with.  But we're not.  We're talking Topps.

Want to know where the signature on Billy Buck's 2012 Archives card comes from?

 

The other Bill Buckner.....Billy Buckner.

You'd think that a company that makes baseball cards would have some baseball knowledge and know that there were different players with the same name.  And knowing that, would double-check to make sure that the correct signature was used.

You'd like to think that.

But you'd be wrong.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,343 Cubs cards from 108 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1966 Topps #204 Cubs Team The 1966 Cubs were the first to be managed by Leo Durocher.  He said after being hired that his team wasn't an eighth place team.  He was right.  The 1966 Cubs finished tenth...last place

1980s: 1989 Score #532 Al Nipper  The Cubs gave Nipper his unconditional release at the end of spring training, 1989.  As far as I can tell he didn't play for anyone during the 1989 season, big leagues or minors.  He did return to play in 1990.

1990s: 1994 Donruss #507 Jose Guzman This would be Guzman's swan song.  He pitched in four games for the Cubs, went 2-2 with and enormous ERA of 8.15.  On April 22 he was placed on the DL with shoulder tendinitis.  He never played big league ball again.

2000s: 2003 Upper Deck #414 Alex Gonzalez Here is a card of the real goat of the 2003 playoffs.  If he didn't make an error in the 8th inning of game six against the Marlins and instead turned a double play, the Cubs could have gone to the world series and Steve Bartman would be forgotten.

2010s: 2012 Archives #205 Bill Buckner A classic look, with Billy Buck in the white pinstripes.  I never noticed this before, but Topps used a weird looking signature on this card.  It's not the one they used on his actual 1982 card.

You can read the signature on this one.