Where's the Board?

Since its construction in 1937, the centerfield scoreboard has loomed over the park.  Its a registered historic landmark, though its become obsolete with the addition of the video boards.

It is the only outfield scoreboard that has been in existence during the entire era of Topps cards.  You'd expect it to be visible in a slew of Cubs cards.  I did.  So I did a little research.

Want to make a guess as to how many Cubs cards have the scoreboard visible?

Take a look at all of them...

It shows up in two of Bob Anderson's cards.

 

It's over the shoulder of Mr. Cub in 1960.

Jerry White's 1979 card gives up a look.

 The Franchise History card in the 2010 card features the board in a shot from 2008.

And that's it!

There are approximately 1160 Cubs base Topps cards from 1952 - 2017.  Only five of them give us a look at the iconic scoreboard.

Why so few?

Two main reasons...

• Today's cards are all tight action shots making it nearly impossible to show the board.
• For most of the posed shot era, pictures were taken in New York, San Francisco, or at spring training.  There were just a few years with a significant number of pictures taken at Wrigley.

And even worse...

In just a five year period, 1966 - 1970, we get almost twice as many cards showing the scoreboard at Shea Stadium.