2022 Cubs Calendar

 2021 wraps up tonight and I won't be sad to see it go.  Between continuing covid and the dismantling of the Cubs core, it was a not a good year.  Let's toss it aside and pray for a better 2022.

A new year also means a new Cubs calendar.

The cover features Jason Heyward, Kyle Hendricks, and Ian Happ.  Inside, each month showcases a Cub player.  

 

 

 

 

Turner Licensing has a really early print deadline.  The calendars are often out of date when they are printed.  This year's edition shows nine players that are still with the team - Willson Contreras, Rowan Wick, Ian Happ, Jason Heyward, Alec Mills, Nico Hoerner, David Bote, Kyle Hendricks, and Adbert Alzolay.

 

These three players are ex-Cubs, Craig Kimbrel, Tyson Miller, and Idlemaro Vargas.  Vargas was waived in May and Miller was let go a month later.  Kimbrel was traded at the deadline on July 31.  None of the three should have been included.  Patrick Wisdom or Frank Schwindel would have been more appropriate.

I'm a Teenager!

Today the blog becomes a moody teenager.  The first post went live 13 year ago today, on December 30, 2008.  

I had 2,991 Cubs cards on that date.  Today I have 19,695.  I've been a busy boy.  I've also written 4,771 posts.  Again, I've been a busy boy!

 

Just twelve players have worn #13 for the Cubs.  They are Claude Passeau (1939-47), Hal Manders (1946), Bill Faul (1965-66), Turk Wendell (1993-97), Jeff Fassero (2001-02), Rey Ordonez (2004), Neifi Perez (2004-06), Will Ohman (2006-07), Andres Blanco (2009), Starlin Castro (2010-15), Alex Avila (2017), David Bote (2018-21).  Below are cards for nine of the twelve.

1995 Leaf Limited Cubs

 ...the last of the goodies from reader Chad

Finally, a chrome set with awesome scans, the 1995 Leaf Limited set.  Leaf has a very loose interpretation of the word "Limited."  Baseballcardpedia says that there are 29,850 copies of each card.  That doesn't sound very limited to me.

There are 192 cards in the two-series set.  Seven of them are Cubs.

 

 

 

1997 Pinnacle Certified Cubs

 ...more goodies from reader Chad

Here's another early chrome-type set, Pinnacle certified.  The set was Pinnacle's answer to Topps Finest.  Both sets have chrome cards with peel off protective covering.  The Cubs set consists of four cards out of the 150 in the set.

 

 

2003 Fleer Hardball

 .... more goodies from reader Chad

With as many of the MSA discs from the 70's and 80's that I have in my collection, how did I not know about this set?  Shame on me!

Fleer issued a set called "Hardball" in 2003 .  The set consists of 280 cards, but they aren't cards.  They are discs, with a design that pays homage to the MSA discs.  The set is divided into three subset, the regular players (#1-240), the All Around All-Stars (#241-265), and Rookies on Deck (#266-280)

The discs are smaller than the typical MSA disc, but the design is pretty similar.  Fleer copied the baseball design with the sides in different colors.  Also borrowed are the stars on the top though Fleer added them to the bottom as well..

The Cubs team set consists of eleven regular players, one All-Star, and three rookies.