Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 21,846 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1951 Topps #14 Wayne Terwilliger  So which do you consider the first Topps baseball card set?  This one with the mini cards or the larger cards from 1952?

1980s: 1989 Classic Orange #121 Greg Maddux  Some day I'll have to look at all of my Maddux cards to count how many show him with that silly looking mustache.

1990s: 1991 Bowman #535 Gary Scott The look on his face is not a confident one.  Looks like a guy with lots of hype but a two-year career average of .160.

2000s: 2008 Chicago Tribune Reed Johnson The Tribune borrowed elements from Topps 1972 and 1973 for their set.  You'd think that a publishing company would have been able to come up with something original.

2010s: 2014 Topps Update #179 John Baker The tenth anniversary of the catcher's greatest game is on July 29.  Out of pitchers in the 16th inning, Baker was called on to take the mound.  He pitched a 1-2-3 inning (pop up, walk, double play).  In the bottom of the 16th, he led off with a walk and then would later score the winning run on a sacrifice fly.  He's the only Cubs position player to earn a win as a pitcher.

Eighties Alphabetically - Fleer Stickers

 Fleer issued sticker sets over most of the 1980's.  After all, they were in competition with Topps and if Topps had stickers, Fleer did too.

These are the Cubs from Fleer's first year, 1981.  The set has 128 players in it.  The stickers were pealed off of regular sized cards.  The front has the sticker while the back is the same as the regular Fleer baseball cards, except in different colors.

Fleer skipped a sticker set in 1982 but then came back in 1983 and that run continued until 1988. These are all the Cubs from 1983.  The stickers were much smaller than in 1981, closer in size to the ones that Topps put out.  The ten stickers (from a set of 296) is the most Cubs in any of the Fleer sets from the 80's.

We go from the most Cubs to the fewest, as the 1984 set included just a pair of Cubs.

Winning the division in 1984 meant more Cubs were included in 1985. Also notice that there were two stickers for Ryne Sandberg.  

The 1986 set brought back the stickers on full-sized cards, like the 1981 design.  Fleer stuck with this though the end of the run in 1988.

The number of Cubs dropped in 1987 by one, down to just five out of the 132 players.

The final set of Fleer stickers came out in 1988, and the Cubs number shrunk even lower, to just three of the 132 stickers.... but two of the three are Hall of Famers.

My Cubs Game Programs Collection is Finally Complete!

I started collecting Cubs game programs almost four year ago.  The collection starts in 1982, when the new Tribune ownership began selling game programs in addition to the traditional scorecard.  Over the years there were from two to four programs for each season.  That changed in 2010 when the large programs were replaced by smaller Scorecard Extras that were issued monthly.  

My collection consists of all the programs from 1982 through 2009 and just one of the monthly issues from each 2010 - 2019.  There were no programs in 2020 since there were no fans at the games.  Any type of game program disappeared post-pandemic.  I also have a program sold at each post-season series.

It comes to a total of 127 different programs.  I picked up my 126th back in December, 2022, and since then I've been checking eBay daily for the missing one, 1990's #1 with Mark Grace on the cover.

Look what was finally listed!

There it is!  The 127th and final program for my collection.  I'm still puzzled as to why this was so hard to find.  The other three from 1990 were not difficult to find at all.  Coming off of a division title in 1989, the Cubs drew their second highest attendance total in team history.  Plenty of these were sold.  I guess no one wanted to part with it.

Here's a look at all of the programs from 1990.  There were five since the Cubs hosted the All-Star game that season.  

By the way, that is the last time the All-Star game was at Wrigley Field.  The current span of 34 years without the game is ridiculously long. Eight teams have hosted two games since then: Rangers, Braves, Cleveland, Rockies, Phillies, Pirates, Padres, and Mariners.  The 2025 and 2026 games are already booked in other cities, so 2027 is the earliest it can be held at Wrigley.  That is shamefully too long to wait!

Happy Birthday America!

    Happy 248th Birthday USA!!

My traditional 4th of July post

Now get away from your device and go out 
and enjoy the day off!

Who Got a Silver Pack Card in Both Series One and Two?

 

Yesterday I mentioned my surprise that PCA has a silver pack card in both series one and two.  I thought that didn't make any sense.

Then I looked at the checklists to see if there were other players that were in both series.  It turns out that there are quite a few, 23 to be exact.

The players can be divided into three categories, retired, stars, and rookies.

Retired (1): Miguel Cabrera

Stars (10): Ronald Acuña, Sonny Gray, Vladimir Guerrero, Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Julio Rodríguez, Fernando Tatis, Mike Trout, and Bobby Witt

These are some of the biggest names and if any players deserve to be in both series, these make sense.

Rookies (12): Junior Caminero, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Elly De La Cruz, Jasson Domínguez, Zack Gelof, Jordan Lawlar, Marco Luciano, Ronny Mauricio, Ceddanne Rafaela, Nolan Schanuel, Tyler Soderstrom, and Masyn Winn

It looks like PCA wasn't the only player that Topps was taking a gamble with.  But at least he's spent some time in the big leagues.  Four of the twelve (Caminero, Dominguez, Lawlar, and Mauricio) have yet to appear in a big league game in 2024.  They have more cards in the silver packs, two, than appearances in a 2024 MLB game, zero.

Of the eight with big league time in 2024, only three have an average above .250, De La Cruz (.252), Luciano (.375 over ten games but then got hurt and is back in AAA), and Winn (.288).

None of the twelve are doing anything worthy of inclusion in both series one and two.

2024 Series Two 1989 Silver Packs Cubs

The silver packs were back in series two, adding another 100 cards. While they use the 1989 design, they do not use the same picture if the player has a card in the basic 1989 insert set.  So that is a good thing.

 Four of the 100 were Cubs.

 

 

The biggest surprise here is that there is a card for Crow-Armstrong, because he has one in the first series too.  

2024 Cub #43

 The Cubs had a roster spot open up on Friday when starter Javier Assad was placed on the 10 day IL with a forearm strain.  

Taking his place was reliever Jorge Lopez.  He was picked up off of the Mets' scrapheap on June 10 and given a minor league contract.  He spent the past 2½ week in Iowa before getting called up.

He made his Cubs debut against the Brewers on Friday, pitching a scoreless 7th inning, becoming the 43rd player to take the field for the Cubs this season.