Here's the 1971 Kelloggs Cubs. The Cubs make up five of the 75 cards. Beckert, Hickman, and Kessinger were All-Stars in 1970, so their inclusion makes sense. Kelloggs was nice enough to add Ernie Banks, a sort of send-off card. Billy Williams finished second in the 1970 MVP voting, yet didn't make the All-Star team. Kelloggs wisely included him in the 1971 set.
I haven't been adding too many cards to my rule-following autograph collection because there haven't been many new Cubs players with autographs. Today's card is a catch-up.
I pay pretty close attention to the autograph checklists from Topps but often forget to look at what Panini releases. A recent review of their 2020 products led me to an autographed card for Craig Kimbrel.
This is from 2020 National Treasures. It shows Kimbrel as a Cub in a year he played for the Cubs so that checks all the boxes of my collection rules.
I now have 141 certified autographs of players that had a certified autograph card that shows them as a Cub from a year that they played for the Cubs.
| Terry Adams | Matt Garza | Kevin Orie |
| Arismendy Alcantara | Leo Gomez | Angel Pagan |
| Albert Almora | Tom Gorzelanny | Bob Patterson |
| Moises Alou | Kevin Gregg | Eric Patterson |
| Adbert Alzolay | Angel Guzman | Corey Patterson |
| Jake Arrieta | Jason Hammel | David Patton |
| Javier Baez | Todd Haney | Carlos Pena |
| Darwin Barney | Ian Happ | Billy Petrick |
| Francis Beltran | Brendan Harris | Felix Pie |
| David Bote | Kevin Hart | Lou Piniella |
| Milton Bradley | Kyle Hendricks | Mark Prior |
| Roosevelt Brown | Jose Hernandez | Brooks Raley |
| Kris Bryant | Jason Heyward | Aramis Ramirez |
| Scott Bullett | Bobby Hill | Anthony Rizzo |
| Freddie Bynum | Rich Hill | Henry Rodriguez |
| Marlon Byrd | Nico Hoerner | Henry Rodriguez |
| Jeimer Candelario | Micah Hoffpauir | Chris Rusin |
| Victor Caratini | Cesar Izturis | Addison Russell |
| Andrew Cashner | Brett Jackson | Jeff Samardzija |
| Larry Cassian | Reed Johnson | Rey Sanchez |
| Frank Castillo | Jacque Jones | Ryne Sandberg |
| Welington Castillo | Matt Karchner | Kyle Schwarber |
| Starlin Castro | David Kelton | Scott Servais |
| Ronny Cedeno | Brooks Kieschnick | Jorge Soler |
| Rocky Cherry | Craig Kimbrel | Alfonso Soriano |
| Matt Clement | Bryan LaHair | Sammy Sosa |
| Steve Clevenger | Tommy LaStella | Geovany Soto |
| Buck Coats | Junior Lake | Steve Smyth |
| Tyler Colvin | Derrek Lee | Matt Szczur |
| Willson Contreras | Jon Leiber | Ryan Theriot |
| Juan Cruz | Jon Lester | Ozzie Timmons |
| Yu Darvish | Cole Liniak | Steve Trachsel |
| Wade Davis | Greg Maddux | Duane Underwood |
| Blake DeWitt | Dave Magadan | Jermaine Van Buren |
| Rafael Dolis | Dillon Maples | Josh Vitters |
| Scott Downs | Carlos Marmol | Todd Walker |
| Jason Dubuois | Sean Marshall | Todd Wellemeyer |
| Carl Edwards | Scott Moore | Randy Wells |
| Kyle Farnsworth | Matt Murton | Turk Wendell |
| Mike Fontenot | Rod Myers | Jerome Williams |
| Kevin Foster | Thomas Neal | Kerry Wood |
| Dexter Fowler | Roberto Novoa | Travis Wood |
| Kyuji Fujikawa | James Norwood | Michael Wuertz |
| Kosuke Fukudome | Will Ohman | Carlos Zambrano |
| Sam Fuld | Augie Ojeda | Rob Zastryzny |
| Sean Gallagher | Mike Olt | Ben Zobrist |
| Nomar Garciaparra | Ryan O'Malley | Julio Zuleta |
The Topps Target-exclusive brand Fire came out a couple of weeks ago. The set was pretty much the same as in the past. It has three different bold designs. There are five Cubs cards among the 200 in the set. All three designs were included.
My go-to site for team checklists has been Beckett. They will have a set's checklist on their website within a day of the set's release. Not only do they have the checklist, but they have another list that has been broken down by teams. I use the team list to make my own Cubs shopping lists.
Beckett makes their checklists based on what Topps has released. Unfortunately for me, Topps screwed up the checklist for both wave 4 and wave 5 of 2021 206. Each list shows a Cub player whose card did not show him as a Cub.
Usually if there is a team mistake on a checklist it becomes known almost immediately. Checklists come from Topps just days before a product's release. Collectors who have bought and listed the cards see the mistake and spread the word.
That doesn't work for 206. The list comes many weeks before we get to see the cards since the cards are printed based on how many were sold. The Topps wave 4 checklist shows Alfonso Soriano as a Cub. Craig Kimbrel is a Cub according to wave 5's list. The lists at Beckett show the same thing.
So I bought the Soriano and Kimbrel card.
Now I'm out a few bucks. Any Yankee or Sox collectors out there want these? I have no use for them.
The fifth wave of 2021 206 netted me two more Cubs. Neither of the two are on the Cubs current roster.
In fact, they haven't been on the Cubs roster for 110 years! Topps went very old school with the Cubs in this wave. Both of these were included in the original 1909 T206 set.
My Cubs program collection is nearly complete. I need just six of the 110 different game programs the Cubs issued between 1982 and 2009 (they went to a monthly program in 2010 instead of the quarterly so I'm just getting one per year from 2010 on forward). The six I'm missing have never been listed on Ebay since my hunt began.
A month ago a seller listed a lot of 26 different media guides, yearbooks, catalogues, and programs. One of my missing programs, 1992 #1, was included. I messaged the seller to see if he would sell me that one separately. He said he didn't want to because then he'd have to retake the pictures for the listing.
Being proactive, I downloaded the pictures and blurred out 1992 #1 in any of the pictures that it was included in. I sent the seller the pictures and asked again, politely. He again declined. He was more interested in making the $69.99 on the entire lot.
I knew that the lot was overpriced and sure enough, the auction ended with zero bids. He relisted at the same price and a week later, zero bids again. He lowered the opening bid to $49.99 on the third try, but the auction still failed to attract a single bid. On week four the initial bid dropped to $29.99, but still nothing. I debated putting in just the opening amount but decided that was too much for one book I needed and 25 I didn't.
As soon as the fourth auction ended, I messaged the seller again, letting him know I was still interested in the one program. This time he was agreeable. He realized making a little is better than making nothing at all. We agreed to a price and the book was mine.
The cover featured the new skipper in 1991, Jim Lefebvre. Cubs Febvre was not contagious. The team won just 78 games, with 20 of those coming from Cy Young winner Greg Maddux.
Notice how the bottom mentioned baseball cards inside. Those were the Ballstreet Journal cards.
This sheet has nine cards and was included in both the first and second program of the season. A second sheet was in the third edition while the fourth edition was cardless.
With this program, I now have all of the 1992 programs.
I'm also down to needed just five more to complete my collection, 1984 #3, 1990 #1, 1995 #2, and 1996 #2&4.
I've got 19,484 Cubs cards from 285 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.
