An Amazing Billy Williams Rainbow from Reader Tim

 Reader Tim contacted me a couple of weeks ago.  We had traded some cards back in 2014 and he has been a faithful reader of the blog.  He offered some Billy Williams cards as a thank you.  I gratefully accepted and he sent the package.

What a package it was!!  That's 18 cards from the 2022 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary set.  I've never gotten an instant rainbow before!

The 18 cards are, left to right..

First Row: Base, Refractor, Black and White Mini-Diamond

Second Row: X-Fractor, Prism, Blue Prism

Third Row: Yellow RayWave (/250), Speckle (/150), Fuchsia Atomic (/100)

Fourth Row: Rose Gold Mini Diamond (/75), Gold Wave (/50), Toile Cream/Gold (/50)

Fifth Row: Orange (/25), Toile White/Orange (/25), Toile Cream/Black (/10)

Sixth Row: Black (/10), Toile Cream/Red (/5). Red Lava (5)

I can't get over how generous Tim was, with so many low-numbered cards. Amazing!

There are a total of 34 (yes, 34!) cards that make up the complete rainbow.  I've found several more and they are heading my way, but Tim certainly did most of the heavy lifting!

2023 Heritage High Number Inserts

 The Cubs had cards in a few of the High Heritage insert sets.  They were not included in 1974 Highlights (which makes sense since they won just 66 games and finished in last place in the division), Award Winners, Combo Cards, and Now and Then.

Cody Bellinger was included in the 1974 Deckle boxloaders.

Christopher Morel was among the Rookie Performers.

The Cubs were one of twenty teams that got a 1974 Stamp in the High series.  This is their second as they also had one in the base set.  This one is all current players while the base stamp had two retired and two active players

1998 Inside Cubs

One of the sets gifted to me by reader Chad was 1997 Pinnacle Inside, the set that came in a can.

Pinnacle came out with a second set the following year, also, though it would be the last Inside.  There were five Cubs cards in the 1998 set, four player cards and one subset card.

 

 

These were easily picked up from Sportlots and I now have all of the Inside Cubs cards.

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,519 Cubs cards from 316 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1952 Bowman Frank Baumholtz How do you know that this is a Frank Baumholtz card?  Because you can read his autograph.  How do you know that this card is not a modern card?  Because you can read his autograph!

1980s: 1985 Fleer Stickers #89 Rick Sutcliffe  Almost every one of my 1985 Fleer Stickers is miscut like this one.  They looks fine in the binder page but horrible when you scan them.

1990s: 1995 Conlon #1376 Billy Jurges  And why was he a particularly sharp ballplayer?  Here's what it says on the back.  "Billy Jurges was a particularly sharp ball player. When there was a man on first base and there was a single to center or right-center, naturally you're set to go to third base. Well, Jurges would take a position right next to second base, so when you rounded second you couldn't make that quick turn and cut the bag the way you're supposed to. You'd have to take a couple of extra steps to get around Jurges, which made it just a little bit harder for you to get to third. So I got to thinking about that, and I told myself the next time that happens I'm going to hit second base and then run right into him. Well, the next time that play came up, that's what I did. Ran flush into Jurges. Naturally I fell down and rolled around, and the umpire gave me third base. After that, Billy would just decoy me and then back off at the last second. But he was a smart shortstop. He knew a lot of ways to beat you on the field that didn't show up in the box score. 

-----Elbie Fletcher "

2000s: 2004 Fleer #173 Moises Alou It struck me as odd that towards the end of their run, Fleer had some years with a Heritage-like Fleer Tradition set but no base set.

2010s: 2012 Allen and Ginter Relic #RT Ryan Theriot  Ahhh... the good old days when even Ryan Theriot would have a mini-framed relic in Ginter.

Eighties Alphabetically - Baseball Immortals

 The Baseball Immortals set was first issued in 1980, with 173 cards representing the 173 players in the Hall of Fame at the time.  Updates were issued annually through 1987 as the Hall elected new members.  The cards have a pennant on the front that shows the year the player made it to Cooperstown.

The back of the card does list a team name, so that is what is used to determine which team a player is assigned to for team sets. That is why you'll see some players below included in the Cubs set even though they are not wearing a Cubs uniform.

The cards make no mention of the manufacturer.  The Trading Card Database lists them as being made by SSPC.  The Standard Catalog differs, naming Renata Galasso and TCMA as the makers of the cards.  The packaging shows Collectors Marketing Corporation. So take your pick!

 A total of twelve Cubs players were included.  Eleven were in the original set and Billy Williams was in the 1987 update, which is the year he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jameson Taillon Follows the Rules

 

I was able to kill two birds with one stone... picking up a Clubhouse Collection card and adding another card to the rule-following relic collection.  By my research, Taillon is the 106th Cubs player to have a relic card that shows him as a Cub in a season he played for the Cubs.

Take a peek at all 106 of them!

Arismendy Alcantara	Kosuke Fukudome	Bill Mueller
Albert Almora	Nomar Garciaparra	Jose Nieves
Moises Alou	Matt Garza	Mike Olt
Adbert Alzolay	Mark Grace	Corey Patterson
Jake Arrieta	Mark Grudzielanek	Joc Pederson
Javier Baez	Jason Hammel	Felix Pie
Darwin Barney	Ian Happ	Juan Pierre
Cody Bellinger	Rich Harden	Mark Prior
Francis Beltran	Brendan Harris	Aramis Ramirez
David Bote	Kevin Hart	Anthony Rizzo
Kris Bryant	Kyle Hendricks	Addison Russell
Damon Buford	Jason Heyward	Jeff Samardzija
Marlon Byrd	Bobby Hill	Kyle Schwarber
Jeimer Candelario	Rich Hill	Jorge Soler
Victor Caratini	Nico Hoerner	Alfonso Soriano
Andrew Cashner	Eric Hosmer	Sammy Sosa
Welington Castillo	Todd Hundley	Geovany Soto
Starlin Castro	Brett Jackson	Justin Steele
Aroldis Chapman	Jacque Jones	Marcus Stroman
Hee Seop Choi	Eric Karros	Seiya Suzuki
Tyler Colvin	David Kelton	Dansby Swanson
Willson Contreras	Craig Kimbrel	Matt Szczur
Pete Crow-Armstrong	Bryan LaHair	Jameson Taillon
Juan Cruz	Junior Lake	Ryan Theriot
Yu Darvish	Derrek Lee	Josh Vitters
Wade Davis	Jon Lester	Darryle Ward
David DeJesus	Ted Lilly	Todd Wellemeyer
Ryan Dempster	Kenny Lofton	Randy Wells
Blake DeWitt	Greg Maddux	Rondell White
Jason Dubois	Trey Mancini	Patrick Wisdom
Jim Edmonds	Carlos Marmol	Jerome Williams
Carl Edwards	Gary Matthews, Jr.	Kerry Wood
Mike Fontenot	Fred McGriff	Carlos Zambrano
Dexter Fowler	Matt Mervis	Ben Zobrist
Jackson Frazier	Christopher Morel	Julio Zuleta
Kyuji Fujikawa

Quarter-Century of Cubs Calendars

 My Cubs calendar collection now has a quarter-century's worth, running from 2000 through 2024.  

The first two are in-house productions of the Cubs.  They highlight Wrigley Field, not the players.

After that, they are all from Turner.  The Turner calendars typically feature twelve different players.  My outlier is in 2007.  That year I have the Turner Wrigley Field version instead of the player version.  I'll pick up the player calendar if I ever see one.

I figured out a way to get pictures of the calendars since they are too big for my scanner bed.  It was a three piece project, with a camera, tripod, and then Photoshop, but I got the job done.  Below are two ways for you to see the covers, a 5x5 mosaic and a GIF version. Enjoy!