A Couple 2013s For the Player Collection

I picked up a couple of the new 2013s for my Banks and Sandberg player collections.

These are from the Commemorative Patches insert set.

Ernie Banks was also on the checklist of "The Greats."

I also picked up this....

....Cut to the Chase die cut Sandberg card.  The picture on the die cut is from later in his career, and the rookie picture is from 1982.

But look how little his batting stance changed over the years....Sandberg was always a pretty consistent guy!

Flick Friday: Moneyball

Today we take a look at the newest of the Flick Friday movies, 2011's Moneyball.  Even if you haven't seen the movie, I'm sure you're all aware of the topic--Oakland A's GM Billy Beane's use of sabermetrics to build his team.

Baseball movies tend to attract a male audience, so Hollywood has to throw something in the movie for the ladies.  In Moneyball, it wasn't something, it was someone, Brad Pitt.

Pitt play's Billy Beane and does a nice job, so nice that he earned an Academy Award nomination for best actor.  Like the A's in the movie, Pitt didn't win it all either, losing the Oscar to Jean Dujardin.

The movie starts off at the end of the 2001 ALDS, as the A's lose to the Yankees.  The team is then gutted by free agency, unable to hold on to stars Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen.

While meeting with the Indians brass in Cleveland to discuss trades, Beane meets Peter Brand, a Yale-educated economics major that serves as an assistant to GM John Hart.  Beane is impressed with Brand's ideas on what makes a player valuable to a team and brings him to Oakland to serve as his assistant GM.

The two use Brand's ideas to rebuild the small market A's.  After a slow start, some changes are made to force manager Art Howe to use the roster the way it was built.  The team starts winning and in September runs off an AL record 20 game win streak.  The A's win the AL West, but again fall in the ALDS.

Though based on a true story, the movie, like most historical movies, is not 100% accurate.  In fact, the second lead character, Peter Brand, is fictional, based mostly on Paul DePodesta, who was Beane's assistant, though he started with the A's in 1999.  Several more factual errors are found here.

Despite the inaccuracies, its still a good baseball movie and if you haven't seen it, you should.

CUBS CONNECTIONS
As with most of this year's flicks, Moneyball had very few Cubs connections.

This shot of a spreadsheet early in the movie lists a couple Cubs prospects.

 

Neither made it to the majors.

This picture is from the scene where Peter Brand has to tell Carlos Pena he's been traded to the Tigers.  Thing is, it never happened.  Pena was in AAA when he got traded.  Pena spent the 2011 season....

 

....in Cubbie blue.

Finally, here is a picture of the A's celebrating their 20th consecutive win...

....look at the far left of the picture and find #48, their first base coach, and future Cubs manager...

....Mike Quade.

2013 Series One Cubs Inserts

Today I'll take a look at some of the inserts from the 2013 set.  The sets I'm going over today are the ones with mainly current Cub players on the checklist.

Anthony Rizzo showed up on several checklists

First, here he is in Chasing the Dream.

He was the only active Cub in the Commemorative Patch set.

Kerry Wood made the Chasing History set with his 20 strikeout game in 1998.

Probably the most talk-about insert cards are the 1972 Minis.  I like that they're using the 1972 design, but I still don't understand why they are minis.  There were no minis in 1972.  Just seems like a mini for the sake of a mini to me.

Two Cubs were included among the 50 players....

 

....the former and current Topps Cubs golden boys.  Topps did pass on a chance for some SPs here, though.  The original 1972 Cubs had a few with some extra green on the bottom of the "C" and "S".  Check out the difference between the two:

 

How could Topps have not made these?

 

The rest of the inserts with Cubs were either Ernie Banks or Ryne Sandberg cards, and those go in the player collections.  I'll have those on Saturday (tomorrow is Flick Friday).

My 2013 Topps Cubs Have Arrived!!

My long-awaited package from BrentandBecca has finally arrived!

Among the contents was the Cubs team set from series one.  My rebuilding boys in blue rated only six cards out of the 330.  And one of the six has no business being included.

Let me show you the six and you can see if you can pick out the player that doesn't deserve a card...

....So who would you consider the clunker among the six?  Now be nice!  Don't say that they're all clunkers!

For me, it has to be Rafael Dolis.  How does a guy who goes 2-4 with an ERA of 6.39 get a card in the base set at all, let alone in the first series?  Wasn't there anyone else Topps could have used?

Of the six Cubs, three got featured status with Topps new numbering system.  Anthony Rizzo, #44 got card #44.  Rizzo is the new Cubs wonderboy in Topps' eyes.

Starlin Castro, #13, got card #113.  Jeff Samardzija, #29 and card #229, was the third.

This is the Out of Bounds SP card for Anthony Rizzo.  Last year Castro got a SP, but Topps has moved on to cranking out the Rizzo cards instead.

The David DeJesus card reminds me of this one from last year...

....of Reed Johnson.  But it's missing something....

....that I could fix.  All ivy shots must now include the 4:00 p.m. pigeons.

Tile Tuesday: Pinnacle

When I got back into collecting in 2008, I put together Cubs team sets from Topps, Fleer, Donruss, and Heritage.  Then I wanted to add more.  This post, from the very early days of WW, tells of my next conquests.  One of those sets was Pinnacle.

Pinnacle was a brand I knew absolutely about. At the time, the #1 name in baseball card blogging was Mario from Wax Heaven.  He would often talk about Pinnacle and how it was his favorite brand.  That was the main reason I made Pinnacle one of the next three sets to chase.

Pinnacle baseball cards were released from 1992 - 1998.  There are a total of 111 Cubs cards.  And I must confess, that after getting the cards, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about.  Maybe its a generational thing, but Pinnacle didn't wow me.  They're not bad cards, but I didn't see them as the end-all-be-all like Mario.

Was I missing something with Pinnacle?

Anyway, here are the 111 Cubs Pinnacle cards.

My First 1/1!!!

I've been looking to add a 1/1 card to my collection for a while, but I didn't want to break the bank.  With the release of Topps 2013 Series One, a couple more 1/1s were available and I was able to get on at a very reasonable price for 1/1s

Here's what I got....

....the yellow printing plate from Darwin Barney's 2013 base card.  I've seen printing plates listed, but I wasn't sure exactly what they looked like.  Its just a pretty flimsy piece of metal (aluminum maybe?) with the picture etched in.  I'm assuming there are four plates for each card, yellow, magenta, cyan, and black.  Anyone know if that's correct?

The back is just plain metal with a sticker added by Topps.

One more item I can check off of the "Need to Get" list!

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 11,179 Cubs cards from 77 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1950s / 1960s: 1969 Topps Decal Ron Santo  Santo was one of three Cubs that were included in the decal insert set (Banks and Jenkins were the others).  Some of the decals had the same picture as the regular card, but the Santo....

....had two different pictures.  I like the picture on the decal better.

1970s: 1976 TCMA 1938 Cubs Tony Lazzeri  Most of you would know Lazzeri as a part of the great Yankees teams of the late '20s and '30s.  His time with the Cubs was brief, only the 1938 season, and he put up some mediocre numbers.  Playing in only 54 games, he hit .267 with 5 homers and 23 RBIs.

1980s: 1988 Donruss Book #488 Jim Sundberg  This card is from the Donruss 1988 Puzzle and Card book.  I have a complete post about the book here.  Sundberg spent just a part of the 1988 season with the Cubs, only 38 games before he was released on July 15.  The Rangers picked him up a week later and he finished his career on the team with which he had his best years.

1990s: 1991 Star Platinum #3 Mark Grace  After featuring this card on Tuesday's tile, the Random Number Generator gives us a close-up look.  This card highlights Grace's playoff stats.  He had just one playoff experience at this point, the 1989 NLCS.  He tore it up, going 11 for 17, good for a robust .647 average.

2000s: 2003 Sweet Spot Classic #30 Ernie Banks  This card is part of my Ernie Banks player collection.  It's got a nice picture of Ernie, circa 1955-1956.